Torture instruments. The camera panned to the walls, capturing the display of hooks and chains. In the middle of the room stood a long, bloodstained table. A man lay on it, his face contorted with pain. His torturer acted as he released a hideous laugh, and the man screamed. His cry echoed through the vehicle and Ava gasped. Bile crawled up the back of Caden’s throat and he shut off the video. “You don’t want to watch this.”
“You shouldn’t either.”
“Yeah, probably not, but unfortunately, I don’t always have the option of not seeing stuff I’d rather not see.” He tucked the phone back in the cupholder. “But I can watch it elsewhere.”
He shut off the hazards and put the truck in drive to head back down the road. Five minutes later, he took the exit that led to her apartment, dreading the viewing of what he knew was on the rest of that footage. But that could wait for the time being. Right now, he needed to focus on the present situation. “You know, you’ve got a really nice route through here. It has a driving-through-the-mountains kind of feel.” The two-lane road wound below a canopy of dense trees.
“I think the developers did that on purpose. Being close to Mom was the priority in choosing my apartment, but I’ll admit that this drive is a lovely perk.”
Behind the trees, unseen from the road, were evenly spaced homes, three to four acres each, many with horses and other animals that needed the room to roam and graze.
A buzzing sound caught his attention. “You hear that?”
She frowned. “Yes. Sounds like a hum or—watch out!”
From his left, a . . . drone? . . . came at him hard and fast. He jerked the wheel to the right and the machine zipped past. “What the heck was that?” Caden spun the wheel, skidded onto the shoulder, regained control of the truck, and sped back into the lane.
Ava turned in her seat. “It’s coming back. Flying just below the trees.”
“I see it.” Definitely a drone, but not one of those fun kind of machines kids like to play with. In the rearview mirror, he spotted the large quadrotor drone flying back toward them and gaining ground.
“There’s a car in front of you getting ready to turn.” She kept her voice low and calm, but the tightness in it betrayed her tension.
He was going to have to slow down or wind up in the turning car’s trunk. He slammed on the brakes as the drone dipped down in front of them, turned, and headed toward him once more. He yanked the wheel to the right, onto the shoulder, and then surged around the vehicle. He wasn’t sure how he didn’t clip the bumper, but he made it. The drone followed, lowering, rising, then plunging once more to zip past him . . .
. . . and turn.
The machine hovered, then came straight toward them, mimicking its earlier move. “Oh, you’re kidding me.” His heart thundered as he noted the mounted weapon. “Get down!”
Ava ducked. Caden did the same as a spate of bullets peppered the glass. The windshield cracked and splintered but held. When Caden looked back up, a car was pulling out of a side road, and he had no choice but to slam on the brakes and swerve down the embankment to his right.
His truck bounced and rocked. His ears told him the drone was following.
Tree limbs scraped the passenger side, wind rushed through the holes in the windshield, and Caden spun the wheel to miss crashing headfirst into a looming tree. He aimed for the space between two of the towering trunks.
The truck crashed through the middle and jerked to a halt, triggering the air bags, throwing Caden back against his seat and forcing the air from his lungs.
Stunned motionless for a brief second, he sucked in a deep breath, praying he hadn’t broken a rib. The breath hurt, but not like the lightning pain of a punctured lung. “Ava, you okay?”
“Yes.” She groaned, released the seat belt, and pushed her own air bag to the side. The residue from the air bags filled the cab and she coughed. “I think. Where’s the drone?”
“Don’t know.”
Ava rubbed her head with a wince. When she pulled her hand away, blood coated her fingertips.
The back window shattered and Ava dove to the floorboard while Caden shoved on his door. The drone zipped overhead, hovered, and turned once more. The operator must’ve had some serious training in order to control the thing that well. He pushed on the door once more with no success.
“My door’s jammed! Can you get yours open?” He glanced back to see the drone coming back for another pass. “Ava? We’ve got to get out of here.” He grabbed his weapon from his arm holster. He aimed it and pulled the trigger just as the machine returned for another round.
Caden missed and the drone soared away.
Ava slid back into the seat and fought with the door while he looked for his phone. It was gone from the cupholder. Great. Heart thundering in his ears, he started to crawl over the console to help with the door, only to look up and see the drone hovering, taking aim. “Down!”
She went to the floorboard once more while he dove over the console and onto the back seat floor. Bullets riddled the truck once more.
“How many bullets does that thing have?” Ava yelled. “I’ve already counted forty-five.”
She’d counted? “No idea. We’ve got to go.” He peered over the back seat and out the missing back window.
“This door’s jammed too,” she said. Fear and anger mingled in her voice, sending a desperation through him to get her to safety.
Caden lifted his head and saw nothing. The drone had disappeared as fast as it had shown up. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be back. It was now or never.
He kicked out the rest of the glass, then rolled back toward Ava. “Come this way.”
She climbed from the floorboard onto the seat, then grasped his outstretched hand and let him pull her next to him.
“I’ll go out first and help you through.”
“Be careful, Caden, he could just be waiting for one of us to pop our head out that window.”
“I know. Which is why we’ve got to move fast. I’m going to roll out and into the truck bed. You follow my lead and then we’re going to run into the shelter of the trees. Got it?”
“Got it.”
The now familiar low hum reached him. “Hurry!” He rolled out and didn’t bother to ask Ava if she was ready, he just pulled her out beside him. She landed with a grunt but kept moving. “Into the woods,” he said.
“I’m right behind you.”
He vaulted over the side of the truck bed and hit the ground hard, turned to help Ava to find her mid-jump. She landed beside him and he grasped her hand. Together, they bolted for the trees, the drone closing in fast.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Ava stayed with Caden, waiting for more bullets to come their way. A tree limb scraped along her cheek and she gasped but kept going. The drone followed, weaving in and out of the trees, like it had a mind of its own.
“This way,” Caden said. He leapt over a log and she followed, lost her footing, and only Caden’s grip on her hand kept her from going down.
The drone fired once more, a rat-a-tat-tat of bullets. She whirled and shoved Caden to the ground, throwing herself down beside him. A sharp sting zipped across her arm and she cried out.