Page 94 of Midnight Racers

“I heard him. What the hell is going on?”

“I think it’s the men who were after me before. They must know I’m not staying with Flynn.”

She nodded, manoeuvring her car into traffic. “We’ll take it slowly. You keep a watch on what is happening around us, and we’ll drive directly home.”

“What if they’re already there?” I asked in a low voice. “Pixie is there by herself.”

“You know as well as I do, she hides if a stranger comes into the house.”

“She didn’t hide from Flynn. She practically threw herself at him.”

Mum shot me a look. “You both did apparently,” she said dryly.

“Mum!”

“What?” she demanded, turning the corner. “You don’t get pregnant by holding hands and playing Monopoly!”

I didn’t know what to reply, so I focused on staring in every mirror I could reach in the car. A black SUV with tinted windows appeared a few minutes later two lanes over from us. It kept to a steady speed, but reminded me of the cars following Flynn and me a few months ago.

“I think that car two lanes to our left is following us,” I said.

“How do you know?” Mum demanded.

“It’s the same type of car that followed us previously.”

“Shit!” She slammed her car down a gear and moved. I watched as it followed us. Dad had taught Mum to drive, so she was well able to handle a car in every situation. She was calmer than Dad behind the wheel, and little flustered her.

Until today.

“Keep your speed even, Mum. We can’t let them know that we know they’re there.”

She moved across another lane and turned toward the exit to the ring road that would take us home. “I’m going to try and stay in this lane the entire way home. That way we should be safe.”

I didn’t feel safe. The opposite was true. Flynn was used to evading people and driving like a rally driver because he was one. Neither Mum nor I were suited to this lifestyle.

Another black car appeared behind the first.

“What do they want from me?” I asked, sinking into my chair.

Mum grabbed my hand. “Your dad always said that the designs you were working on would revolutionise the racing world one day. He was always so proud of you, it was why I insisted your contract was written the way it was. I didn’t want anyone taking advantage of you.”

We moved onto the carriageway and the cars followed us. Another black car with tinted windows was parked at the side of the road and started moving when we came into view.

“Mum!” My hand grasped the front of my stomach and fear snaked up my spine to paralyse me.

We continued to travel at a steady speed along the road until everything changed in an instant. The car hit something on the road and spun madly out of control. Mum shouted while she tried to stabilise it. There was a moment when the car was weightless, and the world paused, and then we crashed, the car tumbling down the embankment and my world hurtled into chaos.

I closed my eyes, my hands holding my stomach as I prayed, regretting that I hadn’t stayed with Flynn. I wished he knew about our baby, and that I had never dragged Mum into this. Every impact ricocheted through me, the airbag detonated and hit me in the face, jolting my head and neck back. Blood trickled down my face from my nose and into my mouth. We finally came to a halt but everything hurt.

I tried to call out to Mum, but it was as if someone had activated my mute switch and nothing came out. I heard my name, felt someone touching my face, but my eyes refused to open at my command.

“Get this fucking area cleared!” someone shouted, but it sounded so far away and my arms and legs were weighed down with lead in them. “Stay with me, don’t you dare think of going anywhere.”

I felt something brush my face and then someone squeezed my hand.

I couldn’t open my eyes to see, and none of my limbs worked. Eventually, I stopped hearing the shouts and bangs. Then everything fell into black and pain.

***

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