Page 104 of Captive of Outlaws

I put it in gear and peel out.

As I pick up speed on the forest roads, I try to form a plan. Where’s the best place to go? Ohio, Maryland, Pennsylvania? I fumble around for my smartphone and pull up the maps app, so at least I know where I’m going. I don’t have great reception—just two bars—but it’s enough to situate the little blue dot. I’m headed northwest, towards the edge of the forest that’s in the opposite direction of Nottingham.

Good.

The edge of the forest is close. A few minutes of driving.

I glance in the rearview. Nothing there.

Good, again.

I shift into second, then third, and keep going.

HOURS PASS.

Except I don’t mark time, don’t do anything except occasionally flick a glance to the phone screen or the gas tank. I have a rough plan to keep going, past the state line, power through West Virginia and on to Ohio—Cincinnati, maybe—but I’m taking back roads the whole time, making random turns like someone might be tailing me—which they might be, for all I can tell.

Really, all I know is that I’m driving through farmland with the sun high overhead when I see it.

Lights, flashing. Blue, red, blue. In the rearview mirror. A Ford Explorer, cop edition.

Fuck. Fuck, shit,my mind immediately goes. I glance at the dash—I’m only doing 55 in a 65 zone, what’s the problem?—when I remember. The stupid taillight. As if thatmatters out here where there’s not another soul for miles except maybe a guy on a tractor. But maybe it’s the principle of the thing.

I swallow hard, suddenly jittery from the lack of food since breakfast. I’m far away enough from Sherwood County that this can’t be one of the sheriff’s guys—and it’s not, I see, looking back, but a state trooper.

Briefly, I consider gunning it and trying to flee, but that hardly worked last time, and really only because Will and LJ found me. Besides, I don’t have enough gas at this point for a high-speed chase over however many miles it’d take to shake him, and it’s not like I can make a pitstop when I’m fleeing a cop.

Behind me, the Explorer flashes its headlights. As if I didn’t get that he was askingmeto pull over, and not the thousands of other drivers that aren’t here on this lonely road.

I grip the wheel and breathe out.

Okay, so just play it cool. Sure, the taillight’s busted, but you’re not doing anything illegal. Maybe you can charm your way out of it.

I wince, imagining myself thrusting my boobs in the cop’s face and going all doe-eyed. Not in my nature. But at this point, what do I have to lose?

Exhaling on a slow hiss, I signal to the right and decel, pulling into what passes for a shoulder on this narrow strip of asphalt.

I wait as the cop car brakes behind me, sitting stiff as a statute in the driver’s seat. I check my face in the rearview—I look like shit. Eyes look wild, hair’s a mess. I halfheartedly push some loose strands behind my ears and lick my dry lips.

The Explorer door open and the cop saunters out—alady cop, I notice immediately, her hair slicked back into an impossibly sleek bun the same sandy brown as her khaki uniform. So much for my flirtation plan—even if she does swing that way, I don’t think I can convincingly hit on a girl.

“Miss.”

I jump in place. The cop’s already at my window. I turn, slowly, and smile, my mind a panicked static of nothing.

“You’ve got a taillight out,” she observes, her voice a gravelly Virginia drawl. “Did you know that?”

“Yes,” I say, then quickly change my mind. “I mean, no.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Did you or didn’t you?”

“I, uh...” Shit. Is it better to know it was broken and not have it fixed, or play ignorant? “I thought I had fixed it,” I finish lamely. “I’m a mechanic.”

She gives me a look that saysnot a very good one, apparently.“Are you now,” she says aloud.

“Well, I’m between jobs at the moment,” I babble on, “but I’ve been doing it for years. Both as a hobby and for pay. I fixed this whole car up myself, actually. Just thought I’d take it out for a nice little spin.”

I’m word-vomiting, and I can’t stop, and the over-explanation is completely backfiring, because the lady cop looks more suspicious of me now than she did before.

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