Page 12 of Monster

He was hard to miss, not with his size and unruly chestnut hair.

There was a sudden noise at the rear of my car. I hit the brakes hard and let out a small scream.

Braxton looked behind him, first at my car, then further back. His eyes widened in surprise and—my blood ran cold—fear. He pedaled faster on his bike, away from me.

I looked in the rearview mirror, everything in me freezing, when I caught sight of a nondescript black car heading toward us—toward Braxton—with the passenger side window opened and a mean-looking man hanging out of it, holding a gun.

Fuck, the man had a gun!

For a moment, it seemed time had come to a standstill.

I had never even seen a gun in real life, much less held one, and here one was, in the palm of a man with a determined look that told me he was out for the kill.

I blinked.

I didn’t think.

I stepped on the gas and drove toward Braxton, stopping when I was slightly ahead of him.

I reached over and opened the passenger door.

“Get in!” I screamed.

Braxton hesitated for a brief second, and I wanted to scream at him because I could see the men eating the distance between us. Finally, he climbed off his bike, threw it off to the side, and rushed into my car.

I was driving off before he even had the door closed all the way. Braxton looked behind us at the car.

Another loud bang and something hit my car. I didn’t need to see it to know it was a bullet.

My grip on the steering wheel tightened, and I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road. “Seat belt!”

“Miss. Wilde—”

“Seat. Belt.”

He clipped it on, and I zig-zagged on the street, trying to avoid getting hit.

All it would take was for them to blow out my back tire, and we would be dead.

“Do you know who those men are?” I asked.

From the corner of my eye, I saw him shake his head. “No. Probably someone who hates my dad.”

Fuck.

Of course that would be the case.

“Do you live around here?” I asked.

“No. Alvin lives here.”

I nodded. Alvin was a boy in the eighth grade.

I had seen them hanging out with each other a few times.

Those men had followed a twelve-year-old to his friend’s house to—what?

Kill him?

---