“You’re being dramatic.”
“Uh. No. You left everything I own back there!”
“It was for your own safety.”
She snapped on her seatbelt and folded her arms over her breasts. “You realize I’m not even wearing a bra or panties, right? And turn off the damned A/C. Will you at least tell me what happened back there?”
“My President’s phone was bugged. Your clothes were too, and probably something in your backpack or purse. We were being followed, so I did what I had to. We needed to ditch the fuckers. Got it?”
She glanced over at him, glowering. “Thank God I brought flip flops.”
Axe screeched the truck to a halt and tugged those slippers off her feet, throwing them out his driver side window. “Sorry. Can’t risk it,” he told her, starting the car again.
“How do you know your stuff isn’t bugged?” she asked.
“I just know.”
They weren’t half a mile up the street when bullets started flying past the truck. Angel flinched and ducked low in the seat.
“What the hell is happening?” she shrieked.
Axe lowered his head close to the steering wheel and checked his side mirror. Two dark Camaros and six choppers followed. He had been expecting them to close in long before this, so this surprise attack was more of a snag, and less than surprising. The panthers were sure to have set up a little hiccup.
“Get down, hold onto the dash, and stay down!” he shouted, yanking the wheel in the opposite direction to avoid getting shot directly on their gas tank.
The next one went wide. There was only that whizzing sound. Axe zig-zagged to stay ahead of them. This road had no exits for at least a few miles, so they needed to hang tight and outlast the fuckers.
“I thought we left the bike behind and took that minivan to get them off our ass! Now we have a truck?” Angel cried out from her position, lowering to the floor between the seat and the console.
“I’m kind of a hard son of a bitch to miss when you’ve got people looking. And we’re still getting them off our ass, so keep it down and let me focus!”
Angel gasped as he threw his foot into the brake and abruptly turned the truck, driving off the road and down a two-foot drop of a natural arroyo. Three choppers and one Camaro jumped the gap, but the other vehicles playing target practice with his ass weren’t careful enough. They dove right in. No way did those front axles survive that ditch.
Four down, four to go.
Still, the chances of getting past four pursuers were slim, particularly since he hadn’t had the chance to reach the supply of weapons behind his driver seat.
“Their aim sucks,” Angel said out of the blue.
“You’re complaining?”
“No. I’m just saying. Maybe they’re so used to fighting with paws that they skipped out on solid time on the shooting range.”
“And how would you know that?”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. You think I can’t shoot with the best of them?”
“Good. That’ll come in handy,” Axe informed her as he floored it through the desert brush, ignoring the bullet that just shattered the side mirror.
A three-meter wide arroyo with at least a fifteen-foot drop came into view alongside the path they were on.
“Time to make our exit,” he informed her. “Let’s see if this piece of American engineering can fly, or at least hold up against the sudden drop. This will be a little bumpy.”
“So I guess you want me to fasten my seatbelt?”
“No. Stay down.”
Swerving the car, Axe sped up as fast as the truck would go, kicking up a ton more dust as he drove it over the embankment. His head whacked on the ceiling when the vehicle crashed down on the other side and swerved, almost making a full three hundred and sixty-degree skid before it stopped.