Blood and Bone | 1

4 | 3

      As Jake drove, I got out of my seat and looked in the back. The back space seemed empty and devoid of any clues that the Club members had been there in the first place. Then, my eyes fell on a pair of dropped weapons that happened to be Glock 17Ls strewn on the metal floor. My guess was that they fell when I flipped the truck over and their owner had died at Jake's hand.

      I picked them up, one in each hand. I examined them, thinking about how they would feel in my hands when I made my first kill with them. Feeling the weight of the two of them, I let my mind drift for a moment and my gaze became unfocused.

      A deafening gunshot rang in my ears. Warm blood spurted out of an open wound. The body crumpled to the ground as it took its last breaths.

      I took a step backward. Drips of blood that weren't my own ran down my clothes and skin. I slowly looked down at my hands. They were covered in blood, drenched in it. I lowered the twin guns I was holding. My stomach lurched. There was so much blood that I could smell it in the air.

As I stared down at the pasty corpse and its lifeless eyes, I wondered if it would have been better if the bullet had killed me instead.

I blinked several times to get the memory out of my mind. I couldn't tell if my legs were weak because of the power I'd exerted earlier or from the memory. Shaking my head slightly, I went back to the front of the truck and stiffly sat in my seat.

"Nice of you to finally join me," Jake remarked cooly as he glanced at something in the mirror. Immediately, I checked behind us, and sure enough, the Club was following behind us in the truck identical to the one we were in.

      I nodded my head at something I saw ahead of us. "There's a cop car up there."

      Instead of slowing down like I'd expected, Jake slammed his foot down on the gas. I was pushed back into my seat with the increase of velocity. The police officer and his car were blurs of color as we sped by them.

      "What are you doing?" I hissed. "We cannot get arrested."

      "Wait and watch, Tesla."

In that moment, full of adrenaline and fear, I wanted to do anything but that. Jake must have sensed this, because he then inquired cooly, "You certainly don't trust me much, do you?"

"I don't trust you any more than you trust me." I purposely made it into a vague answer, though I was certain of the fact that he had little faith in my loyalty.

"When has a plan of mine ever failed?" Jake asked, still staring straight ahead at the road.

I didn't answer. None of the schemes he'd made during our time together had failed. That worried me; the fact that he seemed to foresee how events would unfold before they even happened.

I became aware of the sirens behind us. Looking through the mirror, I saw that the cop car was chasing the other truck that was still dominated by Club members. I hoped Jake knew what he was doing because things didn't seem like they were going to be deescalating any time soon.

Jake kept his foot steady on the gas. Surely, we were far past the speed limit. The surrounding farmland was just a collection of blurred colors now. And yet the two vehicles following us were keeping up and not falling behind.

      Minutes flew by. Sirens suddenly mingled together in the air. I looked back to see that three police cars now in pursuit. I turned back to face the open road, trying to figure out what Jake was doing. Or if he even knew what he was doing at all.