Hola!!!!! I’m really sorry I haven’t updated – my best friend yelled at me today for not updating – but I was away over the weekend and… well… okay, bad excuse. I’m sorry. But I sorta got sidetracked, cuz I was thinking about this other story I wanna start… yes, I know, another one, but hey, it’s a good idea. And I’m usually writing at LEAST two stories at once, so what can I say?
Thanks so much! I love y’all so much!
<3 vb123321
Chapter Ten
♣ Josh ♣
I thought I’d been through a lot that day already. But the sight of Astrid and Pierre making out in an alleyway so close to Decrioux’s men was enough to get a perfect stranger’s blood boiling. He had her pushed up against the wall, her hands around his neck and their lips locked together.
I tried not to turn to the nearest pothole and puke. Not that I particularly cared, of course, I wasn’t jealous of Pierre, but still… I mean, come on, guys, a little more discipline on in a life or death situation would be appreciated. This meant not kissing in an alleyway with men with murder on their minds behind us.
And I thought I had it bad? – I looked at Charlie, whose face had suddenly gone rigid as we ducked into that fated alley. He stopped dead, his grey eyes darkening, and I wished I could be anywhere else on earth, anywhere.
“Um, Charlie,” I began cautiously, but he ignored me. He stalked up to the two of them and said forcibly,
“Hate to be little mister rain cloud here, but you think maybe we should get out of here?”
They pulled apart. Pierre had the grace to look slightly embarrassed; he avoided Charlie’s glower. Astrid, still completely oblivious to Charlie’s jealousy, looked dazed. “Oh. Right,” she said, letting go of Pierre. “Right. Well, what are we going to do?”
I approached the group. Astrid was dressed like a Catholic school girl, and I supposed she had used her usual initiative to find a suitable disguise. Choking down laughter – she really did look so sweet – I raised an eyebrow at her and said, “Astrid, I’m loving that outfit. You look so cute… so innocent… so…”
“All right, I get it,” she snapped, blushing slightly. “Answer the question.”
“Well, I agree with Charlie. We need to get out of here. We’ll have to risk using the car–”
“But they can track it,” Pierre pointed out.
“– it’s the only way,” I finished grimly. “We don’t have any other method of transportation.” Once again, I cursed myself. We should have thought ahead, we should have been more prepared! It really wasn’t like us to be this disorganized. “The parking lot’s at the back of the hotel,” I informed them tersely, beginning to walk out of the alley with the others following. “So one of us has to get it, and bring it to the back of this alley.”
“I’ll do it,” Astrid offered.
“No,” Pierre and Charlie snapped at the same time, and then glared at each other. I sighed wearily, rolling my eyes. At this point I was beginning to think females were the smarter species.
“Guys,” I said irritably, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have time for this. Look, Astrid’s in a – well, a disguise,” I looked at her in slight amusement and she glared at me, “which I’m sure she came by easily – if not honestly – so I think we should let her get the car, personally. It makes the most sense.”
“Finally!” she muttered. “I make sense!”
“It was the plan, not you,” I pointed out, rolling my eyes.
Pierre didn’t look happy, and truthfully I couldn’t blame him. But I looked pointedly at him until he nodded. Charlie didn’t say anything, negative or positive, but I decided not to ask him, fearing further dispute. I looked back at Astrid. “Okay,” I said, trying to sound calm and in control. “I’d say you have about five minutes, Astrid, to get the car and bring it to the end of this alley, okay? So make it snappy.”
It was a mark of how tense she was that she didn’t respond with a sarcastic comment. She merely nodded, and said, “Keys?”
Pierre took them out of his pocket, handing them to her. Their hands brushed together for a little while longer than necessary; he looked like he wanted to kiss her again, their eyes locked, until Charlie cleared his throat loudly and the moment was broken. I tried really hard not to smirk, but a tiny one escaped as Astrid grabbed the keys in a slightly flustered way from Pierre and then jogged out of the alley.
“Okay then,” I said conversationally, when she had disappeared from view. “I guess we should wait at the end?”
Pierre through me a dark look as he stalked ahead, pulling his gun out of his pocket as he did so. Trying to look like James Bond, if you ask me, swiping his head around in a constant surveillance. I almost laughed, but the look on Charlie’s face stopped me quickly.
Rolling my eyes at the boys’ stupidity, I followed Pierre’s example of pulling out my gun and walked to the end of the alley myself, Charlie trailing behind me. The next few minutes consisted of Pierre pacing the narrow street, Charlie looking like he was trying not to shoot something (or someone), and me going nearly crazy with their romantic issues. It was probably only about five minutes, but it felt like hours before we heard the screech of a car’s breaks to our left.
Astrid poked her head out the driver’s side window, eyes wide. “They saw me,” she told us urgently. “Get in the car; they’re coming quick.”
Pierre yanked open the shotgun side, saying, “Are you all right?” Astrid ignored this, instead flooring the gas petal the moment Charlie stepped into the car.
“Mother–” he muttered, falling into his seat with a grumpy expression and slamming the door shut. “Couldn’t you have waited two more seconds?”
For answer, two cars came into view in the rearview mirror, screaming around the corner and hurtling towards us. “Crap,” Astrid muttered, twisting the steering wheel sharply to avoid them. “Where the hell do I go?”
“Don’t look at me!” I protested, as she glared at me in the mirror.
“It was your idea!” she snapped. Removing one hand from the steering wheel, while still going at least seventy miles an hour, she threw a road map at me. “Read that and tell me where to go, I have no idea where the heck I am.”
Charlie leaned over my shoulder. “Here,” he said, pointing, and I jerked the map away from him, irritated.
“I got it, thanks,” I muttered, running a finger over the road. “Okay, look, Astrid: there’s a sign coming up that says Highway A55, you wanna take that one. It’s a major highway running through this area…”
“Okay, okay!”
We hurtled through the narrow streets of whatever little town we were in now, crashing into a fruit cart and disregarding the many shouts of not so polite French expressions after us. Astrid’s grip was tight and although she looked a little wild, I could tell she was in complete control, smoothing twisting the wheel when needed and almost never touching the break.
Pierre’s eyes kept flicking to the rearview mirror; Decrioux’s men were still close behind us. I bit my lip, glancing between the street signs and the map.
“Okay, here!”
There was a wild sliding of the car’s wheels as they struggled to reposition themselves with two feet to spare. Charlie was gripping the back of Pierre’s seat tightly, his eyes stretched wide as we swerved away from a brick wall with only inches to spare. Pierre swore loudly and shouted, “Little more warning next time, if you can think that quickly!”
“Sorry,” I muttered, only mildly insulted: the tension of the situation was getting to all of us. So I bent my head, consulting the map again. The highway had four lanes across, the buildings on the side of the road whipping past as Astrid accelerated to ninety. Miles an hour, not kilometers. “Slow down!” I begged, feeling my stomach lurch. “The last thing we need is a police car to stop us!”
“They can try,” she answered ominously. “And truthfully I’d rather be stopped by them than by Decrioux’s men.”
I couldn’t argue that point, so I looked back at the map. “Okay, we should be seeing a massive cathedral thing at our immediate… um…” I flicked up a hand, using my thumb and forefinger to make a backward L. “…right?”
Astrid smirked at me in the rearview mirror. “Real mature, Josh,” she teased, grinning, “using your hands to figure out direction.”
I rolled my eyes. “You do it too,” I pointed out. “Remember that one time with that guy from Brazil…?”
“Okay, well,” she glowered at me, “where’s this freaking cathedral?”
Pierre and Charlie craned their necks to peer out the tinted windows. “Um,” Charlie started, raising an eyebrow, “I don’t see it…”
“There!” Pierre said sharply, pointing, and I sighed in relief.
“Excellent. Okay, so we can keep going on this highway for eternity–”
“– or until we hit an ocean,” Astrid muttered.
“–or we can get off and find a train or something,” I finished.
“What, and ditch the car?” Charlie derided, in mock indignation. “After all Pierre’s hard work in getting it?” Pierre narrowed his eyes at him; he seemed unsure of whether or not Charlie was making fun of him. Charlie was, naturally, but I decided this wasn’t the time to discuss his personality with Pierre.
“I agree with Josh,” Astrid put in unexpectedly. “They know the license plate; that’s how they saw me getting into the car.”
“You should’ve stolen someone else’s car, darling,” I told her, mock scolding. She rolled her eyes, and I added, “Look, it’s our only choice, taking the train or something.” I glanced back to see Decrioux’s men almost at our tail. “Are we all agreed then?” I didn’t wait for an answer, but said, “Next exit, Astrid, take it – and sharply.”
“I’ll try,” she said grimly, clutching the wheel even more tightly. We sped past several other cars, breaking all traffic rules as we merged to the right, even though that was for slow traffic.
“Here!” I called suddenly, and Astrid spun the wheel rapidly, sending the wheels flying into gear again as we sped up the ramp exit. Charlie and I turned as one to look out the back windows: Of the three cars chasing us, one overshot the exit and smashed into the wall with a terrific noise; one careened on ahead, missing the exit altogether; and the third made a hairpin turn and managed to make the exit, now accelerating up it after us.
“Holy crap,” I muttered. “Astrid, when I said ‘sharply,’ I didn’t mean that sharply.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” she shot back.
I shrugged. “We have one tail,” I reported to the front and watched as Pierre and Astrid’s eyes simultaneously flickered up to the mirror. Sirens were beginning to wail on the highway behind us, and Astrid pressed the gas petal a little harder, her knuckles white in a death grip on the steering wheel.
“Well, it’s better than three,” Pierre said, in an uncharacteristic attempt to be optimistic; I saw him glance nervously at Astrid, who was now swinging the wheel swiftly to avoid oncoming traffic. She didn’t deserve that look; I never knew anyone who was as good under pressure as her.
“I thought they drove on the left side here!” Astrid yelled, swerving yet again to avoid a car.
“That’s Britain,” Charlie responded, rolling his eyes and gripping the arm rests of his seat.
“Oh. Right.” Astrid switched lanes, ignoring the three sighs of relief as we sank back in our seats. “Josh – the map – nearest train station? Subway? Bus stop? Anything?”
“Um…” I forced my eyes back to the map, struggling with all the French terms. French really wasn’t my language – for some reason, I was terrible at it. So I usually relied on Astrid for the French bit – just like she relied on me for Russian, which she struggled through and I for some reason found it easy as pie.
A55… Rue de something… Rue de… Heck, this was dumb. I chucked the map away from me, into Charlie’s lap. “I give up – Charlie, take this.”
“Why me?” he grumbled, but picked it up and started scanning it. “Let’s see…Okay, we’re here. So we want to get to here.” He pointed, but the only person who could see it was me, and I wasn’t driving. Plus, all the French still wasn’t helping.
“And where’s here?” Astrid snapped, sounding frustrated as she glanced at the street signs, all of which were annoyingly in French.
“Uh… Rue Mazenod, just – oh, here!” Charlie said hurriedly, pointing at a street that was swiftly coming up.
“Rue of what?” I muttered, and Charlie smirked as Astrid whipped around another corner so quickly that I was thrown into Charlie.
“Sorry,” I mumbled to him. “Astrid, are you physically capable of driving like a normal person?”
“We have to lose them first,” she explained, swerving again and again, so that my stomach felt queasy. I forced myself not to puke and looked back again. Decrioux’s car was falling behind slightly, but they were there.
“What do we do after we get on a train? Where do we go on the train?” Pierre asked, glancing back at me.
“Uh… haven’t gotten that far yet, sorry.”
I suddenly felt three pairs of eyes on me. “You mind thinking a little faster then?” Astrid asked sarcastically. “Or is asking you to think a little too harsh?”
I spread my hands in defense. “Now, look here,” I said, admonishingly, “I am an extraordinarily talented person, but I’m not that good. I’m just… um… making things up as I go along.”
“As usual,” Charlie stated, smirking, and I grinned. Pierre sighed in frustration, facing front again as we whizzed around at least the fifteenth corner since the highway.
Pierre liked to be in action, but even more he liked to know what we were doing next. He liked to have a plan, something Charlie, Astrid, and I weren’t used to. I had told the truth – mainly we made up the plan as we went along, and hoped for the best. Yeah, we’re skilled enough, but sometimes you just gotta rely on sheer luck.
And if you don’t got luck… well, you’re either in a load of trouble, or you gotta use the old noggin, something I was attempting to do right now.
“My parents have a summer house around here,” Charlie put in suddenly, and we all goggled at him.
“What?” Astrid swiveled in her seat, looking at him in amazement before quickly turning back at the road once more.
“You kept that quiet,” Pierre commented, sounding annoyed and swiveling around to look at him with narrowed eyes.
Charlie fired up in defense immediately. “Well – it’s my father’s house, and – well – I mean, I didn’t–” His face flushed slightly. I studied my hands, carefully avoiding his eyes. In front of me, Astrid was looking awkwardly at him in the rearview mirror. Pierre looked confused.
“So your American family has a French summer house?” he asked, completely oblivious to Charlie’s discomfort.
I gave him a shut up look and Astrid glared at him, but Pierre ignored them, instead looking curiously at Charlie, who looked away. “Like I said, it’s my dad’s,” he mumbled, not meeting our eyes. “He – well – he and mom – they didn’t – so he sort of lived in France for a while – on business – and then he – I mean, he wasn’t really home and – well–” He appeared to have run out of words.
I looked uncomfortably at Astrid, whose eyes were fixed on the road ahead, her hands tight on the steering wheel. Pierre still looked confused, but decided not to push the topic, for which I was grateful.
Charlie’s past, I knew, hadn’t been the greatest. His mom lived alone with his little sister, Sadie. His dad had moved away from them when he was ten, leaving his mom and sister alone, as Charlie had left for Delta that same year. Charlie had actually been training with us when his mom told him… I swear, I had never seen him that mad. He had been almost eleven, but he had looked like he could have killed his dad with his bare hands – and in another year, he probably could have.
Of course, Charlie couldn’t exactly leave Delta, once he was in it, so his mom and sister had to live alone. Charlie wasn’t too pleased about this, of course, but what could he do?
Astrid and I remembered the events clearly, and so both of us were feeling extremely awkward as we tried to avoid Charlie’s eyes. He looked a little defiantly at Pierre, as though daring him to say something. Pierre looked away, obviously still a little confused, but unwilling to say anything else.
“Um, I think that’s a subway station,” I said quietly, pointing ahead. Charlie bent over the map again, as though trying to hide his face from view.
“Yeah,” he confirmed, after a moment, his voice completely casual, with just a touch of forcedness that only those who knew him very well could hint at. “It is. Astrid, turn left at the corner and–”
“–and sharply, I know,” she interjected, a little testily.
Charlie shrugged. “Just saying,” he said in a heroic attempt at indifference, flipping the map back into the glove compartment and twisting in his seat so that he didn’t have to look at us. Astrid maneuvered the car through a very tight space into the subway station parking lot. Decrioux’s men’s car was nowhere in sight, so we hopped out of the car.
“Wait,” Astrid said, and I turned to see her stripping off the blouse and schoolgirl’s skirt she had taken.
“Do you have to do that here?” I said in a mock-weary voice, and she glared at me.
“I’m wearing clothes underneath them!” She finished unbuttoning the skirt and threw it and the blouse into the car, slamming the door shut. “Okay, let’s move,” she said, and the four of us practically sprinted into the station.
“Où est la suivante, laissant la cabine?”I asked the lady at the front desk, leaning against the desk and panting. She threw me a very startled look, taking in Pierre, Charlie, and Astrid behind me. Her eyes lingered briefly on Pierre, much to my annoyance – she was rather cute – and then said,
“Pardonnez moi, monsieur?”
I gritted my teeth, turning to Astrid. She smirked at me, but understood immediately. She stepped up to the desk, and said sweetly, “Désolé,quand estle prochain train pour–” And she named a street.
Immediately the lady became all smiles. “Oui, oui,” she simpered, practically beaming, and then went off in a rapid stream of French, completely losing me. Pierre and Charlie looked like they understood – lucky them – and after a moment, Astrid turned back to us, beckoning us away from the desk.
“Okay, Josh,” she said, because Charlie and Pierre, of course, knew what was going on, “we get on this train that leaves in three minutes.” She began walking speedily towards a large sign marked – well, something in French, but it basically meant “Wait here for train” or whatever.
“Three minutes?”
We joined the queue waiting below the sign. “Yeah,” Astrid replied, spinning on her heel in a three-sixty surveillance pattern. Pierre grabbed her arm.
“Are you sure this is okay?” he asked, and she shrugged.
“We’ll find out, won’t we?” she retorted, and glanced at Charlie. “Where is this place of yours?”
Charlie was studying the subway route. “It’s around here,” he said, pointing at the map. “So we should be okay.”
I shifted from foot to foot impatiently, scanning the top of the crowd in a search for Decrioux’s men. They would almost probably come here, because they knew it was the only place we could go. I tried to concentrate on something other than the quickening of my pulse – such as the loudspeaker overhead, tonelessly announcing scheduled times in relentless French.
At long last – okay, three minutes later – we heard the sound of the subway train pulling in. Waiting impatiently for the line of people to die down, I surged forward with the crowd as they boarded the train. Astrid grabbed my arm, and gestured to the back of the train wordlessly. I understood: the caboose is the easiest place to jump off of. I led the way to the back of the train, sliding open the door and sinking down onto the bench after doing a quick visual search of the room.
“You do realize,” Pierre said in a low voice, sitting down next to Astrid and surreptitiously – or so he thought – taking her hand, “that if Decrioux’s men do come on this train, we’re gonna be in a hell of a lot of trouble?”
I exchanged a look with Charlie. A small grin unfurled on his face and he said, without looking at Pierre, “When are we ever not in trouble?” Looking now at Pierre, he told him mockingly, “The first thing you need to learn, buddy, is that we never do anything with a plan. Period.”
“I’ll second that notion,” Astrid muttered, but she grinned as well.
The train started with a clattering of wheels, falling into the smooth rhythm. The walls of the subway station flashed by as we picked up speed. “So,” I said conversationally, “I think we’re well rid of them, don’t you?”
Astrid rolled her eyes. “Knowing us, we better knock on wood, don’t you think?”