Heartbeats Amidst Chaos, Part 3

6. Chapter 6

Chapter six

“ F ollow me. Quickly,” Elio muttered, slamming the Jeep into park and tumbling out into the night.

Her hands shaking violently, Rissa struggled for a moment to open her door before finally getting it right and scrambling out after him. Her knees were shaking so hard that she nearly fell straight down into the gravel, but somehow, she managed to keep her feet.

They left the resort only moments before, but Elio had just swung into the parking lot of a bowling alley at the edge of the small town nearby. He was scurrying along between the parked cars there, half-crouched, trying the doors of each older model until he found a grimy little Ford that gave to his prying fingers.

He ducked into the driver’s side, doing who knows what, and the engine sputtered to life. Straightening up, he glanced around, spotting her still standing by the Jeep. He beckoned urgently for her to join him.

As if walking through a nightmare, Rissa stumbled to the car he had just jumpstarted and climbed woodenly into the passenger seat. In the seat next to her, Elio threw the car into reverse, backed out, and headed for the road again. His face was grim, and his movements were abrupt and measured, as they had been since the moment they were attacked. As if each one had been practiced a million times.

Rissa felt a cold shudder of disbelief as she remembered the masked figures leaping catlike over the cabin railings and the way Elio had spun on his heel, punched one of them flat onto his back and then kicked him in the head without a moment’s hesitation.

Her head was spinning with the shock. One moment, they had been enjoying an almost romantic dinner with a beautiful view of the lake, calmly laying their plans for the next morning. Her heart had been fluttering at how handsome and gentlemanly Elio looked, sitting across from her in a crisp, open-collared black shirt and slacks. The next moment, he had gone as still and pale as a corpse. And then, everything had gone to hell—again.

“Elio,” she said, and his gaze flicked toward her briefly before returning to the road. His face was inscrutable, absorbed. “Who did you see at the restaurant?” she asked, her voice insistent. “Who were those people who just came after us?”

Elio didn’t answer. She wasn’t even sure he had heard her.

Somehow, Rissa found that this scared her almost as much as the unexpected attack and pursuit they had just experienced. It was almost as if Elio had turned into someone she didn’t know. The warm, charming man she was growing to care for had disappeared, leaving in his stead someone who behaved like a practiced criminal.

As Elio swung the car onto the highway and accelerated, Rissa grabbed the handle above the door, feeling suddenly sick to her stomach.

This is it, she thought. This is where I find out that all the warnings and misgivings I’ve been trying to ignore are true and I have gotten myself into the deepest shit possible.

She glanced once more at Elio, who was driving fiercely, silently, his face frozen into a glare.

Who is after him? she wondered. Who is after us? Was it the “shadow gang” he mentioned after someone opened fire at the police? But how could they have found them at the resort? And why was this all happening? If the police had suddenly shown up and come after them, she would have understood. But she seemed to be caught in the middle of some mysterious war with sides and motives and agendas she couldn’t comprehend.

How did it all trace back to Elio—and the bomb?

For arguably the first time since she had laid eyes on him in the hospital, moments before he had grabbed her wrist and insisted half deliriously that he “didn’t do it,” Rissa found herself completely mistrustful of her gut feeling about the man sitting beside her. What if she had been wrong—about him, about everything—all along? What if she was now on the run with an actual terrorist? Had aided and abetted him all the way till now?

“I’m going to throw up,” she said. This time when Elio looked over at her, his face softened slightly. She watched as his chest rose and fell with a deep breath.

“I’ll pull over,” he said.

There was a rest stop just ahead. He slowed the car as he pulled in, parking well back in the parking lot next to another beater, a rusted white Civic. He and Rissa opened their doors and staggered out at the same time, moving in opposite directions.

Rissa leaned over and lost her dinner on the cracked pavement, feeling wretched and empty and angry. She was a doctor. She had seen things that made other people pass out from sheer disgust and hadn’t batted an eye. Her entire job was based on the ability to make wise judgment calls. And here she was, turned physically inside out by a series of apparently very bad choices.

Behind her, she heard Elio tampering with the Civic, and she felt no surprise when it suddenly sputtered to life.

She straightened up and turned around, wiping her mouth with her hand.

“Stealing another car?” she said flatly, and Elio looked across the top of it, astonishing her with a sudden, rakish grin.

“Unfortunately, it’s something I’m good at,” he said. His smile disappeared into a frown of concern as he noticed, apparently for the first time, that Rissa had actually been sick. “Are you okay?”

“No!” Rissa exclaimed. Her heart was pounding with relief that Elio was emerging from whatever fugue state had gripped him since they ran from the resort. “We just got attacked out of nowhere by a bunch of masked men,” she hissed. “And now we’re racing off to who knows where in a string of stolen cars, and you won’t talk to me! I’m not okay. Elio, what is going on?”

“Shh.” Elio suddenly held up his hand, and Rissa listened, registering the sound of sirens a long way off.

“Quick, get in the car,” he said. She found herself complying, scrambling into the sagging, cloth seat, and pulling her seatbelt on before she’d even finished her thought.

Why am I still running with him?

Elio turned out of the rest area and crossed the highway, heading back the way they had come. In a different car, in a different lane. It was smart, she realized. They would pass right by, leaving a trail that seemed to lead in the opposite direction.

A trail for whom? The law or the lawless? And what does that make us?

She wasn’t so blind as to not realize that it was the same thing they had been doing from the very beginning. Suddenly, it just all seemed too real, and it no longer felt right. There were too many false leads to keep track of, and she wasn’t sure which direction they led.

She didn’t have her cell phone, having lost her bag early on in the chase. But she thought of the last text Reagan had sent her, after dubiously providing them with the number of the taxi from the police footage.

Girl, the minute you want out of there, call me. I’ll come get you.

Glancing over at Elio, Rissa felt that she was looking at him over a chasm of the unknown.

I want out of here. I do. Her heart ached to admit it, but she knew it was true. If she called Reagan, perhaps she could get out without turning Elio in. She didn’t know what kind of trouble he had gotten himself tangled in. All she knew was that it was becoming more than she could reason away. It was time to let him figure things out for himself.

Maybe Reagan had even been right from the beginning. Maybe everything Rissa had felt up until now was pure delusion and he was not everything she had never known she wanted in a man. Maybe he was just bad news.

She felt hot tears gathering in her eyes as she let herself think about it, and she gulped them down silently, hoping that Elio would not notice that she was crying over him.