"I don't," she stammered, "I mean, I can't — "
"Do you know where the nearest hospital is?"
She hesitated, but only for a moment. "Yes."
"Then you can."
She stared at me a moment, her face a silent plea.
"If you don't do this, he'll die."
That did the trick. She clicked the rear doors unlocked. "Get in," she said.
I dropped Anders in the back, and gestured Kate in there as well. I climbed into the passenger seat, fetching Anders' blood-streaked knife from my pocket and laying it at ready across my lap. Our Good Samaritan didn't fail to notice. The blood drained from her face, and she gripped the steering wheel hard damn near enough to break it off, her knuckles bone-white.
"You did this to him?"
I didn't hesitate. "Yes," I said.
"You're a monster," she replied, not just a little bit of steel in her voice. "A goddamned monster."
"Lady, you have no idea how true that is. And if you don't start driving, I swear you're gonna get the same."
Again her tires squealed. This time, the car lurched forward.
"Easy!" Kate called from the back. "He's seeping through his bandages. I'm doing my best to stanch the flow, but if you rattle around too much, I won't be able to keep the pressure on."
"She slows down, it doesn't matter how careful she is — the kid's gonna die," I replied.
We squealed around a corner, rocketing through a red light. I braced myself against the door handle, the knife gripped tightly in my free hand. I didn't think our driver was gonna be a problem, but Bishop was another matter. As far as I knew, he might be halfway around the world right now, but even if he were, he wouldn't stay that way for long. If he'd found his way back in time to see our little traffic stunt, our new friend here'd become a liability right quick. If that happened, I had to be ready. No qualms. No hesitation.
Still, I hoped for all our sakes it wouldn't come to that.
The woman glanced at Kate in the rear-view. Her eyes narrowed. "You're that girl from the news, aren't you? The one that killed her family."
Kate said nothing.
"You think that silly punker get-up's going to fool people for long? Your picture's been on every television in the city. It's just a matter of time before they find you."
"Just shut up and drive," Kate said.
"I'm trying," the woman replied, and then, as she screamed past her intended turn: "Shit!"
Do you have any idea where we're going?" I asked her.
"Do you?" she shot back.
I thought a moment. "St Vincent's is close, if it's still around. But we shoulda been there by now."
"It is," she said, "although it hasn't been St Vincent's for years. And we would have been, if I weren't pointed in the wrong direction when you stopped me. You would have done better to carjack someone headed south."
"A lot's changed since the last time I was here. That's kind of why you're doing the driving," I said. "Now get us turned around, and quick."
"What's to stop me from just driving straight to the police?"
"This, for one," I said, brandishing the knife. "But more importantly, there's no time. You take the time to turn us in, the boy dies. You look like a decent person to me. I think you're gonna make the right choice."
"They'll almost certainly apprehend you when we reach the hospital," she replied.
"Then what exactly is the problem? Now if you wanna get out of this alive, you're gonna shut your mouth and get us to the hospital, you hear?"
I was kinda shocked she listened, but I guess she'd already said her piece. She just gripped the wheel and drove like it was the last lap at Indy, barreling down the street with breakneck speed — and ignoring every light, every sign, every lane marker on the way. Had her lips not been pursed in grim concentration, I'd have thought she was enjoying herself. Of course, right now, I couldn't give a shit about her motivation — all I cared was that we get Anders some help before it was too late.
It wasn't till we picked up a tail that I realized what she was doing.
He came screaming out of a Dunkin Donuts parking lot about a half a block back, siren blaring. Red and white lights strobed through the cabin of the Volvo.
"Sam," Kate said, "we've got company!"
I glanced back. The cop was gaining fast. A triumphant smirk flickered across our driver's face, and the speedometer needle began to drop as she coasted toward the shoulder.
I held the knife up to her neck, and she went rigid in her seat. I said, "You do not stop, you hear me? You just keep on driving till you get us where we're going."
The driver said, "I–I can't just ignore him."
"That's exactly what you're gonna do."
"There'll be more of them, you know, and not just behind. If they cut us off, I'll have no choice but to stop."
"If you stop this car before you get us to the hospital, I swear you'll wish you hadn't. Drive through them if you have to. This kid is not dying on my watch. Am I clear?"
She nodded. The fear in her eyes had returned. That was good. The cop was gaining, though. That was bad. The funny thing was, I didn't see any others. At the time, I didn't know why, but that fact — which should have comforted me — instead left me with a gnawing pit of worry where my stomach should have been.
Of course, it didn't help that Anders stopped breathing.
It wasn't a peaceful sort of thing, either, like drifting away in the quiet hours of the night. It was more like a flailing, writhing, drowning-on-dry-land sort of thing. Anders' limbs swung wildly through the cabin of the Volvo, one leg connecting hard with the back of the driver's head and sending the car careening onto the sidewalk toward a darkened storefront. I grabbed the wheel and jerked us back onto the street, receiving a glancing blow to the temple for my trouble. Kate was shrieking, and Anders was making a horrid, gasping noise that sounded like a pipe organ collapsing on itself.
Our driver was shouting now, too, in fear and panic, and to her credit had us more or less back on track. Things got dicey for a second as we leapt the center divider, and the sudden glare of approaching headlights made a collision seem imminent, but she yanked the wheel to the right, and sent the car sailing back into our lane in a rain of sparks and a squeal of rending metal.
And still, our pursuer remained.
We were close now, the structure of the hospital looming over the tops of the timeworn Colonials that surrounded it. Anders' flailing had died down, but it was hard to take that as a good thing. Not to mention, I had no fucking idea what I was gonna do about the cop. One thing's for sure — planning's never been my strong suit. Eh — if I was right, and this girl's soul really did hold the fate of the world in the balance, at least I'd know that God has got a sense of humor. I mean, shit, he could've sent her a savior with a clue.
In the distance, a backlit sign jutted from a wellmanicured garden, marking the hospital entrance. I pressed the knife to our driver's side. "You don't slow down until we reach the entrance, you hear me? No signal, no warning, nothing." She just nodded, her eyes never leaving the road. A good little trouper, that one. I confess I was relieved — the last thing I needed was more innocent blood on my hands.
When the turn came, she didn't hit the brakes, she just yanked the wheel. The car skittered a second, and then the back tires caught, and we rocketed forward. Thank God she'd listened to what I said. If she hadn't, we would have all been dead.
The police cruiser slammed into our car with a spray of glass and the sickening crunch of metal on metal. His front end connected with our back-left fender, and we one-eightied. The car rocked hard on its shocks as we slammed into the curb, but it could have been worse. Had we slowed to take the turn, he'd have caught us dead to rights, and we'd have rolled for sure.