Maya descended next. She reached the bottom of the escape, took one look down, drew a deep breath, and let go. She had a split second of panic in freefall, kicking one leg out too far. When she hit the ground, her momentum pulled her to one side and she rolled over, feeling the asphalt scraping away skin from her elbow.
“You okay?” Luke offered a hand to help her up.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Maya took Luke’s hand and brushed at the front of her clothes before wiping the blood from her elbow. She then looked up at Cameron, waving her down.
Cameron hesitated, and Maya saw her disappear as Cameron took a step back from the edge. But, a moment later, the young woman swung one leg onto the ladder and then the other, climbing down while keeping her chin up. Maya understood why Cameron wasn’t looking down, but she held her breath hoping she wouldn’t miss a rung. When she made it to the bottom of the ladder, Maya walked beneath it.
Come on, Cameron.
Cameron looked down several times, refusing to let go.
“Don’t look down,” Maya said. “Just let go.”
“I can’t.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“We don’t have a lot of time.” Luke looked around, the shotgun now back in his hands.
“It’ll be fine. Just give her a minute.”
Luke sighed.
“Come on, girl. You’ve got it.”
Cameron nodded at Maya before finally letting go. She hit the ground harder than Maya and Luke, but unlike Maya, Cameron stuck the landing. She grinned and pushed her shoulders back, looking at the blood dripping down Maya’s arm.
“I did it.”
Luke interrupted the minor celebration. “We have to move.”
They shuffled along the pavement and over to the corner of the building. Luke stopped there and held up his hand. He was about to peer around the corner when a man stepped out. He had a pistol and a greasy smile on his face, his glassy eyes looking in the other direction. The guy wore black leather and jeans, and had a shaved head and tattoos on his face. Maya could have smelled weed from ten feet away. She thought he was probably one of the gang members who had orchestrated the assassination back on the highway. The man’s eyes went wide when he turned his head and saw them. Luke raised his shotgun and cracked the man’s nose with the butt of it. Blood spewed from the man’s face as he hit the ground with a thud.
“Everything all right out there, Leon?” came a voice from a walkie-talkie clipped to the man’s belt.
“Shit,” Luke said.
Maya grabbed the pistol from the unconscious man on the ground and then the three of them hurried along the side of the building toward the front. Maya leading the group now, she stopped when they reached the corner. She held her hand up to the others, looking around the corner and seeing no other people outside.
“He must have been the only one guarding the front door. It’s clear.”
They ran across the parking lot. The Civic sat in the same spot where Maya and Cameron had left it the previous night. The passenger side door was open, the gang likely having searched it before entering the building. Maya and Cameron hadn’t left the key inside. Maya reached into her pocket and pulled it out.
“Hop in and buckle up. We’ve got to run for it before the others come outside to see why Leon isn’t answering his radio.”
Maya jumped into the driver’s seat, placing the gun on top of the dashboard while she turned the key. The engine started up as Cameron and Luke shut their doors, and Maya looked up.
On the roof, a man looked over the side of the building. He then turned and waved. A moment later, four more men were looking down.
“Get us out of here now!” Luke said.
Maya threw the car into reverse, the tires skidding. She glanced up at the roof again to see two of the men raising rifles.
“Get down!” Maya said.
She put the car into drive and slammed on the gas as she ducked down. The men fired, punching holes in the trunk of the Honda as she pulled away. Maya lifted her head just above the steering wheel, pulling the car onto the road.
The rear window shattered and Cameron screamed, brushing away the safety glass like they were angry hornets.
Maya sat all the way up in the seat, looking in the side mirror to see that the men had lowered their guns, their car too far away now for them to get a clean shot and already moving at a high rate of speed.
With the wind howling through the rear of the car, Maya pounded the steering wheel and hollered. She hit the highway at full speed and then looked over at Luke, whose face had gone white with his hands clutching the dashboard.
“I told you to buckle up, kid.”
26
Maya couldn’t help but look in the rearview mirror every few seconds. She assumed those men would stay for at least a few nights, using Luke’s set-up and eating the beer and food he’d stashed in the cooler. But then again, they’d left one of the men unconscious and on the ground. Once the beer ran out, the gang might come for revenge.
Cameron sobbed in the backseat, her hands over her face and her hair sparkling like diamonds from all the glass she’d yet to shake out. Luke looked from her to Maya.
“We could all use a few minutes to get out, walk around.”
“I’ll stop when I can, but for now we’ve gotta keep moving.”
“There’s no way they’ll follow us. Not with everything I left behind.”
“Not at first,” Maya said. “But you might have killed that guy.”
Luke hesitated, and Maya saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.
“You think he’s dead?”
“I don’t know. My ex-husband was in the military, and he talked about blows to the head that can kill a person. If you hit someone hard enough...”
“Holy shit. I’m not a killer.”
Maya glanced at him once more, deciding to drop it. Luke was just a kid and she had the feeling that he hadn’t been in many fights, if any at all. But he’d have to get used to it. Violent death was becoming the norm in this new life.
The sun broke the horizon and Maya sighed, happy to have evaded the aliens again. She’d take armed stoners on motorcycles over practically indestructible aliens any day of the week.
A bell chimed, forcing Maya to look down at the dashboard and notice they were almost on Empty. They’d driven for at least half an hour and had seen no sign of the gang members following them, and now the car’s lack of gas was forcing their hand. Maya pulled into the parking lot of a gas station, realizing that, without power, they’d have to come up with a clever way of getting fuel into the Civic.
“Shouldn’t we keep going?” Cameron asked.
“We need gas, and I think all of us could use a stretch.” Maya unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped out of the vehicle as Luke headed into the open door of the mechanics garage next to the station’s office. Papers fluttered across the asphalt, showing the office had been ransacked. The kid disappeared into the garage and beneath the lift.
Maya popped the gas tank door and removed the cap. She grabbed the nozzle from the pump and squeezed the handle, but nothing came out.
“Shit.”
Luke came running out of the shop, holding a big red gas can in one hand with a grin splitting his face.
“Five-gallon jug, and this is pretty full. Found it in the back by the used oil drum. I hope it’s still good.”
“Probably.” Maya winked at Luke. “Tow truck drivers keep ’em in the garage in case they answer a call from someone who ran out of gas.”
“Sounds like you know a thing or two about garages.”