Selene was shoving Luca, who threw a leg over the windowsill and slid out. Oscar caught him, wishing he had a way to cut the zip ties so Luca could use his hands.
Selene practically threw herself out the window, and together they raced for the car. Oscar jumped into the driver’s seat while Selene and Luca dove in through the door behind him, clambering onto the back seat awkwardly. The keys were right where he’d seen Wayne leave them—in a compartment in the center console. He jabbed the button, turned the car on, and threw it into drive.
Men came running from the porch as he sped past. He saw one raise a gun. In the rearview mirror, he saw Luca and Selene duck.
The crack of the shot was just barely audible over the ringing in his ears.
The car lurched, but the windows remained intact. He had no idea where they’d been hit—fuck, if they’d shot the gas tank, would the car explode or just lose gas and leave them stranded?
He put his foot down, speeding along the rural drive until he hit the main road, which wasn’t much of a road. Outside the window, white flakes started to whip by. He thought it was damage to his vision until they started to fall faster.
Snow.
Because, of course, it was starting to fucking snow.
What they needed was a main road—a real main road, not a country road. A highway or interstate. Someplace with people, or that would get them to people. He kept driving, far faster than was safe, hoping he’d recognize something and know when to turn.
Far behind him, barely visible through the flurries, a black SUV appeared.
“Fuck,” he snarled, surprised he could almost sort of hear his own voice.
He spotted a turnoff and took it, the vehicle rocking up onto two wheels. Selene scrambled from the back into the front passenger seat. She opened the glove compartment and took out a gun.
Hey, look, now they were armed.
“Do you know how to drive in snow?” she yelled.
He shook his head, grateful his hearing was returning.
She made a face. “Slow. Down.”
He slowed even though it made him feel frantic.
Outside the window, the snow started to stick.
He turned right, then right again, hoping to find his way back to the main road they’d been on, behind the SUV, so he could once more try to nose his way back to a freeway.
Instead, the roads twisted and turned, the scenery outside becoming hilly and even more rural, a dangerous thin white layer of slippery snow covering the road, making it hard to see. If it wasn’t for the vegetation that now sported layers of snow on the upper branches, he might not have known where the road was at all.
“We need to pull off. We can’t keep going in this,” Selene said, her voice slightly distorted. His ears were still ringing, but he could hear.
“If we do and they find us—”
“If we can’t drive in it, they can’t, either.” The fact that Selene, who was an upstate New Yorker and knew her snow, was more worried about the road and weather than the bad guys was telling.
On their right, a gentle slope led down to the base of a small ravine. Trees, close enough together that they only caught glimpses of a stream at the apex of the valley, would provide some hiding if he could find a place to pull off.
Then, through the trees, he saw the top of a roof, visible only because the geometric rectangular white of the snow-lined roof caught his eye amid the natural landscape. A second later, he glimpsed a small break with a mailbox beside it. He turned onto the drive.
The slope down to the house seemed much less gentle when he was trying to keep the heavy car from sliding down it through the snow than when he’d just been looking at it. The tail end of the car started to fishtail, but he managed to keep control—barely—and they reached the bottom without damage.
“No lights,” Selene said. “Or other vehicles. Doesn’t look like anyone is home.”
Oscar nodded, glancing in the rearview mirror at the driveway they’d just slid down. He didn’t have to be a snow expert to know this car wasn’t going to make it back up to the road they’d just left. Not that he planned to try. The snow was falling so thick and hard, he was struggling to make out the hood of the car anymore.