A Place Where There Is No Darkness

Eight

Mitchell and I exited the motel and located the car that went with the keys we’d been given – it was a dashing black Chevy pickup truck. Mitchell sat behind the wheel and I climbed in on the passenger side, excited. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sat in a car as expensive or as new, so I made myself appreciate the smell for a few moments.

But the moments dragged and dragged and dragged. I needed longer than I cared to admit to realise what was bothering me. It was the silence. There was no engine roaring to life, no wheels turning, no tires screeching. Just the faint noises of the street behind us.

I turned to the driver’s side of the car. Half expecting to find something fundamentally wrong with the vehicle – a trick, a joke, a sign that our plan had not gone as well as we’d thought, that the Elite was letting me know slowly but surely how quickly and absolutely I had lost and they had won –, I was mildly surprised to find Mitchell sitting motionlessly behind the wheel, staring into the distance, his hand frozen in mid-air on its way to the ignition.

I knew what this was. I’d gone through it countless times myself.

Knowing fully well that my voice would immediately shake him out of his reverie and that that was exactly what he needed, I said, “Wanna talk about it?”

As expected, he almost jumped out of his seat, then shook his head and looked at me, eyes clearing. He smiled sheepishly and shook his head again, this time less shaky and more determined. “Nah, thanks. I’m fine. It’s just … they’re kind of …”

“Mean?” I offered.

He chuckled. “Well, I don’t know if that’s quite the right word, but sure. Meaner than I’d expected.”

“Yeah, well, they’re as mean as they come. It’s hard to expect that before you’ve met them.”

He nodded hesitantly, still deep in thought, and started the engine. We peeled out of our parking place and then we were on our way.

True to my luck, I ran out of it quite literally in a few seconds. We hadn’t come to the first crossing when a police siren started blaring behind us. The adrenalin rush was immediate and for two and a half seconds, my ears rang, which overpowered every other potential sound. My hearing came back to Mitchell cursing loudly and his words drowning almost immediately in the shrill sound of the ever-nearing car.

“Stop cursing and get yourself together, will you?” I snapped, mostly because I myself wanted to follow that advice. It was time to get our heads in the game, postpone any nervousness or fear on a later moment when they couldn’t buy me an unwanted one-way ticket back to prison. Or, in a slightly less ideal scenario, get me killed.

“Right,” he agreed, surprisingly without any complaints. “What do we do?”

“Let’s start by driving really fast and see where that gets us, okay?”

“Can you please stop being sarcastic for just a moment? It’s not helping.”

“Fine. Turn left here. I know my way around this neighbourhood.”

Mitchell nodded jerkily and veered to the left. Fortunately, there weren’t many cars around, so we could make our way quickly down the street. On the other hand, of course, that meant that the police could, too.

“What exactly is your plan here?” Mitchell demanded even as he swerved sharply to the right to try and shake off our tail. It wouldn’t be enough, though. If we wanted to get rid of the cops, we had to up our game.

“Working on it,” I pressed out between gritted teeth and looked in the rear-view mirror. “Left again here. And then straight for a while.” They were gaining on us so fast. Their blinking lights echoed in my vision even as I looked away – blue, red, blue, red, blue, red.

We sped along old buildings, crumbling buildings, and I felt a little pinch somewhere in the vicinity of my heart, but I pushed it down. I knew the longer we drove around, the more time there was for the police to regroup and the lesser were our chances of success. Which meant we had to move fast. Faster than we were.

“You’re an agent, right?” I asked Mitchell, pushing enough exasperation into my voice to make him take me seriously without second-guessing me.

He frowned. “Yes?”

“So you had to have taken a course on pursuing criminals, right? Driving really fast?”

“Yes?”

“So step on it, man!”

He looked at me darkly, the bruises on his face making his expression seem even gloomier. “If you think I’m not driving as fast as I think is safe-“

“Do you know what’s not safe?” I interrupted. “Not safe is for those cops to get us. Because if they do, the Elite will be right behind them. And they won’t be just mean, I can promise you that.”

“Okay, okay.” He glanced into the mirror. The one car pursuing us had now become two – more blinking lights, more noisy sirens. It was only a matter of time before those two cars morphed into four or eight and someone got the bright idea to cut us off. And then that would be it. Game over. Forever.

I pulled my racing thoughts together, cleared my head. I was trained for emergencies and this was nothing if not an emergency. I was bred for this. Rusty though I was, I still had to be able to pull this off, or I could never forgive myself.

“Okay, Mitchell, I know where we’re going. There is an old garage a mile down this street. Before we get there, we have to somehow ditch the cops. We’ll leave the car there and continue on on foot.”

He laughed cynically. “Oh, that’s the brilliant plan you’ve been brooding over for the last few minutes? Wouldn’t really call that time well used.”

“Stop moping and watch the road,” I bit back. “Okay, first, kill the lights. There is a narrow road a few hundred meters ahead of us on the right. It branches off into a forest. With a little luck we lose one of the cars there – or at least we gain a bit of an advantage.”

“Okay, but how are we supposed to get through a forest without lights?”

“It’s still bright enough outside, trust me. We can do this. I know the road.”

He let silence reign for a few seconds. Then, “Alright, fine. Tell me when I have to go right.”

“Okay. And do it sharply. Win us as much time as you can – Now!”

We flew off the road and almost into a nearby tree, but Mitchell managed to get control of the car in the last moment and steered us onto the street that wasn’t as much a street as it was a simple path, leading into the woods. The car complained, jumping up and down on its mighty tires and jostling us from head to toe, but it had been made for action like this and I liked to imagine I felt its delight through its leathery seat. Mud, grass and pebbles flew around, landing on windows and doors, as the car found its footing and Mitchell sped down the dirt path as though it were made of concrete – which it most certainly was not.

We jumped on and on, deeper into the woods. It got darker and the path before us less and less discernible, but it never vanished completely, which I counted as a win. We weren’t able to lose the two police cars – even though they had turned off their sirens, I could still clearly see their headlights in the distance –, but they did fall behind considerably and if we continued at this pace, I was starting to believe our plan might actually work.

Soon after the darkness became almost too dense for us to see the path ahead, the trees started clearing and we reached a road, empty for as far as one could see in any direction. There was a diner on the side of the road, with a few small cars and bikes parked out front, but not a soul anywhere in sight. I thanked anyone who was willing to listen for that little miracle and pointed to the left.

“Go this way. And let the car give us everything she’s got. A few hundred metres up ahead, the road turns left into a small village – if we get there before the cops come out of the woods, they might not know where we went.”

The car accelerated and I was pressed back into my seat. My stomach cramped. But Mitchell didn’t seem affected at all – his voice came over to me calm and collected, even over the deafening noise of the toiling engine. “Did you just call the car a she?”

I looked at his profile, holding onto the door of the car with my right hand – as if that would somehow keep me alive if we crashed. “Yeah, really not the point of what I’ve said.”

“Maybe not the point, but a point for sure.” And then he had the nerve to smile.

I scoffed. “You do know we’re in the middle of something, right?”

“Hey, don’t worry. I’m just appreciating your taste. You’re definitely the first woman I’ve ever heard say anything but it to a car.”

And damn me if I didn’t want to laugh at that. But I got it under control, locked the feeling away.

“You’re insane.”

He shrugged glancing into the rear-view mirror. The road behind us was still clear. He accelerated a bit more, pushed the car close to its glorious limits. “Been called worse.”

“Really?” Unwilling though I was to participate in the banter, this comment was too good to just let slip away into oblivion. Besides, if chatting kept Mitchell calm and relaxed, I didn’t have anything against it. “By whom?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

A small smile slipped past my defences before I could help it. I quickly took it back, schooled my features, but I had the depressing feeling that the small error hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Get prepared to turn left,” I said, looking back to the road and banning all other thoughts. Thankfully there were still no police cars in sight, but I started fearing that we were pushing our luck a bit too much.

Mitchell looked right ahead, but nothing happened.

“Slow down,” I said, more urgently this time, and still nothing changed. I looked over to the agent; his face was stony now. No smile anymore, no human features. A cold hand gripped my stomach and squeezed.

“Mitchell, slow down, we’re going to have to turn!”

I could see the turn in front of us now. It wasn’t far away. I hoped Mitchell saw it, too, but the car was still speeding along, like a monster gone wild. There was no stopping it now. I gripped the door tighter, buried my other hand in my seat and only just refrained from closing my eyes, because, damn me, whatever happened next, I had to see it.

Mitchell turned the wheel suddenly and the car veered to the left. Tires screeched and the engine roared and the whole thing tipped to one side. For five seconds I was sure that we would flip over, but the vehicle landed on its tires once more, bouncing up and down like crazy, but still intact.

Mitchell never took his foot off the gas.

We went on, speeding down the narrow, but blessedly straight road now.

My face was damp with sweat and my breathing was quick and shallow. I slowly stretched the cramps out of my shaky left hand, but I couldn’t get myself to let go of the door or take my eyes off the street. No, Mitchell’s driving was still too scary and the danger too eminent.

“What the hell – was that?” I asked as soon as I found my voice. Mitchell looked towards me.

“I thought you wanted me to step on it?”

“Eyes on the road!” I yelled and he complied, chuckling. “And I swear, I’m never driving with you again.”

“Wow,” – he shook his head – “those are some big words coming from someone who doesn’t even drive. How are you planning on getting to that safehouse, then?”

“Just shut up and concentrate on driving, please.” My voice was still shaky and raspy. Maybe he realised what a number he’d done on me, because he didn’t retaliate.

“The road turns right there and then there’s a bridge. Please be careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

“Right.”

In the distance, sirens screamed to life again.

Which prompted Mitchell to drive faster again.

Which prompted me to panic again.

We reached the turn in the road much faster than we should have. We flew on, and then there was the bridge and I had a terrible, terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Uh, Mitchell –“

But I didn’t finish. Because there were no words. I choked on air. Because we were too fast and I knew exactly what was going to happen. And Mitchell knew it, too.

The bridge was old and wooden and not really made for cars like ours in the first place. Add to that our speed, and I knew we were doomed. When we crashed onto it, something came loose – or maybe it didn’t; there wasn’t enough time to process everything, but at least it felt like something had come loose. The car swayed, the tires on one side came off the ground, then on the other. I yelped.

In retrospect, the bridge would have probably held. It should have. It was made for vehicles, as part of a road, and even though we weren’t the average Mini Cooper going out for a stroll in the sun, it should have supported our weight.

But Mitchell wasn’t in control anymore. Somewhere along the way, in the midst of the jumping, the rocking and the panic, he had let the car go wild. And it did.

We crashed into the railing of the bridge. Wood shattered, the car moaned, but I didn’t notice. Everything I could see was the water coming towards us and everything I could think was, not again!

Time and space and light morphed, in and out of focus, screaming, silence, cold, hot, it was all there, one moment chaotic and vivid, the next stony and black, some of them without any movement at all. We fell, fell, fell, but it didn’t always feel that way, it also felt like flying or dying – and definitely, constantly, it felt like all the air had been pushed out of my lungs, like I couldn’t breathe at all, because there was no oxygen left anywhere –

And then it was over.