Episode 94

Connor reached from the passenger seat and grabbed the wheel, shouting at Ben, "I need to drive!"  Ben jumped out and ran around to the passenger side as Connor pulled himself into the driver's position.  Backing up quickly out of the parking space, he shot out of the parking lot and into the street just as the police cars came into view, a hundred yards down the road behind them. 

"Amy's still in the store!" Miah shouted.

Connor grit his teeth.  "She'll be okay.  She probably stole this car, or took it from some guards who'd stolen it, and they've picked up on us."  He continued down the road, fastening his seatbelt while changing lanes.  "I'm going to put some distance between us and the police, and maybe if we don't draw attention to ourselves, and if they don't have a chopper, we can lose them."

Miah held onto the handle on the seat in front of her as hard as she could, not from fear of a car crash (again), but from fear of being caught.  She didn't even know what they would be caught for.  Stealing a car?  They didn't steal it.  It was what someone else had driven to save them, and what they were now driving with that person's permission.  It wouldn't make any sense to the police, though, especially since they didn't have Amy with them now to explain things. 

Connor careened around a 'Road In Progress' sign and floored it.

"What are you doing?" Ben cried.  "This isn't a jet, we can't just take off!"

Miah peered around Ben's seat and looked at all she could see--dark sky.

"Hold on!" Connor yelled, and Miah and Gail screamed.  The car soared off of an unfinished overpass and barely caught the other side of the ramp, going down this time.  They continued toward another section of unfinished, empty road.

"I can't believe you did that," Gail moaned. 

The next ramp came up and Connor leaned forward, as if it would increase his already maximum speed.  "C'mon, c'mon..."  Connor gripped the wheel tightly as they launched into the air again, feeling far too fast, far too out of control. 

Miah yelled as they hit the next ramp, their back wheels barely making the landing.  "This is crazy!  You can't keep doing this!  Just because it'll get us away from the police quicker doesn't mean we should do it if it might get us killed!"

Connor cracked his neck and whipped the wheel to the left, bringing them off of the overpass with a 4-foot drop onto a side road.  All of them bounced on impact, and Ben, the safe driver, was looking sick. 

"Find somewhere to hide," he cautioned, giving Connor a warning glance as he shot across three lanes of traffic and into another somewhat dark neighborhood street. 

Connor pulled into a driveway to a house that had a "For Sale" sign in the lawn and shut off the engine and lights. 

"Is this supposed to work?  They know the license plate number."

"They won't expect us to come this way.  They'd expect us down some dark alleyway, or still out there somewhere, breaking speed limits."

Ben looked around uneasily.  It was deathly quiet.  Clouds had rolled over the moon, and the wind had died down.  They all began to catch their breath, Miah feeling the beating of her heart louder than anything else. 

Miah shivered as she bit her lip.  Is this going to work?