Sharks - Matt Rogers (classic books for 11 year olds txt) 📗

all the way to West End the previous evening.

‘He’s turning right,’ King said. ‘He’ll risk slowing.’

‘What’s your point?’

Slater became distinctly aware of the fact that King had yet to put on his seatbelt.

‘Don’t you dare—’

King slapped the top of the wheel. ‘Take this.’

‘No.’

King looked over, a risk considering they were doing over a hundred. ‘I’m going whether you help me or not.’

Slater shook his head in disbelief, but shifted over in his seat so he could grip the wheel.

‘When he slows,’ King said.

Slater said, ‘Then what?’

‘Doesn’t matter. Vince first, everything else after.’

‘He’s not the end of the line. He’s just a loan shark. Remember, Walcott is the big fish.’

King finally met Slater’s gaze, and Slater saw a fury he didn’t know if he’d ever seen the man show in the field.

King said, ‘I’m getting this scumbag. You got a problem with that?’

Slater shrugged. ‘Knock yourself out.’

Sure enough, Vince slowed.

Not drastically.

The Crown Vic went from a hundred down to eighty down to sixty, which meant he was still tearing over the asphalt as he entered the turn. There were four cars heading west that he had to navigate between, and he finessed the brakes just enough so a collision wouldn’t pulverise him instantly. But King kept firm pressure on the accelerator, and stayed at a hundred miles an hour as the jeep screamed into the turn. King had tunnel vision like nothing else, focusing on the trajectories of the passing cars, all else gone from his mind. It had to be. There was no margin for error.

‘Now!’ he roared.

Slater took full control of the wheel as King took his foot off the accelerator so he could climb out of his seat and mount the top of the driver’s door. He gave thanks for the open top, which made all this possible, as the jeep roared through the westbound lanes side-by-side with the Crown Vic.

There was a window of opportunity that lasted maybe half a second.

Either side of that, he’d miss and land on the coarse road at ninety miles an hour.

He didn’t miss.

If King was best at one thing on this planet, it was seizing opportunity.

He leapt off the jeep’s door, covered the few feet of open air with his heart in his throat, and came down with all two hundred plus pounds on the Crown Vic’s trunk.

His giant wingspan was the only thing that saved his life.

He shot his hands out and clamped them down on each side of the trunk.

Vince couldn’t veer left or right to throw him off. All his attention was fixated on avoiding the cars whipping past, then they passed the median strip on either side and King was ready for the inevitable right-hand turn. It’s easy to lose your grip when you don’t know which way you’re going to slide, but when he saw Vince’s trajectory he put all the pressure on his right palm, using his right arm as a hook to catch his momentum and prevent him tumbling left.

Vince completed the turn and shot forward, barrelling east.

Go time.

King hauled himself up the trunk until he was hovering over the rear window and dropped an elbow into it, picturing it as a heavy punching bag that needed obliterating.

One elbow spiderwebbed the glass and made his arm go numb.

The second shattered the whole window.

King tumbled into the Crown Vic in a shower of glass shards.

56

Alexis had a decent grip on reality.

So she could tell when she was out of her depth.

All her training was gone, thrown out the window. Her heart was three-timing it in her chest, close to the threshold zone, whereupon the pure bolt of stress chemicals would start to sap the energy from her muscles and her bones, making her body grow tired, lethargic, accepting her death…

No.

She battled back to the present moment.

Violetta fired multiple shots at the sliding doors, both of which shattered in twin cacophonies. The noise was horrendous — gunshots, breaking glass, frantic shouts from outside the bungalow, Violetta’s laboured breathing, her own laboured breathing…

The silhouette who kept incessantly appearing at the front windows materialised again, getting frustrated by the stalemate, taking a risky manoeuvre to get himself in a better position to fire a shot.

Violetta put one in his throat and reloaded, ejecting the empty mag and slotting in a fresh one.

A lull commenced.

The final forces regrouping, realising that two of their main party was dead, two of the men who were supposed to mop this little problem up like it was nothing. That’s what the berserker was for. Alexis could see it clearly, now she’d had a moment to think. The other labourer must have bled out the night before, must have succumbed to his wounds. She’d hit him with the knuckle dusters and kicked him in the face, and apparently that was enough to kill a man.

The back part of her brain said, One more on the body count, but right now she didn’t care to think about it.

Right now she just wanted to survive.

She said, ‘What do we do? What the hell do we do?’

‘Shut up,’ Violetta said. ‘Let me think.’

Alexis lowered her voice. ‘How many are there?’

‘Does it look like I know?’

Outside a voice boomed, slinking in through all the open entrances of the bungalow. It was deep, and it was male. ‘Okay! Time out, señoritas!’

Alexis saw Violetta’s breath catch in her throat.

She knew why.

A chaotic gunfight leaves no room to deliberate. It gives you barely enough time to comprehend what’s going on. All it does is light the animal part of your brain up like a furnace, and you sink into automatic mode. There’s little consideration to your own health and safety, or fear of death, or even fear of unimaginable pain. There’s only the base instinct to preserve yourself and nothing else.

Now Alexis was listening to one of the intruder’s voices, and the consequences were hitting her.

She could see them hitting Violetta too.

If they didn’t get every moment of this next phase right they would wind up dead, their lives snuffed