Annihilate Me (Vol. 3) (The Annihilate Me Series) Read Free Page B

jockeying for
position, looking for a way in to get inside and help—that the situation
was about to get out of hand.
    “Look at the smoke,” I said to Alex.   “The car is either going to catch fire
or it’s going to explode.   Get him
back in here.   We need to get a
safe distance away, and then wait for the police.   They’re on their way.   Let them handle this.”
    “The police could be too late.”
    “Why are you doing this?”
    “Because they fired a fucking a bullet at
you.   They tried to kill you.   Whoever did that to you is in that
car.   Do you really think either of
us is going to let them get away with that?   Not make them pay for that?   Do you think I’m going to allow that?   Are you serious, Jennifer?”
    Before I could say another word, he opened
the car door and stepped out into the night.   Frozen, I watched him move, crouching toward the driver and
the car we’d ruined.   Terrified
that I might lose him, I sat breathless and watched him bend low, his gun held
firmly in front of him.   He started
to move toward the driver, who suddenly moved back when a spark of fire erupted
from beneath the hood.   I watched
Alex rear away from it in surprise.   Despite the fact that the sirens were growing closer to us—that
the police were indeed almost upon us—I needed to do something.   I needed to get him away from that car
before anything serious happened to him.
    So I got out of the car.
    “Everyone, move down the street!” I
shouted at him and at the crowd.   “Get away from the car!   Go
where it’s safe!”
    At that moment, the fire took hold and
started to grow.   Flames shot out
from beneath the hood.   They curled
over it and around it, and lifted into the air.   The people on the sidewalk immediately started to move away,
knowing what might happen next.  
    “Jennifer!” Alex shouted.
    But he was too late.
    One of the men I noticed earlier in the
crowd darted forward and kick-punched the car’s passenger-side window,
shattering it on impact.   He was
young, fit, and strong.   I put my
hand over my mouth as he instinctively reared back, and rolled onto his side in
case the person inside reacted with rounds of fire.   A woman yelled for him to return to her.   He submitted, hunkering back into the
teeming crowd.   Alex looked at me
and ordered me down the street, away from the car.
    But I went closer to it.   I could feel the heat press against my
skin and tighten it.   It scared me
to death, but I was damned if I was going to lose him now, regardless of how
furious I was with him.   The only
way he’d leave now was with me.   I
looked him in the eye.   “I’m not
going without you.   Come down the
street with me.”
    He swung around and looked at the driver,
who now was upon the car and pointing his gun through the smashed window.   He assessed the situation and, after a
moment, he reached inside.   I saw
him move his hand, and then he was all business.
    “He’s dead,” he said to Alex as he opened
the passenger-side door.   “I need
you and Jennifer to get away from here.   Now.   Before this thing
blows.   Get out of here, down the
sidewalk.   Move away now so I can
do my job.”
    Alex and I began to retreat.   The driver pulled a man onto the
sidewalk and dragged him away from the car.   Alex and I watched him over our shoulders, and then we
turned away from the car and started to run.
    Tried to run.
    That’s when the car exploded.
    That’s when the force of the explosion
lifted Alex and me off the ground and somersaulted us through the baking air.
    We landed heavily on the ground, one of us
into oncoming traffic.
    And that’s when everything changed.

 
 
 
 
 
    CHAPTER
FOUR

 
    Somehow, neither of us was seriously
injured.   I cut my arm when I
landed in the street, and bruised my hip so that two days after the incident,
it still hurt to walk.  
    Alex got the worst of it.  
    He had abrasions on his face and on