Busted Read Free Page B

Chevy. It was easier on the bike, and certainly more graceful, but only a last-minute straightening of his knees kept Will’s testicles from sneezing out of his nose.
    Up ahead, the Chevy was slowing. The rims had melted down to the axles. Finally, the driver was forced to stop in the middle of the interstate. No one had been speeding, but there were still some collisions as the cars around him came to a stop. In the end, the Chevy looked like the center of a Matchbox display.
    Will was around a hundred yards away, the length of a football field, but he clearly saw the driver get out of the truck. A blue bandanna was wrapped around the lower half of the man’s face. A gun was in his hand. He stumbled as his leg started to give out from under him. Blood soaked his shirt and pants. He limped across the interstate, the gun pointed straight out in front of him as he approached a yellow Mini Cooper. Will saw the door open. A woman’s leg appeared, her high-heeled shoe touching the pavement.
    The man waved his gun, indicating she should slide over to the passenger’s seat.
    Hostage.
    Will revved the bike. He didn’t let himself think about what he was doing,because what he was doing was probably the most idiotic thing he’d ever done in his life.
    He steered straight toward the driver, the muscles in his arm and shoulders screaming from pulling back on the throttle. The driver turned, but it was too late. By the time he swung around to point the gun at Will, Will was off the bike and the bike was heading straight toward the driver.
    Will didn’t slide across the asphalt – there was a limit to his stupidity. What he did was try to hop off. The shift in weight lifted the motorcycle’s front wheel up into the air. Instead of flipping back on itself, it roared across the tarmac on its back tire.
    Oddly, Will recalled a show he’d seen on Animal Planet the week before. Bear attacks. Tense stuff. During one of the reenactments, a giant black bear had reared up, mouth open, claws up, as the victim just stood there waiting to get mauled.
    And so it was with the driver. He stood there motionless with his gun out in front of him. The screaming Indian seemed to leap at him. Metal met metal, then skin, then bone. Blood sprayed. Hair was wrenched from the scalp.
    It really was a lot like the bear attack.
    Will fared only slightly better. His body didn’t just stop because he was no longer on the bike. The momentum wasn’t entirely unexpected. As he jumped off, Will tried to pitch to the side. Tuck and roll, just like they’d taught him. Of course, drills couldn’t prepare you for the massive shock of hitting the interstate with nothing but your own body fat to cushion your fall. Will hit the pavement like a clapper striking a bell. His entire skeleton jangled inside his skin.
    Will was no stranger to getting the shit knocked out of him. He’d blacked out before. Somewhere in his mind, he knew how to fight it, but it was too late for thinking.He saw more stars, then darkness, then nothing at all.

--2--
    Will was sitting in the back of an ambulance when a black Suburban with smoked glass pulled into the parking lot of the Lil’ Dixie Gas-n-Go.
    “You all right?” the paramedic asked. “You just groaned.”
    “Yeah,” Will said. He had groaned. And with good reason. “Just having a bad day.”
    “No shit, dude.” The paramedic looked back at the Suburban. An older woman with a helmet of salt-and-pepper hair jumped down from the driver’s seat. She called something to the passenger, a blonde wearing the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s regulation dark blue shirt and tan khakis.
    The paramedic noted, “Somebody called in the big guns.”
    “Yeah,” Will repeated. He angled himself out of the ambulance, wincing from the pain in his shoulder. “Thanks for patching me up.”
    “You might wanna get that looked at.”
    “It’s all right.” Will winced as he tried to shrug his shoulder, which felt like it had slammed