Annihilate Me (Vol. 3) (The Annihilate Me Series) (2 page)

“That’s a bulletproof car.
 
Get back inside.”

In my clutch, my cell buzzed, which sent a
jolt of fear through me.

It could be Lisa
, I
thought.
 
But I knew better.

Behind me, I could hear Alex coming
closer.
 
Right now, I didn’t want
him anywhere near me, so I kept moving as I removed my phone and saw that it
wasn’t a text.
 
It was another
email.
 
I selected it, and my heart
went cold as I stopped to read the words on the screen.

“What is it?” Alex said.

I read it again.

“What does it say?”

I turned the screen around so he could
read it himself.

“You’re going to die with him,” the email
said.
 
“Sooner than later, you’ll
both be dead.
 
Say your goodbyes
now, Jennifer.
 
Give him that last
kiss on the sidewalk.
 
You know,
while you still have the chance.
 
We’ll give you two a moment to do so before we blow you apart.”

CHAPTER
THREE

“They know we’re on the sidewalk!” I said
in terror to Alex.
 

I looked around us.
 
The people walking up and down the
sidewalk either ignored us completely or shot us sidelong glances, likely
because Alex had left the car door open and it was obvious that we were having
an argument.
 

I looked up the street, down the street,
across the street.
 
At this time of
night, traffic was relatively light on Fifth, but the bright headlights of those
cars traveling downtown made it difficult to see much of anything up the street
or across the street.
 

“Somewhere, right now, somebody is
watching us.”

He took me by the arm.
 
“If that’s the case, then get back in
the car.
 
Don’t be stupid about
this.”

As furious as I was with him, I had no
choice but to agree with him—being out here in the open
was
stupid.
 
The car was fifteen feet
away.
 
The back door was open.
 
Gun drawn, the driver stepped outside
the car so that the car—for the most part—protected him.
 

But not completely.
 
Not from all sides.

The sight of the gun caused those on the
sidewalk to quicken their pace.
 
Some broke into a run.
 
I
saw eyes widen and lips part.
 
By
being on the sidewalk, I was putting everyone around me at risk.
 
I needed to get back into the car and
deal with Alex later, so I ducked my head and hurried into the car with him.

We slid into the back seat.
 
Alex slammed the door shut behind us,
ordered the driver to get back inside and get us out of there.

At that moment, the sound of a rifle went
off.
 
Instinctively, I jerked away
from the window just as a bullet slammed into it.
 
Glass spidered around it, though the window didn’t break.
 
Instead, it seemed to hold the bullet
in its clutch like a spider wrapping its next meal in a web of netting.
 
I heard myself scream, though it seemed
as if I was standing outside of myself.
 
Not quite there.
 
Not quite
present.
 
The bullet was in line
with my head.
 
Without this glass
and this bulletproof car, I would have been dead.

The next several moments passed in a
blur.
 

Alex pulled me closer to him as the car
lurched into motion, cut into the traffic moving down Fifth, and sliced across
the street, where we nearly were struck by oncoming cars.
 

Horns sounded.
 
Brakes squealed.
 
Our car swerved recklessly forward.
 
Across the street, I saw another car—a black
car—starting to pull away from the curb.
 
We were heading directly toward it with such increasing
speed that our driver shouted for us to get down and to brace ourselves.

He’s going to ram into
it....

Alex took hold of my head and pressed it
into his lap before covering my body with his own.
 
The ensuing collision rocked us forward with such force that
I would have fallen off the seat and likely been seriously hurt if Alex hadn’t been
holding on to me so tightly.
 
Still, the jolt was significant enough that it strained my neck and I
felt something in my right shoulder give.

Outside, people screamed.
 
Shouted.
 
I looked at Alex, saw that he appeared to be fine—at
least physically—and felt relieved and grateful that he was OK despite my
earlier anger.
 
I sat up, stretched
my neck in a daze, and looked out the front window while rubbing my
shoulder.
 
On the street, a crowd
of people was on the sidewalk, all slowly backing away from the scene.

The driver had hit the black car with such
force that its driver’s side door was unrecognizable.
 
Smoke started to billow from beneath the hood.
 
I saw blood on the door’s broken
window—too much of it for me to fully grasp—but there was no sign
of the driver.
 
No sign of someone
who was hurt and struggling to get out.
 
My stomach clenched as my mind went to the worst possible
scenarios—whoever had been inside was either dead or ready to act again
despite their injuries.

“Stay where you are,” the driver
directed.
 
“Do not leave the car
unless I tell you to do so.”

With his gun poised in front of him, he
left the car, crouched into position, and slowly moved around to the
front.
 
All around us, traffic
either darted forward to avoid what was unfolding, or slowed so that passengers
could witness as much as possible before they had no choice but to move
forward.
 

Again, horns blared.
 
In the distance, police sirens
wailed.
 
Someone on the sidewalk
must have called 911.
 
They must
have reported seeing someone standing beside a black Mercedes with a gun
trained on a target across the street.
 
I turned to Alex, saw the grim expression on his face, and then I looked
at the driver who was approaching the other car with caution.

“He could get shot,” I said to Alex.
 

“He’s wearing a vest.”

“
On his head?
 
Is his chest the only place he could be shot?
”

“He’s trained, Jennifer.
 
He’s far more than a mere driver.”

“Pull him back.
 
Have him wait for the police.”

But Alex didn’t reply or act.
 
His eyes remained fixed on the
driver.
 
I noticed that his hand
was on the door handle and that he was prepared to get involved if
necessary.
 
Fear threaded through
me, laced by adrenaline and fueled by instinct.
 
If he planned to get out of the car to help the driver, I
wouldn’t be able to hold him back.
 
He was too strong.
 
And
there would be no holding him back if that’s what he intended to do.
 
Apparently, he thought that his fists
would be enough to assist the driver if the shooter in the car was alive and
waiting for a clear shot at whomever showed themselves first.

“Is there another gun in here?” I asked.

When I spoke, Alex seemed to come back
into himself.
 
His eyes blinked, he
glanced at me with a fury I hadn’t seen in him before, and then he reached
beneath the seat.
 
With a firm tug,
he pulled out a sophisticated-looking handgun.
 
It was sleek with a matte, dark gray metal finish.
 
Except for what I’d seen on television
or in the movies, I knew next to nothing about guns.
 
But even that exposure was enough to inform me on some basic
level about how they worked.
 

As for Alex?
 
He obviously was comfortable with a gun.
 
With skilled ease, he removed the
bottom part of the handle, which slid out so he could check inside the chamber,
presumably for bullets.
 
Satisfied,
he slammed the clip back into the gun and watched the driver move closer to the
damaged car, which was spewing so much smoke that I was becoming less worried
about a fire, and more about an explosion.

“Stand down!” the driver yelled into the
car.
 
He was on the sidewalk now,
inching toward the passenger-side window.
 
“Stand down or I
will
shoot you!”

Is the person inside alive?

The crowd on the sidewalk seemed to ebb
and flow, like a tide sweeping in on currents of curiosity before being pulled
away by fear.
 
But this city was
nothing if not a city of heroes, and I could tell by the way some of the young
men in the crowd were behaving—standing on their toes, 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.