Harper has her head out the window pointing at something up ahead. “There’s something up there. What’s he heading for?”

Mesquite trees are lined up in the distance, signaling there’s a dry river bed up ahead. They are thick, big enough to possibly stop the Hummer if I try to plow through them. “If he can make it to the river bed he can lose us. Harper,” I say, pointing to the gun tucked under my thigh, “grab the gun. When I pull up next to him, you shoot out the tires, OK?”

“What? No! I don’t shoot guns! I’ll hit Sasha!”

“How the f**k do you not shoot guns?” But the conversation drops off when I hit a good-sized ocotillo plant. Instincts kick in and we both shield our eyes from the onslaught of flying limbs that splatter against the windshield. “Fuck! The ocotillos are everywhere!” It’s like someone planted the tall twiggy bushes on purpose to keep off-roaders away. “Harper!” I grab her by the arm. “You drive, herd him towards that wall of ocotillos over there! I’ll shoot out the tires and even if he gets away, the thorns will—”

“James! I can’t drive!”

“What the f**k? How the hell?” But the biker is on to me and he swerves. I head the opposite direction, anticipating his evasive move, and direct him back where I want him.

“I don’t see Sasha! What if she’s back at the house?”

She’s right. Fuck.

“There’s a scope in the back, Harper, get it out and look. I think she’s slumped over on the tank.”

Harp climbs in back and starts fishing through a box of gear on the floor. A few seconds later she gasps. “She’s on the tank, but she looks dead!”

I swerve again to keep the biker going towards the ocotillos and not towards the line of mesquites. He guns it, mistaking the dried stalks as dead tree branches, and throttles through the wall of thorns. I follow, but unlike him and Sasha, I’ve got a windshield to protect me. The bike swerves severely, and they are going forty-five or fifty miles an hour at least, so for a moment I panic, thinking he’s gonna kill the Smurf with a wipeout.

But he recovers and now that he’s through the wall of thorns, he’s got a straight shot to the riverbed where the wall of mesquites will let him slip by and stop us dead.

Harper opens the sun roof and sticks her head out.

“Shoot that f**ker, Harper!” She ignores me, but she’s climbing up through the sunroof. “What the f**k are you doing? Get your ass back in here and get this gun!”

The bike is way out ahead now, more than fifty yards, and the whole thing is looking more and more hopeless when he begins to slow. “The tire’s going flat from the thorns!” Harp yells. “Pull up to him, James, pull up next to him and I’ll shoot the other tire.” She reaches down and grabs the gun, then lifts herself back up through the sunroof. But this time her legs disappear.

She’s on top of the f**king roof! She’s gone crazy!

Chapter Twelve - Harper

“Pull up closer, James!” I yell down from the roof. I might not be able to shoot and I might not be able to drive, but I can fight hand to hand like a motherfucker. I’m not nearly as helpless as people think.

We swerve one way, then the other and my body goes sliding across the roof. My fingers latch onto the sun roof opening and my feet brace against the roof rack and I hold fast until James straightens out the Hummer. The dirt bike is slowing considerably now, but the wash is not far away. If the biker makes it through the mesquite trees and down into the dry river bed, he can ride that flat tire right into town. And then we’ll lose Sasha. Maybe I just met her, but she’s with us. And that means she’s important.

“Shoot now, Harper!” James yells from below. He’s pulled up close, within a few feet. “Shoot!”

I throw the gun down into the cab because there’s no way I can shoot that thing and not hit the little girl slumped over the top of the tank. She’s bleeding from the thorns, I can see that now. The biker has a helmet on, so he’s just fine. But poor Sasha.

“What the f**k are you doing?” James swerves as he yells and my body goes careening off to one side again. I grab the sun roof as I slide past and pull myself back to the driver’s side where I can see the bike. James has the gun now, he points it, but we hit a bump and the shot misses.

The Hummer and the bike slow at the same time once we all realize there’s a large gully less than thirty feet away. This is it. If he gets into that thing, we’ve lost. James swerves to avoid a spiky desert plant, and that brings us to within a few feet of the struggling bike.

I’ll take it.

I pull myself into a crouch, then launch myself at them like a missile. I hit the biker in the back and he collapses forward on top of Sasha. The bike swerves beneath us and then we’re sliding sideways on the sand. My legs burn as millions of grains of dirt turn into an endless sheet of sandpaper, but I manage to keep his body between me and the ground.

The bike comes to a stop but I keep going for a few more feet. This gives the biker a chance to grab a gun from a shoulder holster. I feel nothing. No pain. The only sense I have at the moment is sight. The only thing I see is a killer with a gun. I scramble towards him at the same time he gets a shot off. The bullet passes so close to my shoulder I feel the breeze of luck.

And then I see red. I see red and my world is silent as the counter-move presents itself in my mind.

I breathe, once, twice, and then I’m upon him. He lands a punch square on my cheek and my head snaps to the side, but I compensate. I feel nothing in a fight. I only see. And what I see now is my opportunity. So while his fist is following through in an arc required by the laws of physics, my hands are wrapped around his helmet.

I squeeze tightly, and then…

I twist.

The span of a breath changes everything. I dislocate the head from the spine in less time than it takes to breathe one breath.

His body goes limp just like that. Life. Ended. It’s that easy. His head falls into my lap and then the red subsides and the rush of reality snaps back into my forward senses.

I hear yelling. James is yelling for me to stop.

I look down at my hands as they tug on the helmet.

“Stop!” he screams. “Do not take that helmet off!”

Chapter Thirteen - James

“Stop!”

Fuck! I grab Harper’s arm and drag her away from the body before she can take that helmet off. “Over here, Harp. Over here!” Her eyes are wild with the fight and this is the moment when I realize something.