Chapter 20: The Chase
"I raise my flags, don my clothes I'm breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus
It's a revolution, I suppose
We're painted red to fit right in
Whoa
This is it, the apocalypse"
Radioactive – Imagine Dragons
Braga wasn't all that surprised to learn Giselle had turned on him. In face he'd admit he was a little disappointed in himself. He should have ended her sooner. But no matter. She'd die with the rest of them. He threw his car into gear and peeled out of the garage with Fenix and two other cars behind him. He did not spare a second glance to the wreckage and flames of the Villa around him. It was just a place, and it could be replaced. The guards could be replaced. Drivers, he was used to replacing.
It would cost him, and that was the part that annoyed Braga, but he didn't let that linger in his mind. He focused on his target.
"Giselle is in the red Plymouth," he told Fenix through his headset. "Take it out."
"Got it," came the reply, and the cars peeled out of the broken gate and down the long drive towards the highway.
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Letty kicked her car into the next gear as Giselle turned to watch out the rearview mirror.
"We have four cars in pursuit," she said, her voice carrying through the system to the rest of the team.
"V, Bri, you guys in position?" Dom's voice filtered back to them and the two men murmured the affirmative. Giselle glanced towards Letty questioningly, but the other woman didn't look back at her, concentrating on staying well ahead of their pursuers.
Giselle could see she was a good driver, had probably been behind the wheel of a vehicle since before she would have legally been allowed to drive. It was like the car was an extension of her body. Few people drove like that. She'd seen Fenix drive that way before. But with him the car was also a weapon. When Giselle caught a glimpse of the green Gran Torino in the side mirror catching up to them she stiffened.
"Fenix is after us," she said. "He's the one to watch out for, the Gran Torino. Braga can drive but not nearly as well. Fenix is his guard dog. He'll send him after us specifically. He's probably pissed he didn't kill me sooner."
"Yeah? Well you're about to figure out how to make yourself real useful girl," Letty drawled, her expression showing that she was less than pleased to have the passenger in her car. Giselle figured it hadn't been her call to rescue the woman who'd held her prisoner only a few days ago.
"I'll need my gun back for that."
Letty seemed to hesitate then nodded and Giselle reached over to get the pistol from where it was stashed in the cup holder. She shifted to look over her shoulder, taking a slow breath. Fenix was coming up fast.
She turned back to look ahead of them, seeing the two other cars flanking them. Dom and Leon, she knew now. They kept speed with one another as the four cars, Fenix at point, drew closer. Giselle wanted to sink down into her seat. She wanted Letty to slam on the gas and take them away.
"Why don't you guys just outrun them?" she asked.
"You know as well as I do that it won't stop them. They know where my friend lives. They torched his wife's clinic. They killed two innocent women. You think that okay?" Letty's voice was icy, accusing.
"No…" Giselle's reply was weak. "I couldn't stop him.."
"Did you even try?"
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Fenix could feel the engine of his car roaring as he threw it into the next gear, his palm caressing the gear shift as he pressed down on the clutch. He could see the cars getting closer. He knew they weren't going as fast as they could have. They wanted him to catch them. But that didn't matter. They were in way over their heads.
Speeding up he swerved to the right, wedging between the Chevelle and the red Plymouth with Giselle in it. He heard the cars crunch together, saw both other vehicles swerve briefly before straightening out. He saw Giselle pointing her gun out the passenger window and grinned at her darkly before sharply turning the wheel. His car slammed into the red one, scraping metal and denting deep into the passenger's side. The other car swerved again as the woman driving downshifted and took her foot off the gas, turning the wheel to regain control.
Giselle took aim and fired off a few shots, but they embedded into the bullet-proof glass of his window. He blew her a kiss as her car sped up again and she glared at him in return.
He had made the mistake of forgetting about the Chevelle on his right and then suddenly his own vehicle was careening out of control as something slammed into him from the other side. He turned his head, catching a glimpse of a bald-headed man with muscular arms. Fenix swerved between his car and the red Plymouth, dodging another attempt at ramming him.
"I could use some back up!" he barked through his headset and was rewarded by one of the other drivers coming up to ram the Chevelle in the rear.
"Keep him and the one on the left busy for me," he muttered as he refocused on the women in the red vehicle. They had pulled further ahead and Fenix kicked it up to pursue as they streaked ahead of the remaining cars.
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Braga pulled up into the spot Fenix had vacated, between the two other cars now. He didn't care who these drivers were. He only cared that they would be dead soon and no longer a problem for them.
"Take them out," he ordered the other drivers, swerving wildly between the two to force them to slow down to not hit them. Eddie came up from behind, ramming the left-handed car from behind. It swerved slightly before righting itself and then shifted to prevent Eddie from coming up alongside or passing. Braga narrowed his eyes and turned hard to the left to ram into the vehicle from the side. It careened off the road, swerving into the long grass and kicking up mud and dirt, but the driver slowed to compensate, maneuvering back onto the road. However, the trick had gotten Eddie up ahead of them now and he took this chance to fire off several shots at them. The cars were bullet-proofed, but the tires weren't and one well-placed shot caught the front passenger tire. The car swerved, harder to control with a flat at high speeds, then shot up a rain of sparks when the rim scraped against the pavement. The vehicle slowed and eventually came to a stop on the side of the road.
Braga smiled as they sped past. One down, two to go.
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Leon cursed as he heard his rim squealing and scraping against the pavement. They could keep driving on it, but the car would be impossible to control at high speeds, and they'd ruin the wheel, making it impossible to even get the spare on.
"I'm going to put on the spare," he told Dom through his headset. "Then I'll be right back there."
"Watch yourself," Dom rumbled back. "One of them is falling back, probably to take care of you…"
"Shit," Leon muttered, fishing for the pistol he'd stashed under his seat. Syd was already moving to open the door but he grabbed her arm and yanked her back. "Stay in the car," he ordered. "Get down and stay out of sight."
"But Leon-" "I'm serious baby don't fight me on this."
He hit the automatic lock on the car and sat stiffly as Syd hunkered down in the back seat. He could see one of the cars driving back in their direction. It was the same on with the guy who'd shot out his tire. His jaw clenched. It was payback time.
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Dom didn't let himself worry about Leon and Syd as he concentrated on the two cars that were still dead set on running him off the road. One was riding his back bumper while the other swerved in from the left hand repeated, trying to knock into him. He had to concentrate to avoid the hits, and yanked his wheel hard enough to push the bastard back more than once. He could tell that Mia was on edge in the passenger seat, but she kept her cool, trusting him to keep them safe. Up ahead he could see Letty doing her damnedest to keep ahead of the green Gran Torino and only hoped she could hold onto her lead until they got to the others.
His gaze flicked to the rearview mirror and then he briefly met eyes with Mia who nodded slightly. The car behind him was coming up again, fast and Dom suddenly slammed on the brakes, his tires squealing against the pavement. The car that had been next to them kept flying ahead, slow to react and the pursuer did not fare any better. The front of his car slammed into the rear of Dom's, the hood knocking up against the bumper of the Chevelle. The driver tried to compensate by slamming on his own brakes, but he only signed his own death warrant as he lost total control of his vehicle. The back wheels were airborne and the car was nose down into the ground and for one ridiculous moment it was sliding across the highway like that before it flipped onto its roof. The momentum carried it and it continued to slide across the pavement, metal crunching and squealing as if it were being run across a cheese grater.
Pulling his attention back to the remaining car, Dom narrowed his eyes in concentration and shifted back into a higher gear.