A/N: More story. Thanks for reading on!

Burying Dirt

Chapter Fourteen: Benedictress

No time. To think. None. Man almost to the car. Gun. Sedan closing. Van too.

Trap.

One foot freed brake, one punched gas. Car lept from the line of parked cars into the lane of moving traffic. Horns, tire-squeals. Into the intersection just as the van reached it. Whipped the car around, sedan behind. Timing. Timing.

Sedan, weightier, clumsier, could not duplicate her turn. Slammed into the front corner of the van.

Time.

Time gained. Gas to the floor, engine screams, release. Passenger window shatters, shards of safety glass like heavy snow. Man, running, silenced shot as she completed the turn. Pinpricks of embedded shards. Ignore them. Ahead of the sedan, rearview. Coming again, though. Van behind. Now a chase, not a trap. Distance gained.

Space.

Carina? Chuck?

Shot through the next two intersections, ran the red lights, feather's-breadth avoidance of cross-flow traffic. Plunged in the stream and rose out, no splash, miraculously unwrecked. Right-hand turn. Gun it.

Sedan and van stymied by traffic, rearview empty, next intersection. Right-hand turn. No sign of local law enforcement. A Spookshow. Good. I am the Queen of the Spooks. Slowed down, fading into traffic. Other cars fold in behind her, obscuring hers.

Blocks. Cross street. Pulse audible, palpable. Down the alley where she dropped Carina and Chuck.

At the far end, she saw Carina, gun out. Carina pushed Chuck. the side door of a van, different van. One driver. Carina grabbed the side-door handle, shut it, glanced down the alley.

Locked eyes. Sarah felt hers ice over. Carina's flashed panic and she reached for the passenger door, yelling to the driver. She jumped in. The van already running.

Sarah punched the gas into the floorboard. But the van's side door opened, rolling. Chuck jumped out, landed awkwardly, fell hard to pavement.

Sarah stopped the car just before hitting him, slammed brakes, tires screaming. Chuck got up, leaning on the front of the car, worked his way to the passenger door. The van stopped.

Sarah brushed glass shards from the passenger seat.

Chuck clambered in. Gasping. Blood seeping through his shirt, shoulder. The van barrelled backward at them.

Sarah jammed the car in reverse and punched the gas again. The van gained on them, then the car began to pull away. Time. Space.

Fishtail spin into the street, out of reverse. Forward! Drive! The van oncoming, battering ram.

Just missed. Sailed behind. The assassin sped into traffic. The van tried to turn but took too long. Left-hand turn. Drive. Right-hand turn. Drive.

Rearview, empty of enemies. The assassin took a full breath. At last. Almost dizzy. Worry-sick. Chuck reached up to touch his left shoulder, right hand. Blood.

"Chuck, are you okay?" Sarah asked.

"Pulled my stitches. Hurts. But, yeah, I'm okay. And by the way, that Carina, your friend, she's a bitch."

The assassin gritted her teeth. Payback would be a bitch too.

Turned onto the first highway, sped from town.

ooOoo

Roadside rest. Car parked among tractor-trailers.

Still inside, Sarah helped Chuck remove the bloody shirt. He was right: stitches had pulled but the wound had not reopened. It was healing well, the deeper layers. Using the shirt, she wiped the wound carefully. Full of care.

"I'll get you another shirt from the trunk." Pulled the lever at her feet.

Sarah got out, walked around to the trunk. Her things in a plastic grocery bag, Chuck's in another. Carina's suitcase. Right. Check that later. Grabbed a shirt from Chuck's bag. Walked to the missing passenger window. "Stay in the car. Here's a shirt. I'll go get something to clean the wound better." Started to turn.

Chuck's hand caught hers.

"Thanks for coming back for me. She was going to turn me in. Graham. Thanks."

Always. — Stop.

Sarah squeezed Chuck's hand. "At least we never told her about Omaha. About the Buy More."

Chuck looked at Sarah. "I wondered why you kept so much from her."

"Experience," Sarah answered and the assassin continued: "Like I told you, she's always playing her own games. She chose to play the wrong one this time." She felt Chuck's eyes on her, a reaction to her change, but she turned toward the building, the bathrooms.

Wet paper towels in hand, she returned, got other things from the trunk. Dabbed the wound, cleaned and disinfected it. The bruising, green-yellow. Tried not to think of her bullet tearing his flesh, dear flesh. — Stop.

No, I did this. — I have to tell. Live with the consequences. I will tell, as soon as he is safe, as soon as I won't be leaving him in danger.

Not thinking, brushed her fingers soft along the skin of his upper arm. Kissed his neck. Again. Breathed him in. Deep in, his scent inside her, essential.

All her life. A hologram. Insubstantial. No insides. Wraith ringed about with corpses. Only death substantial. Her occupancy of space an illusion. No insides. Insubstantial.

Carina: Nobody.

Chuck had such eyes, the kind the White King wanted: "To be able to see Nobody!"

Chuck had seen Sarah Nobody and, so seeing, such seeing, made her substantial, somebody. But — how to be somebody? No clue. Who is this I in me?

"Sarah?"

"What?"

"Are you alright? You drifted off there."

"Sorry, aftereffects of all the adrenaline. Put your shirt back on." Help me stop daydreaming, hoping for something I can't see.

Shirt on. Focus. "So what happened with Carina, Chuck? Tell me slowly this time, with details."

"Well, we got out of the car and went into the building, climbed the steps. She kept jabbing at me. You see, she...she stopped by my room last night before you did…"

"Really?"

"Um...yeah. She...as weird as this sounds...she offered to sleep with me, although that way of putting it seems a little...tame." He glanced at her sideways. "Are you mad at me?"

"Did you sleep with her, Chuck?"

"No!"

"So why would I be mad at you?"

"I don't know...I'm just so far out of my element. Assassination attempts. Dead spies. Live spies. Live women, spies, in underwear. You, Sarah, ...and what I'm feeling…"

Don't say it, Chuck. Sarah felt warm all over. Stop.

"So," the assassin interrupted, "what was she saying — on the stairs?"

"That I really screwed up. She kept emphasizing 'screwed'."

"I can imagine. What Carina told you about me was the story about her."

"Oh. Right. Now, that feels...right, if you know what I mean. — Anyway, we got to the top floor and went out onto the roof. I walked to the ledge, leaned over to find your car, and...she put a gun to the back of my head."

The assassin's lips formed a cold line. Bitch.

"She laughed and said, 'You should've screwed me last night, then at least you'd have been able to face things with a load off your mind.'"

The assassin shook her head, liquid-hydrogen fury. "Carina's endless double entendres…"

"Yeah, that one was a real hoot," Chuck offered, deep frown.

"So, we stood there, her with the gun on me, and watched as the car and the van closed in on you. Carina muttered that it was for your own good. It took me a minute to process it all, her...betrayal. I yelled to you at just the same time as you pulled into traffic."

He gave her a look, confessing failure. "Carina hit me in the shoulder. With the gun. That's how the stitches got pulled. Not in my clumsy fall or not just then. I landed on my side, mostly.

"When you sped off, she yanked me toward the stairs, made me run down them. She made a call as we did. When we got to the bottom, we stood there for a minute or two, then the van came. She shoved me inside, told me I would meet Graham face-to-face."

"Face-to-face? Bastard must be in LA…"

"So what do we do now, Sarah?" Chuck's expression softened and he took her hand, noticed the shards of safety glass speckling her skin, carefully brushed them away. "If you think we should run, I'll run...with you. But I'm scared. For my sister, my friends. If...Graham is here, then...Jesus, I should have left it all alone. Omaha. Mom and dad. All of it. What did I hope to accomplish?..."

"We can't run, Chuck," — caught his gaze, held it in her own — "even though I want to. With you. But...I won't risk the people...you care about. And if we run, this just goes on and on. Graham's shown his hand. No holds barred." She started the car.

"So where are we going?"

"It's time to get Omaha. Time to go to the Buy More. But we have some stops to make on the way and some calls."

"What about Carina?"

"After the Buy More, Carina."

"And after Carina?"

"Graham."

And after that? Sarah, the assassin, asked herself. — No answer.

A/N: Tune in next time for Chapter 15, "Big Box Store, Little Box Casket". Thoughts? Love to hear from you!