Hey! It seems you actually liked the previous chapter more than I did. Thanks for all the positive feedback and kind words. It always makes my day to read your reviews or/and messages.

Sorry for creating the space for more questions than answers (and this chapter isn't going to answer any more), but I promise it'll all be answered eventually.

Steve closed his eyes for a moment, trying to think around the pain. He had no idea what to do next.

No doubt about it. He was screwed.

More of the glowing blue light seeped in through the curtains as the unknown number of police cars approached the cabin.

"Steve?"

He opened his eyes.

"You need to go." The panic was rising in Jerry's eyes. He reached into his pocket for the cell phone and offered it to Steve. "Take this so I can find you later on."

Frozen in the spot, Steve kept staring at him.

"There's the back door in the kitchen and an RV parked in there," Jerry said. "Go! I'll try to buy you some time."

Realizing what that meant, Steve shook his head. "No," he said. "You've already done more than enough. I can't let you do that."

"Look, while you were asleep, I cleared all the traces of having done anything at all from my laptop, okay? There's no way they can prove I've done what I've done."

Steve opened up his mouth to protest. Leaving him behind like this just wasn't right at all. Especially not after his friend had risked so much to help save his life.

"Jerry…"

"Go!"

He could hear the cars stop on the driveway, and knew the police officers would soon block the other entrance as well. It was now or never.

"Please?" Jerry locked his eyes with Steve. "Don't let this all be for nothing."

Steve exhaled a sigh, grabbed the phone from Jerry's outstretched hand, and rushed across the room, moving as fast as his battered body allowed him to.

He double-checked it was safe before heading out and making his way to the old RV Jerry had told him about.

One look at the vehicle already had him worried it would be good for nothing, though. It was old, rust eating up the metal in several places. He couldn't help but think that if his friends wanted a backup vehicle, they could have gotten a better one. But this thing looked more like it hadn't moved for years. Maybe it hadn't, judging by the lack of tracks anywhere near.

Steve heard the voices speaking, and knew there would be cops coming his way soon to secure the other entrance too. He had to move.

As quickly as he could, he climbed inside. The keys had been left in the ignition. He had no idea whether the engine would work, though. It didn't look like it had been taken care of at all. But there was only one way to find out. He twisted the key and pumped down on the gas.

The engine croaked and spluttered, a noise that he certainly didn't need now.

Come on.

"Hey! HPD!" he heard someone yelling, but didn't waste time to turn and check. "Get out of the car and show me your hands!"

For a split second, Steve actually considered it. But it wouldn't help anyone. Not to his ohana, and certainly not to himself. Roederer would win that way, and he couldn't let that happen. This had to end, once and for all. There was only one way to achieve that, and it most certainly wasn't getting caught.

He had to find Roederer to clear his name before it was too late.

"Get out or I'll shoot!"

Steve twisted the key again.

The engine coughed and barked and then fired, a thin rumble that he could feel through the floor. The car had been left in gear, and it jerked forwards.

The HPD officer opened up a fire just as another one joined him.

Steve reached down with his hand and yanked up on the handbrake, then punched down on the gas. The car bumped and then picked up speed. The firing continued from all sides, rounds lancing in through the metal and punching out again.

As he came round the cabin, the road ahead was blocked by two police cruisers. The engine was screeching in first, and he took the stick and crunched down into second, wrenching the stiff steering wheel just in time to avoid slamming the car into the gatepost.

He looked in the side mirrors: the one to his left had been destroyed, but the other one was intact, the officer left following after it on foot. He saw muzzle flashes as two guns fired, the bullets winging into the RV and ricocheting off with metallic pings. Steve crashed into the rear of the cruiser, bouncing it out of the way. He would have preferred to have been in something like that, something with a little more power than this old heap, but there was no time to change vehicles.

He gave himself a thirty-second head start. He had to make it count.

Steve sped through the driveway and out onto the road. He swung the wheel around and hauled the RV to the right, passing several small junctions before reaching the crossroads that bisected the Kamehameha highway. He ignored the stop sign, skidding around in a wide loop and bouncing off the row of parked cars outside of a modern office building. Metal crunched loudly and alarms sounded, a pedestrian shrieking abuse at him, as he stomped on the gas again and changed up the gear.

Behind him, he heard the sound of a police siren.

He looked down at the speedometer. He was doing fifty, and the engine was already protesting. He might be able to squeeze sixty out of it, if he was lucky, but no more. The RV wasn't built for speed, and, what was more, this one had no doubt been idle for a long time. It had been a small miracle that it had started at all, and he didn't want to push his luck.

He swerved around two cars waiting for a red light, slaloming between oncoming traffic from the left and the right, a noise of angry horns sounding in his wake. He pulled out to overtake a small SUV, and swung in ahead of it just in time to avoid a truck coming in the opposite direction. Two more angry horns sounded as he pulled away.

Checking the rear mirror, he almost missed the bus crossing the road ahead of him. The bus horn shrieked as the driver saw the RV barrelling towards him. There was no way to maneuver the RV to either side to avoid a crash, so with no other cards to play, Steve counterclockwised the wheel hard and screeched around to the left, teetering on two wheels briefly until the RV straightened out and all four wheels touched down again.

Steve followed the road to the outskirts of Laie, the road dipping down and then climbing again. The siren grew louder and, as he looked back in the mirror, he saw the blue lights of two cruisers as they sped along in pursuit.

But it weren't the police cruisers that got his attention. It was a car that joined them now. A black Chevrolet Suburban with red and blue lights flashing on the top of the windscreen. Steve could recognize it was one of the FBI vehicles in a split second. It was directly behind him and coming fast. He would never be able to outrun it. He had to go someplace they couldn't follow. Luckily, he knew the island just enough to know where he was and quickly craft his escape strategy.

The engine began to splutter. Steve looked down at the dash again and saw that the fuel gauge was showing empty.

Come on.

He took a sharp turn right. More and more trees began to make an appearance on each side of the road, leaving the busy town behind. After a few seconds, the asphalt ran out, and the road continued as a bare track littered with fist-sized rocks. He lost speed, but the Chevrolet did not. It drew nearer and nearer, the HPD cruisers now further behind.

Steve gripped the wheel tight and kept his foot down hard, pressing the gas pedal to the floor.

The Chevrolet was close, twenty feet behind and narrowing the gap, but Steve didn't mind that now. He wanted it to be close. It suited what he had in mind.

He swung across to the right of the road, leaving enough space for the car to accelerate on his left. He turned and looked and saw an unfamiliar man at the wheel, the flashing lights pouring into the vehicle. Agent Hoffman was in the passenger seat, his split lip curled into a furious frown. The window was open and he had a pistol in hand. But it wasn't aimed at the wheels nor the vehicle as one would expect in a police chase. It was pointed right at Steve.

Too close to miss.

A sharp pain pierced Steve's arm, distracting him just for a second before taking back control. He couldn't afford to think about that now, he had to keep moving.

Steve waited until the last possible second, so near to the group of massive trees lining the road. He heaved the wheel to the left, hitting the Chevrolet from the side. It propelled the car to the side, and in a desperate attempt to avoid the trees, the driver jerked the wheel to the side, oblivious to the steep terrain.

He knew it was going to turn over before it happened. He continued forward, looking in the mirror as the Chevrolet rolled over to the side and blocked the road, forcing the HPD cruisers to stop too.

He might have looked for just a second too long, though, because when he shifted his eyes back to the road ahead, the unpaved road dipped down into a steep slope. It was too late to take the turn, let alone to stop.

Trying to slow down the heavy vehicle as it rushed down the rocky hill turned out to be pointless, and Steve kept swerving the wheel right and left to avoid the trees coming his way. The RV bounced up on the uneven terrain, the front wheels buckling as they crashed over the wood and rocks. Its forward momentum was more than enough to keep it going down the hill, steeper on this side, until the front of the RV buried itself into the ditch created by a small stream.

The sudden impact propelled Steve from the seat, bouncing him off the wheel. His head crashed against the dashboard and his vision dimmed. His ears filled with the ringing over the screaming sirens.

Steve's head swam and, as he opened his eyes, he saw two of everything. He wanted to rest, to let the screeching noise in his head subside, to assess the bellow of pain from his left arm. His hearing corrected itself, and the sound of sirens became deeper, an angry wailing that wouldn't stop.

The sirens. HPD. Hoffman.

He came around. He had only bought himself a little time. They would be on him in a minute, and now he had no transport to use to get away from them. He had to get clear and spend the advantage he had won to put some distance between them.

He reached his left hand for the handle next to the door and started to pull himself out of the seat. The pain in his arm intensified. He let go and probed with his right hand. His arm was tender and sore, and the harder he pressed, the worse the pain became.

But it was just another ache adding up to all the others and there was no time to worry about that.

The RV was tilted forwards at about sixty degrees. The angle pressed his chest against the wheel. Steve turned so he could reach his right hand over the back of the seat and pulled himself back into the salon, grabbing the back of a chair, an open cupboard door, the table's single leg, anything within reach. He didn't have the time to make a proper search, but he knew he couldn't just run. He had already decided that he was going to hide in the jungle until he had the chance to assess the situation, but he had nothing with him. He had to find the essentials.

He found a bag in the cupboard. There was a first-aid kit above his head, and he yanked it off the wall and stuffed it into the small backpack found on the floor. He found a flashlight in a cupboard beneath the sink, a nylon line that was used to dry clothes, a kitchen knife, cable ties, a roll of dental floss from the bathroom, and a small bottle of alcohol-based sanitising gel. It wasn't much, but he would have to improvise.

There was no time to lose. He made his way out, glancing around to check for incoming officers or agents. He couldn't see any, but he could hear voices loud enough to suggest they would be here soon.

Steve slung the backpack over his shoulders and then forced himself between the trees and bushes, struggling through the vegetation that just got thicker and thicker.

He rushed through the woods, each stride sending a flash of pain up from his arm. He stumbled on a log sticking out of the soft ground, righted himself, and kept going.

Lightning flashed overhead and Steve swore. The sky had been clear when he had woken up back in the cabin, but his luck didn't seem to last and he could smell the storm coming in the air. Another lightning slashed across the sky, and he could briefly make out the line of trees, underbrush, rocks, and, beyond that, the darkest of the deep jungle and the slow climb up the flanks of the mountains. The lightning flickered away, and darkness fell once more.

He had to keep going.

He heard the shouts and exclamations. Hoffman, and whoever else Roederer had drawn into his conspiracy were out of their vehicles and after him. He concentrated on his footing, his eyes scanning the ground ahead of him, occasionally looking up to measure his progress to the trees.

There came the sound of a gun, the whistle of a bullet and the wet thud as it punched in the mud to his left. Another gunshot and another splash of mud, this time to his right. He picked up the pace, his vision beginning to blur, and with another shot ringing out, Steve knew that he wasn't going to make it.

*to be continued*

I hope you enjoyed the car chase. It wasn't in the original outline of my story, but the muse went wild and I thought, why not?

Thanks in advance to those who find a moment to share their thoughts via a review or PM.