Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 23

UNDER JEM'S HEAVY FOOT, the Ford Escape roared like a caged lion.

The speedometer's needle was kissing one-ten by the time he eased off the gas, and even then he didn't let it fall below a hundred.

As the overpass grew smaller in the rearview mirror, the events of the last twenty-four hours cartwheeled furiously through Jem's mind.

Why had Petar kidnapped him? What did he mean when he talked about the fate of the world? It was the talk of the insane, but the really crazy thing was, Petar didn't seem crazy at all. In fact, Jem had almost considered going along with it. Just for a whisper of a moment, the thought that he might ride it out had tugged at Jem's neurons. Just buckle up and let the devil's winds whisk him somewhere new.

As he'd been crouched behind the retaining wall beside the truck stop loading bay, waiting for Petar to realize he was gone and give chase so that he could double back, he'd been on the brink of simply standing up, going back in the way he'd come, and stepping out the front door with an armload of snacks. Another minute of waiting, and who knows what would have happened.

But at the cusp of it all, thoughts of his family had kept him grounded. He wondered where his mother and sister were. Were they worried about him? Was his mom okay? The questions fluttered and danced, ghosts in the aether.

They needed him, and so he needed to go back to them.

And so the moment had passed. By the time he saw Petar step out of the loading bay, his back no more than twelve feet away from Jem's crouched form, he'd already made up his mind to go through with it.

And here he was, tearing asphalt in a direct line away from the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.

After about twenty minutes, Jem slowed the SUV to eighty. He knew he could explain his speed if he passed a radar trap – fleeing a kidnapper was probably pretty high on the list of acceptable reasons to exceed the speed limit – but he also didn't want the extra delay. Now that he was on the wings of the homeward flight, he wanted more than anything to just get home, find his mother and sister healthy and waiting for him, and just forget the whole thing ever happened.

Ten minutes later, he eased the speedometer down to a clipped seventy. He'd seen the police cruisers speeding toward the exit ramp in the other lane as he flew by, so he knew Petar wasn't following him. It had been half an hour; he was probably already behind bars.

Not for the first time, a soft twinge of regret settled over Jem, but he quickly pushed it from his mind. It was over.

As the miles rolled by, Jem found himself wondering what Jayne was doing, and why she hadn't called the night before. Lost her phone? Grounded by her parents? Forgot? Blew him off? Probably one of the latter two, Jem thought with a sinking feeling. What business did he have going out with a cheerleader anyway? They didn't have any common friends; he'd been helping her at labs in chemistry class, that was all. She probably felt sorry for him, then dismissed the altruism at the last moment and ditched the date. But she was so nice.

Maybe she was too nice to tell him it had all been a joke.

The more Jem thought about it, the more despondent he became. The adrenaline high of the escape had had his hands shaking for the first thirty miles or so, but that had already faded.

Suddenly, Jem realized he didn't know where he was going. He turned on the GPS fixed to the dashboard and keyed down the list of recent destinations. His home address was right at the top. The readout deepened Jem's dismay: Two hundred miles to go.

It was going to be a long ride.

He hadn't turned on the radio yet. Habit. This was mom's car, and she never used the radio. But he still had a three-hour drive. Jem flipped it on, turned up the volume, and hit Scan. FM stations flipped by at three-second intervals.

Pixies. Gaga. News. Violins. Talk show. Chili Peppers. Californication. Jem reached out to stop the scan. Missed it. Let the cycle run through again.

He'd slowed down enough that other vehicles were now passing him, so Jem eased into the left lane to make it easier for them.

His attention wandered. Petar. Mom. Jayne. Ashley. Petar. Like friendly neighbors they all dropped in for a few moments then left as another visitor took their place.

Jem didn't give any extra attention to the 18-wheeler surging up behind him. Just another truck. It'd pass. The radio was still scanning. He'd forgotten about it. Why hadn't Jayne called?

The air horn burned through Jem's ears like a meteor. In the rearview mirror, nothing but a towering grill.

He lowered the window and stuck his arm out in a waving motion. Pass. The horn sounded again, rattling the mirrors. Jem waved him on again. No dice.

Sighing, Jem flicked the blinker and swung into the right lane. After a brief hesitation, the truck followed suit, its trailer winding behind it like a stiff serpent.

A three-second news report came over the radio: "...leading police on a high-speed chase down Highw..." It whirled over Jem's subconscious, fluttered down to land, but never got the chance.

The truck was still directly behind him, inching closer. It was too close to see who was in the raised cab. The grill bars looked like teeth. It wasn't passing.

Koschei. The thought slammed Jem like a ton of bricks.

Suddenly, the truck-stop urgency was back. Jem floored the gas pedal and the automatic transmission whined to keep up. But as the towering grill shrank from the mirror, Jem didn't see a blue freak in a hood behind the wheel of the truck.

He saw Petar.

"That crazy little...," Jem said. He was torn between happiness and frustration. Petar hadn't been caught; that was the good. The bad was, he had come back for Jem. The worse was, they were still heading downhill at the base of the mountain they'd climbed earlier.

When the SUV pulled away, the semi roared in response. It was gaining, gravity compensating for the trailer's resistance to the engine. It was going to hit him.

Jem swung back to the left lane, narrowly missing a blue Saab, just as the tractor trailer bore down on his rear fender. The Saab honked in response, angry at having been cut off. Jem ignored it. The road curved and Jem had to turn sharply to stay between the lines of his lane. On the right, the cab of the semi pulled even with Jem, then braked to hold its position. Jem swore. He couldn't brake without getting rear-ended by the Saab. He glanced down. Seventy, and climbing. Even a tap at this speed could send one of them careening off the road into a head-on collision with a rock wall. The road curved back in the other direction, and the Escape and semi turned with it like two racehorses around a track.

Blood pounded behind Jem's ears, his adrenaline bouncing into overdrive. Petar was going to get him killed.

The road straightened before the next turn and Jem stole a peek over at the truck's cab. It was charging neck-to-neck with him, its driver's-side door barely a foot away from his own vehicle. A moth couldn't fly between them without hitting one side or the other.

Side by side, the two vehicles raced down the highway, careening around mountain curves tight enough to send either one of them onto two wheels. They slowed down accordingly, but Jem couldn't shake Petar. When he got too slow, the Saab was right there behind him. When he sped up, the truck answered to the challenge. Why didn't the stupid Saab just pull over already? How was he still in this death race?

Jem tried to out-speed the truck one more time. The semi snarled like a bear and pulled in even closer. Jem grit his teeth in frustration and turned his eyes back toward the road. The grade of the highway steepened, sending them careening even faster down the asphalt ribbon that sliced through the trees and cliffsides.

Then he saw it.

Thanks for reading my story! Please VOTE and let me know what you think of it so far, then check out Chapter 24!