Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 80

I just killed four people.

My mind reeled from the realization.

I fucking killed them.

My heart still hammered against my ribcage. My knuckles turned white as I gripped hard on the steering wheel, putting more weight on the gas as I sped down the road, not minding how fast I was going. Alone in the car, I screamed. I didn't know why, but I just knew I had to, and it felt good. It felt good to hear myself bellowed a cry deep in my throat and in my lungs.

I tried to wipe the blood off of me, both my hands covered in dark red, all the way to my elbows. I could feel it on my face and in my clothes, soaking through. They wouldn't come off, and I was shaking. Realizing some of this blood could be mine, panicked seized me like a freight train, and I searched all over my body, hoping, praying I didn't get shot. When I couldn't pinpoint any searing pain (remembering the feeling of how Ramos shot me), I sighed in relief. I'd hate to get hit again.

The others were going to catch up to me eventually, and now that I thought of it, I should have destroyed their truck. I had a spare bottle of Molotov left in my bag, and I should have burnt their car to the ground. It was right there!

"Stupid, Bren. That was fucking stupid," I muttered to myself, banging the back of my head against the headrest. I looked at the rearview mirror, but there was no one behind me. I put Kossa's pistol on my lap, just in case.

If I had destroyed their vehicle, it would have saved me from going through hell later that day, the things you would never forget; one you could never come back from.

Keeping one eye on the road, I opened my bag and pulled out the map, unfolding it. It didn't have an accurate depiction of the town as I saw only the major roads' outline, some blocked by the drawings of the tourist sites and their bold-letter fonts, and it didn't tell me any back roads I could use to lose the group chasing me. I realized I had to get there and do it on my own.

Every town has a Main Street, so I started there. All I needed was to keep turning left on the streets of Kelter, Monroe, and Gulch for three blocks each, and I'd head straight on Hamilton toward Main. I put back the map into the bag, memorizing the streets.

I glanced at the rearview mirror, and my body went rigid. They were coming, merely a dot from the rolling hill, but they're coming. I looked around and realized that there were no back roads to turn to, choked by dense forests on both sides, and only a straight line directly into town. I couldn't get the truck to go faster.

Then, up ahead, a glint of reflected metal under the sunlight. As soon as I crested over the hill, I saw two more vehicles coming our way. One was another pickup truck, two men standing by the truck bed, and I could already tell they were carrying weapons. The second vehicle was an SUV. I reckoned they were coming here for me. Someone had radioed in about the resort, and they were the backup.

There was no option but to fight.

A faint memory crept into my mind, one of my dad's poems that he always read, sometimes even to me. I'm not a man of poetry, nor do I have any interest in starting it, but my dad was the first to pop into my head as I stared death in the face. This might be it. After all that I went through, this was not how I expected to go out.

Alone.

"Come on." I punched the roof of the car, realization setting in. I wiped a tear streaming down my cheek, sniffling.

The two vehicles were sixty yards ahead.

"Half a league, half a league," I whispered, stepping gradually on the gas. "Half a league onward. All in the valley of Death rode the six hundred." I pulled the safety off from Kossa's pistol.