Page 54 of Challenge Me

I tried to move my leg again; something was caught around my ankle. The canvas tool bag’s handle was wrapped around me, mostly zipped closed, but on the top of the tools I spotted a cardboard-backed packet of glass tubes, and my heart skipped a beat, my eyes widening as my memory graciously replayed the tiny snapping sound I’d heard as we crashed. It was a sound I knew; it had happened before, when Ghost had first blown a fuse. I knew what was wrong, and I also knew I could fix him.

If Al could do it, it would be easy. He’d shown me the fuse box, and even though I’d been ignoring him, if I could just buy myself a little time to think, I was sure I could work it out.

Unfortunately, time was not on my side. The other man had hauled himself upright beside the truck, a pistol in his hand.

Of course he had a gun; I felt for my dagger and groaned as a memory surfaced of the blade sticking deep in a doorjamb, my hand releasing the hilt and never bothering to retrieve it.

Careless! Now all I had left was a bag of tools, a box of fresh fuses and my wits.

Ah, well. Time to see whether any of them could save my life.

I shoved Ghost’s driver’s door open; cold rain blew into the car, needling my face and washing blood down my cheek. I tried to climb out with some dignity, but my injured leg caught against the frame; my balance vanished, and I tumbled onto the wet grass, hard enough to drive the air from my lungs. The tool bag followed, spilling its contents around me in a clatter of wrenches, screwdrivers, and tools I couldn’t yet name.

The sound drew the man’s attention, and his head snapped toward me; I saw him raise the gun, my pulse racing.

“Hey,” I called, pulling myself onto my knees with Ghost’s open door, keeping the thick metal carefully between us. “Let’s talk.”

The gun cocked; a clever man would have shot me then, even with the door acting as a shield. One round between the eyes, preferably from a safe distance, followed by a second to make sure. Ghost was heavy steel, but not many cars could stop a bullet.

Luckily for me, that man had just lost all his buddies, and grief made people stupid. He saw his prey collapsed in the mud with a bleeding, swollen leg and nothing to defend himself; the advantage clouded what little judgment he possessed, a smirk spreading across the narrow slash of his mouth.

“Talk? Oh, now you want to talk?” His Eastern European accent was as thick as the mud he was wading through, his pistol lowered slightly; he couldn’t aim, talk, and walk all at the same time, bless.

“I have always been a great believer in civil discussion,” I called back. I briefly glanced down as though checking my leg, using the motion to break the seal on the fuse box with my thumbnail. The rain had softened the cardboard, and a half-dozen tiny glass tubes rattled inside. Somewhere beneath the steering column was the fuse panel; I remembered Al lying across the floor mat, cursing the cramped position while Ghost complained about being violated. I needed the panel open, but I didn’t dare look away for more than a second at a time, my heart jolting with each of the man’s squelchy footsteps.

“You killed my brother,” the man spat.

“I have a few brothers to spare; you are welcome to any of them,” I offered jovially as my scrabbling nails finally managed to pry open the fuse box. The man wasn’t amused, his scowl deepening. I stole another second to look into Ghost. I still needed to identify the blown fuse, and I needed to replace it without being shot.

“You should put the gun down,” I said.

The man gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “You think I’m stupid or something?” He demanded, lifting it again as he carefully moved closer to the passenger side. “Where’s the other guy?”

“What other guy?” I asked. My pulse was picking up again; a fuse had turned black inside the fuse box, ugly and burnt.

“Don’t fuck with me, asshole. I saw someone else with you.” I flinched as he wrenched Ghost’s passenger door open, gun aimed at the seat before he twisted to look into the back, expecting to see someone lying in wait. I didn’t dare move; if I twitched in his periphery, I was going to be turned into Swiss cheese.

Slowly, the man withdrew, satisfied that there was no ambush planned from the backseat. He glanced back up to the road, just in case the suspected passenger had tuck-and-rolled out before the crash and was waiting up there for him, and when there was no one, he finally turned his focus back to me, inching around the Challenger’s hood.

“Did you see a ghost, perhaps?” I asked, slowly reaching under Ghost’s dash, using my fingernails to pry the dead fuse loose.

“You’re funny,” the man scoffed. “How funny will you be when I put a bullet in your other leg?”

“My other leg?” I lifted my eyebrows. “That seems unimaginative.”

The gun swung toward my uninjured knee as he stepped around the door.

“Alright, alright,” I stammered. “You want money? I have plenty of it. Name your price, and I’ll limp out of your life forever, okay?”

“You think your money will buy my brothers back?” He spat. I was almost impressed; plenty of men had sold their pride to me before. My shrinking back against Ghost wasn’t entirely acting as he approached me, grim triumph on his face. He struck me across the face with the gun, and white light burst behind my eyes. My head snapped sideways, and for a second the world was ringing like a bell. I tasted blood, fresh warmth filling my mouth where my teeth had cut the inside of my cheek. The box of fuses nearly slipped from my hand. I was running out of time; I tore one of the fuses free from the packet and reached beneath the dashboard, praying that I was right. If I was wrong, we were both dead.

“What are you doing?” The man lunged forward, slamming the muzzle of his pistol against my temple. Cold metal pressed into the split skin, and pain flashed down the side of my face.

It didn’t matter; I could handle pain. I pinched the new fuse between two bloody, rain-slicked fingers and pushed it into the empty slot.

◆◆◆

There was no dramatic pause, no long seconds between the fuse slotting in and Ghost bursting back to life. It was as though the Challenger had been waiting for his moment, and when I gave him the stage, he seized it. Ghost’s shadow rose between us, unfolding from the darkness cast by his open door, stretching upward in a shape that was almost human. Two pale blue lights flickered and surged where his eyes should have been.