Page 83 of I’m The Worst

Blood sprays across the crates.

I shove AJ behind me as rounds ricochet off steel beams, sparks raining around us. She’s screaming so powerfully she can barely breathe as I drag her toward the truck.

A woman carrying a child is hit beside us—both drop in a spray of red.

I throw AJ into the passenger seat so hard she nearly falls through the other side. Then I run around the truck as bullets punch holes through the metal frame inches from my head.

Diving into the driver’s seat, I slam the door shut. The engine roars alive as I slam it into gear and floor it. The truck busts through the warehouse doors, clipping steel on the way out, fishtailing into the storm.

In the rear-view mirror, men pour out of the warehouse into the snow—armed, shouting, firing as escaped prisoners scatter across the white ground. Some are gunned down before they make the road. Others disappear into the snowstorm.

The truck fishtails again on ice, and I wrench the wheel straight, nearly going cross-eyed with how my head is hammering.

“We can’t leave them!” AJ screams as more gunfire cracks from behind us, pounding both fists against the dashboard. “We have to go back!”

“We’re not going back!” My hands stay welded to the wheel, gaze flicking to her before focusing on the storm.

Tears stream down her face. “They’re like me!”

“You’re my mission! You’re the only thing that matters right now. I wasn’t sent here to save every-fucking-body Akim locked in a cage!”

I keep my eyes on the road.

On the ice.

On survival.

Blood soaks through my shirt, my side pulsing hot and sharp with every heartbeat.

I’ve been shot.

Fuck.

Didn’t even feel it happen.

I have no goddamn idea where we are, and this massive truck is a moving target. I need to ditch it for something smaller and faster. Something that can disappear.

I can’t tell how much blood I’ve lost, only that it’s too much. If I don’t stop the bleeding soon, I’m going to black out behind the wheel and kill us both. But first, I need to get us off this road.

I slam the pedal harder.

The truck barrels forward through the storm, tires chewing through snow and ice as trees streak past in shadowed blurs. Wind hisses against the frame. The windshield is a wall of white.

Beside me, AJ is still sobbing; she can’t seem to stop, but I don’t have room in my head for that right now. Not when every second is counting down. The storm thickens, swallowing the road whole.

Then—

A glow appears ahead through the whiteout.

Gas station lights.

Thank fuck.

I wrench the wheel and swing into the lot, skidding behind the building near the tree line where the truck is shielded from the road. Exhaling harshly, I kill the engine. Silence crashes into the cab—just the ticking exhaust, the storm outside, AJ’s uneven breathing—but after the chaos, it’s deafening.

With numb fingers, I unbuckle my seat belt. Pain tears through my side with the movement, and my breath catches. My whole body blares with excruciating warnings as I lean back against the seat, head thudding into the headrest.

“Fuck,” I grunt, pressing my hand hard over the wound.