Zero Game - Brad Meltzer [26]
The black Toyota plows into my legs and smashes me into the Dumpster. My face flies forward, slamming into the hood of the car. There’s an unearthly crackle like a dry log in a fireplace. My legs shatter. Oh, God. I scream out in pain. Bone turns to dust, and as the car shoves the Dumpster backwards, metal grinds against metal, with me in between. My legs . . . m-my pelvis is on fire. I think it’s snapped in two. The pain is scorching . . . I take that back. The pain fades. It all goes numb. Time freezes in a warped slow motion. My body’s in shock.
“What’s wrong wit you?!” a male voice shouts from within the car.
The blood pours from my mouth, raining across the hood of the Toyota. Please, God. Don’t let me pass out . . . In my left eye, I see nothing but bright red. It takes everything I have to pick my head up and look through the windshield. There’s only one person inside . . . holding on to the steering wheel. The page who took our money.
“All you hadda do was sit there!” he screams, pounding the wheel with his fist. He yells something else, but it’s muffled . . . all garbled . . . like someone shouting when you’re underwater.
I try to wipe the blood from my mouth, but my arm’s limp at my side. I stare through the windshield at the page, unsure how long he’s been yelling. Around me, everything goes silent. All I hear is my own broken panting—a wet wheeze crawling on its knees through my throat. I try to tell myself that as long as I’m breathing, I’ll be okay, right? But like my dad told me on our first camping trip, every animal knows when it’s about to die.
Through the windshield, the page throws the car into reverse. The Toyota shifts below my chest. My long fingers scratch wildly for the windshield wipers . . . the grate on the hood . . . anything to grab on to. I don’t have a chance. He floors it, and the car flies backwards, sending me sliding off the hood. As my back crashes against the Dumpster, the car’s wheels spin, kicking a tornado of rocks and dust in my eyes and mouth. I try to stand but can’t feel anything. My legs collapse beneath me and my whole body crumples in the dirt.
Straight ahead, the car bucks to a stop. But he doesn’t leave. I don’t understand. With my one good eye, I stare through the windshield as the page shakes his head angrily. There’s a soft mechanical clunk. He shifts it back into drive. Oh, God. He punches the gas, and the engine howls. Tires gnaw through the gravel. And the rusted grille of the black Toyota comes galloping straight at me. I beg for him to stop, but nothing comes out. My body shakes, convulsing against the base of the Dumpster. The car thunders forward. S-Sorry I got you into this, Harris . . . Mouthing a silent prayer, I shut my eyes tight and try to picture the Merced River in Yosemite.
7
WHATTYA MEAN, DEAD? How can he be dead?”
“That’s what happens when you stop breathing.”
“I know what it means, asshole!”
“Then don’t ask a stupid question.”
Sinking down in his seat, the smartly dressed man felt a sharp contraction around his lungs. “You said no one would get hurt,” he stuttered, anxiously unbending a paperclip as he cradled the phone to his chin. “Those were your words . . .”
“Don’t blame me,” Martin Janos insisted on the other line. “He followed our guy outside the Capitol. At that point, the kid panicked.”
“That didn’t mean he had to kill him!”
“Really?” Janos asked. “So you’d rather Matthew made his way to your office?”
Twisting the paperclip around his finger, the man didn’t answer.
“Exactly,” Janos said.
“Does Harris know?” the man asked.
“I just got the call myself—I’m on my way down there right now.”
“What about the bet?”
“Matthew already slipped it in the bill—last smart thing the guy ever did.”
“Don’t make fun of him, Janos.”
“Oh, now you’re having regrets?”
Once again