Flash Friday Free Read: NOWHERE TO HIDE
copyright 2002 by Esther Mitchell
This is it. I’m going to die.
The thought slipped through Candace Billings’ mind like a snake, gone in a flash as the dark sedan slammed into the side of her sports car again. Grim humor gripped her as she acknowledged it wasn’t actually her anything. She didn’t know a damned thing about cars. This was Ben’s car, sliding out of control on the rain-slick road as she fought to break free from the shove of the other vehicle.
God, please don’t let me die here.
What she was praying for, she didn’t know. Death would be preferable to being returned to Ben’s fancy townhouse, or worse, to her father’s sprawling mansion. Still, Candace gritted her teeth and fought the out-of-control car, and the jarring pound of the hitman’s vehicle.
And she had no doubt he was a hitman. One of the cartel’s thugs, no doubt, employed strictly to take care of people like her. Candace barked a sharp laugh, but didn’t dare spare a glance for the backpack on the passenger seat beside her, or a thought for its contents. She didn’t have time.
A guardrail loomed in the beam of her headlights, and she swore softly beneath her breath as she slammed the brake to the floor. The screech of the expensive machinery protesting the hard use joined the chorus of squealing rubber and the splinter of crushed metal and fiberglass. Then, there was a sickening crunch, and pain seared through her body as she flew forward, caught between the guardrail to her left and the gunning engine of the sedan to her right. Her breath stopped in her lungs as the seatbelt strangled her, then snapped, and a nauseating crack filled the compartment. She slumped sideways with a groan as pain exploded through her, and only the tortured squeal of the windshield wipers kept her company as she tumbled into darkness.
