Read Online Flood Rising (A Jenna Flood Thriller) by Jeremy Robinson, Sean Ellis - Free Book Online Page A

driver of the pursuing vehicle would ram their prey from behind. He would then explain that the way to force a car to stop was by pulling alongside and turning into its back tires. If done correctly, the impact would spin the fleeing vehicle around, stalling its engine as the sudden change in direction and the car’s own momentum created reverse compression in the motor. Jenna had recognized, almost too late, that the driver of the sedan was attempting exactly that. If Mercy had not started to brake when she did, they would have been dead on the road.
    The sedan straightened out and then pulled away, but Jenna’s fleeting hopes that they might be leaving the scene were dashed when she saw their brake lights flash. A figure leaned out the passenger side window and looked back, one hand extended. It was Zack.
    “Gun!” Mercy shouted.
    Jenna felt the pickup decelerating again. “No. Charge them!”
    Mercy was incredulous. “What?”
    “Run them off the road.”
    A small flash appeared at the end of Zack’s extended hand and something cracked loudly against the windshield. Jenna ducked, but the glass remained intact. A quarter-sized divot had been gouged in the windshield, almost perfectly in line with Mercy’s head.
    Jenna was thrown forward as Mercy stomped on the brakes.
    “No,” she protested. “You can’t stop.”
    “They’re shooting at us,” Mercy challenged, her normally cool tone replaced by strident hysteria.
    “And you’re going to make it impossible for them to miss.” Jenna fought to keep her own voice calm. “The only way to survive this is to take them out. Keep your head down, but don’t back off.”
    Mercy held her gaze for a moment, eyes squinted. “You sure you don’t have a secret life you want to tell me about, too?”
    There was another crack, another round striking the windshield, closer to center this time. A ragged crack appeared, connecting the two impact sites. Jenna knew she hadn’t convinced Mercy. If she wasn’t going to go on the offensive, the only option was to make a U-turn and flee back to Stock Island. Before she could articulate this alternative however, Mercy punched the accelerator, and they lurched forward.
    “Maybe you should give them something else to think about,” Mercy said, her body bent forward so that she appeared to be peeking over the steering wheel.
    Jenna blinked uncomprehending. Mercy glanced at her with a wry smile, her emotions back under control. “Shoot them.”
    Jenna looked down at the pistol, all but forgotten, in her hand. She had never fired a gun in her life, and she wondered now why she had bothered to ask Mercy for it. With a shake of her head, she steeled her nerve and then rolled down the window.
    The pickup closed the gap, but as they got to within fifty yards, the sedan’s brake lights went out and the car started pulling away. Mercy jiggled the wheel back and forth, causing the pickup to veer from one side of the road to the other.
    “Better use both hands,” Mercy advised. “Don’t drop it, and for God’s sake, don’t fall out.”
    Or get shot , Jenna added silently.
    She leaned against the doorframe, both arms extended, with the pistol braced in her hands the way she’d seen Mercy do back at the trailer. A blast of air hit her full in the face as she looked down the length of her arms, not sure exactly how to sight the weapon. She slid a finger into the trigger guard.
    “Is there a safety?” she yelled. It seemed like the right question.
    “No safety. Just point and shoot.”
    Jenna tried to imagine an invisible line traveling down her arm, past the gun and ending where she wanted the bullet to go—not at Zack who was still hanging out of the sedan’s window, trying to line up a shot of his own, but at a target that she felt sure she could hit: the sedan’s back window.
    She pulled the trigger and felt something move under her fingertip. A piece of plastic protruded from the metal lever like a secondary trigger, but