Alena jerked the wheel and the truck swerved wide, crunching and grinding onto the shoulder and fishtailing twice before the tires finally grabbed the asphalt and straightened again. “Stop yelling! I saw the stupid curve, okay?”

“Were you planning to turn, or did you know a shortcut across that field?”

“Can you do any better?”

“I can’t do much worse.”

She glared at him and pointed to her nose. “See this? I did this to myself—I slammed my own face into a wall to make my nose bleed. Now do you really want to make me angry?”

Nick settled back in his seat.

“We need to find a gravel road,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because the graders come through every spring and level the road surface here—it leaves a layer of loose gravel on top. We could lose him—it’s like driving on marbles if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Do we know what we’re doing?”

She turned sharply and the car veered onto an even smaller road—a narrow gravel two-lane that wound back and forth and began to climb steadily into the mountains.

“Do you know where this road goes?” Nick asked.

“Up.”

“Thanks.”

He looked out his window and saw that the hills were quickly becoming steeper and there were no protective guardrails anywhere in sight. “Do we have air bags?”

She didn’t answer.

“I’ll bet he has air bags.”

“Nick, shut up.”

He turned and looked back; the BMW was so close now that he could see Riddick’s silhouette hunched behind the wheel. “We’ve got to widen our lead,” he said.

“Thanks for the helpful tip. Got any bright ideas?”

“I’m working on it.”

Suddenly they heard the engine rev and felt the truck lurch forward, as though a giant had lifted the truck by the bumper and let it drop. It was Riddick—he had closed the gap between them and bumped them from behind.

“He’s trying to push us over the edge!” Alena shouted.

“Slam on the brakes and make him run into us,” Nick said. “It might wreck his engine—then we can pull away.”

“Trygg is in the back—the collision could kill her. And what if we wreck our truck but not his engine? Then we can’t pull away.”

“Good point. I’ll keep working on it.”

“How close is he right now?”

Nick looked. “Our bumpers are almost kissing. Why?”

“Hang on!”

Alena steered the truck directly toward a sheer drop-off, then at the last possible moment cut the wheel hard and let the tail swing into the turn. The cab slumped precariously to the right as the rear wheel slipped off the shoulder and spun in midair before the truck pulled itself back onto the road.

“Did it work?” Alena shouted.

“That depends. Were you trying to make me wet my pants?”

“Did he go over the edge?”