No Turning Back (The Traveler) Read Online Free PDF Page B

telling us the truth,” the driver answered. He clicked on the right turn signal and headed off the last exit before reaching Louisville’s city limits.
    Gabrielle looked up the exit ramp and asked him, “Where are you going?”
    The driver looked into her tense face. “You want us to drop you off, right? Well, we gotta find someplace to do it then.”
    “You can drop me off anywhere,” she insisted. “Just let me out right here.”
    She was ready to leap right out of the car before they found her license.
    “Hey, she doesn’t live in Frankfort. She lives in Louisville.”
    The gun-holder had found her license in her purse.
    “That’s an older license,” she lied again. Her heart was racing inside of her chest. She had remained calm since the moment she first saw the gun, but now they had caught her in a blatant lie.
    “Well, where’s your new one?” the driver asked her calmly. He seemed to be toying with her like a sinister cat that had trapped a mouse.
    She said, “It’s at home in Frankfort. I use two IDs to receive benefits in both cities.” She continued to lie, desperately trying to save herself from harm.
    The gun-holder winced. He asked, “What, like a tax cheat?”
    Gabrielle paused. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea for her to seem imperfect. They would all have their flaws and subversions in common.
    “If you liked to call it that,” she told him.
    The driver listened to her and smiled. “So, you’re a pretty good liar then,” he commented.
    Oh my God!
Gabrielle dreaded.
Will I be able to get out of this or not?
    A Kentucky state trooper cruised by them in a squad car headed in the opposite direction. The tension inside the green Volvo rapidly escalated.
    Gabrielle thought of yelling out loud and grabbing a hold of the steering wheel to gain the trooper’s attention, but his squad car had passed them by too fast for her to react in time.
    “Shit!” the gun-holder shouted from the backseat. His racing heart had jumped into his throat until it was over. He said, “All right, man, what the hell are we gonna do with her? She’s lying to us, and we need to get the hell out of here.”
    “She’s gonna have to go with us then,” the driver asserted.
    “Go with you where?” Gabrielle asked him. She had lost her reserve.
    “You’ll go wherever the hell we take you!” the gun-holder snapped. He aimed the gun at her head from the backseat.
    Gabrielle ducked down and leaned into the gear shifter.
    “Fuckin’ put the gun down, Johnny! Put it down!” the driver yelled into the backseat at his accomplice.
    The younger man eyed him in disbelief. “You asshole, you fuckin’ said my
name
, Eugene! Now we’ll both have to kill her.”
    Gabrielle thought of leaping out the passenger side door in the middle of traffic. Her act of playing it cool was over.
    I have to get out of here NOW!
she thought in a panic..
    Right as she opened the passenger side door and leaned sideways to make her move, the driver grabbed her by her left arm to hold her inside of the car.
    “GET OFF OF ME!” she screamed and leaned back to bite his right hand.
    “FUCK! You bitch!”
    The car jerked left and right as it sped in traffic. The passenger side door swung open with Gabrielle trying to fight her way out of the moving car with kicks and punches.
    “Get off of me, you motherfucker!” she cursed back at the driver.
    His partner, Johnny, aimed his gun at her head again from the backseat.
    “I’m gonna shoot ’er, Eugene! I’m gonna fuckin’ shoot ’er!” he shouted twice.
    “NOOO! Just wait a minute!” Eugene hollered back.
    While struggling to control the wheel of the car with his left hand and holding onto Gabrielle with his right, the driver miraculously weaved through traffic until the green Volvo finally smashed into the driver’s side of a Ford truck.
    The car bounced back to the right and spun into the rear end of a dark-blue Chevrolet. The crunch of metal and tires screeching could be heard a