Chapter 4: Breaking the Grid
The Mustang tore down the winding gravel driveway, spraying loose stones against the iron security gates as Mateo rammed through them without slowing down. The heavy wrought iron gave way with a screech of tortured metal, swinging wide open into the dense pine forest. In the rearview mirror, Mateo caught the flash of high-beam headlights snapping on a quarter-mile back up the drive. They had been spotted.
""Hold on, Maya,"" Mateo called out, shifting up into third gear as the road straightened into a desolate two-lane highway cutting through the Cascade foothills.
""I'm holding,"" her calm voice echoed from the back seat.
Mateo glanced in the rear-view mirror again. Two dark SUVs were tailing them, running without headlights in the deepening twilight, relying on night-vision gear to navigate the blind curves. They were closing the distance fast. Vance didn't just want him captured; he wanted him erased, and the girl was likely viewed as an inconvenient loose end. Rage flared in Mateo’s chest, hot and blinding, but he forced it down into a cold, calculating focus. Driving recklessly would only put Maya in greater danger.
He cut the headlights entirely, plunging the Mustang into total darkness. Relying solely on his memory of the road’s dips, turns, and shoulder widths, he pressed the accelerator to the floorboard. The muscle car roared, its rear tires drifting slightly on the pine-needle-strewn asphalt before gripping the road. Behind them, the pursuing SUVs overshot the tight curve where Mateo had cut his lights, their tires squealing as they fought to correct their trajectory.
For a few precious miles, the winding mountain road was theirs alone. Mateo kept the speed steady, navigating by the faint glow of the stars overhead. He knew every logging road and abandoned mining trail in this county. Thirty minutes later, he veered sharply off the paved highway onto an overgrown dirt track choked with blackberry bushes and alder trees. The branches scraped loudly against the sides of the Mustang, leaving white claw marks on the pristine black paint, but Mateo didn't care.
He drove a mile deep into the thicket before cutting the engine completely. Silence rushed in to fill the void, broken only by the ticking of the cooling exhaust pipe and the soft hoot of an owl in the canopy above.
""Are we camping?"" Maya asked, pressing her face against the side window to look at the towering shadows of the pine trees.
""Just for a little while, sweetheart,"" Mateo murmured, unbuckling his seatbelt and turning around to check on her. He reached out, straightening the yellow hair tie that had slipped slightly loose during the chase. ""We need to switch vehicles. There’s an old friend of mine who owes me a favor about twenty miles through the woods.""
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""Will there be pancakes?"" she asked softly.
Mateo managed a genuine, tired smile, the first one since the poison in the study. ""If we reach his cabin before sunrise, I'll make them myself.""
