A.K.A. Goddess by Evelyn Vaughn

right?”

    He didn’t sound encouraged when he asked, “Why do you ask?”

    The Peugeot had reached our bumper. Now it was starting to pass us—rather, to pace us. I glanced to my right, to see that Rhys did have his harness on, before looking out to my left.

    A tinted passenger window slid slowly downward, and a pistol appeared over its top, waving at us to pull over.

    I hit the brakes.

    The Peugeot whipped past us like the bullet I’d probably just escaped. Or postponed. The Saxo squealed to a reluctant stop with a horrible scream and stench of burnt rubber. My own seat belt yanked me back against my seat, hard enough across my shoulder to leave a bruise.

    Rhys coughed out something that sounded like “Oofa coals.” Whatever. Since the Peugeot, ahead of us, was making a 180 turn, I wasn’t ready to ask for a translation.

    I shifted the Saxo into Reverse and eased on to the gas. The tires had held. We started to pick up a little speed…but not as much speed as we’d need to outrun that Peugeot.

    “I’d prefer we not take the bridge this way,” said Rhys, his Welsh lilt more distinct the more tense he got.

    “We won’t,” I said. “Hang on.”

    At least the road was relatively deserted—a benefit of late night travel. I’d only practiced this a few times, but the gun had upped the ante, so I ticked off the check list in my head.

    Fix on a spot just ahead, like in yoga balance exercises.

    Push the pedal to the metal. But not for long. This maneuver was only safe—relatively speaking—at under forty miles per hour. Whatever that was in kilometers.

    I then did three things at once. I hit the clutch, threw the car into Drive and yanked the steering wheel to the left.

    A brief grinding of gears joined the scream of tires as our back end pivoted left and our nose pivoted right, the weight of the engine carrying us around in a perfect bootleg. Yes!

    Before we even came to a stop, I stood on the gas to shoot us forward—the Peugeot still gaining on us. It wasn’t a great improvement from a few minutes ago, but at least we were heading the right direction, nose first. We flew back across the bridge, startling some ducks out from under it. We shot back into the industrial area, but the Peugeot was quickly closing our lead. Instead of images of the gendarmerie finding our bodies buried in a field of picturesque sunflowers, I was now picturing them never finding us. Like Hoffa. But in France.

    We weren’t going to outrun these guys.

    “So what’s ‘Oofa coals’ mean?” I asked, surprised at how clenched my own words were. The Peugeot’s headlights, in the rearview, drew closer. I couldn’t see driver or passenger, but if I were the latter, I would be preparing to shoot out—

    Yup, there was the pistol, aiming at our tires. I swerved, and the only explosion I heard was that sinister pop of gunfire. It doesn’t sound as loud in real life as in the movies.

    It’s a lot scarier, though.

    Rhys said, “Uffach cols. It means embers of hell.”

    The Peugeot pulled around and was flanking us now.

    “Hang on!” Again, I stood on the brake pedal, pulling the handbrake simultaneously. We skidded forward some yards, further abusing the tires. The Peugeot shot past us again, but braked faster this time—and turned, sideways, blocking our way to civilization.

    Brick warehouses crowded the road on either side, without even a sidewalk to try to squeeze around the green car.

    “That’s some fairly mild swearing,” I said, breathless.

    “It is not, for me,” he muttered.

    The passenger door of the Peugeot opened, and a man with a pistol got out. He was wearing a ski mask.

    Rhys said, “Isn’t it time to back up again?”

    I considered that, considered how much more abuse this poor Citroën Saxo could take. If we ran, the Peugeot would just follow us again. Cat and mouse…and they got to be the cat.

    The gunman approached us, especially ominous in the white illumination of our