Hearts Under Siege by Natalie J. Damschroder

and let the operator take over. You’ve been in worse situations , he tried to tell himself. But of course it wasn’t true. More dangerous, maybe. Tenser, without a doubt. But more painful, more personal? Never.
    Still, those other situations had taught him how to cope. He had to focus on the here and now, on getting home, one step at a time, one minute at a time. Put everything in a box and close it up tight, to be dealt with…later. Sometime. After he’d finished with everything required of him.
    Like getting Molly home. She’d done an admirable job reaching him, but she didn’t have the experience he did. It was up to him to get her home safely.
    On cue, he sensed the faint, more-felt-than-heard rumble of a powerful vehicle behind them. Nothing visible in the rearview mirror, but they’d just come over a hill. The truck could be right on the other side of it, about to roar up on their tail. It could be a random traveler, or even local bandits. But instinct told him it was whoever had shot at them on the street. Someone had found out about the information he was gathering and wanted to stop him from leaving the country with it. And his mini-meltdown had allowed them to close in. Fuck .
    “Hang on,” he warned Molly. She instantly turned to face forward, putting her feet flat on the floor and wrapping her hands around her seatbelt.
    He slowly pressed down on the accelerator to speed up without spinning out or getting stuck. The road was a mess, definitely not suited to a chase. At least, not unless you were the one doing the chasing. He couldn’t let their pursuer catch up, or they’d almost certainly be run off the road.
    The speedometer crept upward. He glanced constantly from it to the road to the rearview and side mirrors. Still nothing, but he could feel the truck getting closer. Tension mounted almost unbearably, from both him and Molly.
    She craned around to check the road behind. “Did you see them?”
    “No. But—”
    The truck topped the ridge suddenly, a good hundred yards back now. It seemed to hang for a second, then plunged down the slope, half skidding, its engine now an audible roar under the rain hammering the Jeep’s roof. Any possibility it had nothing to do with the shooter was immediately quashed as someone poked the barrel of a gun out the passenger side window.
    “Get down,” Brady ordered, but Molly was already slumping as low as she could without being on the floor. He slammed his foot on the accelerator as they hit a longer patch of asphalt. The vehicle jounced over a pothole, flinging her up like a rag doll, but she didn’t utter a sound.
    He didn’t hear the shot, but caught a spark on the right side mirror out of the corner of his eye. Quickly comparing the values of zigzagging and being a more difficult target versus going straighter but faster, he stayed on track and struggled to come up with a plan.
    Another bullet pinged off the back of the Jeep. “How far to the next city?” Molly asked almost conversationally before taking flight again when they splashed down off the pavement into a hole too big to be called a pot.
    “Over an hour.”
    “And we have no weapons,” she mused, grabbing the door handle in an effort to control her bouncing. Her curly black hair covered half her face, so Brady wasn’t sure what she was thinking.
    “Not much we could do even with weapons,” he pointed out. “Unless you’re also a marksman.”
    “Nah, never got around to that.” She hauled herself back onto the seat because he had gained a little distance and the shooters were being smart, saving bullets. “Any side roads we can take? Any places to hide?”
    “Good idea.” There was another hill up ahead. If he could get far enough ahead, once they were out of sight he might be able to get them off the road. But only if there was another hill or a bend in the road. Otherwise, their pursuers would know what they’d done, and they’d be sitting ducks.
    “Floor it,” she told him,