The Fugitive by Pittacus Lore Read Free Book Online Page B

tries to move too late, and my fist connects with the bottom of his jaw. He drops like a stone, and by the time he actually hits the floor, I’m jumping over his legs and then running down the stairs, digging through my bag with one hand as I make a beeline for my truck.
    I’m starting the engine when the first shot is fired—the other agents must have realized the Mog weapons weren’t working and dug out their normal guns. I hear the bullet bounce off the metal of my hood. Then there’s another one, and my back windshield shatters.
    “Shit!” I shout, crouching down as much as I can. I shift into gear and slam my right foot down on the gas, peeling out as I hear more shots go whizzing through my tailgate. I think I’m out of harm’s way when suddenly I feel a burning pain in my left arm, causing meto swerve and almost crash into a cement pylon. I look down and see blood pouring through my shirtsleeve.
    Oh my God. You just got shot, Mark. Holy shit.
    I think the bullet just grazed me, but it still hurts like hell, and there’s a lot of blood. As I barrel onto the highway, keeping one eye on my rearview mirror, I find a dirty T-shirt from the back cab and wrap it around the wound to try to stop the bleeding. I’m just glad that the sun hasn’t come up yet. This early in the morning, there’s hardly anyone on the road to notice my terrible driving as I try to figure out how injured I am while the wind roars through my truck thanks to the shattered back windshield.
    After ten minutes or so, I take an exit at random and enter a neighborhood. I figure if the FBI called in reinforcements or police or anything, the highway is the first place they’d look, and a bullet-ridden truck missing a back windshield isn’t exactly the kind of thing you can easily hide from a police chopper on a deserted highway. I buzz through dark streets, just trying to get as far away from the city center as I can.
    I drive, and try not to completely freak out. My heart pounds in my chest so hard I’m afraid I’m going to have a heart attack, which would be the biggest joke ever—I survived fights with the FBI and alien invaders; but in the end, the excitement was all too much for me, and my heart exploded in some godforsakenlittle town in Louisiana.
    I want to text GUARD, to tell him I’m okay, but I’ve just realized I left both my phones back at the warehouse. Plus, my netbook is dead.
    I am completely alone right now.
    The T-shirt around my arm at least seems to have stopped the bleeding for now, so I keep driving and try to make sense of what just happened and not vomit, which feels like something I might do at any moment. Walker was right: not everyone in the FBI is as smart as she is. There’s fighting within the Bureau. And if the FBI is breaking into factions, it might be like that in other government agencies across the country, right? Maybe even the world. At first this thought gets me excited, to know that people aren’t just following along blindly with the Mogs. But then I realize that if we’re fighting each other, it’ll make Earth that much easier for them to take over when they’re done with the Loric. What we need is a strong defense. A united human front.
    We need to support the Garde.
    Sarah. Where are you?
    Somewhere on the outskirts of a suburb, I notice the first hint of smoke coming out from under the hood of my truck. I tell myself it’s probably just dust or something, but after a few more miles, there’s more smoke or steam pouring out of the bullet holes. The fact that Ieven have bullet holes in my hood is a pretty good indicator that something is screwed up inside.
    “No, no, no, no,” I say. It starts in a whisper, but each word gets louder, until I’m shouting at my truck.
    When the engine starts to make a clicking noise, I pull into a strip mall parking lot and get all the way behind a liquor store before the truck just up and dies. I have enough momentum to sort of hide it behind a wall of