Maddy screamed as she plummeted down, the gravity pulling her to the earth into a weightless free fall.

Her body slammed against the flat, solid ground with a thud, and the pain vibrated through her, brutal waves crashing onto her entire body. She was twisted on her side, facing what looked like a sleek, black surface, but a thick cloud of dust had been lifted in the air, blurring her sight. The tiny, grey particles were whirling like mini-tornados all around her. She rolled on her back, moaning at the impact of the motion and coughing at the thickness of the air. Stars were dancing in her vision like a silver halo; she must've hit her head on her way down. She could hear voices shouting in the distance, but the sound came from far away and it was muffled, as if she was in a dream-or in a nightmare.

A thump echoed on the ground somewhere near where she was lying, the sound dull, yet somehow louder than a bomb exploding next to her ear.

That was all it took for her to come to herself.

Her weak arms pushed her up on her feet fast, trembling slightly. Her head was ringing. It felt heavy on her neck and shoulders, but she ignored it. Another thump. And another two. Her eardrums slowly adjusted to the sounds around her as she eyed her surroundings.

An ink-black Ford was parked in front of her in all its majesty. She was in the garage.

With her eyesight already restored and clear, she discovered that those thumps she had heard were feet hitting the floor as they landed safely and sturdily on it.

Unlike her-she was lucky she hadn't broken anything.

Carter, Logan, Mia and Sia were all down with her, waving their hands in front of their faces to get rid of the fog of dust attacking their eyes.

"Well, thank got Mia got her foot stuck in the decking last year," mumbled Logan, and Maddy finally understood what they'd all been looking for in the veranda earlier.

She couldn't get her mind to register what happened in the next few seconds.

She heard a harsh creak. She snapped her head towards the direction from which the sound came. She saw the garage door slowly lift upwards. Through the little crack of the opening, she saw pairs of heavy boots.

The garage door was opening, and there were men, most probably armed, waiting on the other side.

She didn't know how many they were. She looked back at the others. Carter threw something at her. She grabbed it on the last second before it slipped her hands, which were still a bit shaky from the shock of the fall. She looked at the black and silver object in her dirty palm. She looked back at Carter.

"Drive!" he yelled. Everybody got in the car with no further do, before she could even open her mouth.

Only then did she realise that, this whole time, she had been standing right in front of the driver's seat.

Her legs didn't move an inch. She broke into cold sweat.

Drive!

Panic overwhelmed her. She looked at the car like it was an activated bomb in her hands. The garage door was still opening, wider and wider.

Shit. Holy shit. Holy freaking-

"What are you looking at? Get in!" Carter's roaring voice made her flinch.

She opened the door. She sat on the driver's seat. She turned the car on with the key Carter had thrown at her only a moment ago. She grabbed the steering wheel, knuckles flexing white from the pressure of her tight grip. Her numb feet landed on the two pedals in front of them.

And she just... stopped.

"What the fuck are you doing?" snarled Carter next to her, still holding his left biceps. "Drive the bloody car!"

"I don't know how to drive!" Maddy screamed back, barely recognising her own voice.

Silence settled in the car for a few seconds, like an alarm had just set off. Logan threw his head back on the leather seat in despair. Sia pulled her hair with both hands. Mia looked like somebody had just cracked a particularly bad dad joke.

And Carter was just staring at her, his face gone blank in the front passenger's seat. "What?" He blinked, his eyes wider than the opening of the garage door.

Which was more than halfway up, by the way, revealing more than five men's lower bodies.

Maddy swallowed thickly. That was why she hadn't liked the idea of taking shifts earlier in the first place.

She couldn't drive.

And yet, somehow, she had gotten herself in the driver's seat.

Holding the steering wheel.

Not even knowing which pedal was the break and which the gas.

"The right. Step on the right pedal," said Carter, his breathy voice struggling to stay calm as he answered the question she had never voiced out loud.

He could read her mind like an open book. Maddy didn't like that at all, but now she seemed fairly grateful for it.

Carter's long fingers grabbed the handbrake, rivers of blood rolling down his left arm. Honestly, she didn't know what he was doing, but she didn't really care either.

Just trust me, okay?

"O-Okay," she gulped.

"Now."

Maddy's eyes shot up and sought his face, hesitant and scared.

"Step. On. It."

Oh crap. I'll get us killed.

Then she pressed her foot on the accelerator.

Too forcefully.

The car abruptly rocketed forward and they were all pulled back, hitting their heads on their seats. Carter cursed next to her, but she was too busy freaking out to listen to him. The car had surged out of the garage in the blink of an eye.

And Maddy had ran over three men before she could even pull herself back together again.

She winced at the loud thud of the two men hitting hard against the corners of the Ford, and then proceeded to scream as the third one smacked against the windshield, shooting blood from his mouth.

Speaking of shooting, the rest of the men who were still intact and standing on both feet behind the car opened fire at them. As the bullets ricocheted off the frame of the Ford, Maddy's screaming mingled with Sia's squealing and Mia's shrieking.

Maddy wrenched the steering wheel to the left, forcing a screeching sound from the straining tyres, and the man lying on the windshield of the car flew in the air.

Stomping on the gas pedal even harder, she narrowly missed taking down a tree as she steered the Ford out of the driveway and into the wide road.

They were traveling on an extremely high speed, and Maddy felt her stomach turning upside down. The distance between the car and the armed men shooting at them grew bigger and bigger each second.

You've got this, Maddy. You can do it.

A few more seconds passed, and the men behind them stopped shooting at the car. Maddy exhaled deeply, focusing on her driving.

But then she noticed Carter glancing at the rear view mirror. "Those motherfuckers," he gasped.

Maddy let her eyes stray from the road ahead of her for a second and rover up to the rear view mirror as well. She almost risked leading the car out of the road when she saw the two grey SUVs from earlier flow on the gravel road behind them.

"We've got a tail," she choked, struggling to keep the wheel straight.

"Two tails, actually," corrected her Mia, but her tone wasn't mocking at all, surprisingly. Just panicked.

Maddy saw something in the reflection of the mirror and squinted, even as her eyes weren't fixed on the road ahead of her.

Is that...?

A man's hands holding a silver object came into view from the back window of the SUV.

G-Gun. He's holding a-

She should've already gotten familiar to the clicking sound of the gun trigger, but as the first bullet rocketed from the muzzle, she couldn't help but scream again. The bullets fired her way distracted her from driving the car in a straight path and the vehicle made a scary, dangerously unstable zigzag. She struggled to reign the car back into control, but being shot at didn't particularly help.

Then Carter's large hands grabbed the steering wheel, falling on top of her tiny ones, and he guided her to hold the wheel properly.

"Don't get us killed, princess," he said, his voice a gasping whisper. He looked paler than usual, paler than what was considered healthy. He was still bleeding a crimson, hot river of blood, and his breath was more than simply unsteady. Maddy had to admit it was worrying her.

But somehow, he still managed to have that idiotic smirk on his face. And his callused fingers radiated a feeling of reassurance and certainty into her as they were holding the wheel tightly above hers.

"They're gonna take out our tyres," informed them Logan as another spray of bullets was sent in their direction.

Well, Maddy was suspecting that her not so stable driving had helped them dodge the bullets up until then, so maybe it was a good thing she didn't know how to drive after all.

Yeah, no.

Carter looked back at Logan, and Maddy would swear those two were talking with their eyes. When they came to what seemed like an agreement in their eye conspiracy, Carter turned back towards Maddy, his strong hands still covering hers. Maddy peeked at his handsome face, her gaze cautious and suspicious.

"You got this?" he asked, his voice mellow and soft and... very unlike him.

Nope, thought Maddy.

She nodded yes, however, and he let go. The moment his hands were gone, she felt that feeling of surety vanish into thin air, but she kept going, and figured out the car was still in a generally straight line.

It was like learning to ride a bicycle for the first time. You need someone to hold you in the beginning, just so you know you won't fall. Then when that someone lets go, you're scared out of your wits to keep going on your own, without any help, without someone holding you to prevent you from falling, but that's the secret to riding a bicycle: you need to keep moving to keep your balance.

Carter was digging inside the glovebox in front of him while she was trying to steady out her breath and the wheel all at once.

"Didn't you hear they're going to take out our tyres?" screamed Mia, who sounded as mad as a hatter.

Carter grinned a smile that sent shivers down Maddy's spine. "Not if we take out theirs first," he said.

And he drew out a shiny handgun from the glovebox.

that