We’ve tried to reach you repeatedly since we discovered that you weren’t in New York. You were never in New York. All we can determine is that you were lying for some reason unknown to us. Since we cannot be sure of your motives, and we cannot get in touch with you, you should consider yourself excommunicated from the Sons of the Rising Sun, effective immediately. I do not need to remind you of the consequences of a decision like this.
On a more personal note, I wish to say that if you showed good faith and turned yourself in, I would argue to the Council on your behalf. Until this little stunt, you have been an asset to the Order. I am saddened to be writing this.
Alfred
A high-speed chase through the back roads of West Virginia was nothing like a high-speed chase on the movies. For one thing, all the roads only had two lanes, and there weren’t very many passing zones. Jason wasn’t used to driving in the mountains, and though he tried to go as fast as he could, the Satanists behind us were gaining on us. We got stuck behind a really slow car on Route 50, and they were right on our tail.
I was screaming. Jason was swearing. The car was ramming into the back of our stolen Nissan. Overall, everything looked bleak.
Then Jason passed the car in a no passing zone. Another car appeared around a blind curve.
We were in their lane.
If it were possible, I screamed harder. I just knew we were going to have a head-on collision.
But the car swerved into the guardrail on the side of the road, and Jason jerked us back into our lane, nearly grazing the car we’d just passed.
I looked over my shoulder out the back window. The car that had swerved lost control and rammed into one of the Satanist’s cars.
Lucky us, again. There was a four-car pile up, blocking any pursuit of us.
I stopped screaming and stared forward. “I hope no one died,” I said.
But we weren’t too lucky. After all, they could still find Jason with his ankle monitor. And we had nowhere to go. No one to help us.
“I have to get this monitor off,” said Jason. “I’m going to pull over.”
It made me nervous to be stopped, but Jason was right. Wherever we went with that thing on him, we’d have a homing beacon.
Jason pulled the car over onto the shoulder and switched on the overhead light.
“How are you going to take it off?” I asked.
“I could do it with scissors,” he said. “How likely is it that there are scissors in this car?”
I searched the glove compartment. “There’s a nail file,” I said.
“Give it to me.”
Jason struggled with the monitor for a long time, but only succeeded in breaking the nail file.
“I need something stronger,” he said, looking around the car. “What’s in the glove compartment?”
“Tissues. Owner’s manual. Ice scraper.”
“How big is the ice scraper?”
I showed it to him. It was one of those plastic hand-held kinds. It said “World’s Greatest Dad” on it. It was maybe eight inches long.
“I’ll try it,” he said. He took the ice scraper and wedged it between the monitor and his leg. “See, I think if I could just apply enough pressure, I could snap it off,” he said.
Instead, the ice scraper snapped in two. “Damn it!” said Jason. “There anything else in there?”
“A mini-maglite,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “That.”
At first Jason couldn’t get the maglite flashlight between the monitor and his ankle. But then he forced it in, and when he did, the monitor’s rivets popped away from the bracelet and the monitor fell off his leg. “Success!” said Jason, high-fiving me.
I grinned.
Jason got out of the car and placed the monitor under one of the wheels. Then he got back in and ran over the thing. We heard it crunch as we pulled away.
“Now,” said Jason. “You need clothes, and we’ll eventually run out of gas, and then we won’t have a car. So... basically we need money.”
Suddenly, I knew where we could go. “I have an idea,” I told Jason.