Chapter 3

Sam was lost in thought when he heard the door close. Max had left. This caught Sam off guard.
Sam was a thinker. He thought things through before he acted. After Max had informed him of his knowledge of a proper target, Sam had closed his eyes and begun to think, only to open them to the sight of an empty room.

Sam was not sure what to make of this. Had Max suddenly become determined? Was this not the same man who said earlier that he could not do this?

Then again, if it was Sam’s daughter’s life on the line, he probably would have done the same thing.

So now Sam was left with a decision. Should he follow Max? Where did Max go? He never did get the name of the place that max planned on robbing, but he did know of a small convenience store that was nearby which is probably where Max went.

Option number two was to sit and wait for Max to return. This option did not hold much interest, so Sam walked out of the office and got into his car.

It appeared that Max and Sam had the same place in mind because when Sam pulled up Max burst through the door with a plastic bag in his hand.

Something was wrong though.

Max was still facing inside, and unusually loud sounds could be heard accompanied with screams.
It took Sam a minute to register that Max was shooting, but when it did it registered with a bang. The third bang to be precise.

Sam was frozen. What should he do? Was Max just wanting to scare the people in the store? Had he shot somebody? If so had he killed somebody?

Sam had to confront him. Sam knew it. Max, however, not only had a gun, but he had Sam’s gun. This meant that Sam was without a weapon. Sam did not believe that max would shoot him, but when confronted about things such as this people tend to do unpredictable things.

Sam did not like the unpredictable.

It was something that could not be conquered by the human mind, and, therefore, posed a threat to Sam’s entire being.

Staying in the car was definitely not the right thing to do either though, but he had to do something.

Sam suddenly realized that he was looking at the floorboard of his car. He looked up just in time to see Max jump in his car and speed away from both the store and the office. Sam threw his car in drive and pursued him.

***

The red Chevy Impala that Sam drove may not be the sportiest car with the most horsepower, but it did its job well. Besides, Max’s black Ford Explorer was not exactly built for high speed chases. Sam kept up with Max: swerving between cars, changing lanes, turning left, then right, and the occasional U-turn.

For a moment, Sam was waiting for a random person to pull out a gun and shoot his tires, and, by doing so, send his Impala rolling into the ditch engulfed in flames.

This never happened, Hollywood lied again.

To begin with this chase was a rush of adrenaline, but that had worn out now. Now it was almost just a normal drive, so Sam began thinking.

Where is Max going? What is he doing? What did he do? What should I do? Wha…

The noise was so loud, the pain in his side excruciating, there was a warm red liquid flowing from where he thought his ear was supposed to be, there was yelling, and then there was only blackness.