Rivals

Brent didn't have much time to think about what to do next. He could catch the Volvo easily, but it was coming at him so fast and at such a steep angle that even if he kept it from smashing into the street, the shock of his catch would probably throw the car's occupants right out of their seatbelts.

So instead of just catching it, he had to slow it down before impact. He ran forward, the muscles of his legs screaming as he pushed them harder than he ever had before. When the Volvo was still ten feet up in the air he leapt right at it, smashing into the front end with his shoulder. The car shook and rattled from the impact but not enough to hurt the people inside. As Brent started falling back, away from the mid-air collision, he grabbed at the fender, the hood, even the windshield wipers trying to get a good grip. A moment later his feet touched the ground. His knees bent under him and threatened to collapse, but he managed to keep his legs under him as he gently, slowly, lowered the car to the ground and set it down on its tires.

He rushed around to the driver's side and pulled the door open. "Are you okay?" he asked.

The driver, a woman who kind of looked like his mom, was pale and shaking but she didn't seem to be hurt. Brent glanced over her shoulder at the child safety seat in the back. The boy in the seat couldn't have been more than three years old. He looked up at Brent curiously, then picked a piece of cracker off his shirt and ate it.

"I think you'll be alright. I'm sorry if I damaged your car," Brent said, trying to meet the driver's gaze again. She was staring straight ahead, holding onto the steering wheel with both hands as if she was ready to drive off. "It was the only way. Listen, the police will be here soon - you may want to wait until they can check you out, make sure you weren't hurt."

"Thank... you," the woman said. Then her head fell back against the headrest of her seat and her eyes fluttered closed.

"Damn," Brent said.

He stood up and looked around for Maggie. She was gone, of course. Throwing the Volvo had been a diversion, a trick to get Brent to stop chasing her. It had worked. He couldn't leave this woman and her baby, not until he was sure they would be okay. Maggie could be blocks away by then, and he had no idea which direction she'd gone. He would never catch her.

A police helicopter came buzzing overhead first. Brent was sitting on the crumpled hood of the car. He looked up and saw it hovering in the darkening twilight air. He waved it away, trying to tell the pilot he needed to look for Maggie, that everything was under control where Brent was. Instead the helicopter just stood there in the air, not moving. Brent could barely hear sirens over the whirring of its rotor.

A cop car came racing around the corner and nearly hit the Volvo. Brent started to get up, intending to push it back with his hands if he needed to, but the driver was able to brake in time. Two police officers got out and came running toward him with their guns drawn. "You can put those away," Brent said, shouting over the noise of the helicopter. "But do either of you have any medical training?"

"I know first aid," one of them said. She knelt down by the open driver's side door and reached in to take the unconscious woman's pulse. Her partner moved quickly to string up yellow police tape to block off the road.

"She got away," Weathers said when he arrived a few minutes later. "She had to smash up half the town but she got away."

"Yeah," Brent said. "Well, now that you're here I've got better things to do, so I'll just be going - "

"Not so fast. We're going to need an official statement from you. A detailed account of everything that happened. Do you know how much paperwork I'm looking at? There are going to be lawsuits enough to keep a judge busy for years."

"Forget it," Brent told him. "You can figure it out on your own."

Weathers grabbed his arm. Brent looked down at the FBI man's hand, then up at his face. Brent tilted his head to one side and frowned.

"Don't try to intimidate me. I know your secret weakness, now. So does your sister?"

"You do?" Brent asked. He wasn't aware he had one.

"Yeah. You always do the right thing. That makes you predictable. Maggie knew you wouldn't let this woman or her baby get hurt. That you would give up chasing her if that's what it took to save them. That's a dangerous precedent, you know. What happens next time? How many people will she endanger to throw you off her trail?"

"Maybe there won't be a next time," Brent said. He shrugged off the man's hand. "Maybe after today, doing the right thing doesn't look so good anymore."

"Like you have a choice," Weathers said. The he sighed. "Alright. You can go. But stay by a phone. I want you where I can reach you at all times."

"I already told you! I don't work for you," Brent said.

"No. In a way, you could say that I work for you. Because you're on the list of those honest, innocent people I work to protect. Make sure you stay on it," Weathers said, and then turned away, done with him.