Hope surged through me. I wrenched the steering wheel toward the exit. But Cecil swung his truck over and planted it squarely alongside me, boxing me in.
No matter how I turned the wheel, it was useless. I was pinned in place.
His voice came through the speaker, dripping with mockery.
"Trying to run? Not a chance."
All I could do was watch the exit disappear behind me.
I pounded the steering wheel and blared the horn until my palms ached. Cecil only laughed louder.
When I twisted around to check on my father-in-law, he was lying motionless on the floor. Not a sound.
"Dad! Don't pass out on me. Hang on!"
I kept turning back, shouting at him, trying to pull him back to consciousness.
He didn't move. He didn't respond. I had no idea if he was alive or dead.
I hated them. Both of them.
If they hadn't boxed me in out of sheer spite, I would have made it to the hospital. The man who had given me everything wouldn't be lying there, hovering between life and death.
I rolled down my window, thrust my arm out, and pointed straight at Cecil in the truck beside me.
"Cecil, you son of a bitch! You're killing him!"
Cecil sat in the driver's seat and glanced toward my back seat. A flicker of surprise crossed his face.
Then it was replaced by pure, gleeful satisfaction.
His message came through a moment later.
"Ha! My own father never even slapped me, but you had the nerve to. Now your old man's dead, isn't he?"
"Karma. That's what this is. Karma!"
I freed one hand, steadied my phone, and snapped a photo of my father-in-law crumpled in the back seat. I sent it straight to my wife.
"Gretchen! Get it through your head. I am trying to get our father to a hospital. I am driving to save his life!"
Her expression on the screen was dark as a storm. She reached across her car, rummaging for something, then rolled down her window and extended her arm.
A steel wrench glinted in her fist.
I realized what she was about to do.
My heart seized. I screamed, frozen in place.
"Gretchen, no!"
The next instant, her fingers unclenched. The wrench hurtled through the air and slammed into my windshield.
A deafening crack.
The glass splintered into a massive spiderweb of fractures radiating from the point of impact.
I flinched and jerked the wheel. The left side of my car ground against the guardrail, showering sparks, the shriek of metal on metal lasting a full ten seconds before I finally snapped back to my senses.