Maddy felt her blood drain from her face. Why was there a gun in the car? And why was Carter holding it while lowering the freaking window?

"Carter, whatever you're thinking-"

But the lunatic beside her had already stuck his head out of the window, opening fire at the two SUVs. The first bullet he shot screeched against the metal of the gun, which recoiled and kicked back at his arm slightly. But even with one arm bleeding, he didn't seem to bother. He kept shooting at the SUVs behind them with pretty accurate aim.

How does he even know how to use a bloody gun?

She didn't really stop screaming for the next five minutes. Carter had half his body out in the vulnerable space where bullets were flying in the air in the speed of lightning, and as much as she wanted him dead, she had to admit she wanted her to be the one to kill him.

When one of the silver pieces of metal ricocheted off the frame of the car once again, the boy retreated back to his seat momentarily.

"Logan, wanna help?" he panted.

"Oh, just give me the other gun, man."

The other- The other gun? How many are there?

"What the fuck is going on?" squeaked Sia. "How many guns do you even have?"

"Two." Carter tossed the second one at Logan, who was right behind Maddy in the back seats, diagonally to Carter. He lowered his window as well.

They gave each other a nod, and then they had both stuck their upper bodies out of the window, sat on their knees. The bullets bouncing off their handguns left Maddy's ears ringing with the deafening ping!s.

She turned right too suddenly, and Carter almost flied out of the car.

"Woah, keep it straight!" he yelled at Maddy, and she felt her cheeks burning.

He kept shooting at one of the two SUVs, the other one in Logan's duty. Not more than a couple of seconds later, one of them must've hit their target, because a cry of pain ripped through the air. Maddy, however, didn't dare look back at the man who had just had a hole drilled into his shoulder.

After a fair amount of bullets had been shot, the two boys darted their bodies back inside the car, and Maddy thought she heard Carter scoff and mumble something about amateurs.

She almost laughed at how he kept his smugness even when they were dealing with professionals.

"So? What are you doing?" screeched Mia.

"It's a bit hard when you have someone who doesn't even know how to drive on the steering wheel, you know," barked Carter.

His asshole self was back, clearly. Not that he was wrong, but... still. He was being too nice earlier, when his rough hands were cupping Maddy's tightly, his voice guiding her. It didn't last much.

"Okay, let's do this." Logan reloaded his gun.

Carter did the same, and this time, the two boys didn't give each other a sign before going all out again.

Maddy drove as steadily as she could, biting her lip to suppress her wild screaming.

"Take that, motherfuckers!" shouted Logan at the top of his lungs, his voice hot and raspy.

There was a loud pop pop pop, like balloons bursting when you prick them with a needle, followed by a screeching high-pitched sound that made Maddy wanna cover her ears. When she looked at the rear view mirror, she almost passed out.

One of the two SUVs wavered in her vision, jerking off to the side and then flipping. It got lifted from the ground, flying in slow motion in the air.

On its touchdown, it crashed onto the other SUV.

Boom!

It felt like a 6 magnitude earthquake had just taken place on the road. The explosion forced a black and scarlet cloud of smoke to rise in the air from the collision, and Maddy's eyes were glued to the reflection of the wreck in the rear view mirror.

The two boys retracted themselves back inside the Ford, sweat dripping off from their exposed foreheads, their hair taken back from the air blowing in the opposite direction.

And they were laughing.

Those two oafs were laughing like they had just heard the biggest joke of the century.

Maddy gaped at them, and so did the other two girls. How were they laughing? They had nearly been killed.

The realisation hit her. The five of them had just blown two SUVs into nothing, with an injured Carter shooting with a handgun and Maddy in the steering wheel. Maddy, who hadn't even touched a steering wheel before in her entire life.

Take that, motherfuckers! Logan's raspy voice from earlier played again in her head, like an ironic, mocking echo.

A giggle bubbled up in her chest before she could control it, and she burst into laughter, too. She couldn't help it. Mia snorted, then muttered something about poor aim and covered her mouth with one hand as she struggled to keep a straight face as well. And Sia, who looked as if she was gonna faint only a few moments ago, had now buried her head in her palms and started creasing up.

None of them could help it.

They had death knocking on their door only a few seconds ago, and they didn't know what it was that made them crack up so hard right now, but this must've been how adrenaline and by-a-hair survivals worked like.

One moment you're standing on the edge of a cliff, and the next one you're reflecting on how you were just standing there like a stupid moron ready to commit suicide.

This was funny. It was funny and ironic how they had made it out alive.

The car wavered from the laughter bubbling up Maddy's entire body.

"Woah!" Carter held his hands out, his pale, handsome face still beaming from his laugh. "We survived that, and you're going to get us killed now?"

Maddy muttered a half-hearted "Sorry" between her uncontrollable giggles, and then the sound of laughter echoed even louder inside the car.

They were all mad.

But Maddy thought she could get used to it.