Free Draw the Brisbane Line by P.A. Fenton

start coming in.’
    He frowned.  ‘No, I mean … You’re in danger .  Potential for like, physical harm.’
    She raised her eyebrows and waited, but the kid seemed to have gotten confused, thought it was her turn to speak.  ‘You’re not threatening me, are you?’ she said.
    ‘They’re gunna try for the Lexus, Miss Lucas.’
    ‘They?’
    ‘Sammo and his boys.’
    ‘Sammo and his boys want to steal my car?’  Like she knew who Sammo was.
    He nodded.  ‘Jack it.’
    There it was.  Apparently a car-jacking was still on the cards.  A pair of horns blasted from behind, and she could see the queue behind me was now about six cars long.
    ‘Look, can I get in?’
    ‘Fuck off!’ she blurted.  She could hear her PR agent Marcie in her ear saying, Hollywood stars do not say fuck off, Jennifer .
    ‘Look, I know where they’re waiting for you, just a few hundred metres from the highway, and in a few other places.  They really want this car, Miss Lucas.’
    ‘And what makes you think they can stop me?  Do you have any idea how fast this car can go?’
    ‘Nought to a hundred in less than four seconds?  That about right?’
    Jenny realised she had no idea.  ‘Yeah, that’s about right.’
    ‘So are you willing to drive through a human wall, bust right through it like a big … flesh curtain?’
    ‘Urk, flesh curtain?  Really?’
    ‘Are you, though?  Because that’s what it’ll take.  They’re banking on you not being the type to mow down pedestrians.  Because of the bad publicity.’
    ‘Also because it’s wrong?  Evil?’
    ‘I can take you on a route which avoids them completely, if you’ll let me in.’
    ‘Why would you want to do that?  You tried to steal my car.’
    He rubbed his hand over his face and into his boy-band hair.  ‘Only because Sammo pushed me into it.  He said they’d burn my house to the ground if I didn’t do it.  That was my mum’s house, Miss Lucas.  I couldn’t let them do that.’
    God, that sincerity.  The damp eyes, the subtle tremble in his bottom lip, the worry lines cut into his beautiful face.  If the kid was lying, he could make a fortune on screen.
    ‘But what if someone sees you with me?  Won’t they carry through with their threat?’
    He rubbed at the back of his head and scratched a half-smile onto his face.  ‘Yeah, probably.  But it’s funny how much your priorities can change in a couple of hours.  Right now I just want to get the fuck out of town.’
    More horns now, and close to a dozen cars in a tailback a block long.
    ‘If you can get me as far as Brisbane,’ he said, ‘I have family there, an uncle.  He’s waiting for me before he leaves.  Look, I’m really sorry for trying to break into your car, but Sammo and his lot had me over a barrel.  I can help you.’
    ‘Step back from the car for a second,’ she said.
    The groove of his smile slipped away from his mouth and resettled on his forehead in crooked furrows.  He thought she was going to drive away from him, but he stepped away anyway, resignation in his sloping shoulders.  She looked him up and down: pale blue t-shirt, white board shorts, green Havaianas on his feet.  She couldn’t see anywhere he might have a weapon stashed.  There was probably a back pocket on his shorts.
    ‘What’s in your pocket?’ I said.
    He reached back and pulled out a thin neoprene wallet and an iPhone.
    ‘That’s all you’ve got with you, a phone and a wallet?’
    ‘It’s all I need,’ he said, the grin dipping a couple of toes in to test the water.
    Fuck it , she thought, I could probably use the company .  She unlocked the doors and said, ‘Go on then, get in.’
    He jumped in the passenger seat with a full-beam smile, dimples and all.  She felt an urge to ruffle his blond hair, but she restrained herself.
    ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘Tait.  Tait Rosencrantz.’
    She shook his hand, but its warmth did nothing for the chill now doing laps of her central nervous