I walked to the car and got in. Diana got in as well while he put himself in the back seat.

“All right the both of y’all give me your cellphones,” he said.

I briefly debated all the lies I could tell him. I don’t have it. I lost it. None would be believable. I didn’t have the emergency beacon on either. Three clicks on the power button could have sent a text and a location. However, my nature is prone to fidgeting, and the odds that I could send one inadvertently had been too high for me to activate the feature. I handed him my phone. Diana reached in her purse and handed him hers

“Oh sweet, she has the new iphone.” He was happy about that. I had waited in line for hours to get that for her. He was less enthusiastic about my phone. “Crap. Last year’s model. I won't get shit for it. I’m going to hold on to these for the duration of our trip.”

“Now start the car and drive.”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t I will shoot her. We’ve already been through this.”

“Yeah you shoot her, which is a better fate than can happen if we go with you.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Well you’re out of options right now. So pull out and I’ll tell you where to go.”

I started the car and pulled out into the road. We started down the side streets. I glanced at the rearview mirror. He had put the gun into his lap. He was still holding on to it. But he was looking around. I saw that he didn’t have his seat belt on. I had buckled mine out of force of habit. We stopped at a light. I looked ahead. There was a driveway with a sign in it on the side. I could go up it and right into the sign. He would bounce off the seat and be disoriented. We could flee the car and be fine. I looked over at my fiancé. Her belt was off as well. That wouldn’t work. It was worse since she was up front. The impact would do more harm to her than it would him. I needed her to put on her seat-belt.

“Diana,” I half whispered. "You should put on your seat-belt.”

She gave me a weird look. Like she didn’t understand. I said again. “Seat-belt.” Why was she hesitating? Why wouldn’t she put on the seatbelt.

“Hey, what’r you plotting up there?” Demanded the gunman in the back seat.

“He’s just being a nag.” Diana said. “Put on your seat-belt, squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom of the tube, put the DVDs back in alphabetical order.”

“The gun man looked at me. Well he ain’t wrong. We wouldn’t want anything dangerous to happen. Or some nosy cop to pull us over, or for you to run away.” He buckled his seat-belt and motioned for Diana to do so.

Crap, I didn’t think about that. We could have bailed out of a moving vehicle if he had become complacent. Better than running into something else. If a passing cop had seen us he would have pulled us over. Her plan would have been better. I couldn’t guarantee that wrecking the car wouldn’t disable us or injure us worse. Now both options are off the table. And he would be watching us more closely. I cursed inwardly.