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down.
    “That's better”, River says.
    He's nearly at the car, and the woman is still filming him, unaware of the danger that approaches. Carefully he backs towards her, his eyes all the while on the four officers in front of him.
    “Get the fuck out of the car”, he says to her.
    For her size, the woman moves surprisingly quickly. It's almost as if she considers herself an extra on a movie shoot, because she puts up zero resistance, and instead, leaves her car as smoothly as possible, while continuing to film on her mobile phone.
    One of the officers by the car gets twitchy. He can see an opportunity coming, but River sees what he's thinking and won't let him get anywhere near taking it. He fires a warning shot into the ground, a centimetre from his big toe, and is inside the car, with Maddy alongside him, before the dust has had time to settle.
    River guns the car into action as the officers work quickly to retrieve their weapons. As soon as he pulls away, the back windshield explodes, as a bullet tears through it, showering the back seat with shards of glass and whistling only inches past River's ear. It isn't police procedure to fire in a situation where a hostage could be injured, but these four officers are too dumb to realise it.
    “Fuck me”, River says. “Have they forgotten you're in here, or what?”
    He pushes Maddy into the seat well to protect her from further shots and, losing control of the car momentarily, steers it up onto the sidewalk. Another shot destroys the rear light fixing, before River ploughs his way through a row of parked cars and back onto a clean stretch of road. As he disappears into the distance, the officers pile into their own cars and set off to chase him down, unaware that two of the robbers still remain inside the bank. If Carlos and Peters weren't already in the vault, filling bin bags with stacks of money, this would have been a perfect moment for them to escape.
    River casts a cautious glance into the glass hanging off the right hand side of his car, that's all that's left of what used to be the wing mirror. Up in front is a clear enough stretch of tarmac that leads through the thoroughfare of the city and out to the main road, but behind him, he sees the two police cars begin to give chase. The few moments he has until they catch him up, River uses to light another cigarette, and to find some decent music to listen to until the shit hits the fan again.
    “You alright Maddy?” River asks her, but only after his cigarette has been lit, and he's taken some of the smoke down into his lungs.
    Maddy is most definitely not alright. She's been forced against her will into a stolen car, by a thug with a death wish, she's been shot at, pushed onto the floor twice, her dress is ripped, her hair is a mess, and above all, she's been called Maddy, a name she absolutely detests. River tries to find something decent on the radio to listen to while he waits for Maddy's response.
    “My name is Madeleine”, Maddy says to him, the shock making it harder to concentrate on anything else. She tries to pull herself out of the seat-well and back up onto the seat, but as soon as she manages to steady herself enough to do so, River swings the car violently to the right, to overtake a slower vehicle, and the movement sends her crashing back down to where she started.
    “Don't be so uptight, Maddy”, he says. “Madeleine makes you sound like you've just been widowed. You haven't just been widowed have you? You kind of look like you have. Anyway, I'm River, it's a pleasure to meet you. Now what kind of music do you like?”
    He spins through the dial, while cutting in and out of traffic, one eye on the steadily advancing police cars behind him, one eye on the road ahead. To his delight, he finds some blue grass, which he listens to for all of six seconds, before another bullet rips through the car and destroys the stereo.
    Maddy screams, as the dashboard above her explodes in a fit of sparks and