“Fuck! Move!” I don’t need to tell Michael twice. He’s rushing forward, shoving the three girls in front of him. Sloane and Newan are moving like they’re taking this really fucking seriously. Lacey on the other hand is frozen still—she’s been like this before, so gripped by fear she can’t move. I grab her and toss her over my shoulder, and then we’re running.

Shots begin to rain down on us.

Crack. Crack, crack! Three loud bangs, and none of them hit home.

Sloane’s clearly acting on instinct. She throws herself into the back seat of the Camaro. Michael has to bodily force Newan inside; he follows after her. That leaves the front seat for Lacey. I bundle her inside, race around the car, start the engine, and tear off up the street in less than two seconds flat.

Five people in one fucking Camaro? Yeah, even with the engine modifications I made, our zero to sixty is epically fucking slow.

“Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women—” Lacey’s eyes are screwed tightly shut, and she’s already started to rock. Her words of prayer are barely audible in between her ragged gulps for air. We don’t have long before she reaches the pinnacle of her breakdown. She can’t fucking handle the front of the car. She’s gonna explode any second now. Fuck.

“Take a left. Left,” Michael commands. I swing the car through the corner, not even daring to see if we’re being followed. We are being followed; I just don’t wanna see how close they are. “Pull over,” Michael shouts.

We’re around the other side of the park, so I swerve in and hop out of the car. No agents, but that won’t last long. We’re working with seconds here. Michael jumps out of the car and gets in the driver’s seat, while I run around and grab Lacey from the front. She’s shaking like a leaf in my arms.

“I’ll get them back to the West Ave apartment,” Michael tells me. “Be safe, brother.”

I lock eyes with Sloane in the back—she’s pale. There’s a degree of horror on her face, but her jaw is clenched tight. She’s fighting to keep calm. Pride surges through me—she’s so fucking resilient. Our eyes remain fixed on each other, until Michael burns off in the Camaro and then she’s gone. I immediately regret not telling Sloane to come with me. Fuck. Fuck! She’s out of my reach now. I can’t protect her. I can’t do anything. Fuck. I suddenly feel helpless. I’m not, though; I have to take care of the girl I’m carrying in my arms. I slip into the park just in time to avoid being seen by the single SUV that roars past. God knows where the other car is. I have no idea what took them so long to get around the corner, but I’m sure as hell not complaining. It’s likely the shots I fired on the vehicles actually did some damage. We shouldn’t have gotten away from there. We should have all been arrested in that alleyway and been well on our way to a field office for questioning.

“Why won’t you just…why won’t you just fucking die?” Lacey sobs, burying her face into my chest. “Die! Just—just fucking die!” It’s not me she’s talking to. She’s lost inside her head right now. This is some god-awful memory she apparently endures on a playback loop whenever her brain shuts down like this—I’ve seen it happen before. I’ve heard her crying out the same words, over and over. It’ll be a while before she starts making any sense again, which is a problem. I now need to find a car to steal, and her crying at the top of her lungs over a man who I’m nearly a hundred percent sure she killed is going to prove problematic.

I know there’s no point in trying to talk her down from this. Been there, tried that—it doesn’t work. There’s only one thing for me to do: I clamp my hand over her mouth and prepare to be bitten.

I can tolerate it. I can deal with it long enough to find a vehicle, and then I’m taking this girl and I’m getting her the hell out of here.

Of all the things I had planned for today, being thrown around the back of Zeth’s Camaro, pouring blood all over the upholstery while being chased by the Drug Enforcement Administration wasn’t on the list. Michael drives like he plays too much Need For Speed: cutting, drifting, and screeching around corners no matter how dangerous it might seem. On-coming traffic howls at us as we dodge and weave through the vehicles, and Michael remains quiet, his eyes stoically fixed on the road ahead of him as he pumps the gas. Not once does he look behind him; not once does he look to see where the unmarked DEA cars are. Pippa does, though.

“They’re not there anymore! You can pull over and let me out.”

“There’s probably a helicopter on us,” Michael says mildly.

My arm is on fire. It feels like I have liquid napalm in my veins instead of blood. I’m pressing my forehead against the window, trying to breathe through the pain, when Pip notices me holding onto my shoulder.

“I can’t hear a heli—whoa, Sloane, are you bleeding?”

My hand is itching to reach out and slap her so hard she sees stars—this is all her fault—but I need to keep pressure on the bullet wound in the top of my left arm, which is currently pumping copious amounts of blood out of my body. Instead I turn on her, my fury no longer a containable force. “When did she speak to you?” I demand. “When did you decide you should turn me in to the freaking cops, Pip?”

“You mean, when did I decide enough was enough?” she snipes back. “Oh, I don’t know. When you were being questioned by a member of a national crime unit and you ran out on her? Or maybe it was when Oliver contacted me earlier, so worked up he could barely speak. But maybe, just maybe, it was when some awful woman was blackmailing me, telling me that you would be exonerated of any involvement in this mess so long as she gets the information she needs about your sister. That’s all she wants, Sloane. That bastard has been feeding you lies, no doubt, telling you they’re going to send you to jail or something. All you have to do is cooperate and you’ll be in the clear. I don’t want to watch this happen to you, okay? I don’t want to see you flush your life down the drain for a criminal who’s not worth—”