Slipped the lever into reverse.
Easing his foot off the brake, Danny backed the car out onto the main road and shifted into drive. The XJ6 began to roll forward. He didn't even have to give it any gas. On a flat, hard-surfaced road the car would do thirty by itself.
Another flick: Powerful halogen beams flashed to bright, shoving night back at least another fifty yards.
" 'Let there be light.' " Danny chuckled and gunned the Jag down the empty street.
Another Saturday night.
Time to go cruising.
He played the car gently around a corner and headed up Liberty Drive. It felt good driving the Jag again, real good. It was where he belonged on a Saturday night — him and the Jag, cruising the strip. So what if he wasn't a jock? So what if his family didn't belong to the Country Club set. So the fuck what?
Across the intersection of Liberty and Main.
Lights from the shopping center appeared up ahead on his right. Danny cut his speed. He could visualize the scene: some kids sitting in their cars, others lounging against front fenders or perched on hoods, a few inside the Pizza Den grouped around Cokes and pepperoni pizzas.
Karen would be here.
Karen…
For a moment he imagined she was already sitting here beside him, her hand on his leg, fingers creeping ever closer toward the bulge at his crotch. He could see them driving up to Sparrows Point, visualize her soft and yielding in the back seat… tight jeans rolling past her hips… blouse open, his hand on her breast…
Danny jerked himself back to reality, wiped sweat from his face with his sleeve and slowed even more, switching to running lights as he pulled in the side entrance to the shopping center's parking lot. He wanted to make a pass around behind the line of parked cars first, see if he could spot Karen in one of them.
Turning down the tape player, he crawled the Jaguar silently forward. A string of vehicles formed a close-knit semicircle beneath phosphorescents and neon. Familiar. Closed. Just like always.
But that was okay. He didn't need to be included. The Jag set him apart. In it, Danny was better than them all.
Keeping to the outer edge of the light, he scanned the parked cars — she wasn't inside any of them — then pulled back around behind some big green garbage Dumpsters and switched off his lights. Through a space between two Dumpsters, Danny watched… waited…
She came strolling out of the Pizza Den, flipping her long blond hair back in that way she had. God, she was beautiful. Jeans hugging her ass, jammed into her crack. He wiped away sweat, reached down to massage his swollen cock —
She wasn't alone.
Danny tensed as he saw Brad Simpson's tall, beefy form swing in beside her. One hand stuffed into the pocket of his jeans, the other draped possessively across her shoulders. His Varsity letter jacket billowed in the breeze.
Dammit. God damned son-of-a-bitch. Bastard.
He watched them saunter by a couple of cars, stop to talk at another, then head toward Brad's red Camaro. Opening the driver's door, Brad allowed her to slide in first, then followed. The Camaro's lights came on. It headed out of the lot. Danny watched it turn left onto Independence Boulevard and go speeding away.
He switched his lights back on and eased the Jag out to follow, taking his time. He didn't need to keep their taillights in sight to know where they were headed.
Sparrows Point.
Where else would they go?
Anger churned hot and sour in the pit of Danny's stomach. Desire coiled tight as a snake. It hissed its venom as he cruised the silver Jag down Independence Boulevard, turned left at Sakers Mill Road, climbed Mabry's hill to the Point.
There they were, the red Camaro parked all by itself at the edge of the cliff. He kept the powerful car on its leash, though it strained to break free, go leaping out of the final turn.
Cutting his headlights, he pulled onto the grassy embankment and rolled silently toward the Camaro. A smile stretched his face. Wind sang through his brain.
They were creatures of the wind this night, he and the Jag, and nothing — nothing could take that away.
Turning the tape player up again, he slipped the Jag's nose up close to the rear of the Camaro and stopped, letting the engine idle quietly. Then he popped the headlights on full.
Blond hair dripped over the back of the seat, cascading like ripples on a pond. Brad loomed over her, hands bracing the seat on either side of her head. He looked like he was eating her face.
Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!
They sprang apart, Brad jerking his head up with a startled look on his face, Karen swinging around. Danny watched her bring her hand up to shade her eyes from the glare of his lights.
Exhilaration took hold. He popped the Jaguar into reverse, lurching backward about twenty feet, then started inching forward again in little jumps and spurts. One foot on the gas, one on the brake, he revved the engine between each burst.
Brad whirled around, wrenched open his door and jumped out, striding toward the Jag. Fury radiated from him, hands clenched at his sides. Mr. Macho Man, ready for a confrontation.
Danny smiled and slammed into reverse again, spinning in an arc away from the Camaro. Wheels churned up the ground, throwing clumps of grass and gravel in their wake.
Brad stopped, was standing uncertainly at the rear of the Camaro. He'd recognized the Jag. Karen had her window rolled down, leaning out to see.
For a moment, Danny ignored the pair of them, listening to the feral purr of the Jaguar's engine, hearing it thrum through his veins, flame like a geyser of hard-rock sound. A wave of dizziness took him, lust — for the Jag, for the night — blurring all other emotions.
Then he looked at Karen. She was sitting there, face freeze-framed in the window, hair ruffling in the breeze.
He wanted her — God! How he wanted her.
Gradually, he began easing the car forward again, nosing it toward Brad, keeping him square in his sights.
Brad began backing away. He didn't look so macho now, he looked scared.
Danny liked that look. Liked it a lot.
He pulled to within a yard or so of the Camaro's rear bumper, blocking it in, angling the car to bring his window in line with Brad's gaping stare.
Danny mashed the brake hard, feeling the car tug against the leash, pressed the button to the power window. The glass slid downward with a soft hum.
Brad's eyes widened. His face blanched, ghost-white against the night.
Danny grinned, peeling his lips back off his clenched teeth, exploding the smile outward in a burst of pure hatred and anger and pain. Then Brad was scrambling backward, bolting off into the night.
"Brad? Brad, what's happening?"
Karen's frightened voice floated to him on the wind.
Danny ignored her — for the moment — gunning the Jag forward, releasing the leash. It leapt toward Brad's retreating back, headlights stabbing him, zeroing in.
It struck and kept going, on top of him when the body hit the ground, rolling over it again and again, circling around to pounce, maul, until the ground was as torn and gutted as the kill.
Then it was over. Bloodlust momentarily spent.
Danny let the car idle for a moment, then began easing it forward, taking up the slack between him and his new prey.
She'd started getting out of the car, thought better of it, was slamming doors and locking them, rolling up windows on both sides. He heard the engine grind and flood out.
He pulled in behind the Camaro.
She whirled around, looking back at him through the rear glass:
Like she'd stared at him that day at school, that day he'd finally gotten up the courage to ask her for a date, stared at him sitting at the wheel of this car and he'd known she was his for the taking, always known she could be his for the price of a Coke and a great set of wheels —