Kris’s eyes shot over and fixed Maddy with a meaningful gaze.
Go.
In an instant Maddy was on her feet again and sprint-ing toward the Ferrari. She fumbled with the smart key while she ran, finding the unlock button. The Ferrari chirped to life. She hazarded a quick look down the driveway. The SUVs were already turning out the gate. In another moment, they would be gone. She saw Gwen running out from behind the wall. She must have seen Maddy’s frantic dash for the keys. Gwen reached the car first, jumping into the driver’s seat just as Maddy arrived.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Maddy gasped.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Gwen said.
Maddy opened the door. “No way. I don’t want you getting involved.”
“You need all the help you can get,” Gwen hissed.
“Seriously, get in.” Then she put both hands on the wheel.
“God, this car is so sexy.”
“Move over, then,” Maddy said as she got in, pushing Gwen into the passenger seat. “I’m driving.” She might not have a car of her own, but she’d never gotten less than an A in any class she’d ever taken, and that included driver’s ed.
She fed the key into the ignition and adjusted the rearview mirror. In the reflection, she could see Kris’s husband looking in her direction. She might only have seconds.
She punched the start button on the Ferrari and six hundred horses roared to life. The machine crouched like a wild animal, ready. Maddy depressed the clutch and moved the manual transmission into first. The Ferrari purred with anticipation. Gwen lifted an instructorly finger.
“Always adjust your side mirrors before putting the car in drive—”
Maddy released the clutch and shoved her foot down on the gas. The Ferrari lurched forward much faster than Maddy thought possible, throwing both girls violently into their seats. Maddy heard a voice behind her but didn’t dare look back.
“Put your seat belt on,” Maddy commanded. Gwen immediately obeyed. Maddy pushed the clutch in again, shifted to second, and smashed the accelerator. The Ferrari shot down the driveway like a whip and cleared the gate like a red marble out of a slingshot. She threw the wheel over, pivoting the screaming race car on its front right tire, and stomped on the gas again. In an instant they were rocketing down the street in pursuit of the caravan.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Maddy didn’t look back to see if she was being chased. It didn’t matter now. This was her only chance.
“Okay, but his house was, like, so amazing, right?”
Gwen said again as she looked in the rearview.
“Need to concentrate,” Maddy said curtly.
Maddy downshifted and the Ferrari’s engine snarled.
Needles jumped on the gauges as they roared down Outpost, glimpsing the caravan of black Escalades and then losing them again on the winding road. Sparkling Angel mansions flew by in a blur.
“So would now be an okay time to ask what is going on?” Gwen asked, holding on desperately to the door handle.
“They’re taking him,” Maddy said miserably.
“Who’s taking him?”
“The Angels. The deal must have been a lie and now they’re taking him.”
“Deal?”
“Jacks saved my life, which is against their law. Mark supposedly made a deal with the Council and the Archangels for Jacks’s life. But the deal was a trap and now they’ve caught him and they’re going to kill him and it’s all my fault.”
“What?” Gwen choked in bewilderment on all the information. “But they can’t kill him. He’s an Angel!”
“They’re going to make him mortal,” Maddy said.
“Then they’re going to kill him.”
Maddy caught a glimpse of the caravan again. They had reached the bottom of the road and were turning left onto Franklin.
“Angels can be mortal?” Gwen gasped. “And there’s a law? And wait, who’s Mark again?”
“Honestly, Gwen,” Maddy quoted as she braked for the turn, “how can you live in this city and not know these things?”
She threw the wheel over and they roared off the winding road onto the trafficked street.
“OMG, are these seat warmers?” Gwen asked as she fiddled with the buttons on the dash.
“If you could just not touch anything. .!”
Gwen frowned and folded her arms across her chest.
Maddy squinted into the glare of the late-afternoon sun, panicking. She had lost sight of them. Maddy ground the gears into fourth and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The engine screamed a high-pitched whine as they streaked forward like a crimson bullet.
“Hold on to something!” Maddy commanded.
The light had turned red. They flew into the intersection. Tires squealed as cars swerved, missing them by inches as they careened through the light.
“Where are they?” Maddy’s eyes scanned the street ahead as they tore past the other cars, horns blaring. “I’ve lost them!” she shrieked. “I’ve lost Jacks!”
“Just keep going straight!” Gwen said, her neck craning. “Maybe they’re going to the freeway.” Maddy swung in-to the bus lane and blew past the tourist traffic.
“Right there! Right there!” Gwen shrieked as she pointed to where the Escalades were turning up the on-ramp onto the Angel City Freeway. “They’re getting on the freeway! Going south!”
Maddy threw the wheel over. Horns roared in protest as she swerved in front of oncoming traffic, across the lanes of traffic toward the rushing on-ramp.
“We’re going to make it, hold on!” Maddy said. Their heads snapped back as they clipped the curb at the corner of the on-ramp, but Maddy straightened the wheel and they sailed up toward the elevated freeway. Gwen had gone white in the passenger seat.
“You are so losing your license after this!” she said.
Downtown lay ahead in the red haze of the dusk as they merged into freeway traffic. The sky itself seemed to be burning.
The caravan moved into the fast lane. Maddy followed. She could count five cars between them. She began to weave through traffic using the left two lanes, methodically closing the distance.
“How did you learn to drive like that?” Gwen yelled over the howl of six hundred horses.
“Watching Jacks.” She gunned the engine and slipped around another car.
“What?”
“You know, watching his shifting.”
Gwen gasped. “You’ve been looking at his shifter?”
“Would you just shut up!” She swerved around another car.
They were only three cars back. She looked at the back of the Escalade with its tinted black windows. The license plate had no numbers on it. It sent a chill down her spine.
She wondered where they were taking him. Out of the city, maybe. It didn’t matter. The beginnings of a plan were forming in her mind. It was simple, but effective. She would offer them something. Something, she was sure, they would be interested in.
Maddy changed lanes and jumped another car length ahead. The Escalades were only two cars ahead, although traffic was teeming.
“We’re almost there,” she said, feeling a sudden surge of hope.
Then it happened.
What Maddy saw, her brain could not process at first.
Her mind registered it only as a shape, a dark shape landing on the roof of the last Escalade. She heard the crunch of collapsing metal, followed by a rain of broken safety glass that pelted against the Ferrari’s windshield.
Slowly, slowly, her brain began to accept the images her eyes were sending, and the shape became clearer. It had a shimmering black body and vast, bat-like wings.