Fortunately, the remnant doesn’t pursue her. He intercepts a rebel’s attack, swinging, then fissuring and swinging again.
She reaches me. I take hold of her arms as she takes hold of mine. She has a scrape across her left cheek, but otherwise, she looks okay.
“This way,” I say, pulling her to the right at the same time that she pulls me left, and says, “Over here.”
“No, Paige—”
“Come on!” she yells. “We have a plan.”
“A plan? Who’s we?” I demand, but she’s still pulling me down the street. “Paige, what are you doing?”
She turns back to me.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she says. “I’m saving your ass.”
SIXTEEN
SHE’S SAVING ME?
My gut tells me I know what that means, but I don’t have time to ask what the remnants have told her. A police officer or cop or whatever it is they call the authorities here approaches us.
“I need to see your identifications,” he says in his lilting British accent. Lights from the city’s emergency vehicles make his neon vest bright. They also disorient me. I tense with every flash in my peripheral vision, but I don’t see Aren or Shane or any of the remnants. Where the hell did they go?
“Now,” the officer demands, taking a step forward and resting his right hand on the baton at his hip.
Paige and I take a step back.
“I left my ID in my other jeans.” Totally true, but the cop either doesn’t believe me or he doesn’t care. He slips his baton an inch out of its holder. I don’t know what his deal is. Hundreds of people were in that club. He should be asking if we’re okay. He shouldn’t be treating us as if we’re…
Criminals. As if we’re armed.
I am armed, and if the bodies in the building next door have been discovered, the cops are probably searching for the killers.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” the officer says.
Paige suddenly loops her arm around my waist, throwing her weight against me with enough force to make me stagger.
“Call an ambulance!” she says, her bright blue eyes going wide. “Can’t you see she’s bleeding?”
Bleeding? I look down, see that my shirt and jeans are covered in blood. I’m not hurt, though. Not badly, at least. This is all from the girl in the club.
The dead girl in the club.
“You have to help us,” Paige says, forcing me to move toward the officer. “Please.”
Paige is a great actress, but the cop isn’t buying it. His baton slides all the way out of its holder, and he shouts a name, calling for backup, I presume.
I look toward the right, where the rest of the cops are congregated, helping the injured or setting up barricades to keep out traffic and the decent-sized crowd that’s developed.
Speaking of that crowd, it surges toward the sidewalk, making room for a black sedan to pass. The car hits the opposite curb, nearly clips the post holding up one side of the canopy in front of the theater’s entrance before returning fully to the street. Completely ignoring the barricade the police are moving into place, it heads straight for us.
It has to be Shane. Thank God he made it out of the club okay.
I grab Paige’s arm, removing it from around my waist and using it to pull her toward the approaching vehicle. Then I remember the last time Shane came to my rescue. He plowed into me. I don’t want a repeat experience, so I backpedal toward the sidewalk.
“Hey!” the officer in front of us shouts, moving forward. He notices the car a second later. I tense, hoping Shane doesn’t intend to run him down—hitting a remnant is so much different than hitting a human who’s only doing his job—but the officer staggers backward, out of the way.
The car screeches to a stop between us. I grab the handle of the back door, jerk it open, and am halfway inside before I realize the driver isn’t Shane.
He is human, though.
His dark brown eyes meet mine. “You have two seconds to make a decision.”
He shifts into first gear. Paige shoves me from behind. I’m not in the mood to see the inside of a British jail, so I scurry across the seat. Paige barely has time to fall into the car beside me before the driver takes off.
Or rather, he sort of takes off. I’m thrown back, then forward and back again as the transmission protests. This is a standard. Whoever this guy is obviously doesn’t have much experience with them.
“Let me drive,” Paige says, putting her hands on the shoulders of the front seats to crawl over the center console.
“No,” the driver answers. After another rough stop and start, he gets moving. For about ten seconds. The car coughs and dies.
“You’re going to strip the gears!” she says, grabbing the hand he has on the stick shift.
There’s a muffled yell outside the car. I turn in time to see the officer slam his baton into the driver’s window. The safety glass fractures but stays in one piece.
The cop raises his baton again just as the car roars back to life. We lurch forward. I turn around, looking out the back window to see the officer running after us with the baton raised again. He swings. This time, he misses.
But we are so not out of danger yet. A car parked beside the crowd of onlookers starts moving, heading toward us with its lights flashing.
I face forward again, see that the street is clear ahead, but I’ve seen enough police chases on TV to know that this won’t end well. We might be in the UK, but I’m sure they have helicopters and cameras the same as we do in the U.S. The only way we might—might—get away with this is with fae help. We need to get to the gate.
The guy driving brakes as he makes a sharp left. The turn goes well, but as soon as he tries accelerating again, the car sputters. Paige sprawls over the console and has to brace a hand against the front dash. I grip the back of the driver’s seat and hold on.
“You’re going to get us killed,” Paige says. “Move.”
“You’re sitting on the gearshift.” He leans his shoulder into her, trying to push her out of the way. Ahead, a patrol car sits at an intersection. It starts to pull out, blocking our street.
Paige grabs the wheel, spinning it. I’m thrown against the door, and I swear we nearly flip as we make a wild left turn.
“Jesus Christ, Paige!” The driver rights the steering wheel, but once again, the car lurches.
“This isn’t working.” I grab the door handle. “We’re going to have to run.”
“Not if this asshole cooperates,” Paige says. She gets her legs underneath her, then somehow maneuvers her way into the guy’s lap. She’s petite enough that she’s actually able to fit under the wheel. From the backseat, I can’t see what exactly happens next, but there’s a grunt of pain from the driver, the gears grind one last time, then tires squeal as we take off.
Sirens blare beside us. I curse when I see the patrol car speeding toward my window. Curse again when Paige yanks the wheel, sending me across the backseat. I’m awkwardly wedged onto the floorboard when I’m flung in the other direction.
Adrenaline surges through me—I’m pretty sure we’re going to crash any second—but when I manage to crawl back into my seat, I see that Paige totally has this.
She’s shifting gears like a pro, dodging pedestrians and random medians in the road. She hasn’t shaken the cops pursuing us, though. At least three vehicles are on our tail.
“You’re on the wrong side of the road,” the guy formerly driving the car says. He’s maneuvered himself into the passenger seat. The tendons in his throat are tight, and he’s holding on to the door and center console as if they’re his only lifelines.