“Seat belt,” I say calmly, yanking on the strap over his shoulder. I still tense with every close call and last-minute turn the car makes, but I keep my breaths steady and force myself to trust Paige’s driving. She’s doing better than I could, which is ironic because I know she doesn’t have a license, and I’m fairly certain she’s never even owned a car.
I grab my own seat belt and buckle in. “We’re not going to be able to lose the cops. We need—”
“We’ll go back to where we fissured in at,” Paige interrupts. “Someone will find us there.”
The someone she’s talking about has to be a remnant. “Paige. We need to talk. What did they tell you? Do you know who they are?”
Her eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Don’t you mean what they are? They’re fae. And I’m totally pissed you never told me about them.”
Obviously, they told her about them. I’m grateful for that, though, and if they’ve convinced her that they’re the good guys in the war, then they must not have hurt or threatened her. After seeing what they did to the Sighted humans, I’m grateful for that.
The former driver looks over his shoulder at me. “You know where a gate is?”
“North side of the river near the docks,” I say. Then I add, “Who are you?”
I’m extremely curious. He and Paige obviously know each other. They must have both been with the remnants. They kidnapped Paige because of her connection to me, but I’ve never met this guy. I don’t think he was one of Atroth’s humans.
Atroth’s murdered humans.
“My name’s Lee,” he says.
“He’s the jerk who’s using me to find you,” Paige adds. Then she slams on the brake and spins the wheel.
I brace against the front seat again.
There’s a squeal of tires behind us, then a crash as we lose a patrol car.
Paige sideswipes one of the city’s signature red phone booths and keeps driving.
“Using you to find me?” I ask, a death grip on the back of the driver’s seat.
“I’m just looking for my brother,” Lee says.
“Who you need McKenzie to find.” She makes a relatively controlled turn to the right. “Hey, I found the river.”
“We need to go south,” I say, taking a closer look at Lee. He’s facing forward again. The light from the radio highlights his profile. His eyes are dark, and his black, spiky hair is meticulously styled.
“You’re looking for Naito,” I say, certain I see a few faint Caucasian features in his otherwise angular Asian face.
“You do know him,” he says, peering back at me.
“Yeah,” I say, but I don’t elaborate. I had no clue Naito had a brother. He never mentioned one, but then, he never mentioned his father very much either. Understandably, since Nakano is the person who killed Kelia. Nakano leads the group of Sighted humans who attacked the rebels back when they held me captive in Germany. They loathe the fae and are determined to kill them whenever and wherever they can. We call them vigilantes, and they’re a perfect example of why the fae hide themselves from human society.
“You have the Sight?” I ask. The Sight is supposedly hereditary, but it’s extremely rare for two immediate family members to possess it. For all three to have it, that’s truly remarkable.
We cross to the other side of a bridge before Lee answers, “Yeah. I have the Sight.”
That tells me nothing about his allegiance.
“Have you been with the rem…with the fae for long?” I ask.
“We met them a week ago,” Paige says, swerving onto the road running parallel to the river.
“I can answer for myself,” Lee says.
“Oh, really?” Her blond bangs fall into her face when she swings her gaze to him. “You don’t need to consult—”
“I can answer for myself,” he says again. This time, it sounds like he’s gritting his teeth.
“What do you want with your brother?” I ask. If he’s a vigilante, maybe I should find a way to ditch him.
“I haven’t seen him in three years,” Lee answers. “I want to talk to him.”
“He hasn’t mentioned you.”
“We didn’t part on good terms,” he says, then he uses a button on the center console to move the mirror on his door. To focus on the patrol cars pursuing us, I assume. Five are behind us. One pulls parallel whenever he has the chance, but so far, they aren’t being aggressive about forcing us to stop. Back in the U.S., some cities have a policy to just follow suspects. If we’re lucky, they have the same policy here.
“So, the gate,” Paige says. “How are we going to use it without a fae?”
“Someone will be waiting for us there.” I hope someone will be waiting. This was Aren’s plan. If we’re separated, he’ll bring an army to the gate to make sure I’m fissured out of this city unharmed.
If he has time to summon that army. If he wasn’t killed back at the club.
Fear surges through me, making my throat close up. It’s exhausting, worrying about him so much, and even though I’m still upset about his connection to Thrain—or, more precisely, about him not telling me up front about the connection—I can’t make myself not care.
“Who’s ‘someone’?” Paige asks. Then she slams on the brake. The car fishtails on the wet pavement, but she maintains control, which is lucky for the humans standing no more than two feet away from the front bumper.
“Crap, people!” Paige yells. “You have to look before you cross the street!”
A patrol car pulls up beside us. The officer opens the door.
“Not yet,” Paige says, her tone hard, determined. She pounds on the horn, shifts into first, then drives straight at the people. They scurry out of the way before she hits them.
Lee watches the officer as we speed away.
“You done this before?” he asks Paige.
“Star in my own police chase?” She shakes her head. “Nope.”
The cops fall into pursuit behind us again. We’re screwed if the rebels aren’t at the gate. We’ll be arrested. I’ll most likely be charged with murder, maybe with grand theft auto, too, which is completely unfair. Every car I’ve climbed into in the last month might have been stolen, but they were all stolen by someone other than me.
Lee holds on to the oh-shit handle above his door as Paige veers around a fountain, which for some illogical reason, is placed in the middle of the road. “Where did you learn to drive like this?”
She shifts, then, very deliberately, she meets Lee’s eyes, and says, “I dated a guy who street races.”
Lee’s mouth tightens as if this is some kind of verbal jab. My gaze shifts back and forth between the two of them. Do they have a history together? I’d swear the last guy she dated was named Ryan. Or maybe Roger. I’m pretty sure it started with an “R.” Anyway, if there is or was something between her and Lee, she has plenty of exes to throw in his face.
“Have you guys known each other for long?” I ask.
“No,” they say in unison. Then Lee turns his glare on me as if my question offended him. “Where’s the gate?”
Or maybe that look is because I’m asking questions that really aren’t important right now, not with half the British police force on our bumper. And not with a roomful of slaughtered humans discarded in an apartment and one innocent girl stabbed to death in a club.
“We’re getting close.” I sink back into my seat, and the edge my adrenaline’s been giving me fades. I don’t think those deaths are the only ones that occurred tonight. The club was packed. Everyone was panicked. My gut tells me not everyone made it out of there okay. Shane might not have made it out okay.
I stare out the window. Lights from the patrol cars tailing us flash in my peripheral vision, but I block them out and focus on the buildings we’re driving past. They’re all big, blocky warehouses. London’s gate was near the city airport. We’re curving south. If we curve back to the north once we pass the warehouse ahead, I think we might be there.