Chapter 5 #2
I fell on my back, all the air bursting from my lungs.
I gasped, coughing and rolling around. The only thing that tore me from my agony was the sound of the window.
Looking up, I saw Jackson trying to push himself through the same window I’d climbed out of.
There should have been no way he’d fit—as big as I was, he was still twice my size—yet to my horror and confusion, he flexed his arms, and the brick around the window cracked and turned to powder as the metal frame snapped and bent around his shoulders.
What the actual fuck is going on?
Scrambling to my feet, I ran around the side of the garage, trying to think of my options.
Jackson was ridiculously fast, I didn’t think I’d be able to outrun him.
Not in a million years. I needed a car, but my keys were still in my office.
I heaved a breath and looked to the right.
The front door of the garage was still unlocked.
I’d never relocked it after letting this psycho in.
Behind me, Jackson grunted, and I thought I heard something hit the pavement.
There was no time to think. I had to move.
Sprinting to the door, I yanked it open and reentered the garage. Eyes wide with terror, I went for the closest car to the garage door, smacking the opening button as I ran around the rear end.
As I climbed into the Lamborghini and the garage door rumbled upward, I made out the surprised and shocked roar of Jackson screaming outside.
“Shyanne, no!”
“Yeah, fuck you, buddy,” I whispered as I started the car.
The garage door wasn’t even halfway up, but the car was low enough to risk it.
I slammed the gas, and the car shot out under the door with only inches to spare.
The second I was clear, I spun the wheel.
Jackson flashed past the windshield as the car turned, leaping aside to avoid getting hit.
Grimacing in concentration, I pressed the drive button and put my foot flat on the gas pedal.
The beast of a car shot forward, taking off like a rocket, leaving Jackson in the dust. I glanced in the rearview mirror and let out a whoop of excitement and relief. No matter how fast that guy was, he couldn’t run a hundred miles an hour.
Once he was out of sight, I eased off the gas and tried to take stock. My heart was hammering, but a bit of calm came back to me—the first I’d felt since a few moments before I saw this car belonged to Nico Torrence’s son.
The first thing I needed to do was take this car straight to the nearest police station. I’d turn it in, give them a description, and Jackson Adelmund’s name. They could figure out the rest from there.
I did worry that Jackson might take revenge on me for this.
A terrible vision of the garage engulfed in flames flashed through my mind.
The door was open—God only knew what kind of scumbags might sneak in before I returned.
I loved our neighborhood, but we all knew there were unsavory people who prowled the streets at night.
“Shit,” I muttered. I needed to get to the cops fast so I could go back and make sure everything was okay.
A shadow passed over the car, blotting out the shining lights of the street lamps.
Frowning, I narrowed my eyes, trying to see out the windshield.
An uneasy sensation of being watched or followed filled me, but I couldn’t see anything from this angle.
The dark shadow grew, blotting out the light around me.
Unconsciously, I pulled my foot from the gas, confused as to what was happening.
A cloud? Some low fog? Maybe a bunch of soot and smoke from a nearby factory?
The car rocked gently on its suspension, and in a span of two seconds, the shadow over the car vanished, and an explosion of glass erupted from the passenger window beside me.
Hundreds of pebbles of safety glass burst in, showering me as the huge form of a man swung through the window.
A high-pitched, quavering scream tore from my throat.
It was all I could do to keep my hands on the wheel, and even then, I swerved hard to the left.
Had it not been so late at night, I might have struck another car. Thank God the roads were quiet.
Righting the car, the scream died in my mouth as I looked to see Jackson in the passenger seat, calmly brushing glass off himself.
“I’m gonna need that window fixed as well,” he said without looking up.
“How…how…how…” I couldn’t form a coherent sentence.
“You sound like a dyslexic owl,” Jackson said. “Hop over, I’ll take it from here.”
With the ease of a man lifting a newborn from a crib, he picked me up and tossed me into the tiny space behind the driver and passenger seats.
The damn thing was a performance vehicle and had no actual backseat.
I basically lay slumped in a thin space barely big enough to hold a few grocery bags, feet pressed against the headrest of the passenger seat.
“Wait a second,” I cried, trying to right myself in the tight space.
Jackson slid into the seat and took control of the wheel quickly and confidently, not even allowing the car to even swerve. He moved like a ghost, and was as strong as a demon.
“No time to wait,” he said, still as cool as a cucumber as he hit the gas.
Struggling to get comfortable, I managed to grab the passenger seat and haul myself forward.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I cried. “How did you catch up to me? Did you…did you find a car or—”
“I need to concentrate for a minute, okay? I can answer questions later,” Jackson said.
Glancing through the windshield, I saw what he meant, and my jaw dropped. Ahead, one of the river bridges was raising, splitting down the middle for a boat to pass underneath. Jackson hadn’t taken his foot off the pedal and was barreling toward it.
“Hey,” I swatted his arm. “Hey, you gotta stop.”
“One second,” Jackson said, never taking his eyes off the road.
Panic had bile rising up my throat, and I clamped my mouth shut, gripping the seat in front of me like my life depended on it. Jesus, I didn’t even have a seatbelt on.
Jackson reached down, keeping his eyes on the road and one hand on the wheel, and slipped off his boot. “When I tell you, I want you to grab this wheel and hold it straight,” he said, still calm and collected, as though he did outrageous shit like this every day. The guy was a maniac.
“Wait, what?” I said, unable to look away from the oncoming ramp.
“Grab the wheel,” he shouted, though his tone wasn’t unkind.
“Okay? Then what? We’re gonna die, Jackson. Hit the fucking brakes!”
He actually smirked, and had I not been about to meet my maker, I would have found it charming and attractive. “We aren’t dying. Trust me,” he said as he rolled the driver side window down.
Wind buffeted inside the car, billowing my auburn hair around my face.
I didn’t think my panic could have gotten worse, but when the sports car jolted as it crossed from the road to the rapidly rising bridge, I truly felt like I might have a heart attack.
From what I could see out the windshield, it looked like a rollercoaster going up a hill for a drop.
“We’re gonna die!” It was too late to hit the brakes. If we stopped, the bridge would keep rising, and we’d fall back and slam to our deaths below.
“Don’t be dramatic.” Jackson glanced back to look at me, face still as stoic as it would have been if he’d been cruising into a drive-thru to pick up burgers. “I’ve got you.” He winked at me.
The way he said that, all confident and controlled, meant he either had an amazing plan, or he’d already come to terms with his imminent death.
“Grab the wheel.” Before I could even register that he’d said it, he shoved his boot down, wedging it against the gas pedal, and leaned out of the window.
“Jackson!”
I lunged forward to grab the wheel, trying my best to keep the car straight.
The boot, jammed down and locked in place by the upholstery, sent the engine revving like mad.
The speedometer was at one-hundred-and-fifty miles an hour when we flew off the edge of the bridge.
I screamed, my life flashing before my eyes as the car, and me along with it, went weightless.
The night sky shone with twinkling stars.
The only thing I could see as we rocketed forward was that dark blanket of the cosmos. Not a bad last sight, I supposed.
Jackson had vanished out the window, most likely having jumped to his death.
Coward. That was disappointing. He’d looked like a stronger man than that.
I clenched the wheel and gritted my teeth, calling out in my mind to my father, hoping and praying that this wouldn’t break him. That he’d go on living even without me.
A second after the car stopped rising and gravity wrapped her hands around us to pull us to the earth, that weird shadow appeared over the car again.
To my left, a massive pair of leathery talons slipped inside the window and grabbed the car.
I jerked away, screaming again as a second dinosaur-like hand grabbed the other window.
Three loud, flapping sounds erupted in the night, and the car actually lifted into the air.
My body tumbled aside into the passenger seat.
Lying there, jaw clenched and eyes clamped shut, I waited for the crash, the explosion, the agony of my body being shattered or burned alive.
Instead, all I felt was a gentle, up-and-down bobbing.
When I finally managed to open my eyes, I looked out the windshield and nearly fainted.
A gigantic shadowy creature had a hold of the car.
Easily twice the length and two or three times the mass of the vehicle, it held the car tight and glided through the night.