The Chevvie shuddered to a stop where Lilia had pointed with a sharp chin jerk. We were in the guts of an industrial complex on the city’s forgotten outskirts, a graveyard of rusted ambitions. Warehouses loomed like prehistoric skeletons against the moonless sky, their windows either gaping holes or corroded metal panels. Weeds clawed up crumbling brick walls, reclaiming what humans had abandoned.

  A heavy, expectant silence clung to the place, shattered only by the wind whistling through crumbling structures and my car’s dying wheeze.

  I parked beside the toothless metal door of the largest warehouse—a sleeping giant one strong breeze from collapse.

  Lilia shot a glance at the wounded man in the backseat. His bloodied face looked ghostly under the sickly glow of a distant streetlamp.

  "Be right back," she whispered, softer than I’d thought her capable of.

  Me? She didn’t even look at.

  The passenger door swung open, letting in the freezing night air—not that it mattered. The Chevvie was already Swiss cheese thanks to the bullet holes, and the windshield was MIA.

  "Cold night," I muttered, fumbling with numb fingers at my seatbelt. I vaguely remembered tossing an old denim jacket in the back weeks ago. If luck existed, it’d still be there.

  I twisted around to look—

  The wounded man moved like a striking snake. His hand clamped around my throat—shockingly strong for someone half-dead. Air I hadn’t realized I was holding tore from my lungs in a choked wheeze. Black dots swarmed my vision.

  "The hell you doing?" he hissed, breath reeking of copper and mint.

  I gagged, clawing at his wrist. His knuckles whitened.

  Just as consciousness started slipping, he loosened his grip—enough for me to gasp.

  Speak!" he demanded, yanking me closer until our faces were inches apart. His features, despite the dried blood and the gash on his forehead, were almost unnervingly symmetrical—ash-blond hair, eyes a murky, intense green.

  I hated him instantly. More than before. More than I thought possible.

  "J-jacket," I croaked, pointing weakly behind him.

  He hesitated, then shoved me back into my seat with a sneer. 'Thanks,' he spat, yanking my crumpled jacket from the abyss of the backseat.

  "Cold night." His voice dripped with sarcasm as he mimicked mine, pulling the jacket on himself without a second thought.

  What an asshole.

  I didn’t buckle up again. A pathetic rebellion, but all my cowardice could muster.

  Minutes crawled by. Just his labored breathing and the wind’s mournful howl. Then—

  "So…" My voice cracked. "You guys don’t really need me anymore, right? I could just get off here? I promise I didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything. I won’t tell anyone. In fact, I don’t even know your names… Well, now I know she’s Lilia, but I can forget that. I have a terrible memory for faces and names, seriously… One time, my high school Biology teacher greeted me at the supermarket… and I thought she was some lady hitting on me, you know? It was hilarious, because she…"

  "Shut it," he growled.

  A new sound cut through the quiet: quick footsteps on gravel. Lilia.

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  Something about her silhouette sprinting toward us made my hair stand on end.

  Click. So much for rebellion—I buckled up fast.

  She wrenched the door open and collapsed into the passenger seat, breathing hard. Her usual ice-blue eyes burned wild now.

  "Well?" the wounded man demanded.

  "All dead," Lilia said, eerily calm. "They hit every safehouse. Coordinated."

  "Fuck!" His fist slammed into my seatback.

  My mouth moved before my brain could stop it: "So… what now?"

  Lilia turned on me lightning-fast. Her freezing hand gripped my chin as her gun barrel jammed between my teeth. Cold metal pressed against my tongue, the taste of oil and gunpowder flooding my mouth.

  "Maybe," she whispered, "we kill this idiot now. Won’t help, but it’ll cheer me up."

  "Easy," the wounded man said. "We’ve got one play left."

  The gun withdrew—

  And something in me snapped.

  I grabbed her wrist, yanked it sideways, and smashed the pistol’s grip into her face. A sickening crack. She screamed.

  Seatbelt off. Door shoved open. I was running.

  Gravel sprayed under my sneakers as I bolted into the maze of warehouses. A gunshot rang out—close. Too close. I didn’t look back.

  Then I slammed into something solid. Not a wall—a man. A mountain of muscle and shadow. Moonlight glinted off the prison tattoos sprawled across his tree-trunk neck.

  "Where do you think you’re going, little man?" rumbled a voice like grinding boulders.

  Before I could react, he lifted me by my collar like a misbehaving kitten and tossed me over his shoulder. My kicks against his back did nothing.

  He dragged me back toward the Chevette, my legs uselessly bumping against his back. Lilia was already running toward us—not with fury, but with an expression of disbelief and relief.

  "Marco! You’re alive!" she shouted, throwing herself into the arms of the giant, who released me without ceremony.

  I landed on my backside on the freezing gravel. A sharp pain shot through my tailbone.

  "Damn it..." I muttered through clenched teeth, trying to recover my dignity and my breath.

  The giant—Marco—caught Lilia in a protective embrace. "It takes more than that to take out your big brother, shorty," he said, his deep voice now tinged with affection.

  "Marco, what happened? How…?"

  "Long story. For the road." His eyes landed on my car.

  "Does that junk heap run?"

  Lilia glanced at me and shrugged. A thin trickle of blood dripped from her nose, where I had hit her with her own weapon.. "It got us here, didn’t it?"

  Marco stepped closer and hauled me up again, this time setting me on my feet, though still holding me firmly by the arm. "Who’s this?"

  "Our driver," Lilia replied, wiping the blood away with the back of her hand.

  Marco looked me up and down, his gaze appraising. "And do we still need him?"

  "Do you know how to drive these relics?" Lilia shot back. "No power steering, no GPS, no—"

  "Ha!" Marco interrupted, glancing inside. "It doesn’t even have a radio. And it’s got that stupid lever on the floor. What’s that for?"

  Marco frowned, thoughtful for a moment.

  "He’ll be our driver then," he decided at last. "Can you walk, kid?" He let me go.

  I staggered, my legs like jelly. "Yeah… I think…"

  Lilia approached, her restrained fury burning in her now-dark blue eyes. I saw it coming, but too late. Her fist slammed into my nose—a sickening crunch, an eruption of pain, and blinding white lights.

  "Ouch!" I yelled, dropping to my knees and clutching my face.

  She hauled me up by my bloody collar until we were nose to broken nose. "Touch me again," she hissed, "and I’ll paint the road with your brains."

  I nodded vigorously, the sharp pain and humiliation making any other response difficult.

  Marco dragged me to the Chevvie and dumped me into the driver’s seat like a sack of potatoes. "Drive," he ordered, cramming his massive frame into the passenger side. The car groaned under his weight.

  "Where to?" I asked again, my voice nasal and whiny, with no real intention of obeying—just exhaustion and pain.

  "Just drive, kid. We’ll tell you. And try not to crash us. This night has been bad enough already."

  The engine coughed to life.

  Somewhere in the distance, a dog howled—one long, lonely note that vibrated in my hollow chest.

  The night stretched ahead.

  Somehow, I was still breathing.

  For now.