Stella

Of course—of course it can’t be that simple.

“Hide.” Jack sets me down as gently as he can. I get a trashcan between me and whoever that is in the dark. Don’t suppose it’ll provide much cover, but there’s nothing else in range.

“Fuck you doing with my car?” Jack strides out, making a target of himself. The stranger pulls a switchblade.

I cower, not wanting to see what happens next. The sounds are more than enough. There’s a shout, and the ugly sound of...of meat being pounded—someone taking a mallet to a fat bone-in steak, crunching and squidging—disgusting. I want to cover my ears, but being blind and deaf in a combat zone seems like a terrible idea.

Harsh grunts and whuffs echo off the walls. Feet skid. Flesh connects with metal. Somebody’s panting; somebody’s retching. I whimper, hoping it’s not Jack. He can’t lose—he can’t. We’re so close....

Something whistles through the air, landing in front of me with a leathery slap: a brown loafer. I shrink away from it, startled.

“All clear!”

I raise my head cautiously. Jack’s standing over a body—a still, lumpen shape in the glare of a fallen flashlight. I stare, transfixed, holding my breath till I catch a sign of life: one finger, lifting and dropping, like he’s trying to tap out.

There are voices in the stairwell, and the stomp and click of feet.

“Quick—over here!”

Torchlight hits the window, illuminating Magnus’s hulking silhouette on the stairs. That gets me moving. I half-crawl, half-stumble into the open. Jack meets me halfway, nearly dragging me to the car. He’s already pulling out as I fall into the passenger seat, hauling the door shut behind me. His highbeams come up, and we take the ramp far too fast. I can see the glow of a streetlight ahead... Almost there.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” Jack brakes hard and swerves, barely avoiding a limo nosed up to the exit. “Hold on!”

I don’t know what to hold onto, so I shrink in on myself as the limo lurches forward. For one awful moment, I’m positive it’s going to broadside us, smash through my door and me with it, but Jack pounds the gas, and we squirt out onto the street. There’s the slightest of jolts, and I hear a taillight smash—but we’re on our way.

“Magnus... Did he hurt you?”

“No.” Jack glances my way. “You?”

My thigh’s throbbing where Katrina’s boot connected with my old bruise, but apart from that.... “No.”

“I should never have left you.” Jack brakes, cursing, to let a van go by.

“Where are we going?”

“Should be a cop shop over the bridge. They won’t follow us there.”

A bloom of light in the side mirror catches my eye. Headlights, coming fast. So much for our head start. “Sure about that?”

“Hope so.”

Jack floors it. The engine roars, and we rocket down the street. Windows light up all the way to the corner. Come morning, we’ll be the stars of every traffic cam in the city. I grip my seat tight as Jack runs a yellow light, then a red one, narrowly avoiding a collision. Tires squeal behind us: I twist in my seat, just in time to see Katrina swerve around a furiously honking Prius. Shit...shit....

“We can’t take the bridge.” My mind’s eye dances with visions of water crashing over the windshield, bits of guardrail splashing down around us, as we plunge to our deaths. “They’ll force us over—we’ll drown.”

“Can’t go off the Queensboro Bridge.” He reaches out briefly, squeezes my knee. “Don’t worry. I got this.”

I look over at him. He’s blood-streaked and focused, white-knuckling the wheel. Not sure all that blood belongs to Magnus, especially the glistening wash slicking his pant leg to his knee. There’s too much of it, still spreading, still damp.

“Watch the road. Call out if you see anyone coming from the side streets.”

Not sure if he’s trying to distract me from the blood or get a second set of eyes on the traffic situation. Either way, I’m not doing either of us any good staring. I scan ahead, but the streets are quiet. There’s a cab idling outside a hotel, a cyclist waiting at the light, a red Saab trying to parallel park, none of which are in our way.

Meanwhile, I can’t tell if we’re pulling ahead or falling behind. The headlights glare and dim behind us, flashing across the mirror with every rise and dip in the road. Ahead, the lights of the bridge rise into the sky. We’ve passed the last intersection: nowhere to go but up.

“Don’t get us killed.”

“Never.” Jack accelerates into the slope. We’re flying, lights blurring to either side of us as we arrow across the water. Katrina’s accelerating as well, definitely gaining, headlights filling the mirror.

“Faster—she’s...faster!”

“I’ve got a plan.”

“What? To get us rammed?”

“Hold on....” Jack slows down, coming up on the exit ramp. They’re nearly on top of us—so close I can pick out their faces in the mirror—and still, Jack’s braking. I want to close my eyes, blot out my oncoming death, but I can’t...can’t look away. I can see the inspection sticker on their windshield; any closer, I’ll be able to pick out the date.

“Go, go; she’s right behind us!”

“In case I’ve never mentioned it, I adore you.”

“What?” Is he saying goodbye? Is this it?

The ramp opens onto darkness. We coast blind, down, down, and Jack floors it at the bottom. We cut across the street at a wild angle, screaming around the corner as Katrina barrels down the ramp. My breath catches in my throat as she comes up on the intersection.

“She’s not going to make it!”

Katrina catches air coming off the ramp, sailing over one barrier to slam full-speed into the next. The car flips end over end, crashing through a store window. A shower of glass glitters in the taillights. I watch in horror as the car crunches down on its roof, compressing visibly.

Jack pulls over and fumbles out his phone.

“Did you... Did you know that was going to happen?”

He shakes his head. “Knew that ramp was dangerous—there’ve been a few accidents. Thought she’d wing the guardrail, slow down a bit.”

“She must’ve been doing sixty, seventy....” No one’s moving in the front seat. I step out and crane my neck—nothing.

“Don’t go over there—yeah, hello? One sec....”

I leave Jack to his phone call and go over anyway. Anyone left alive in there’ll be all out of fight. “Hello?”

No answer. I stop when my shoes crunch on glass. Apart from Jack talking in the background, and the faint, steady drip of...brake fluid? Blood?—it’s quiet. No fast, panicked breathing; no calls for help. Nobody struggling with a seat belt. I should climb down and check on them... But I don’t want to see.

“Come back to the car.”

“Shouldn’t we, I don’t know....”

Jack frowns. “Not sure there’s anything we can do—we shouldn’t move them.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and steers me away. “Smells like the gas tank’s leaking. We should get out of range.”

“Is someone coming?”

He sits me down on the curb, in the shelter of our car. “Police, ambulance, fire... Told ‘em to send everyone.”

Feels like we ought to be running—like this is way more, way worse...not at all what we planned. History repeating itself. If we hadn’t tried to save ourselves—if we’d run to the police right away.... “This is our fault. Trying to wiggle out, cover our tracks—we did this.”

Jack straightens his jacket over my shoulders. “You could say that about a lot of things: those two didn’t need to kidnap you, either. Didn’t need to chase us over the bridge, kill Nagler—hell, get back to their old tricks in the first place. Any of that would’ve stopped this.”

“What happened to Erik?”

“Hm?”

“Magnus said....” Shouldn’t pick at this. Don’t want to know, any more than I wanted to peek into that crumpled car. “He seemed to think he was dead.”

“Starkey shot him.”

“In self-defense?”

“Not really, no.”

More blood on our hands.

“Listen, if you want to tell the truth, everything you know, I get it.” Jack leans out so he can look me in the face. “You can say I made you do that blog post. Put it all at my door. It won’t come back on you.”

I’m not doing that. “This is bad enough. Making it all meaningless... How’s that going to help?”

“Stick to the truth as much as you can.”

They’re on their way already, sirens loud and close. The world’s closing in. No time to get our story straight.

This was always going to be messy.