The Shattered Dark sr-2

by Sandy Williams

  It’s coming from a side road to my left. I run that way, stop at the corner of the building to peek around its edge. Trev brought back help. He and Aren and at least ten other rebels are fighting an equal number of remnants.

  “McKenzie!”

  I turn to see Paige sprinting toward me. Before she reaches me, fissures open up all around us.

  “Paige!” I scream when a remnant appears out of a slash of light right next to her. She doesn’t blink or swerve away from the fae. Normal humans can’t see the battle taking place in the middle of a London street; she has no idea how close her enemy is.

  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.

  “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.

  “You’re sure a fae will be waiting?” Lee asks.

  “Yes,” I say, praying I’m not lying.

  We pass the warehouse. I think this is the right location, but a thin line of trees separates the road from the bank of the river. At the speed we’re driving, I won’t be able to see the blur in the atmosphere. Too bad Sosch isn’t here now. He’d beeline straight for the gate and—

  “There’s Aren,” I say, and my heart finally starts to beat easily again. He’s alive and he doesn’t look hurt, thank God. He’s standing on the bank of the river with two other fae. It’s not quite an army, but it might as well be. Kyol is here.

  Paige slams on the brake.

  Unbuckling my seat belt, I say, “We have to make a run for it. Fast.”

  I don’t have to tell them twice. They open their doors the same instant I do, and we’re running, sprinting for the riverbank. I can hear the cops behind us, climbing out of their cars and yelling at us to stop.

  I’m certain I can keep ahead of them—I have a little too much experience running for my life—but Paige doesn’t. She loses too much time looking over her shoulder. A particularly quick cop grabs a handful of the back of her shirt.

  Ten years ago, I left her at Bedfont House, and she took the blame for our escape attempt. I won’t do the same again.

  I stop so quickly the officer on my tail barrels into me. I have the foresight to drop to a crouch, causing him to flip over me. He lands spread-eagle on the ground, and I’m up again, sprinting toward Paige. I ram my shoulder into the cop holding her. Paige is fighting back. She’s able to get loose. I grab her arm and pull her toward the gate.

  But we’re surrounded.

  “Hands where we can see them,” a female officer yells. All the cops have their batons out.

  Light flashes in my peripheral vision. I turn that way, see Aren and Kyol step out of two fissures just outside the cops’ circle. No one looks their direction. They’re invisible to normal humans.