My eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, but I didn’t feel any better seeing Ivy and Jenks in Kisten’s Corvette running as a buffer between us and the Weres from the bar. “Put your seat belt on,” I said. I thought it was stupid, like dragging the saddle behind you when you went looking for your horse fleeing the burning barn, but I didn’t want to get pulled over for failure to wear a belt and have it all come crashing down when the cop realized Nick’s newly flash-painted truck was the same one that had fled the scene of a crash yesterday.

The click was loud when Peter fastened his belt. We were going to be run over by a Mack truck. I didn’t think it would make a difference if he had on his seat belt or not.

Oh God. What was I doing?

The traffic light finally turned green, and I pulled onto the bridge, headed for St. Ignace on the other side of the straits. I gripped the wheel tighter, stomach knotting. The bridge was a mess. The two northbound lanes were closed off, making traffic two-way on the southbound. Midway down the span there were big machines and powerful lights to turn the coming night to day as the workers tried to meet their pretourist-season deadline. They had missed it. Red cones separated the two lanes, allowing traffic to easily switch to the other side when needed. The bridge was an incredible five miles long, and every foot of it had needed repair.

Peter exhaled as we accelerated to a steady forty miles an hour, the opposing traffic doing the same an unnerving three feet away. Past the vacant northbound lane and thick girders, I could see the islands, gray and smudged from the distance. We were really high up, and I felt a moment of quickly stifled fear. Despite the stories, witches couldn’t fly. ’Least not without a staff of charmed redwood that cost more than the Concord.

“Peter?” I said, not liking the silence.

“I’m fine,” he said, his grip tensing on the statue. His voice was cross, sounding nothing like Nick. I couldn’t help my awkward smile of understanding, remembering Ivy bothering me with the same question. My stomach gave a lurch.

“I wasn’t going to ask how you were doing,” I said, fiddling with the two charms about my neck. One was for pain that wouldn’t cover the hurt caused by being hit, the other was to keep my head from meeting the dash. Peter had refused both.

My eyes lifted to the rearview mirror to see that Ivy and Jenks were still behind us. “Do you want me to turn the lights on?” I asked. It was our agreed upon signal to abort the plan. I wanted him to say yes. I didn’t want to do this. The statue didn’t matter right now. Peter did. We could find another way.

“No.”

The sun was setting past him, and I squinted at him. “Peter…”