“You’ll never make it to your car!” he shouted. “Just hang on. I’ll get us out of here.”

He accelerated down the alley and out onto the first street on Dess’s route map. As he turned right, the Ford’s freshly filled tires screeched across the asphalt.

The headlights swept out of the alley behind them, clinging to his tail.

Very convincing, Flyboy.

“I don’t know if I can outrun them,” he said. “This car’s pretty old.”

“Oh, great! You know, my car goes plenty fast!”

“I didn’t know you were going to bring company!” he shouted. “I’ll head for the highway.”

He hit Highway 75 and turned west, bringing the Ford up to eighty miles per hour. This was the diciest part of the plan. Going over the speed limit was bad enough, given that it was curfew time back in Bixby, but if another eclipse—or timequake, or fluctuation of the prime contortion—suddenly struck, Rex would plow through the windshield like a bullet.

“Hey! You’re headed to Bixby!” The knife flashed in the corner of Rex’s eye—he smelled steel inches from his face.

“Oh, crap.” He swallowed, finding it easy to sound scared. “Just headed home by reflex. Sorry.”

He heard a growl rise in her throat, but no burning blade of steel pierced his ribs just yet.

“Listen,” he said. “There aren’t any exits before Bixby except the access road. We can follow it through Saddleback.”

“Don’t try to mess with me, Rex. That’s inside the contortion!”

“Yeah, but we can go straight through to the other side of the county. You’ll be in and out of the blue time inside ten minutes.”

“Dammit, Rex…” She looked at her watch.

“Maybe the Grayfoots will be afraid to follow us in!”

Angie’s voice suddenly grew very calm. “Okay, keep driving. It’s before eleven-thirty, so you can get me out by midnight. But if you stop anywhere in this county, Rex, I swear I’ll kill you.”

“Hey, don’t threaten the driver. I won’t stop, okay?”

Unless of course, I happen to run out of gas.

There was movement in his peripheral vision, and the glimmer of the knife disappeared. “All right, then,” she said.

Rex breathed a sigh of relief. Things were going more or less according to plan. Jonathan and Dess might have shown up a bit too early, but at least Angie hadn’t stabbed him yet.

“They’re catching up,” she announced.

He looked in the rearview. Idiots. They weren’t supposed to overtake them or force Rex to drive over seventy-five, which would draw cops like flies.

Couldn’t Jonathan and Dess do anything right?

“Like I said, the Grayfoots probably won’t follow us into Bixby. Right?”

“If they know I’m meeting with one of you midnighters, they might make an exception.”

“But maybe not.” Rex pushed the accelerator a bit farther down, trying to make it look convincing. The old Ford’s engine began to make a grinding sound, and Rex hoped he wasn’t screwing up Dess’s calculations too much.

Of course, the most worrying question was whether Angie would go crazy when his car ran out of gas right smack in the center of the emptiest, least traveled part of the county.