“Bank account?” He shook his head. “Did you get a look at this piece of crap? It’s not exactly a Mercedes, like your buddies’ cars back there.”

“I guess not.” She took a slow breath. “All right, I supposed I don’t have much choice about…Uh-oh. Speaking of cars.”

Rex followed her gaze through the front windshield. Headlights had reappeared on the horizon, making their slow way through the ravaged cactus patch.

“Crap!” he cried, reaching for the Ford’s dashboard and killing the headlights. “I hope that’s not the cops.”

She squinted. “No, it’s not a police car. Or a Mercedes, either. Looks like…I don’t know. Looks about as crappy as this piece of junk.”

Rex breathed a sigh of relief—it was Jonathan and the others.

“Okay. It’s just friends.”

A shudder went through Angie. “Including the mindcaster?”

“Yeah, but I promise she won’t touch you.” He leaned forward and turned the headlights back on, then blinked in disbelief as the car rolled to a stop a few yards away.

Jonathan and Dess were visible through the front windshield, but there was no one in the backseat. They’d followed him and Angie here without picking up Melissa and Jessica, expecting to be heroes.

He let out a frustrated sigh. Had they actually thought they were going to save him from the Grayfoots? Didn’t they know how full of darklings this part of the desert would be in two minutes?

“What’s the matter?” Angie asked. “You said they were friends, right?”

“Don’t worry. It’s not a problem…for you.” He shook his head. “Just the rest of us. If we all disappear after midnight, don’t bother leaving any more notes. We’ll all be dead.”

“Dead? Why?”

“Because your darkling pen pals are very nasty, Angie, much worse than you’ll find in any court records. And because my brilliant schemes don’t seem to be working very well tonight.”

Rex leaned back in the driver’s seat, waiting for the last few seconds of normal time to tick away. He’d been following his darkling instincts when he’d turned the car onto the flats, and they’d led him out here—miles into the deep desert, farther than he had ever been before at midnight.

Maybe part of him had wanted this.

It looked like his meeting with the old ones had come sooner than he’d planned.

16

11:58 P.M.

FLYING LESSON

“Well, as of now this plan officially sucks,” Melissa said. “No way is Jonathan getting here before midnight.”

“We should have gone along with them.” Jessica groaned, huddling in her coat against the chill wind. “I told Rex I wasn’t afraid to.”

“It’s not your fault, Jess,” Melissa said. “Rex didn’t want all five of us in Broken Arrow. You heard him.”

Jessica nodded sullenly. He’d said something about a Grayfoot trap catching them all at once—the end of the midnighters. It seemed unlikely to her.

“He probably just figured I was worried about getting busted for curfew violation,” she said. “And was trying not to make me feel like a weenie.”