Amber barely touched the key in the ignition and the Charger roared to life. Red headlights snapped on, catching Bill and Kirsty beating the crap out of Lucy. Amber put the car into gear, surged forward. Kelly knew what to do without Amber even saying it. She opened the door as they drew alongside Lucy, yelled, “Get in!”

Lucy kicked Kirsty away from her and spun, ran for the car, and jumped. Kelly caught her and pulled her inside and Amber slammed her foot on the gas and they peeled out of there. They scraped the gate as they passed, crashed on to the road, and in four seconds they were at the top of the street and turning right.

Amber took a series of corners, always staying away from other traffic. Lucy and Kelly swayed with each turn, until finally Amber started to slow down.

“Holy crap,” Kelly whispered. She cleared her throat, and regained a little strength in her voice. “Okay then, before anything else, I would ask that everyone in this car go back to being more or less human. Can we do that?”

“Sure,” said Lucy, and reverted. Amber followed suit.

“Thank you,” Kelly said, and looked over at Amber, and grinned. “We’re so cool.”

Amber laughed, more from nerves than any sense of cheeriness. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, we’re cool, all right.”

“Hush, you,” Kelly said with a wave of her hand. “We so rock. Did we not escape the clutches of the damned? No offence meant to demon-kind, of course.”

“None taken,” said Amber.

“Likewise,” muttered Lucy, rubbing her bruised jaw.

Kelly looked around the car. “This is a hell of a machine. I feel like we should be listening to Zeppelin or Skynyrd, y’know? Maybe some ‘Carry On, My Wayward Son’. Let’s see what we have here …”

Amber was focusing on the road, and didn’t notice Kelly reaching for the radio until she flicked it on. Screams filled the Charger with more than just noise – they brought with them overwhelming anguish and fractured memories of pain and regret and loss that reached inside Amber’s mind and wrenched it in on itself, and the Charger swerved into a parked car and jolted sideways on the empty street and Amber reached out, flailing, knocked the silver dial to the off position, and silence – warm, welcome, glorious silence – seeped through the car.

Amber blinked away tears. Beside her, Kelly was crying.

“What the hell was that?” Lucy asked, her voice small.

Amber shook her head.

With trembling hands, she restarted the car, and pulled into the side of the road. All three of them got out.

Kelly wiped her eyes. “I don’t like that song,” she said, before turning to Lucy. “We saved your ass.”

“Your friends were trying to kill me,” Lucy responded.