Kitty didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that the Mustang was gaining fast. She heard it, felt it. The light swelled. Her shadow grew. She pushed and pushed with her left leg—long, powerful strokes, but it wouldn’t be enough. The Mustang would be on top of her within seconds.

There was a plastic dumpster up ahead, on wheels, with just enough space between it and the chain-link fence for Johan’s death machine to squeeze through. Kitty grabbed it as she skated by, yanking it away from the wall with all the strength she could gather at speed. The maneuver pulled her off her board and she ran for a few steps before she could reset. The Mustang slowed, but still struck the dumpster hard. The sound of the impact crowded the air: a boom, a rumble, the desperate squeal of brakes. Kitty glanced behind her and saw the dumpster toppling, split along two sides, its contents cascading over the Mustang’s hood. A sheet of newspaper got caught beneath one windshield wiper, temporarily blocking the driver’s view, before flapping away like a gull.

The sudden change of velocity caused the driver—Johan, not Xander—to lose control. The Mustang lurched, its back end fishtailing. Sparks glittered as it scraped the warehouse’s brick outer wall, then swerved the other way, crashing through the fence, lifting it out of the ground in whickering, chain-link sections.

This damaged but didn’t stop the Mustang. Johan worked the brake and navigated it back onto the track. Windshield cracked, one headlight blown, it charged at Kitty again.

She reached the back of the warehouse and saw there was nowhere to go. Crates and wooden pallets were stacked against the fence. There were shadows, but they wouldn’t keep her safe.

Her mind hadn’t fully returned, and maybe that was a good thing. She was operating on high-octane animal instinct, without the distraction of self, of emotion. Barely thinking, she leapt off her skateboard, tossed it over the rear fence, then followed it, jumping first onto a crate, then clambering over the chain-link.

The Mustang raced closer. All light and roar.

Kitty threw herself off the fence, not knowing what was on the other side. It was a dirt embankment, strewn with sagebrush and sprawling trees, sloping to a low wooden fence that bordered a parking lot. She landed hard, crying out as she rolled her ankle, then tumbling several feet before slowing.

Johan was a tick behind, not following on foot, as she thought he might, but in the Mustang still. Maybe he hadn’t been able to brake in time, or—more likely—he was brimming with Viking rage. Either way, he smashed through the fence away to her right, sending sections of chain-link and splintered wood spinning in every direction. One landed close to Kitty, impaling the ground like an arrow.