He wished he hadn’t started this conversation. And he felt a sudden, terrible shame that the creatures who now threatened Jasmine and her friends and the place she called home … they counted him among their number. If Jasmine knew his secret would she scream and shout and kick him out of the car right now?

‘I’m taking this silence as a mad big yes, Tommy-boy. You been with her plenty.’

‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘We’re just friends.’

‘For real?’ Jasmine looked at him oddly.

‘For real.’

‘Well, it ain’t no skin off my ass.’ Jasmine clicked her tongue. ‘But are you sure she knows that?’

Tom felt a tingle travel over his skin, but before he could ask Jasmine what the hell she was talking about, a black Porsche came screaming out of a side street, turned and came up fast behind them.

It was the car he’d seen outside Woollard’s place. The low, sleek automobile could barely contain the thugs it carried, five of them in all, jostling around inside, laughing and jeering.

The Porsche surged forwards and smashed into the back of the Lexus. Rico was thrown forwards into the back of the driver’s seat.

‘Seat belt!’ Tom yelled at Rico, then turned to Jasmine. ‘Who are they? You know them?’

‘Swagger’s gang,’ she replied, trying to accelerate away.

But they couldn’t hope to outrun the Porsche. ‘Hold on,’ Jasmine shouted, as she swung the Lexus around a corner so fast that Tom’s head cracked against the window.

‘¿A cuánta velocidad puede ir este coche?’ Rico yelled.

Jasmine gritted her teeth. ‘I’m making it go as fast as I can, OK?’

But in seconds, the Porsche was back on their tail. Two of the ugly, brutish passengers were hanging out the rear windows, waving and gesticulating, trying to get them to pull over.

‘Bite me,’ Jasmine muttered, and floored the Lexus.

The lights ahead were green, but there was a queue of three or four cars ahead of her. Jasmine swung wide out and went careening past them out across the intersection. Rico whooped in excitement in the centre of the back seat, gripping his seat belt with both hands. Drivers coming the other way jammed on brakes and horns together and swerved drunkenly all around her as she sped through the cars like a sickle cutting a swathe through corn.

But Tom knew that the Porsche, faster and more manoeuvrable, could take the turns better than they could. It was still on their tail, gaining on them, getting closer and closer.

‘What do they want?’ he shouted.

Jasmine tore around another corner. ‘I don’t think it’s to ask us to the prom.’ She cursed, eyeing the black motor worriedly in the rearview mirror.

She was so distracted that it was Rico who first saw the garbage truck crawling out from an alley into the street ahead of them. ‘Jas!’ he screamed.