There was no way they could steer past it, and no way they could miss it at the speed they were travelling. Jasmine jerked up hard on the emergency brake –too hard. The rear wheels locked and the Lexus was suddenly spinning right around, out of control. The car mounted the kerb then smacked into a fire hydrant.

Tom felt his heart and stomach swap places as his body seemed to go into freefall. The world outside whizzed past, a blur of brick and metal –then asphalt and sky as the car tumbled over on to its back and scraped across the sidewalk. Woollard’s carry-case clunked around in the trunk like a metal beast desperate for release, pounding as hard and as loud as the blood in Tom’s temples.

Tom felt the ordeal would never stop.

But after long, screeching seconds they crashed into something and finally rocked to a halt. Tom gasped, choking for breath, suspended upside down by his seat belt. ‘Jasmine,’ he gasped. He could smell smoke, could hear the fizzing of the car’s electrics shorting. ‘Jasmine?’

She stirred, and groaned. She had a cut on her forehead but she was alive, thank God.

‘Rico? You OK?’ she asked, her voice slurring a little.

‘Socorro,’ Rico said softly, his eyes tightly shut. ‘Socorro.’

Even Tom knew that meant ‘help’. As he fought to unbuckle his seat belt, he could hear anxious voices shouting – the garbage men he guessed. And then he heard other voices, laughing and jeering. Coming towards them. A terrible thought bit at his brain: what had happened to the maniacs in the Porsche?

The anxious voices outside grew suddenly indignant, then angry. Tom heard punches and mocking laughter. Suddenly, he gasped as the bloodied face of one of the garbage men slammed into the passenger window beside him.

A second later, someone else crouched down beside the window and peered in at Tom, smirking triumphantly. A trail of yellow shot through the man’s dark eyes.

Looked like he and the other Porsche ’wolves had decided to take out the trash too.

Tom’s senses grew sharper, stinging his mind into focus. He felt the now-familiar ache and compulsion; the one that terrified and exhilarated him all at once. But he couldn’t risk the transformation with Jasmine and Rico so close by.

Could he?

The smoke in the car grew thicker, beginning to screen out the leering lupine face at the window. ‘Jasmine, Rico! Wake up!’ Tom yelled, still fumbling with the clasp on the seat belt. ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’

Jasmine turned her head to face him, her straight black hair hanging down, brushing against the pale roof fabric. ‘What’s happening?’ she murmured.

‘Electrics have gone. And I can smell gasoline.’ Tom prised his thumbs desperately against the stubborn clasp. ‘I think the car’s going to explode or something.’