“Look, let me give you a ride home, okay? It isn’t safe for you to be walking here by yourself.”

The heavy feeling intensified. “Um, David, hate to break it to you,” I said, trying to sound normal even though my breathing was speeding up, “but this isn’t exactly a rough neighborhood. I think I can avoid getting raped and murdered on someone’s croquet lawn, okay?”

He leaned across the passenger seat and for the first time, I saw that he looked genuinely worried. Maybe even a little scared. “Harper—” he started to say.

I stepped down from the sidewalk, and leaned forward, my hands resting on the open passenger window. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s that car.” His eyes darted to his rearview mirror and I turned to look over my shoulder. About a hundred yards away, a black car with tinted windows idled at a stop sign. I figured the suffocating feeling in my chest had something to do with it, and that meant it was probably not filled with good guys.

“The car was outside the school when I left,” David said in a voice barely above a whisper, like the people in the car could hear us. “It’s been following you.”

Adrenaline started flooding through my system as I turned back to David and said, “Get out of here. Now. Drive—”

But before I could finish, the black car revved its engine with a roar that drowned out David’s crappy Dodge.

And then it was racing straight at us.

Chapter 8

IT WASN’T like I had a lot of time to think about what to do next, so I went with instinct.

I dove through David’s open passenger window and scrambled onto his lap.

I know, I know. Between that and the head-butting, I was going to get my southern belle title revoked. But I knew what I needed to do, and it was faster to drive the damn car myself than try to explain it to David. And I knew he couldn’t move into the passenger seat in enough time. That black car would be on us in seconds.

David made a sound that was somewhere between shock and outrage as I grabbed the wheel and placed my foot on top of his on the accelerator.

The Dodge rattled, and squealed, and thunked, but, thank God, it lurched forward just as the black car’s front grille kissed our bumper. The shock was still enough to send me flying painfully into the steering wheel, and David into my back.

“What the hell?” David yelled in my ear.

My eyes still on the street, I reached down with one hand and unfastened David’s seat belt. “Scoot!” I hollered over the clunking of the car and the rush of wind pouring through the open passenger window.