Elliott hits the brakes. The car squeals and jitters sideways, hydroplaning, throwing me into the door. The rear of the Camaro swings around past the front until we’re moving backwards, then one of the tires catches on the water again and we complete the violent spin. There’s a horrible wailing of metal giving way and Elliott and I are both thrown forward. Our seat belts—thank God I actually wore mine this time—catch us. The jolt gives me instant whiplash.

The Camaro stops. The engine sputters and cuts to silence. The headlights flicker. One dies, but the other stabilizes after a moment.

I peel myself off the back of my seat with a muttered curse. I glance at Elliott—he’s fine—then peer through the now-spiderwebbed windshield to squint at the thing we’ve crashed into.

Lying in the road is a massive tree.

And in front of the tree, splayed unmoving on the asphalt, is a body.

CHAPTER NINE

RAIN SPLATTERS THROUGH MY BROKEN WINDOW, spraying over my shirt in spurts of wind. I unbuckle, grab my poncho from the backseat, pull it on. I glance again at the body: it’s a huddle of rotted flesh, white bone, and torn clothing, curled in on itself beneath the tree. Whoever it was, they’ve been dead a long time.

Praying desperately, I reach over Elliott—he’s frozen, staring at the body, hands stiff on the wheel—and pull the starter wire out from the spot where I’d tucked it away. I touch it to the battery and ignition wires. Nothing. The engine doesn’t even turn over. We’re dead in the water. Literally.

A blinding, biting, helpless sort of fury rises up in me. I punch the dash. We’re hours away from the airport, stranded in a hurricane that’s likely to get worse. We can’t go back to the hideout. It’s at least half an hour away by car, which means it’s just as unreachable as the airport by foot. But that’s not even the worst of it. I have no idea how strong the eye wall is or if it’s headed this way, but Elliott was right before about it potentially destroying the planes. Even if it doesn’t, a spin-off tornado could easily do the same damage. And I’m stuck here, unable to do anything. Unable, yet again, to get to the one person I’ve been trying to find for a year.

I punch the dash again. What else could possibly go wrong? My brain obligingly spits out a highlight reel of the worst options: we get struck by lightning, get crushed by debris, stumble on a mirror that releases another Being. It’s a good thing Elliott is concentrating on keeping us safe, or my thoughts right now would get us killed in seconds.