But then Jace’s posture relaxed, and he flipped his phone closed without glancing toward the window. Playing it cool. He said something to someone across the room, and though I couldn’t read his lips from that distance—probably couldn’t have, anyway—whatever he said evidently raised no suspicions in whoever else was in the room.

Jace leaned forward and drank from a can on the table, then said something else to someone we couldn’t see. And when no one attacked him in the next two minutes, my attention began to wander. “Look.” I pointed, and Marc’s gaze followed my finger toward the four cars lined up side by side next to the last building. Jace’s was third, but I didn’t recognize the others.

There were probably several more parked in front of the main building, but while there was nothing I could do about those without getting caught, I might be able to disable the other three with minimal risk.

Marc’s nose nudged my arm as I dug through the backpack for Gary’s folding knife. “I’ll be right back,” I whispered as my hand closed around the cold steel. I set the bag on the ground next to Marc and flipped open the blade as he began to growl softly, warning me not to do anything stupid.

“I’m just going to give us a head start,” I whispered. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Marc’s growl rose as I started forward, then transitioned to an angry whine when I broke through the tree line and ran hunched over toward the first car. But he didn’t follow. As worried as he was about me taking a risk, he knew that if I was caught, I wouldn’t be hurt, but I’d need him to help get me and Jace out. And that if Marc got caught, too, we’d all be screwed.

My pulse raced along with my legs as I crossed the thirty feet from the woods to the first car. Breathing heavily—more from nerves than from exertion—I slid to the ground with my back against the side of the first car and waited for several heartbeats to see if I’d been spotted. The gravel was sharp and frigid through my jeans, the breeze stinging cold on my cheeks. The engine clicked at my back as it cooled. This was the car that had led us to the property.

When no one shouted or came outside after twenty seconds, I rose onto my knees and shoved the blade of Gary’s knife into the wall of the front right tire. Then I pulled it out and made a second cut over the first, to form an X. Air hissed out of the rubber, and I flinched. My bright idea sounded very loud in the near silence.

Adrenaline pumping, I scrambled to the rear of the car and slashed another tire, then moved quickly toward the woods again and cut the front left tire on my way to the next in line. I skipped over Jace’s rental and went on to disable the other two cars as quickly and quietly as possible. When I finished, I sat less than two feet from the end of the last outbuilding. Twenty feet from the back steps.