Either way, it doesn’t bode well for us.

35

Nora

As the new sound reaches my ears, my adrenaline levels spike. I didn’t know it was possible to feel like this—numb and acutely alive at the same time. My heart is racing a million miles a minute, and my skin is tingling with prickles of icy fear. However, the panic that gripped me earlier is gone; it disappeared at some point between the second and third explosion.

Apparently one can get used to anything, even cars blowing up.

Gripping the weapon Julian gave me, I hold on to the seat with my free hand, unable to look away from the battle taking place outside the car window. The road behind us is like something out of a war zone, with crashed and burning cars littering the empty stretch of narrow highway.

It’s as if we’re in a video game, except the casualties are real.

Boom! One press of a controller button, and a car goes flying. Boom! Another car. Boom! Boom! I catch myself mentally directing each grenade, as though I can guide Julian’s aim with my thoughts.

A game. Just a realistic shooting game with stunning sound effects. If I frame it like that, I can cope. I can pretend there aren’t dozens of burning corpses behind us, both on our side and on theirs. I can tell myself the man I love isn’t standing in the middle of the limo holding a grenade launcher, his head and upper body exposed to the hail of gunfire outside.

Yes, a game—in which there’s now a helicopter. I can hear it, and when I climb up on the seat and lean closer to the window, I can see it too.

It’s a police chopper, heading directly for us.

It should be a relief that the authorities are trying to intercede—except the blockade we just went through didn’t seem like an attempt to restore law and order. I saw the police cruiser pursuing us right alongside Sullivan’s forces; they weren’t trying to arrest all the criminals involved in this deadly chase.

They were trying to take us out.

A new wave of terror washes over me, puncturing my false calm. This is not a game. There are people dying all around us, and if it weren’t for the armor on this limo and Lucas’s driving skills, we’d already be dead too. If it were just me, it wouldn’t matter as much. But everyone I love is in this car. If something happens to them—

No, stop. I feel myself starting to hyperventilate, and I force the thought away. I can’t afford to panic now. Glancing toward the front, I see my parents huddling together on the seat, gripping their seatbelts. They’re so pale, they look almost green. I think they’re both in shock now, since my mom is no longer screaming.

The limo takes a sharp right turn, nearly throwing me off the seat.

“I’m going for the hangar!” Lucas yells from the front, and I realize we just turned off the highway onto an even narrower road. The small airport looms directly ahead, beckoning with the promise of salvation. The roar of the helicopter is directly above us now, but if we can get to our plane and take off—