“Well, there’s not shit he can do about it either way.”
I drop the backpack on the ground at my feet, trying to appear as if I’ve been waiting a while. The black sedan pulls into the trailhead parking lot, which isn’t much more than five spots marked by chunks of logs. They park in the last spot, farthest from me—as if they’re safe there. The overhang in the trees provided a good opportunity for sabotage, and I took it. However, their car is not my intended target.
It idles for a moment, and I glare at the dark windows. I decide to project through them anyway, hearing them chatter in real time.
“Thinks she stands a chance,” Lei mutters in Chinese.
“She won’t even know what hit her,” the goon in the front passenger seat says with a leer.
The back window rolls down and I see Lei’s smiling face. “You’re early, xiao mei mei.”
“So are you,” I say with a feral smile of my own.
“Good, let’s get it over with,” he says. “Get in.”
I laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m tracking your location, so don’t lose your phone, okay?” Ace says.
“You can get in the car, or I can text my man in China to go ahead and do what he does,” Lei says, the vague threat hanging in the empty space between us.
I know I can still win, even if I get in with them. Even if they take me somewhere else and I have to leave all my carefully laid traps behind, I still have a litany of them all over my body, and in my pockets.
I take a trembling step forward.
Lei’s smile returns. “That’s it.”
I get to the door, and it opens hard and fast. I jump back, but Lei’s wrapped something around my neck. It’s frigid, spikes of ice pressing into my flesh like a choke collar. He reels me in with a hard jerk, and I stumble forward, hitting my head on the doorframe.
I blink, my eyes readjusting from the vivid future-sight.
“Now or never, little sister,” Lei says from the car in a sing-song voice that makes my skin crawl.
“Your father’s going to be real pissed when you tell him you couldn’t get me to sign your stupid contract because you refused to get out of the car,” I say.
He holds up his phone. “Yourfather’s going to be real pissed when he finds out what happened to his wife because of hisdisobedient daughter.”
“Mama.” Ace’s small voice cracks in my ear.
Fuck.
He’s not going to budge. There’s no way he’s getting out of that car unless I make him. Well, since my plan just got punched in the face, I guess I’ll whip out the grand finale early—that’ll get him out of therefor sure.
“I can see that stubborn look on your face, Jade. Don’t do anything stupid,” Lei says, his face going frighteningly placid.
My hands are shaking, but I shrug and smile. “I actually think it’s kinda genius.”
I project out of my body, my astral essence spreading wide to hit every rune-etched placard I’d strung in the trees. Hot pink magic flares brightly in the golden boughs, and then, it snows.
Lei sticks his head out the window and looks up at what’s pelting their vehicle, then at me with a confused scowl.
“Sugar?”
I use my astral essence to draw runes in the crystals on the roof of the car; the exact opposite of the protection wards weused at the café. I grin as I pop back into my physical body and cup one of the special bombs in my pocket.
“Get skreeted on, bitch.”
“Oh, my god, you’re so lame!” Ace groans in my ear as I hurl the crystalized bomb at Lei’s face.
