Dex runs straight past the first row of cars and into the shadows, but Atlanta pulls up short, thumping the hood of one of the jeeps the officers were moving when the alarms sounded.
“This one,” she barks. “You, proto-girl, drive it, compren?”
I doubt Mia’s in the mood to take orders from Atlanta, but she doesn’t waste time stopping to argue. Instead, she leaps into the driver’s seat, finds the keys still in the ignition, and starts up its engine. I grab the huge bull bar bolted onto the front, using it to swing myself around toward the passenger side.
But Atlanta doesn’t move as I throw myself into the passenger seat, just standing there with her hands resting on the hood to stop us from driving away.
“Get out of the way!” Mia screams.
For a moment, I think this could be our chance. We could drive away and leave Dex and Atlanta behind—to be caught and imprisoned again by the IA, or to destroy the entire base with their superhuman combat abilities, I don’t much care in this moment.
But Atlanta still doesn’t move, standing in the path of the jeep. She’s staring back into the dark, to where Dex disappeared.
“I swear, I will run you down,” Mia shouts, her fingers wrapping around the hand brake. Her fingers are shaking, though, and her eyes are wild, and I know her too well to believe her. Despite everything we’ve witnessed, I don’t think she could actually run Atlanta over in cold blood. She wouldn’t be Mia if she could.
We’re stuck waiting for Dex.
The sirens are wailing louder, a second joining the first in a dissonant counterpoint.
Perfututi, wehaveto get out of here.
Then there’s a sudden scramble behind us, and Dex is throwing himself into the backseat of the jeep, his arms full of something I can’t make out in the dark. Three quick strides, and Atlanta’s in beside him.
Mia hits the accelerator, and the car shoots forward. She yanks the wheel to the left, and we arc around to head straight for the chain-link fence. “Get down,” she barks, so loud her voice cracks.
I double over and twist sideways to get my body below the level of the windshield, and Mia folds herself down beside me, her foot still jammed on the pedal.
The seconds tick by, stretching forever, and I begin to think we must somehow have turned, somehow veered away. Then there’s an almighty crash, a high-pitched noise. And there’s a hurricane all around us, something whirling over my head, a shudder passing through the car that rattles every bone in my body.
And we’re through the fence, tearing out across the open grassland, the car bumping over tussocks, fishtailing wildly as Mia wrestles the wheel for control, without giving up an ounce of speed.
“Veer left,” Dex yells from the back seat. “Left, mountainwards.”
“There’s no way through them,” I shout back. “There’s no pass, we’ll be trapped against the cliffs.”
“Shift left,” he yells again.
Mia looks across at me in the dark. In this moment, I can’t afford to believe any of the signs I’ve been interpreting to mean that Dex might be, even in some small way, on our side. In this moment, I’m just trying not to die.
And I believe he is too.
“Left,” I say, and she swings the wheel.
There’s no way to see what’s ahead of us by the faint starlight, but I know there are mountains, cliffs, looming somewhere before us now. We daren’t turn on the headlights, even if we knew where to find the switch.
“Well?” Mia demands, without turning her head, the wind grabbing at her words. “What now, what’sleft?”
“Fifteen seconds,” Dex says.
“Fifteen seconds until what?”
“Ten seconds.” His voice is grim.
I don’t bother asking, because there’s nothing I can do in the next ten seconds, whatever’s coming. Instead, I just count silently down in my head, as Mia finally takes her foot off the accelerator, and finds the brake, slowing us to a halt. I can see the shadowed cliffs in front of us now.
Mia turns her head to look back at the two of them, and past them, to the compound.
I twist as well, searching for any sign of pursuit. There are lights running all over the place, uneven, as though people are carrying them. They’re mobilizing.
