“Hold on,” I say.
Lark grips the door handle. “Aaron—”
I don’t slow.
I don’t hit him.
I angle.
I take the inside lane of the roundabout, tight and clean, forcing the pedestrian to abort his step or die under a car that will not stop.
He jerks back at the last second.
He looks up.
Our eyes meet.
And I see it.
Recognition.
Not of me.
Of her.
He flicks his gaze to the passenger seat, and I watch his mouth shape a word I can’t hear through glass.
There.
My chest tightens.
Lark sees his face and goes still—like something in her memory tries to rise but can’t find air.
Then I’m through the roundabout, exiting hard, and the hatchback behind us accelerates—too much, too sudden.
It clips the curb.
The driver is angry.
Or desperate.
Good.
Desperation makes people sloppy.
“Lena,” I say. “They’ve got a stopper on the roundabout.”
“I saw,” she replies. “Secondary vehicle just entered from the east.”
Of course.
A triangle. A pinch.
They’re not trying to shadow us anymore.
They’re trying to force us to stop.
Lark’s voice comes out thin. “How many—”
