“This may astound you, but I know how to drive,” I muttered.
“You knew how to drive the old Pontiac—barely.” He glared through the passenger-side window, measuring the space between the Challenger’s glossy flank and the winding rails that matched the mountain road. “You’re turning too tight. It’s putting stress on the suspension.”
“Didn’t think your dream car was so fragile.”
If only we had time to switch places. We hadn’t thought twice when hurrying back into the car; it had been a hasty fifteen-minute haul of packing everything from the cabin back into the trunk and hitting the highway immediately.
The car wasn’t really what was grating on him, though. He was dealing with the same gnawing pit as I was since receiving Tammy’s cryptic texts: the fear that we’d let her down after all these years. Night had fully settled in, and we were closing in on Aspen fast—though not nearly fast enough for our taste.
Tammy saving us on the darkest day of our lives nearly a decade ago was red on our ledgers that we could never fully blot out. Without her guidance, I didn’t know how the hell I could have made sense of the horror I’d endured with my father’s possession. Tammy had been equally surprised when she stumbled upon us, having been following a trail of missing kid reports until she found two teens taking matters into their own hands.
She was the one who put a gun into my hand and gave mepurpose. Thanks to her, I was willing to put my life on the line for others so that my tragedy was imbued with meaning.
If Tammy needed us, we’d come. Always.
I breathed a little easier as a sign announced that the nearest exit to Aspen was only a few miles away. My mounted phone’s GPS promised that our route was nearing its end, pointing us toward 1189 Ponderosa Avenue. We’d be there before midnight.
Sylvia was perched on the dashboard, where she studied the dark road, peppered with occasional headlights. She had been unusually quiet through the entire drive. Although I could barely glimpse her expression, I knew it was a far cry from the broad smile she’d worn during her birthday celebration.
This detour was pulling us in the opposite direction of our search for Aelthorin by several miles. She didn’t say a word of protest, not a whisper of hesitation. Of course not. But even with the anxiety of Tammy’s situation, I carried enough room for guilt. I always did.
Cliff cursed under his breath as he pulled his phone away from his ear. “She’s not picking up,” he said. “Still getting a generic voicemail.”
His statement charged the air between us. Neither of us could bear to voice our theories as to why Tammy would go silent after such an urgent plea. It could be that she was lying low, playing smart the way she’d taught us.
Or she’d been caught and hurt before we could reach her.
We were lucky enough to get a city name, let alone an address. All we could do was drive forward.
“Wait, did you see that?” Sylvia shot to her feet, wings bursting open to carry her to the curved glass of the windshield.
I frowned, only spotting the turn-off for Aspen’s exit approaching a couple of miles ahead. Buildings were nestled among the hills in the distance, but nothing so alarming.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
Sylvia’s silence stretched for several long moments as she searched the night sky. “There was something in the air—something glinting up ahead.”
Anxiety rooted in my gut as I divided my attention between the road and where she was pointing. The dark sky was blanketed by thin clouds and pierced with stars, but otherwise clear.
The GPS chimed in its cheerful, robotic voice:Turn back. Get away. Turn back. Now.
I flinched and looked at the screen, unsure whether I’d heard the voice at all. It felt more like a talon raking the back of my mind, and Sylvia had no reaction to the strange message. I screwed up my face, shaking it off.
“There!” Sylvia drew away from the glass as though it burned her. “Shit, can’t you see it? It’s like a shield.” She looked between us, her green eyes widening as we returned confused looks.
“Is it glamour?” Cliff asked, studying the sky intently, every muscle in his body coiled like he had any hope of fighting something invisible.
“Maybe, but it’s not fae. Even I can barely see it.” Sylvia was growing more panicked by the second. “I don’t know what it is, but we’re going to drive right through it. Jon—can you feel anything?”
As I strained for even a glimpse of this invisible terror, Ididsee something. The road ahead seemed to blur, the shadowsmultiplying and overlapping. I squeezed my eyes for a second, trying to sharpen my focus. But the drunken haze remained, tainted by faint iridescence at the corner of my vision.
An uncanny feeling struck me like a bullet. I was about to drive straight into a solid wall and get us all killed.
“Jon?” Sylvia insisted.
Her voice sounded far away. The other drivers on the road had the right idea. They were exiting onto the nearest shoulder to turn around, avoiding certain death. But that couldn’t be right, I told myself fiercely. We were trying to get to Aspen. To Tammy. We needed to proceed to the exit—
The calm GPS voice pitched into an unholy whine.TURN BACK. GET AWAY. TURN THE FUCK AROUND OR YOU’RE GOING TO DIE.
