Page 133 of Hard Heart

Rubber screeched as Jez’s Escalade skidded sideways into a drainage ditch. Metal crumpled.

Dusk turned to darkness.

The last thing she remembered before night fell was the swish of blonde hair and a pale face peering through shattered glass.

CHAPTER 40

SERAFINA

“What the hell was that? What just happened?”

One minute, Jerry was bitching about the countryside, and the next, there was a metallic crunch.

Then silence.

Deathly silence.

Followed by Ari saying, “Uh, we found the phone, but I’m not sure if that matters now.”

Spider ignored her. “Two minutes.”

“Jez?” Dice asked, but there was no answer.

If I’d expected panic, I would have been wrong. Instead of freaking out and hyperventilating the way I began doing, Dice stayed calm. Eerily calm. But I didn’t have to be a genius to realise there was a big problem.

Two big problems.

“Code Bear. Stand by for coordinates.” Dice read out a series of numbers, and I realised I was only hearing part of the conversation. Other people were involved, and they were speaking into her earpiece. “Jezebel was chasing a target, likely motor vehicle crash with injuries. Unclear whether target was involved. Serafina, get in the back.”

“Uh, okay.”

I exited the front of the car and climbed into the back seat. Putting on a seat belt seemed like a good idea at that point.

“What’s happening?”

Dice ignored me. She had a tablet propped against the steering wheel, and she was zooming in on a map, a satellite one showing the terrain. It was all farmland and trees with the occasional building dotted around. That’s where Jerry was?

“Yeah, launch it. Tell the medics there are potential hostiles in the area. We’re thirty minutes out. Alpha?… Okay.”

“Flora isn’t here,” Ari said through the speaker. “We found her belongings dumped in a handicap stall with an Out of Order sign stuck to the door. The suitcase itself is missing.”

My ears began ringing, and the sound almost drowned out Dice.

“There’s a potential hostage in the mix.”

A hostage? Oh hell, she was talking about Flora.

Spider sprinted across the parking garage and dove into the front seat, and then we were peeling down ramps and around corners to the exit. Dice didn’t slow for the barrier, just drove straight through it.

“No need to shriek,” she said, still unnervingly composed. “Those things are designed to pop off.”

“We’re all going to get arrested.”

“We won’t; we’re cleared through to New Baltimore.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means hold on.”