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“Good call,” Beatrice reads my mind or uses common sense, who knows.

“Then I had to sneak into my ex’s place and steal her Other phone so I could call. It was a process.”

“You stole a phone?” Beatrice asks calmly. “Do you have yours?”

“Yeah, they’re both right here - Hey!”

She pitches the phone out the window, and another follows quickly, shattering on the road behind us.

“Why?” Mike whines, leaning his face out of the window leading to the truck bed. His face is filled with dismay. He looks as if this will be the tipping point where he breaks into tears.

“You told me you might have seen them around the park today. If that’s true, they’re tracking you through the phone. One or the other, I don’t know. Whatever Mitri asked you to find is dangerous, and we don’t want anyone to know where we’re going. Shit, I may have to ditch my truck.” Her speech ends with a depressed sigh of resignation.

“You act like you’ve done this before,” Mike says with a suspicious narrowing of his eyes and pulls his head back in.

She doesn’t answer, and the truck speeds up.

“Don’t sit up, Mal,” she says grimly.

“Why? We’re almost to the divide. He’s not gonna be noticeable now,” Mike argues suspiciously.

“Because we have company. I didn’t ditch the phones fast enough.”

She sounds so matter-of-fact that precious seconds tick by before Mike and I piece it together.

“Shit,” we say simultaneously.

“We’ll know how bad it is if they follow us over the line,” she says as if talking about the weather.

“Keep us downtown, Beatrice,” I call out. “The more deserted, the better.”

“On it,” she calls back. “Mike, would you check the glove box? There might be a gun in there.”

“A gun?” he squeaks in surprise, and then there’s the sound of shuffling around and the pop of the box. “There’s a paper map in here. Who uses those?”

“Mike? Gun?” Beatrice raps out. The truck increases in speed, and she yanks the wheel. I would have been thrown out if I wasn’t wedged into the vehicle's bed.

“Shit!” Mike exclaims. “No gun! And please don’t kill us!”

“No promises,” Bees sings out, and she sounds so much like Kimi that I wince.We’re going to die, Mike. I’m sorry I came to save you.

“Mal, deserted part of town coming up in three minutes, two vehicles behind and gaining on us.”

How in Duat is this the same female as earlier. Where is the anxiety-ridden bundle of fear I’m becoming familiar with? I thought she would need to be coddled and treated gently.

“Two minutes.”

The three faeries pull their swords and fly out, catching in the wind gracefully, unnoticed. Four more pass by in a blur. They must have been hiding underneath the truck.

“One.”

I can hear the engine behind us now, a Human vehicle by the stench.

It gains quickly and revs up to slam into the tailgate. I can’t see the top of it from my wedged position, so it’s a smaller car.

I suppose the truck's age makes them think their vehicle can overtake ours. But this truck is obviously a war horse in its own right and takes the hit without buckling, sliding back and forth for a moment until Beatrice regains control.

I inhale deeply and build a fire up, almost releasing it prematurely as we are hit again.