Page 179 of The Vigilante's Lover

“Not one for a Phase Six you haven’t,” she says with a pained laugh.

“First time for everything.”

She lurches toward the passenger side, and I help her get in the seat. “This one takes an hour to recover from,” she says. “Not, as you say,my first rodeowith this dart.”

“Just rest a bit,” I answer and close her door.

I go around to the other side. Colette has already started the engine, and it scarcely even vibrates beneath my seat as I slide into place. I toss my bag in the back.

Colette’s steering wheel isn’t a circle like other cars. It is made of two triangles with a rounded outer grip. It doesn’t just turn, but also tilts forward or back.

“You might be right about this,” I say.

“You’ll get it,” Colette says, pressing the side of her head to the cool glass of her window. “I’ll talk you through it. Once you have the basics, we can do auto-drive. I just want to make sure you can manage the car if we drop out of it.”

In front of us, Mark has bent down next to Jovana. He’s holding another red antidote vial, but he hasn’t given it to her yet.

“Shouldn’t we bring her in or something?” I ask.

“Can’t. She’s a special. And I’m not combat trained. It was everything I had just to put up a defense.” Colette’s normal French lilt goes darker, like she’s defeated. “I don’t know how we can take her out of commission.”

“Are you still in good standing with the Vigilantes?” I ask. “I think I may have gotten Sam in trouble.”

“He was decommissioned. Technically I’m still on duty, but until all this settles out, none of us are really safe.” She points at the steering wheel. “The gearshift is by your right thumb. Click and hold the top button to go into reverse.”

I do what she says.

“You can press the gas like normal with your foot,” she says, “but be careful about pulling the wheel toward you. That doubles your acceleration.”

“Is the brake like normal?” I feel around the bottom with my foot.

“Yes, there is a standard brake. But you can also stop the car instantly by jerking down on the wheel with deliberate force.”

“Okay,” I say. “Anything really stupid I could do?”

“Don’t mess with the switch on the base of the steering wheel. It is for the other modes of the car and changes all the actions of the buttons and wheel motions.”

“Like when you drive across water?” I ask.

“Yes, like that.”

I take in a deep breath. Mark still hasn’t moved from his position beside Jovana.

I ease the accelerator down, half expecting this specialized car to shoot backward like a rocket. But it rolls the way a civilian car would. I let go of my held breath.

Colette laughs lightly. “You look like you’re strapped to a missile.”

I press the brake. “I feel like I am. Which one for drive?”

“Go with the bottom one. It’s the equivalent of the automatic transmission in civilian cars.”

I press it. I check the mirrors. There’s no one coming. In fact, no one has passed us the entire time we’ve been out here. “What happened to the traffic? Surely there are at least a few cars along here.”

“I had a couple locals set up a construction detour,” Colette says. “The way that jerk was driving, he was going to kill a civilian.”

I pull out onto the road with a tentative push on the gas. Jovana still writhes on the ground. Mark has at least uncapped the antidote. As we come up beside them, Colette rolls down her window. “Civilians arriving any minute. Clean this up.”

Then we are past and the two of them get smaller and smaller until I can’t make them out anymore.