Page 129 of Walking in Darkness

Timothy and Dani came running up, weighed down with the huge duffels they’d filled. “We got everything,” Timothy rushed, his chest heaving with his breaths.

“Good.” I zipped up my bag just as Aria was zipping hers. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

The four of us raced back out of the store.

Relief slammed us the second we stepped outside, the earsplitting blare of the alarm cut to a dull roar.

Only we were hit with the peals of sirens coming from not that far in the distance.

I inclined my ear toward the sound.

Fuck.

It was coming from the other side of the building, and getting closer with each second.

“Hurry!” I shouted, and I tossed my bag into the trunk. Dani tossed me hers and I caught it, throwing it in as she ran to the driver’s seat and turned over the ignition. Timothy flung his on top and rushed to his seat.

Gasps raked out of Aria as she shoved her bag on top of the pile.

“Is it going to fit?” she begged as I tried to slam it shut.

A curse ripped off my tongue when it didn’t latch.

“Just get in the car, Aria,” I grated as I tried to compress the bags, and she wavered for one beat before she hurried around and dove in.

Jumping up, I tossed myself onto the trunk and used my weight to slam it down.

Relief gushed out of me when it finally caught.

Though that relief didn’t last long, because I could hear the roar of the cruiser, and it was coming down the same cut-through we’d taken to get back here.

Adrenaline pumped through my bloodstream, and I ran, diving headfirst into the back seat of the car.

“Go, go, go, go!” I shouted.

Dani rammed on the accelerator before I was even fully inside. The tail of the car swung hard as she hooked a sharp right into the high grass that grew up along the back lot of the shopping center.

We bounded down into a drainage ditch with at least half a foot of water running through it. The water split in two and splashed up on the sides as the little car tore through it.

I finally managed to sit upright and drag my door shut as she flew up the other side, wheeling a left as she took an alley that ran along the backside of a fence that closed in the yards of the houses in a neighborhood on the opposite side.

None of us dared to even breathe as she took three more sharp turns, then looped back onto the road.

I finally chanced a look behind us through the back window, and I heaved out a sigh and rushed shaky fingers through my hair when I saw it was clear.

“Is anyone following us?” Dani’s words were abraded as she glanced at me through the rearview mirror.

“No. You lost them.”

Deliverance poured out of her on a wheeze, and Timothy reached over and clamped a hand down on her thigh. “Damn, my girl is a badass. Not that I didn’t already know it.”

Pink hair whipped everywhere as she shook her head. “What are you even talking about? Total computer nerd over here.”

“Who must have been playing a slew of those driving games.” He gave her a waggish grin.

She choked on her amusement, the sound hitching with the stress that still clamored through our bodies. “Never.”

“Does that mean you always drive like this?” Aria asked. A hint of a smile kissed the edge of her mouth as she struggled to steady her own breaths.