“Get ready!” Bria yelled at me, grinning a little. “Our ride’s almost here!”
I nodded, but she didn’t see me, since she was already turning back and firing at the guards who were racing toward our position.
That low rumbling grew louder and louder. I risked a glance back over my shoulder, looking for the source of the sound. I squinted, and something zoomed into view in the distance on the far side of the bridge, up the river, but closing fast.
A white speedboat with blue and red racing stripes.
I blinked, but the image didn’t melt or vanish into thin air, so I knew that it was real. The speedboat zipped up the river as easy as you please, and I realized that this must be Bria’s escape plan. Instead of risking getting caught on a Southtown street by Benson and his men, she’d chosen a less obvious but much quicker getaway route. I nodded in approval, even though the motion almost caused me to pitch off the bridge and fall into the water.
Bria heard the boat too, and she holstered her gun and grabbed my hand. More shouts rose up from the guards, who were sprinting toward us. And with the blood they drank and the extra speed it gave them, the vamps were closing fast. Another thirty seconds, and they’d be at the end of the bridge. They could easily shoot and kill us from there.
“Here we go,” Bria said, her voice lost in the continued cracks of gunfire, as she eyed the rippling water below us. “One . . . two . . . three!”
She yanked me off the bridge with her.
22
For a moment, the sensation was the same as the Burn drug—that airy feeling of flying, flying high. I laughed at how good it felt to just be . . . free. My head snapped back, and all I could see was the blue, blue sky, dotted here and there with marshmallow clouds, just like in my hallucinations.
But then gravity took over, the way it always did, sucking me back down to earth and reality. My head dropped, along with my body, and the rush of air tore away the rest of my crazy, cackling laughter. Instead of a pit of imaginary fire, the dark and very real surface of the Aneirin River thirty feet below zoomed up to meet me, the water ready to close over me in its cold, deadly embrace.
And then the boat popped into view.
It was the same speedboat I’d seen before, and it slowed down so that it was in sync with Bria and me and our downward plummet. This time, I didn’t have to worry about falling, because someone was there to catch me—Owen.
He was standing at the back of the boat, along with Xavier. Bria’s feet hit the ledge at the very rear of the vessel, her arms windmilling as she tried to find her balance, but Xavier reached out and grabbed her before she tumbled backward into the water. I actually landed square in the center of the boat, almost right on top of Owen, who reached out and took hold of me, keeping me from slamming face-first into one of the leather seats. The impact jarred me from my bare feet all the way up to my knees, before shooting up my legs and through my hips and back. Bones crunched together in my right ankle, making me yelp, and the bag of knives hanging off my wrist slammed into my side hard enough to bruise my ribs.
“We’ve got them!” Xavier yelled. “Go! Go! Go! Go!”
The engine roared, and the boat started picking up speed again, racing away from the bridge. But the vamps who’d been chasing Bria and me weren’t ready to give up. They skidded to a stop on the span, took aim with their weapons, and started firing at us. The bullets plop-plop-plopped into the water all around us. Xavier pulled the gun from the holster on his belt and returned their fire. So did Bria.
But one vamp was a little quicker and braver than all the others. He hopped up onto the bridge railing, then leaped off, trying to launch himself far enough out to land in the boat with the rest of us. His legs pumped, like he was riding a bicycle in midair, and he reached out with one hand . . .
And landed in the river three feet behind us.
The resulting splash sprayed us all with water. I laughed again as the cool, wet drops trickled down my face.
“Get us out of here!” Owen yelled. “Now!”
The engine whined, louder and harder this time, and the boat picked up more and more speed as it zoomed away from the bridge.
The sounds of gunfire faded away, drowned out by the powerful motor, and I knew that we were finally safe. I laughed at that too.
Owen helped me sit up against the side of the boat, his hands stroking my sweaty, tangled mess of hair back away from my face. Worry darkened his violet gaze. “Gin! Are you okay?”
I finally managed to get my crazy chuckles under control enough to smile at him, although the expression was more of a grimace, given the shooting pains in my ankle. “Never better.”
Owen smiled back at me, but the relieved expression quickly melted into a concerned frown. “What happened? What did Benson do to you?”
And just like that, the rest of my laughter dried up, and tears pricked my eyes instead. I told myself it was because of my broken ankle. Nothing else.
“Gin?” he asked again.
I shook my head. I couldn’t talk about it. Not now, not yet. Maybe not ever. Because I could still remember all too clearly the horrible, horrible thoughts I’d had about Owen, Finn, and especially Bria while I’d been riding high on Burn. How I’d thought that I was better than them. How I didn’t need them. How they were weak. How Bria was a burden.
Guilt and shame surged through me, burning even worse than the drug.
Owen opened his mouth to ask me another question, but I leaned to one side, looking past him at the person driving the speedboat—a tall, muscular man with blue eyes and golden hair pulled back into a ponytail.
“And here I thought that you only had the one really big boat,” I said, trying to make my voice light and teasing, despite the pain that rasped through my words.
Phillip Kincaid looked over his shoulder and grinned at me, a few strands of hair flying around his face. “What can I say? I like to diversify.”
I laughed again, even as the rest of my strength evaporated and my body slumped against the side of the boat. My arms and legs felt cold, numb, and nerveless, except for the throbbing pain in my ankle.
“Call Jo-Jo,” Bria said, somewhere far over my head. “Benson really did a number on her.”
Fear and panic pulsed through my body, sharper and more painful than all my injuries. Jo-Jo couldn’t heal me. I was hanging on to my sanity by a thread. The feel of any more magic right now would snap that slender strand.
I clutched at Owen, panting for breath. “No healing. No magic. Too much . . . of it . . . in Burn.”