Page 66 of Just Dare Me
She nods, admiring the deep gouges and scrapes in the side of my car. “Oh yeah, Crap-pile has never looked crappier.”
I smack Ardee Todd’s bobblehead. “Home sweet home.”
Charlotte glances behind. “Here they are.”
With the patter of paws and the sound of panting, the coyotes arrive. Nolan and Darby shift into their naked human forms and climb into the back seat, out of breath.
“Man, you’re fast,” Russo compliments them. “I might be changing my mind. I always thought if I could be any underworlder, I’d want to be a wizard, but maybe a shifter’s more my style.”
“No, c’mon, you’re definitely a wizard, Danny,” I assure him. “Jay, though, he’s a shifter.”
“Oh yeah,” Russo agrees. “A wolf. Or a tiger!”
“Nah, didn’t you know? He’s a hammer.”
Russo claps his hands. “Amen!”
I slam the shifter into gear and we’re off in a tear, racing down the highway, mile after mile, climbing to fifty, sixty, seventy miles an hour. The blue light bars become one long blur.
“Something up ahead,” Ilren calls out.
I pump the brakes. “I see it.”
I seethem, rather. Two monstrous dump trucks with tires tall as Crap-pile. Driving side by side, they block the tunnel.
“Special Agent Hillerman, would you please ask them nicely to stop hogging the road?”
Charlotte takes aim with an assault rifle and fires a burst that sparks against their front grills. Undaunted, the dump trucks continue to chug straight for us—a game of chicken.
“So much for the courtesy honk. Ilren, make us a lane.”
Nora guns the bike, hurtling ahead, straight between the trucks. One tries to close the gap, but not in time—Nora zooms through the narrow opening between their tires. Ilren springs into the air with an acrobatic flourish, spinning his arms. His knives glint in the blue light as they fly through the open window to lodge themselves in the driver’s chest. With another smooth motion, Ilren swings into the cab, jerks the wheel, and rams the other truck into the wall, making just enough room for my car to squeak past, but not without losing Jay’s rearview mirror with a loudpongand a shower of sparks.
Darby screams with both surprise and delight. Then she laughs. “You weren’t kidding!”
“Told you she was good,” Nolan says.
“I’m talking about the car, baby.”
“So am I.” He winks at me in the rearview mirror.
I jerk the wheel, throwing him against his window. “Crap-pile’s not ashe, okay? Only boats have to be named after women. But yes, Darby, you’re right to admire the car. You do know you married the best mechanic in Detroit, right?”
“Not just Detroit,” she corrects. “All of Michigan. He’s been fixing our cars for years. Why do you think my brothers agreed to our match?”
“Well, I naturally assumed it was because Nolan is so bad at poker. They must’ve taken him for thousands by now.”
“Ha! Easily.”
Nolan rolls his eyes. “Are we there yet?”
“Yes, actually.”
The highway is blocked ahead by a chain-link fence that has been reinforced with iron bars, like a jail cell. Two guards with machine guns are posted up in front of a massive gate locked with chains. When they level their guns at us, I hit the brakes, skidding to a stop. Russo rolls up on Jay’s side. Nora approaches on my side, having doubled back to pick up Ilren.
Surprisingly, the guards don’t shoot. “Dead end!” one of them shouts with a shaky voice. “No use. We don’t have the key, so even if you take us out, you’re not opening this gate. That’s reinforced steel rebar. Even if you tried ramming them—” Blah blah blah. On and on he drones about the incredible engineering feat that is this dumb-ass gate in our way.
Well, in the meantime, we’re all watching as, behind them, the hinges of the gate begin to glow bright red with intense, shimmering heat. Suddenly, the hinges shatter and the gate is blasted forward through the air, not only taking out the two guards, but hurtling like a meteor straight at us.
