Page 125 of Cruel Elite (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 3)

I, for one, am not going to argue with her.

She just saved my ass.

I turn the car on and gun it through the grass, navigating through the maze of cars parked haphazardly around the cabin.

Noah is going to have a few more dents and scratches on his car, but I hope there will be time for me to make it up to him later.

We reach the gravel driveway, and I press the gas to the floor.

I can feel the road slipping out from underneath me a few times.

I barely slow down. There isn’t time.

Caleb and J.C. are on foot in the trees, but there’s no guarantee they’ll catch up to them in time.

If Haley is right and the Hell Princes are taking Noah back towards the road, they probably have a car there waiting.

We may not find him again until it’s too late.

The thought makes me grip the steering wheel tighter, and I fly around a curve in the highway, slowing down only slightly once the road comes into view to make sure no one is coming before I drive around the corner.

Haley grabs the handle attached to the ceiling and curses.

But she doesn’t tell me to slow down. I think she knows she would be doing the same thing if it was Caleb in trouble.

Time feels both impossibly slow and like it is passing much too quickly.

The road is deserted, and with every hill we navigate, I keep praying we’ll see another car.

I keep praying the Hell Princes were walking him to the road. If I’m wrong, then this may be a wild goose chase in the wrong direction.

It would mean we wasted time getting the car.

I’m not sure if it’s a mistake we’ll recover from.

Just as hope begins to wane, Haley points at something through the windshield. “A car! A black truck!”

We’re still far away, but I recognize it as the same truck I saw in the senior parking lot the day Tank surprised me at school.

It’s their car.

I’m thrilled for one second.

Got you, motherfuckers.

Until I realize I don’t see Noah.

“Where are they?”

“Pull over. Pull over.” Haley lightly touches my hand on the wheel, comforting me as we pull onto the shoulder of the road, thirty yards away from the black truck.

“What do we do now?” I ask. “Do we wait?”

Haley shakes her head. “No, we don’t fucking wait. We go in there and we get our men.”

She jumps out of the car, leaving the passenger side door open, and runs into the trees.

I make to follow her, but stop and dive back into the car.

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