Leigh grunts.

Before long, Kilon, Sassi, Arek, and Briston lead me swiftly through descending tunnels and into a waiting car that I have never seen. The others—Beckah, Peter, and Geo—keep watch.

Briston looks at us. “I’ve got to go. Someone has to do something about Navin and Japha. If the government won’t, I will.”

He hugs me then hurries away.

Only minutes later, Arek sighs as we pull out of the Velieri headquarters in Tokyo. “Well, we bought time.”

Nearly in unison everyone’s shoulders droop, and diaphragms expand even though the atmosphere outside is a night life challenging only the best of casinos in the world. I stare at Arek’s profile for just a moment, the words he shared within those walls reveal more than I want to accept. I may share a face with Remy, but that is all.

Sassi peers into the rearview mirror, her eyes expressing immediate concern. Her foot on the pedal tells a story as she zips around two cars so Arek and Kilon quickly glance out the window. Arek pulls out guns because of what he sees. Carefully keeping my nose below the back seat, I peek out. Three cars swerve in and out of traffic, the first kissing our bumper just slightly before Sassi bolts.

“There’s never time,” Sassi says calmly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

My fingernails clutch the tan leather of the interior as the car fishtails from the main street, where lights never cease, to a side street that just may provide amorphous shadows when needed. Late night—all levels of drunkenness—partiers scurry in panic to get out of the way of Sassi’s strategic driving, then find safety in corners just as four more cars squeal by. They leave fragmented streaks on the pavement.

Sassi’s perfectly polished four door Aston Martin is clearly made for speed and cutting tight corners, and if I didn’t know better, Sassi is smiling. She shifts gears like she belongs on the speedway and zips around cars with little care about the proximity of metal to metal. Even the trailing cars that look as sleek as this one don’t seem to handle as nicely without her ease.

“No, you don’t,” Sassi says slyly as a car tries to sneak by us on the left, but her quick strategy cuts him off without a problem.

The sound of tinging metal fills the air and several of the windows shatter, as Arek reaches out and presses my head down. “Get down!” Then he pats Kilon’s shoulder in the front seat. “The Uzi?” Arek yells, to which Kilon turns around holding a very large and very unexpected gun. Where in the world has that been hiding? Somewhere off in the distance I can hear the music from a festival, but every time bullets fly, hitting cars, homes, or apartment buildings, terrified screams fill the air from the populated street, covering up the drum of the festival.

Arek aims out the back and shoots, but only when Kilon barrages the open air with his Uzi do I jam my palms to my ears.

“There!” Sassi yells.

I pull up to the seat and look out, just as one of the cars behind us clips the bumper of another and flips three times across the street, landing against a light post.

“The bridge,” Arek warns Sassi.

Sassi’s face changes as her eyes grow wide, “What are they doing?”

Just ahead a large van swerves in front of us, barely missing several cars, and we watch carefully until the back doors open. Two men with large weapons over their shoulders lock aim with no hesitation. The only sound I can hear in my ear is Arek’s panic as he throws his arms around me just before the explosion.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A brutally scorched throat brings me back to life with a jolt. There is nothing I can do to keep from coughing and every bark from my chest hurts when the incinerated skin along my esophagus is being chewed up all the way down to my chest. Yet the billowing black smoke surrounding me sucks in and out with every breath forcing me to convulse in a fit. The crunch and crackle of fire is near and the flames lick at my feet. I rip my shoulder from the oil covered, hot black top and look around. My left leg is covered with heavy metal.

“Arek?” I call out, but my eyes survey the devastation, and no one is there. My hands are covered in black soot as is my shirt that has nearly been ripped from my body and a piece of it lays beneath the mangled car. A stabbing pain shoots through my shin as I try to move, and that’s when I see two sharp shards of metal digging into my leg.

“Help!” I yell, my voice sounding deep as though I’ve smoked for years, but everyone on the street is yelling. The flames come closer then retreat with the wind only to continue this cycle, and they melt my shoes slowly.

I see a man move through the night like a slick and determined shadow, one arm carrying a large gun and the other carrying one very small shiny knife as he glides across the wreckage as light as a ghost. His hat is low over his face, exposing only his chin. Who is he? My heart races and I claw at my leg until the sharp metal digs deeper, sending more blood onto the street. I yell as my shoulders hit the ground with a thud.

The man with the hat shows his flawless agility as his boots lightly fly from one part of the wreckage to the next. He comes closer.

“Help!” I yell again. However, something deep within tells me that this man who’s moving stealthily like there is prey nearby, is just that . . . a hunter.

Once again, as he lifts his head just enough to look me in the eye, I recognize the hard and calloused glare. Navin has come back to finish what he started. His tall body steps on the piece of wreckage, pushing the clamp heavier around my leg until I cry out when the metal seems to hit bone.

“You’re not Remy.” He smiles. “Not yet anyway.”

The pain subsides when he steps off and kneels in front of me. He runs his hand along my forehead and down my cheek. My eyebrows furrow after a moment of watching him look me over.

I have seen that look before and my heart sticks between my blackened lungs and broken ribs. Ian’s eyes once told me the same thing . . . the night that I knew he loved me. Long ago Mak’s eyes betrayed him, warning me of his unsaid feelings.

Navin takes his time, allowing a vulnerable moment as his finger caresses my cheek. Finally, his deep voice just a slight key above Arek’s, he whispers, “It could have been ours. We could have changed everything.”

“Change what?”

“You never left me a choice.”

“Navin,” I begin, but when I say his name, he closes his eyes to accept the sound with pleasure. “A choice for what?”

He reaches out and grabs my hair, forcing my head to twist at an uncomfortable angle, and with a fast hand he places the tip of the blade to the back of my ear.

“Please,” I whisper.

He presses his cheek to mine with his hand still ripping at my hair on the other side, yet the raging battle within him tells me nearly everything and I know he hates this. “All I wanted was you on my side.”

“Please,” I whisper again.

His knife slowly presses harder into my skull and I cry out, “Navin!”

From the shadows, Arek suddenly jumps out, sending both himself and Navin rolling across the hot pavement. No one in the Epheme world can fight like them. They move with a technique that leaves no room for error and at a rate of speed and precision that Ephemes will never match.

“Willow!” Sassi is suddenly there at my right and before long she calls to Kilon. With a deep yell, Kilon pulls the metal apart until it releases from my leg. I scramble to my feet and even though we are beat up from the accident, we run—leaving the wreckage and Arek behind.

“This way!” Sassi yells as we pass a crowd that has gathered. A dark alley is nearby, and we rush to where an ambulance waits.

“How?” I ask about the waiting vehicle.

“Get in!” Sassi commands and together we jump into the back, quickly closing the double doors. Sassi yells to the driver in the front, “Five minutes!”

The driver looks into the rearview mirror. His paramedic’s hat is perfectly clean and creased in the middle—which is when Geo’s kind, but serious eyes become noticeable. “No more than five.”

Just then Peter peers around the passenger seat, his smart phone in his hands. “The wreck’s exploded on social media . . .”

Kilon grumbles, his eyes rolling. “There is no control with that element. Navin has everything because of it.”

Sassi nods and then we sit—our eyes fixate on the only entrance and exit of the alley, however Sassi and Kilon seem to be in sync as they check the time every thirty seconds. Three minutes pass, then four, and when the countdown turns to ten seconds, Sassi anxiously tells Kilon, “We can’t wait. You know that. If we wait the more chance something goes wrong.”

“Everything’s already gone wrong,” he grumbles, and Sassi doesn’t argue.

My eyes are glued to the entrance and my heart sinks when the ten seconds fall one at a time reminding me of the old clicking train station numbers when you see that your train has already left. Arek never shows. Geo starts the engine, checks one more time with Sassi, and then roars out of the alley.