Page 160 of Legacy Elite

She says it again, word for word, and I watch her face while she waits, and her face doesn't change at all, and that's how I know.

"Both of you. Seatbelts off. Now."

Freya gets hers off. I get mine off.

"When I say — out the left side, through the trees, downhill and left again toward the gate. You do not stop and you do not come back."

"Cassel—"

"Miss Miller, do not talk to me."

She's out of the car. She gets two steps.

I don't see what hits her. I hear it, a flat crack off the trees, and Cassel goes sideways into the open door and slides down it.

Then the windshield of the car in front comes apart.

The next twenty seconds are extremely loud and I have very little of them. The driver's shouting. Freya's got the door on our side open. There's somebody moving in the trees on the right and somebody coming up behind the van, and the two men in the vests are shooting. I get a hand into the back of Cassel's coat and drag her into the gap between the car and the ditch, because she's still moving and I'm not leaving her in the open, and something goes into the fender eight inches from my head with a noise like a hammer.

"Jessica." Freya's flat on her front behind the rear wheel. "The trees on the left are clear."

"You're sure?"

"There's nobody on that side. They're all right and behind."

Which is the point. They've left us one direction and it goes away from the gate.

"No. That's where they want us."

"Then what—"

The driver of the lead car makes it out, gets a few steps, and goes down.

Rounds into both cars. One into Cassel. One into a driver. Nothing anywhere near me, and the one that hit the fender was low and behind.

They're not shooting at me. They're steering me.

"Freya. How fast can you get to that gate?"

"Not fast enough."

"How fast if nobody's looking at you?"

She stares at me.

"You are not—"

"Get ready."

I put my hand flat against my sternum and shift.

It's fast now. The road comes up at me in smells — cut grass, diesel, blood, gun oil, beech bark, Freya — and I'm out of the ditch on four legs before anybody's finished turning around.

Somebody in the trees says something urgent.

I go straight at the van. Not the men — the van, because it's the only cover on this road and there are two of them behind it. I hit the back corner at a dead run and it goes over with a noise like a building coming down, and one of them doesn't get clear. The other does. He's fast. He gets about six feet before I put him in the ditch.

Then the road's open, and I turn, and Freya is already running.