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It could all end . . . might well end . . . in prison bars or gunfire, Shade knew. Cruz knew that, too. The emotions played across Cruz’s face in slow motion. It was suddenly becoming shatteringly clear to Cruz that her life was no longer her own: she was with Shade, bound to her, unable to escape the results of what they had done. She was a criminal, just as much as Shade. And Shade could see the realization dawn on her friend’s face, the fear, the excitement . . . and the resentment that Shade expected would grow over time.
They could put her in prison, in a box, treat her like . . .
No time for regrets, no time for guilt, Shade told herself sternly. That was all just emotion, feeling; what mattered now, right now, was winning this confrontation. Later she’d find a way to . . .
. . . to what, Shade? To what? Undo the damage? How are you going to do that, Shade Darby?
“Cruz,” Shade said with steely insistence, out of sync, not really sure if it was taking Cruz forever to move or if that was just the way the world was when you were hyper-accelerated. “Go!”
Cruz spun on her heel and ran for the car. It was a madhouse on Hinman Avenue, flashing lights and rushing cops, all staring and pointing at the slashed tires of their vehicles, all with guns drawn now.
Half a dozen of them spotted Cruz, leveled weapons, and shouted, “Freeze! Freeze!” Cruz froze and then the guns and the eyes behind them wavered, perplexed.
Cruz had become invisible.
Good girl, Shade thought.
Cruz ran on, around the side of the house, slipping on wet leaves, and tumbled into the minivan’s passenger seat.
Shade was already there, waiting.
“Oh, my God, Shade! Oh, my God!”
Shade made a buzzing sound, then carefully slowed her speech and said, “What. Took you. So long?”
Shade drove, not as Shade, but as this new creature, this sleek, plasticine avatar of Shade, with her creepy insectoid legs bent awkwardly sideways to fit beneath the wheel. The minivan speedometer passed sixty before they’d blown past Starbucks. It hit eighty within a block, ninety, then a hundred miles an hour, with the Subaru careening through traffic that looked to Shade as if it had come to a stop.
It was all scarier for Cruz, who saw cars weaving and heard the horns blowing and noted the occasional one-finger salute being raised by outraged commuters.
“It. Will. Be okay,” Shade lied in slow motion.
Right side of the road, left side of the road, the sidewalk, Shade sent the Subaru screaming west down Dempster. Cruz took a dream-slow look in the rearview mirror and in a syrupy slo-mo voice said, “N-n-o-o-o-o-o c-o-o-o-p-s.”
But it was not the police that Shade felt watching her, following her. Eyeless eyes and soundless laughter, enjoyment, malice, dark and greedy obsession, the things she had dismissed as “paranoia,” were back.
Far away and yet right here, right inside my skull.
“Text Malik,” Shade said, and now both her voice and the car were slowing down. She was de-morphing, becoming fully human. She could not bear that vile, insinuating scrutiny for long.
“What do I say?”
“Text him to meet us at the mall. Tell him to hurry and bring tools and wire.”
“Tools and wire?”
“They’ll put out a BOLO for us,” Shade said.
“A what?”
“Be on the lookout. BOLO. We need a different car.”
Cruz did not look happy. Shade turned her gaze away. Later she could deal with what she’d done to Cruz. Later she could deal with what she’d done to her father.
The Westfield Mall was just a few miles to their north and they drove there, carefully obeying the speed limits, and at last, trembling, pulled into a parking spot.
“Jesus, Shade,” Cruz said. She sounded awed, and not in a good way. But Shade did not want to talk, not now, not yet. The dark watchers were gone but the memory of them persisted. It was a dirty feeling, a feeling of being used, like she’d just found a Peeping Tom watching her undress. It was too intimate, that strange attention, too sure of itself.
Malik pulled up in his little BMW two-seater. They rolled windows down and talked across the few feet separating them.
