us go along with whatever this asshole says as long as he tells us to. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t request. He orders us, Rico. Last time I checked, neither one of us takes orders too well.” As she said that, she looked into the rearview mirror. She wouldn’t have taken her eyes off it even if that meant slamming into the back end of a bus. That way, she was sure to see any more flickers in Steve’s reflection. Fortunately, it didn’t take long before she saw that very thing.
“She’s trying to talk her way out of this so she can kill you!” Steve said. “You have to shoot her!”
“See?” Paige mused with a calmness that came from finally taking back the reins, even if those reins were connected to a team of rabid, stampeding horses. “Not even orders. He tells you things and you believe them.” Meeting Steve’s gaze in the mirror, she asked, “Is that why Lancroft had to lock you up in a cage two levels beneath his home in Philly and throw away the key? You’re just too slippery for him to risk—”
“You have to kill her!” Although Steve was the one who started that statement, it was Kawosa who finished it. The shapeshifter had been in Lancroft’s custody possibly longer than anyone or anything else, which pushed his confinement past the two hundred year mark. After being busted out by a group of Full Bloods and Mongrels, Kawosa had demonstrated his talents on more than one occasion. All Paige had been able to find out about him was that he was known as the First Deceiver, and possibly was the mold from which all shapeshifters were cast. Even knowing that, however, she’d still been taken in by his oily words. All of which raced through her mind as she looked over to see the commitment in Rico’s eyes. He had to kill her.
She flicked the switch to unlock the car door and cranked the steering wheel hard to the left. The vehicle had already been moving that way to follow the curve of the expressway, but her sudden movement pitched it into a swerving fishtail.
“What in the—” was all Rico could say before being thrown against his door.
Paige already had her door open as the car lost its last bit of control. Before she had a chance to think any better of it, she leaned to the left, forced the door open the rest of the way, and twisted her body around as she tumbled outside. Behind her the Mossberg let out a furious roar that spat buckshot, ripping several burning wounds along her hip and leg. But any pain from that was quickly washed away by her impact against the pavement.
Ever since she’d been wounded, Paige had seesawed between wanting to push through the affliction that hardened the muscles in her arm into a rigid, unfeeling mass or hack it off at the shoulder. Diligent exercise and base-level stubbornness had allowed her to regain most of her mobility, but it wasn’t until now that she was grateful for what had happened. In fact, she was praying that her near-petrified limb was as unyielding as the rest of her.
She hit the expressway on her side, just as she’d planned.
Her arm smashed against the pavement first, just as she’d hoped.
There was no way to plan for the pain that followed, and all she could do was hope it didn’t stop too soon. A sharp bout of numbness after jumping from a moving car was most definitely not a good thing.
Horns wailed around her. The screeching of nearby tires came from the car she’d just left as well as from several others that had to swerve to avoid it. Engines roared from every direction, giving her more than enough incentive to roll toward the narrow median of the expressway. Unfortunately, momentum was still making it damn near impossible to steer her body.
Using her wounded limb as a narrow sled, she kicked at the ground and resisted the urge to reach out with her good hand to slow her progress into traffic. She made a fist, gnashed her teeth and allowed herself to cry out as the uppermost layers of her arm were stripped away. Finally, her leg slapped against the ground and she came to a halt.
Several yards ahead, metal wrapped around a cement divider as the rental car found a guardrail at the edge of the expressway. So much for that deposit. Sparks were still