out. Shut down the pain, the shock rippling through her body, her bones.
She stumbled one step—two. And kept walking.
Kept gripping Maggie. She left the throwing knife where it had embedded in her back, right into her upper shoulder, its tip jutting clean through her front.
She didn’t hear Ivy’s screamed words or Harley’s answering ones. Selina grabbed the concealed keys, unlocked the sedan, and carefully laid Maggie across the back seat. Blood had spread all over Maggie’s hospital gown and bare, too-thin legs.
Her sister didn’t stir as Selina arranged her bare feet on the pale leather seats, made sure she was secure, and shut the door. The movement dragged a moan of pain from her gut.
Selina’s hands shook as she reached for the knife, shock setting in, pain a dull roar.
She had been undefeated in the ring. She had learned to take hit after hit and never went down, never yielded.
Selina clenched her teeth, swallowing a scream as she yanked the knife out and clapped a hand to the front of the gushing wound, applying as much pressure as she could stand as she reached for the smooth black arc of the driver’s door handle. She wasn’t going down here. Not now.
Opening the door, she grimaced as her shoulder screamed at the movement.
Harley aimed her other throwing knife at Selina. “I’m going to kill you, you—”
A flash of red and green.
Ivy stepped in front of that knife. “Stop, Harley,” she pleaded. “Stop.”
“Get out of the way.” Harley’s voice trembled.
Ivy spread her arms, held her ground. “I am begging you. As your friend, I am begging you not to throw again. Not to throw that knife at our friend.”
They had come for her. To Arkham. To save her.
Selina shut down the thought. Forty-five minutes. All that remained between Maggie and the Pit. Her sister might not even have that time.
Selina slid into the front seat, using the bloodied knife to slice up a long strip of the seat belt. A few brutal motions, a few grunts of agony, and it was wrapped around her shoulder. Stanching the bleeding. Or as much of it as she could manage.
Her fingers shook as she reached for the push-button engine ignition.
She could barely move the gearshift out of park and into drive.
But as the car grumbled to life, purring beneath her…
There was Ivy, pale green smoke—a lingering, last tendril—weaving around their feet. The few remaining flowers along Ivy’s shredded vines closed up. Vanished.
And there was Harley, sobbing, reaching a hand out toward Ivy.
Ivy’s shoulders shook. Crying—her friend was crying, too, as the toxins rose around them.
Selina pulled from the parking space, gunning the engine as she took off down the street. Through the rearview mirror, just before Selina turned down another street, she looked back.
Saw Ivy wrap her arms around Harley just as her toxins took effect, lowering her gently to the concrete, the knife clattering. Then there was nothing but green smoke.
A trickle of blood still leaked from her shoulder.
She pressed her palm against the wound to stanch the bleeding, but the pain…
She pushed that Mercedes’s engine to the breaking point.
Every bump sent agony burning through her, but Selina rerouted the pain, let it focus her. Over the roar of the engine, the road, even with the sound-canceling tech of the car, she couldn’t hear if Maggie was breathing. Didn’t dare take her eyes off the road for long enough to check. Not when the speedometer passed 100…110…120.
She wove through traffic, frantic and sloppy drivers honking in her wake, adrenaline honing her vision. Blood leaked down her front and back.
Now 130…140…150.
The quieter roads opened up, flat and steady. Selina pulled around cars in her way, dodging oncoming traffic, using the shoulder as a lane where she needed to.
Red lights, stop signs…She blew through them.
At last, the ruined, grassy plain opened up, the solitary road winding through it. Ten miles ahead lay the factory.
Time slowed and sped, warping and bending during those miles. Until she was pulling right up to the concrete barrier. Fifty feet of cracked asphalt pathway lay between the barrier and front door to the factory.
She didn’t have the strength to swear, to beat the steering wheel into a pulp. Could hardly turn her head to look at Maggie.
Her sister’s chest rose—slightly. As if she fought for every breath.
Not yet. Not now.
Selina could barely make it out of the car and walk the two steps to the back door.