Nightstruck - Jenna Black Page 0,48

going to take some serious effort on my part—and a lot of sincere apologizing on hers—before I would even consider forgiving her. I realized with a pang that I was very likely in the process of losing my best friend.

Piper heaved an exaggerated sigh. “No, I’m not kidding. I just realized I was being a total bitch about this. I went about everything the wrong way, and I don’t blame you for being pissed at me.”

I folded my arms across my chest. I’d started home about forty minutes ago, and if she was just now catching up with me, that meant it had taken her a damn long time to come to that realization. Enough time for her to have a leisurely cup of coffee while chatting up Aleric, the two of them maybe commiserating about how badly I’d treated them.

“You’re at least a half an hour too late with your apology,” I told her. “I don’t think you’re a bit sorry, and I don’t believe you even understand you did something wrong.”

It was hard to see Piper’s face in the darkened interior of her car, but I thought I caught a hint of an eye-roll.

“Of course I do,” she said in a tone that was supposed to be placating but somehow grated on my nerves even more. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that lying was a stupid move. I was just so proud of myself for talking Aleric into meeting you that I got tunnel vision.”

My jaw clenched and I stared daggers at her. “Congratulations on achieving your impossible quest to get a guy to condescend to meet little old me. I’m sure it took a lot of lying and cleverness to make that happen.” To my shame, my eyes were burning as if I were on the verge of tears.

Piper groaned. “You know I didn’t mean it that way, Becks. I honestly thought you would like him. I admit, I’m an idiot, and my execution sucked ass. But my intentions were good.”

Maybe so, but she had still lied to me. Still treated me as if what she wanted was way more important than what I wanted.

“Come on, Becks,” she wheedled. “Let me drive you the rest of the way home, at least. You don’t have to say you forgive me. Hell, you don’t even have to talk at all, if that’s what you want.”

My feet were killing me. The temperature was still dropping. And the usual city dangers were magnified tenfold by my knowledge of the changes that were taking place. Walking the rest of the way home just to prove how angry I was seemed pointless.

Wordlessly, I climbed into the car and closed the door. I stared straight ahead as I fastened my seat belt, and I was determined that our short car ride would pass in silence. I expected Piper to start chirping at me with either more apologies or pointless small talk—she was never any good with silence—but she seemed to sense it would only make things worse.

We made it a little more than a block before Piper suddenly slammed on the brakes so hard I might have flown through the windshield if it weren’t for my seat belt, which I had a feeling would be imprinted on my chest, come morning.

“What the hell?” I cried, bracing myself against the dash. I’d been staring out the side window, pointedly ignoring Piper, so I hadn’t seen what made her stop. I turned to her and saw her staring forward, jaw dropped, eyes wide.

I followed her gaze, and couldn’t contain a shriek.

Driving around Center City was a challenge to any car’s shocks. Manholes, construction sites, potholes—you couldn’t go a block without hitting one or even all three. So seeing a big pothole in the middle of Walnut Street wasn’t exactly unusual. But the one that yawned across the street right in front of us was practically a canyon.

And that canyon possessed something that looked an awful lot like teeth.

As I watched in mute horror, the canyon opened wider, the asphalt moving as fluidly as flesh, until there was no way to move forward without driving into it. Behind us, someone was leaning on their horn. There are two lanes on Walnut Street, so when Piper didn’t move forward, the guy behind us tried to veer around. He was yelling something through his side window and holding up his middle finger at Piper when his front tires hit the pothole.

There was a sound like nothing