Toxic (Denazen #2)(25)

The remaining suit stepped between Kale and me as Able jerked the wheel hard to the right. Squealing tires and blaring horns filled the air, and Kale lost his balance, sliding sideways—dangerously close to the edge. Aubrey was out of his seat and shouldering the suit aside before I could speak. He hauled me up as Kale righted himself.

“Watch it, 98,” Aubrey growled. “It would suck if you lunged for me and she accidentally slipped out of a moving vehicle.”

I could see the frustration in his eyes. Aubrey was right. We were all balanced too close to the edge now. If Kale came at us, Aubrey would try to avoid him, and things could get messy. At seventeen, I had no desire to become roadkill.

From the driver’s seat, Able snickered. “I gotta admit, girly, I was wrong. I told them you’d never fall for it, and here you go proving me wrong, yeah? I just lost twenty bucks because of you.”

“Carley,” Kale seethed. He was poised and ready to pounce, expression grim. “You used Carley to make us see Sue.”

“Carley?” I asked, trying to twist free of Aubrey’s steel grasp.

He smiled, tightening his grip on my arm. If he didn’t loosen up, the circulation was likely to stop. “One of the Residents. She can beam an illusion straight into your brain.” He stomped his foot. “Boom! Just like that. You’d swear on the air in your lungs it was real. She was in the lot around the side of the building.”

Kale inched forward as the van’s speed decreased. We were coming to the intersection in the middle of town. The light was notorious for taking forever. Maybe if we timed it right, we could use it to our advantage.

Of course just as we came to a stop, the light must have changed, because the van jerked forward, listing slightly to the left as we turned onto Daughten Avenue. The vehicle picked up speed fast—Able obviously wasn’t worried about traffic infractions. As Aubrey and the Denazen suit faced off against Kale, I watched as Parkview zoomed by in a blur.

“Step away from Dez,” Kale snapped.

“Why don’t you just come and get her?”

We were fast approaching the town limits when a low curse came from the front seat, and the horrific sound of grinding gears and screaming metal filled the air. Everything shook, tilting sideways, and gravity disappeared. Something knocked me down and to the left, and sharp pain exploded at the base of my neck. For a moment, everything went watery. Hollow sounds—yelling and something else. Scraping. Like twisting metal—which, when everything cleared, I found was exactly what it was. The van had somehow ended up on its side, bodies strewn around the cabin like discarded trash.

The first thing I became painfully aware of was the brain-numbing pain in my right knee. I’d dislocated it once after a particularly nasty round of bumper surfing, so any injury was always ten times worse. The next thing I was aware of was the smell.

Smoke.

I tried to sit up but couldn’t get more than halfway. “What the—” The duct tape the Denazen agent had wrapped around my wrists snagged on something that prevented me from getting up. I gave it a few good tugs, but it was no use. I was stuck.

To my right, the agent hung from the opening where the door used to be. My guess was he’d toppled sideways on impact, then got caught in the door track when the van flipped onto its side. A thin trail of red dripped from the corner of his mouth, and I shuddered. If the van had flipped the other way, we’d probably all be dead.

Kale lay beside me, and my pulse surged when I realized how close he was. Another few inches, and his hand would have hit my cheek. He was still, eyes closed, but the subtle rise and fall of his chest told me he was in way better shape than the agent—for the moment. The smoke leaking in from the back of the van fanned into a small flame, and as I watched, crept closer.

“Kale.” I coughed. The acrid smell was getting stronger, and my eyes and throat were beginning to sting. “Kale, you have to move!”

From the front of the van, one of the twins moaned. I craned my neck to see Able, still in the driver’s seat, slumped against the window. He wasn’t moving. On the floor between us, Aubrey was getting to his feet.

Back to Kale. The tiny flame was getting bigger—and closer—and Kale still wasn’t moving. Something sharp broke the skin on the back of my hand as I stretched to twist sideways. Taking a deep breath, I bit back a scream and thrust out my right leg out, bracing it against Kale’s shoulder. I was able to nudge him out of the path of the flame and closer to the door.

“Able?” Aubrey mumbled from the front, trying to reach his brother. He lost his balance, tugging Able’s still form down with him.

I yanked on the tape again with the same results. Kale was safe from the creeping flames, but that put me next in line. Panic coated the inside of my throat like syrup. Of all the ways to go down, burning to death was last on my list next to being crushed. “Kale!” No answer. I turned to the front. “Aubrey, get up! I’m stuck.”

He ignored me, still trying to rouse Able with no luck.

Kale stirred. “Dez…?”

“Kale! I’m stuck. Hurry!”

He struggled up and stumbled across the cab, going down on his knee twice as he tried to maintain balance. “Lean forward. I need to see.”

I leaned as far as I could to give him room to work. After a moment, Kale cursed softly. He was trying to hurry and not touch me at the same time. It wasn’t working. A few feet away, Able stirred. Aubrey was desperately trying to wrestle the passenger-side door open and shove Able up and through, but without his brother’s aid, he wasn’t having much luck. “Hurry…” I prodded.