"what about her?" jev asked gabe, nodding at me.

"why don't you make yourself useful and go bring me back my nephil?" gabe shot back.

jev raised his hands level with his shoulders. "have it your way." i felt my stomach tumble to my knees as i realized that this was it. jev was leaving. he was friends with, or at least an acquaintance of, gabe, and that alone was enough to make me nervous of him, but at the same time, he was my only shot at getting out of here. up until this point, he'd appeared to take my side. if he left, i was on my own. gabe had made it clear he was the alpha male, and i wasn't going to pretend i thought his remaining two friends would stand up to him.

"you're going to walk away, just like that!" i yelled after jev. but gabe rammed his shoe into the back of my leg, forcing me to collapse to my knees, and before i could say more, my breath was knocked out of me.

"it'll be easier if you don't watch," gabe told me. "one solid hit, and it'll be the last thing you feel." i lunged forward to escape, but gabe grabbed a fistful of my hair, jerking me back. "you can't do this!" i screamed. "you can't just kill me."

"hold still," he growled.

"don't let him do this, jev!" i yelled, unable to see jev, but certain he could still hear me, since i hadn't heard the suv start up yet. i was rolling in the gravel, trying to turn around so i could see the tire iron and try to dodge it. i wrapped my fist around a scoop of rocks, twisted violently just long enough to spot gabe, and flung them.

his big hand came down, grinding my forehead into the ground. my nose was bent at a painful angle, rocks biting into my chin and cheeks. there was a sickening crunch, and gabe collapsed on top of me. through a haze of panic, i wondered if he was trying to smother me. killing me quickly wasn't enough, was it? had to draw out the pain as long as possible? gasping for breath, i clawed my way out from under him.

i scrambled to my feet and flipped around. i braced myself in a defensive position, expecting to find gabe prepping to take a second shot at me. my gaze dropped. he was facedown on the ground, the tire iron jutting out of his back. he'd been stabbed with it.

jev wiped his sleeve across his face, which glistened with sweat. at his feet, gabe twitched and shuddered, swearing violently and incoherently. i couldn't believe he was still alive. the tire iron had to be straight through his spine.

"you-stabbed him," i blurted, horror-struck.

"and he's not going to be happy about it, so i'd suggest you get out of here," jev said, twisting the tire iron deeper. he glanced over at me and did an eyebrow raise. "sooner rather than later." i backed away. "what about you?"

he watched me for an absurdly long moment, considering the circumstances. a brief expression of regret flicked across his features. once again, i felt a powerful tug to my memory that threatened to mend the bridge holding everything out of reach. i opened my mouth, but the conduit between my mind and my words had been destroyed. i was at a loss as to how to connect the two. i had something to say to him, but i couldn't nail down what.

"you can sit tight, but i'm guessing b.j. already put a call in to the cops," jev said, screwing the tire iron deeper, causing gabe's body to spring taut at one moment, and fall limp the next.

as if on cue, the distant wail of sirens shrilled across the night.

jev grabbed gabe under his arms, dragging him into the weeds on the far side of the all ey. "on the back roads, at the right speed, you can put a couple miles between you and this place in no time."

"i don't have a car."

his eyes sliced into mine.

"i walked here," i explained. "i'm on foot."

"angel," he said in a way that sounded like he sincerely hoped i was joking.

a few moments together hardly qualified us for pet names, but nonetheless, my heartbeat went a little erratic at the endearment. angel. how could he possibly know that name had haunted me for days now? how could i possibly explain the eerie flashes of black that intensified the closer he came?

most unnerving of all, if i connected the dots ...

patch, a voice whispered from my subconscious, a quiet syllable that dashed itself against a cage deep within. the last time you felt this way was when marcie mentioned patch.

the single syllable of his name opened me up to a swarm of black, maddening, consuming black that flooded from every direction. i concentrated through it, eyes intent on jev, trying to make sense of a feeling i couldn't put words to. he knew something i didn't. maybe about the mysterious patch, maybe about me. definitely about me. his presence cut me with emotions too deep to be a coincidence.

but how were patch, marcie, jev, and i connected?

"do i-know you?" i asked him, unable to come up with any other explanation.

he gazed at me, unflinching. "no car?" he confirmed, ignoring my question.

"no car," i repeated, my voice considerably thinner.

he arched his neck back, as though to ask the moon, why me? then he jerked his thumb at the white suv he'd pulled up in. "get in."

i shut my eyes, trying to think. "wait. we have to stay and testify. if we run, we might as well be confessing our guilt. i'll tell the police you killed gabe to save my life." further inspiration struck me.

"we'll find b.j. and get him to testify too."

jev opened the driver's-side door of the suv. "all of the above would be true if the police could be relied on."

"what are you talking about? they're the police. it's their job to catch criminals. we're not in the wrong here. gabe would have killed me if you hadn't stepped in."

"that part i don't doubt."

"then what?"

"this isn't the kind of case local law enforcement is set up to handle."

"i'm pretty sure murder falls under the jurisdiction of the law!" i argued.

"two things," he said patiently. "first, i didn't kill gabe. i stunned him. second, believe me when i say jeremiah and dominic will not go into custody willingly and without a lot of bloodshed." i opened my mouth to argue when, from the corner of my eye, i saw gabe twitch again.

miraculously, he wasn't dead. i remembered the way he'd manipulated my sight with what i could only guess was a powerful form of hypnotism or a magician's sleight of hand. was he using another trick to somehow evade death? i had the eerie sensation that something bigger than i understood was going on. but-

what, exactly?

"tell me what you're thinking," jev said quietly.

i hesitated, but there wasn't time for it. if jev knew gabe as well as i suspected, he had to know about his ... abilities. "i saw gabe do-a trick. a magic trick." when jev's grim expression confirmed that he wasn't surprised, i added, "he made me see something that wasn't real. he turned himself into a bear."

"that's the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what he's capable of." i swallowed against the sticky film lining my mouth. "how did he do it? is he a magician?"

"something like that."

"he used magic?" i'd never given two moments' thought that such convincing magic might actually exist. until now.

"close enough. listen, time's running a little thin."

my gaze traveled to the weeds partially concealing gabe's body. magicians could create illusions, but they could not defy death. there was no logical way he could have survived.

the sirens blared closer, and jev ushered me toward the suv. "time's up." i didn't move. i couldn't. i had a moral responsibility to stay-

jev said, "if you hang around to talk to the police, you'll be dead before the week is over. and so will every cop involved. gabe will stop the investigation before it starts." i took another two seconds to think it through. i didn't have to trust jev. but in the end, for reasons too complicated to untangle on the spot, i did.

i strapped myself in beside him, my heart thundering behind my rib cage. he put what i could now see was a tahoe in gear. with one arm braced behind my seat, he craned his neck to see out the back window.

jev reversed down the all ey, backed onto the street, then gunned forward toward the intersection ahead. there was a stop sign on the corner, but the tahoe wasn't slowing. i was just wondering if jev would at least yield for the stop sign, as i clutched the granny handle above my door with both hands and hoped he would, when a dark silhouette staggered into our lane. the tire iron projecting out of gabe's back was wrenched at a gruesome angle, and in the hazy light, it resembled a broken appendage. a battered wing.

jev stepped on the gas and threw the suv into higher gear. it pitched forward, increasing in speed. gabe was too far away to read his expression, but he showed no sign of moving. he crouched, tucking his legs beneath him, his hands up in front of him as though he thought he could block us.

i gripped the seat-belt strap. "you're going to hit him!"

"he'll move."

my foot stomped an imaginary brake pedal. the distance between gabe and the tahoe rapidly narrowed. "jev-stop-right-now!"

"this won't kill him either."

he forced the tahoe into another burst of speed. and then it all happened too quickly.

gabe lunged, hurtling through the air toward us. he struck the windshield, the glass cracking into a gabe lunged, hurtling through the air toward us. he struck the windshield, the glass cracking into a latticelike web. an instant later he flew out of sight. a scream filled the car, and i realized it was mine.

"he's on top of the car," jev said. he floored it over the curb, plowing through a sidewalk bench and driving under a low-hanging tree. jerking the steering wheel a hard left, he steered back onto the street.

"did he fall off? where is he? is he still up there?" i pressed my face to my window, trying to see above me.

"hang on."

"to what?" i shouted, grasping for the granny handle again.

i never felt the brake. but jev must have stepped on it, because the tahoe spun a full rotation before squealing to a stop. my shoulder was slammed up against the door frame. out of the corner of my eye i saw a dark mass fly through the air and land with catlike grace on the ground. gabe stayed there a moment, crouching, his back to us.

jev threw the tahoe into first gear.

gabe looked back over his shoulder. his hair clung to the sides of his face, a sheen of sweat holding it in place. his eyes locked with mine. his mouth tipped up diabolically. he said something just as the tahoe lunged into motion, and even though i couldn't decipher a single word from the movement of his lips, the message was clear. this isn't over.

i pressed back in my seat, swallowing gulps of air as jev peeled away in a manner i was sure left tire treads tattooed on the street.

chapter 10

jev drove only five blocks. it dawned on me a little late that i should have asked him to take me to cooper-smith's, but he'd opted for the obscurity of the back roads. he steered the tahoe to the shoulder of a peaceful country road, lined by acres of trees and cornfields.