Free A Grimm Legacy (Grimm Tales) by Janna Jennings Page A

you learn that?” Andi asked as he stripped the wires.
    “I’m from Orcas Island,” he said, sparking the wires and listening to the engine cough and go silent. “There’s not a lot in the way of entertainment. Sometimes you’ve got to make your own fun.”
    The engine whined and Dylan slid into the driver’s seat to give it a little gas.  The car thundered to life, echoing in the cavernous garage. Dylan closed the car door, one eye watching for someone to come busting out of the house.
    “Are we sure this is the best idea?” Quinn asked from the backseat, also watching the house.
    “You can stay,” Dylan offered.
    “Not by myself I’m not,” Quinn said.  “Let’s go.”
    Shifting into gear and slamming his foot on the gas almost simultaneously, the car sped out of the garage and down the drive, spitting gravel in their wake. The silent, dark house flashed by as they drove away and turned onto a road at the edge of the woods.
     
    In the glow of the headlights, dark pines riffled past them like a flip book as they dodged from shadow to moonlight along the road. They sped through the forest with only the trees for company for over an hour until, eventually, the road changed, starting to twist and wind through the trees. Dylan was having the time of his life. No speed limits, no cops that were on a first name basis with his dad and had know him since birth. He took the tight corners without slowing down, tossing his passengers against the doors and each other.
    “Think you could slow down?” Andi asked, breaking the silence and checking her seatbelt for the fifth time.
    “No way, Grandma,” Dylan grinned. The engine strained and moaned briefly.  Dylan let up on the gas, frowning at the displays.
    “What is it?” Fredrick asked from the backseat.
    “Not sure,” Dylan said, downshifting and slowing down slightly. The engine resumed its gas-guzzling growl and Dylan shrugged. “It’s okay now.”
    The engine gave a brief hiccup and stopped altogether, the car rocketing down the dark road at 70 miles an hour.
    “What the—” Dylan clutched the wheel and glanced back at the display as if it held answers.
    Andi screamed, and by the time Dylan looked up, all that registered was a flash of gray fur streaking across the shine of the headlights. He pull the wheel violently to the left, his breath quick, his muscles tight. He missed the animal, but couldn’t pull the car out of the overcorrection. 
    The Impala left the road at a breakneck speed, wheels locked and skidding across the fallen pine needles toward the pillars of tree trunks. Dylan felt the car tilt and tried to brace himself against the wheel, but his grip was thrown off when the car reached a hair-raising slant. Then the world spun and he was tossed around like a stray coin in the dryer. His seatbelt bit painfully as it cinched his waist into the seat while the rest of him went flying around the front seat, arms and legs jumbled in cacophony of ripping metal and screams. With one final herculean blow to his door, the car stopped.
                 

Part II
    Jorindel and Jorinda
    “But when any pretty maiden came within that space she was changed into a bird, and the fairy put her into a cage, and hung her up in a chamber in the castle.
     

Chapter 11
     
    "You can’t hide from me, my lovely chick.”
                 
    Andi awoke upside down, dangling from her waist, and feeling decidedly scrambled. Her brain couldn’t seem to figure out how to make her limbs work. This left her staring out the broken windshield, the pine needles and inverted tree trunks just becoming visible in the early morning light. An unnatural silence bubbled around her, but she couldn’t put her finger on what she should be hearing.
    Dylan was hanging in a similar fashion from his seat belt, but not moving. Blood was sticking his blond hair to his scalp and dripping softly onto the crumpled roof. Slowly, she regained control of herself, but she