Free Never by K. D. Mcentire Page B

of Chel's hair. The other Reapers were coming at a run. Wendy tried to guess their odds and realized that Piotr only had one chance.
    Then Piotr rammed his fist straight into the Reaper's skull.
    “Let. Go.”
    The Reaper did and Chel, twisting on her back, kicked the woman hard in the stomach, driving the Reaper onto the sidewalk where she sprawled, stunned.
    “NOW! GO, JON!” Wendy and Chel yelled simultaneously. Chel yanked her legs into the car and slammed the door. She slapped the door locks as another Reaper, running full-tilt, crashed into the trunk, fingers scrabbling at the window. Another pounded on the back door.
    “GONE!” Jon yanked the wheel and peeled out, swerving around a Reaper in the street, leaving the Elise and brilliantly lit house behind.
    “Chel?” Wendy asked as they merged onto the highway. “What…what happened? What did you find out?” She craned for a moment over her shoulder—no one appeared to be following.
    When she turned back, she saw that Chel was bent over, head resting on her knees, her breath coming in sharp, harsh gusts. Her sister was trembling like a stricken violin.
    “Chel?” she asked. “Chel, are you okay? I didn't even see Elise show up. Did she hurt you?”
    “No, no, I'm fine,” Chel said, gripping her knees and slowly uncurling in the seat until she sat up straight. She wiped a hand across her mouth. “You know how you were planning on getting Nana Moses to straighten everything out?”
    Wendy shivered; her stomach suddenly ached. “Yeah?”
    “She's dead.” Chel's fingers tangled together as she tried to get herself under control. “She's dead, your friend Emma's in some kind of coma, and Elise is blaming you for both. The whole family, coast to coast, thinks you set out to kill Nana Moses. That you wormed into her good graces and got to her somehow. She even claims that you did something to Jane's mind to make her bail on the clan. The Reapers are looking for you, Wendy, and they are pissed .”

“Should we go home?” Jon asked Wendy, nervously glancing in the rearview mirror. They weren't being followed.
    “Not right now,” Chel said before Wendy could answer, angling the makeup mirror and shifting side to side in the passenger seat, trying to get a good view of the highway behind them. She'd finally finished shaking. “Maybe later, but not right now.”
    “Okay, fine, so where do we go?” Jon asked. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his left hand. “If we can't go home, we don't want to drag anyone else into this mess. We can't go back to the hospital—Dr. Mc-I'ma-call-CPS is probably still on duty.”
    “Maybe I'm flappin’ my gums here,” Elle said, leaning forward so that Jon and Chel recoiled to the sides from her cold, “but maybe it's time to take a little visit up Nob Hill way.”
    Beside her, Lily frowned, uncrossing her legs and drawing them up, tucking her knees beneath her chin as she regarded Elle warily. “The Council? What do you expect to happen should we attempt a meeting with them?”
    “Nothing much, but Frank did say he wanted a word with the Lightbringer, right? And the Top of the Mark's solid.” Elle tapped the side of Chel's seat to make her point.
    Just then, with hardly a grumble of warning, the street bucked and rolled, the car rocking like a boat as the earth trembled beneath them. Jon, screaming, slammed on the brakes, and the car fishtailed across two lanes of highway, finally butting up against the breakdown lane barricade, facing backwards. The shockwaves shook the car like a dog with a bone. Wendy's teethclamped down painfully on her tongue as the ground rolled and rolled and rolled.
    After long seconds the earthquake slowed and stopped.
    “I wonder how solid it's gonna be now,” Eddie muttered, shaking his head like a dog so that his hair hung raggedly in his face. “That quake took forever. ”
    “Is it just me or did that quake seem…I don't know, to have a direction?” Chel asked, rubbing the