Chapter 25 · Cold Grid and Red Warrants

The dash monitor showed flat zero. Dead black. It wasn't gonna blink.

I slammed my palm against the glass, like sheer panic could push the numbers back up. Cold rain hit the windshield sideways, hard enough to rattle the seals. The wipers slapped across the glass in frantic, useless beats.

Four miles south, my mother was in room six. Breathing only because a backup battery in a hallway closet hadn't quit yet.

"Vivian."

"Don't tell me to breathe, Garrett."

"Wasn't going to." He jerked the wheel hard into the turn. The truck pitched sideways on two wheels. In the back, the steel toolbox slammed the tailgate with a crack that made me bite the inside of my cheek. Copper filled my mouth. "Put your damn belt on."

"Go to hell."

"Later." He drove like the pavement owed him blood. One thick hand white-knuckled on the wheel, the other slamming the stick into third. Grease ground deep under his cuticles.