I shut all the screams and shouts and glug-glug-glugs of water out of my mind. Because if I didn’t get out of here now, I never would, and I wasn’t about to waste this opportunity.

So I ran over to the back wall of the prison, placed both palms flat on it, and let loose with a torrent of my magic. The exploding toilets and busted pipes had knocked out large chunks of the wall, and I poured my Ice magic into all the gaping holes and jagged cracks left behind in the marble, driving it down into the stone as deep as it would go. Then, a second later, I sent out a blast of Stone magic, shattering all those pockets of Ice.

I did this over and over again, causing more and more water to rain down on me, until the entire wall started to crack and crumble. My eyes cut left and right, scanning what was left of the wall, and I reached out with my magic, looking for the one weak spot that would send the whole thing tumbling down. It was right . . . there!

I let loose with one sharp, final burst of magic, and my Ice and Stone power punched a gaping hole all the way through the wall. This time, dust choked the air, although it was quickly washed away by the continual gushes of water. But I only had eyes for the starry midnight sky and open space beyond the wall, and I sloshed through the puddles of water, determined to reach it.

“Get her!” Madeline screamed, her voice higher and more furious than I’d ever heard it before, the sound nothing at all like her usual soft, smug tone. “Kill Blanco!”

Grinning and laughing all the while, I scrambled over the busted pipes and broken stone and out into the night.

13

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Some of the cops recovered enough to send a hail of bullets in my direction, but the spewing water spoiled their aim and swept most of the projectiles away completely. I staggered outside, stepping away from the hole in the wall and out of the line of fire. It would be just my luck to escape from the bull pen only to have someone get in a lucky shot that blew out the back of my skull as I was running away.

As I darted forward, I took stock of my surroundings—the police impound yard.

Cars, vans, and SUVs of all shapes and sizes sat in neat rows in the smooth, wide lot, their clear windshields and chrome rims glinting underneath the tall lights planted in the asphalt. In the distance, spotlights studded a chain-link fence that gleamed a bright, molten silver, with the razor wire on top shimmering like pointed diamonds.

I swiveled back and forth, half-expecting to see some uniformed officers running in my direction, drawn by the sounds of the explosion and the continued crack-crack-cracks of gunfire. But no one appeared. Looked like the po-po thought that the fence was enough to keep the cars safe and secure in the lot. Well, it wasn’t going to keep me penned in. Not for long.

I’d taken a beating during the bull-pen fight, but I made my legs churn as fast as they could as I raced through the rows of cars. I must have been in the junk section because all I saw were rusted-out rattletraps that should have been compacted years ago. I stopped at the first decent-looking ride I came to—a late-model Dodge Charger—grabbed a metal pipe that was sticking up out of a nearby trash can, and used it to shatter the driver’s-side window. A second later, I was inside the vehicle, ripping into the wires under the dash.

It took me longer than I would have liked, since I wasn’t as good with cars as Finn was, but the engine finally rumbled to life.

Good thing, since the cops had arrived.

They poured out of the hole in the wall, all of them drenched by the still-gushing water, but all of them still clutching guns. Dobson was leading the charge.

I snapped the seat belt into its buckle, then shoved the gearshift into reverse and slammed my foot down on the gas, peeling out of the parking space and steering straight for the wall.

The cops realized that I was zooming toward them, and they all yelled and scrambled to get out of the way. I was hoping to pancake Dobson against the stone, but he threw himself to one side just before the rear bumper of the Dodge Charger slammed into what was left of the back of the station.

The impact jarred me, but I threw the car into drive and stomped down on the gas. Directly across from me, five hundred feet away, lay the main gate that led out of the impound yard.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack!

More and more bullets zipped in my direction as the cops got back onto their feet and fired at the vehicle. The back windshield busted out, the driver’s mirror flew off the side of the car, and gray stuffing puffed out of the passenger’s headrest, but I didn’t care. I was only using this vehicle to get out of the impound yard and then as far away from the station as I could. After that, I needed somewhere to regroup, at least for a few minutes, and I needed to find some way to let my friends know what was going on. I had no doubt that they had been at the station all day long, trying to get me released, but the information coming out of there would be garbled—if the cops didn’t cover up my escape completely.

But where to go? Madeline had done her homework on me, so she knew all of my friends and family. A fact that she’d demonstrated over the last two days as she’d screwed with their businesses, jobs, and more. She’d be expecting me anywhere I went, and she had enough men at her disposal to follow and track me all through Ashland.

The Pork Pit, I finally decided. I needed knives, fresh clothes, money, a burner cell phone, and some tins of Jo-Jo’s healing ointment, at the very least, if I was going to survive the rest of my escape, and that was the closest place to get them. It was a calculated risk, and I was sure that Madeline, Dobson, and the rest of the waterlogged cops would be right on my heels, since that would be the first place they would look for me.

But since the restaurant was closed, courtesy of Madeline and her machinations, none of my friends, family, or employees would be there. I didn’t want any of them getting caught in the cross fire if Madeline and the others did catch up to me.

While I was mulling over my options, the impound gate zoomed up to meet me. A cop was stationed in a white guard shack to the left of the entrance, and I could see his mouth hanging wide open as he watched the car approach. He wasn’t used to people driving out, only those going in.

I pressed my foot down on the gas as far as it would go and reached for a bit of my Stone magic, preparing myself for what was to come—

CRASH!

The Charger ripped through the metal gate as if it were paper, since it was just shut, instead of being padlocked. I lost control for a moment, the wheel whipping back and forth under my hands, and the vehicle careened out onto the street, sideswiping a parked patrol car.