Page 112 of The Rut in the Road

And then I felt a shift—in both the dead and the living.

The sound came first, and then I felt a strange kind ofpressure, like I was all of a sudden being pushed underwater. It felt hard to move, but I turned, then ran back the way I’d come.

I heard the revving of an engine, the squeal of tires, another rev, then people around me surged in a sudden wave, screaming drowning out the music as the two waves of sound collided and clashed around me. And then the pressure stopped being metaphysical as bodies slammed into me, pushing, shoving.

The engine was louder. So were the screams.

Another engine, then the sound of crunching metal.

More screams.

The very distinctive coppery scent of blood overlaid with the sour smells of sweat and fear.

Someone shoved me, and I stumbled, knowing, even as my elbow cracked against the pavement, that being on the ground in a crush of people was thelastplace I wanted to be.

For some reason, though, people were moving away from where I was.

Look out!!

I don’t know who she was, but the dead woman kept me from becoming like her.

I turned, and saw the bumper of a car coming at me. Five, maybe six feet away.

I knew exactly what would happen. I’d been inside those thoughts four times too many.

I didn’t think. I just threw magic directly at the driver.No. You have no right.

The car kept coming, and I reacted, my hand held up as though I could physically stop the car from continuing on its trajectory.

My panic essentially threw the dead in the path of the car, and it veered off to the side, away from the scrambling mass of humanity and into a cement planter.

Across what looked like a battlefield of people, some crawling, some lying on the ground moaning or screaming or sobbing, and some far, far too still.

I dragged myself back to my feet, my eyes scanning what must have been the path of a second vehicle.

Headed toward where Ward and Violette were set up.

I ran.

“Rayn, I’mfine,”my boss said for about the fourth time.

I crossed my arms across my chest. “You arenot,” I replied, trying to ignore the part of my mind telling me that I was acting as ridiculously overprotective as Raj.

Ward glared at me. The expression was made much less effective in its severity by the fact that he was holding a gauze pad to his forehead.

Vi sniffled.

She was actually fine, because she had functional legs that could run—and Ward had (of course he had) told her to or he’d fire her—and my boss had managed to protect himself with magic enough that he’d been pushed to the side rather than run over, but his chair had flipped, with him in it, and in addition to the cut on his head, he had a split lip and nasty road-rash down one arm. His puffy-sleeved shirt, needless to say, was ruined. The leather pants had protected his hips and legs from scrapes, although he kept rubbing at them, so they were clearly causing him pain.

The chair was trashed.

Vi felthorriblefor having run, despite the fact that neither Ward nor I was angry at her for it.

I was also not fine, but I wasn’t going to point that out.

I’d landed on my formerly-broken arm, and the pain was telling me that something might be broken again. I was trying to hold it tight against my body without telegraphing the fact that I was protecting it.

Raj was going to kill me, but only if he beat Mason to it.