They were off the ground. The black bag slipped off Evie’s head, and she caught a glimpse of the road as it flew by in slow motion. Glass shards spun by her face, reflecting a thousand city lights. She was weightless. Her stomach lifted into her ribcage.

Then they slammed into the pavement.

The car roof crunched under its own weight, jolting Evie and her brothers against their seat belts. She jerked like a rag doll, arms and legs tangling together. She was upright. She could see. Then she was upside down again. Then upright.

The car slammed into a building on Wes’s side and stopped. Evie’s ears rang. Everything was blurry. A great dizziness washed over her, and she slumped against Abel’s shoulder. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t hear—she could only stare out the window and watch the black cars zip toward them and stop before black-clothed figures spilled out. They all had guns.

“Ughhh…” the driver groaned from the front seat. “Striker…?”

Breath sucked back into Evie’s lungs. The world became crystal clear again, and sound rushed back into her head with a loud pop. Pain blasted through her back. She let out a yell, twisted more by surprise than actual pain, although she knew something had happened and she was hurt—hurt bad, from the feel of it. She didn’t dare move.

“A-Abel… Wes…?” Evie whimpered.

Neither answered.

She looked around, noticing her legs were peppered with tiny blood spots from all the glass. The whole door on her side was dented inward, and it was only by a miracle that the glass from the window hadn’t diced up her face. Her wrists were still bound, resting on the seat between her thighs, but the cuffs had a huge crack down the side. Still dazed, she started twisting her wrists in opposite directions, trying to pry the contraption apart. She was too weak to do anything more than flex her muscles, but she knew she had to try. After a few moments of trying to move her arms, the agony roared in her back again, bringing her to a whimpering stop. For a second, she thought she was going to pass out until she felt Abel moving underneath her, softly moaning.

“Abel?”

A shadow passed. She looked up, gasping, just in time for the door handle to rattle.

Her door swung open to reveal a figure in a black mask. “Got ‘em!”

A weak scream ripped from Evie’s throat. The man didn’t even flinch.

“Calm down,” he said. “I’m here to help you.”

The man whipped out a knife and cut her free from the seat belt. It snapped and recoiled to its place beside her head, knocking off the frame. The sound made her wince, but as her eyes shut, the man’s gigantic hands came down on her arms. He hoisted her upright and then slipped his hands under her armpits. As he dragged her from the car, her stomach turned and a thin stream of vomit burst through her lips and splattered on the pavement below. The man ignored this, as well as her breathless cries of pain. Two more men darted around them and dove in to pull out her brothers. She wanted to fight, to demand who they were and scream at this guy that her whole spine was in agony, but everything was moving too fast. Four more figures were positioned around the windshield holding huge guns, aiming at their two captors in the front seat—neither of which had made any moves.

“C’mon, let’s get you out of here,” the man said.

He swung Evie into his arms princess-style and crouched, darting back toward the black cars. She caught a glimpse of the men pulling Abel and Wes from the other car. For a terrible moment, all she could see was that Abel’s head fell back, limp, and his eyes were closed. She wanted to see more, but the man carrying her scuffled to the side, and she lost sight of the car. Around them, spectators were all on their phones, screaming for cops and EMTs. Bright headlights and street lamps burned her eyes.

“Not so fast!” a gruff voice barked from an alleyway.

A torrent of bullets sprayed across their path. The man holding Evie cursed and scrambled for cover behind a random car parked by the curb. A few stray bullets whacked into the rear window and some tires. The bang from exploding tires made Evie jump, and she instantly regretted moving as pain burst down her spine. Her savior bent over her, protecting her from a shower of glass when someone shot out the windows just over their heads.

“We’ve got company!” the man yelled into an earpiece. “Must be the rest of the kidnappers’ squad. Get reinforcements down here, now.”

Evie felt tears on her face. From where she was, she could see back the direction they’d come. The other two men had also dived for cover as soon as the gunfire started, leaving Abel and Wes still lying in the car. The strange men peered out from their hiding places and returned fire somewhere to the left. The four people who had been aiming at the windshield were no longer standing. All lay sprawled in a grotesque semicircle, bleeding onto the ground. Someone was pulling the driver out.

“There!” Evie’s savior yelled. “Hostiles by the target vehicle!”

The bad guys heard him and ducked, hitting the ground and disappearing from sight just the gunfire started again. Evie caught a glimpse of the man called ‘Striker’ dragging himself free of the wreckage, trailing blood smears. He flopped onto the pavement and vanished.

She felt another wave of dizziness, and she moaned.

“Try and stay with me,” her savior said. “I’ll get you out of here and somewhere safe, okay?”

Her head bobbed. “Abel… Wes…”

“They’re taken care of.”

Bullets cracked into the ground around them, sending up tiny clouds of asphalt dust. The man curled around Evie before unfolding again to shoot back. Evie’s eyelids sank.

“Do you… know my dad?” she managed.

The man huffed. “I should hope so, after this long. He sent us.”

A surge of hope went through her. “Where is he?”

“Don’t worry about that now. We’ll get you to him.”

Her eyes slipped shut before she could stop them. All she could think about was the letter she had stuck in her diary before they left the hotel. Dad’s name. His words. His love. All in three little paragraphs she had packed into her bag. But he was alive. She knew that much. And he was waiting for her now.

As her consciousness slipped, she hoped she would actually get to see him.