I turn to Kano. “Can we go now?”

“Hurry!” Kano shouts, waving us toward the open door.

“There’s no point,” Alexander says, his hulking frame filling the doorway. “They’re already here.”

The Guard.

“How many?” Kano yells.

“We can’t outrun them,” Alexander answers, eerily calm. “They’re Texas soldiers.” He moves to his son, a new resolve in his shadowy eyes.

“The window!” Theo cries, sliding open the glass.

Ciro appears at my side. Hands clasped together, he holds them out as a step for my boots. “Mira, you first.”

I hesitate. What is Alexander doing? He’s grabbing Theo by the arm, dragging him away from me. Toward the Guard.

“Dad, stop!” Theo yells. “Let go of me!”

“Mira, we have to go!” Kano shouts, picking me up and shoving me toward the open window.

Alexander and Theo are at the door now. I see the Guards racing up the road. In a few moments we’ll be surrounded.

He’s going to surrender.

Traitor. He was always a traitor.

He was always a Roth.

“No!” Theo and I shout at the same time.

Kano lets go of me and trains his gun on our double-crosser. “Get back here!”

Alexander doesn’t stop. He knows we can’t shoot. We need them.

We watch our mission bolt out the door.

“Mira, move!” Ciro pleads, trying desperately to push me through the back window. “You can still get out! Make for the trees!”

I can’t. There’s no point.

We failed.

Kano knows it too. “I’m sorry,” he tells me over the roaring engines of SUVs circling the house.

“Don’t shoot!” Alexander shouts from outside. “Don’t shoot! I am Governor Roth’s son! I am Alexander Roth!”

Through the doorway I watch helplessly as Theo tries to fight himself free, but his father is just too strong. What is Alexander doing? He’s going to get Theo arrested!

“Get on your knees and present your wrists!” a loudspeaker hisses. Guns raised, two Texas soldiers approach the pair, scanning each of their wrists.

Inspecting their chips’ information, the soldiers part, allowing Alexander and Theo to pass untouched.

How? Does Theo have a counterfeit chip?

All questions melt away. I suddenly feel like I’ve been thrown into fire, into the sun’s very core. My skin burns. The heat is searing, excruciating, the pain unbearable.

Frantic, I look down at my hands and legs to put out the flames, but there’s nothing there.

What is happening?!

I try to run, but the heat follows me. I can’t escape.

Kano and Ciro let out strangled cries, crawling and writhing to get to me. I drop to my knees, then to the floor.

“Make it stop . . . ,” I hear myself moan.

I’m burning alive. There will be nothing left. I close my eyes, ready to give in, when the boots of a Texas Guard enter the safe house.

“Don’t worry,” the Guard taunts. “You’re not dying.”

I curl my body into a fetal position. That somehow hurts more.

“Not yet.”

OWEN

“I’ll make you sorry, backstabber!” I come to, cursing Blaise’s existence. Immediately I sense something is off because a) there’s no zingy comeback from Blaise, b) I’m the only one in the car, and c) the car’s lifted five feet off the ground inside a freaking cave.

“What in the actual hell . . .”

I hear a jovial chuckle from somewhere down below, and then the sound of a heavy-duty impact wrench turning on. Shoving my head out the open driver’s window, all I see is a white western hat and a pair of rugged hands changing my car’s tires.

“Hey!” I shout, proprietorship raging full force. “What do you think you’re doing?” I push open the door, and the left side of the car lifts up like a bird’s wing.

I jump the short distance to the dirt floor, landing face-to-face with an honest-to-God cowboy wearing dirty denim coveralls and round-tipped leather boots. He has a massive silver belt buckle and everything.

“Fancy car you’ve got there, son,” the man admires.

“Uh . . . thanks,” I mumble, noticing how flawless Duke looks. The car positively shines—the man must’ve waxed him on top of all the body repair. There’s no hint at all the car just endured the beating of a lifetime. Kismet couldn’t have done better themselves. Who is this guy?

The cowboy holds out his hand.

“The name’s Kipling. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Owen Hart,” I say, giving him a firm shake. I eyeball my surroundings, mouth hanging open in awe. About a dozen cars are inside the cave—half are the Common’s under repair, the other half is the man’s personal collection of crazy-valuable foreign and vintage models. All the cars are stored or perched on scissor lifts under a roof loaded with thin rock formations that look like weaponized brown icicles. A baby-blue patchwork truck that must be the cowboy’s “everyday” vehicle is parked by the entrance.

The man’s auto shop is dark and damp and rustic. Totally opposite from the sterile mega factories of Detroit. It’s ridiculously cool.

“Where am I?” I ask. Am I in a dream? Because I woke up in a cave—what’s up with that?!—and now I’m talking to a cowboy who seems to be as much into cars as I am.

Kipling smiles. “Welcome to west Texas, the land of wide-open spaces.”

His slow, twangy way of talking is straight out of a Western movie. I thought that accent had died along with all the true cowboys.

Snap out of it, fanboy!

I’ve got to go back for Rayla.

“Thanks for rehabilitating Duke back to all his glory, but I need my car, like right now,” I say, jumping into rescue mode. I dash for the controls to lower the auto lift and scan all four tires. Ready to roll. “Sorry to wake and leave . . . It’s just we left someone behind that needs my help—”

A motorcycle charging in the corner stops me cold. No way.

I step closer. Yep, the same expertly restored black frame, the same Triumph logo painted underneath the handlebars. It’s the bike we picked up after we left the safe house in Colorado. The one Rayla was riding last night. How?

“’Fraid that bike’s already taken,” Kipling drawls. “That one’s special, you see. Custom-made.”

I eyeball the extended two-person seat and the skillfully crafted bird’s wing kickstand. This bike’s special all right. And expensive. It must’ve been built for someone special too.

“Custom-made for who?”

“My granddaughters,” a gruff voice says behind me.

I whip around to the cave’s entrance to find the woman herself: Rayla Cadwell. Alive, whole, and surly as ever. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a person in my life.

“Rayla, you’re here!” I say stupidly, but I don’t care. She’s here! I run to her and limit myself to a kind of side hug. No way Rayla does full-on hugs without prior approval. “Is this okay?” I ask. She doesn’t protest; she just pats the top of my head.

“All right, all right, yes, I made it here,” she says. I can tell she’s happy to see me too. Somewhere deep down inside. She’s just scared to let it out.