Excerpt: Nocturnal Melee

I shook my head. No time, Robert. No time.

Holding my “dead” arm in the other, I rushed through the driveway to where I’d parked on the side of the street. The chipped red paint glared in the evening sunset, and all I could do now was pray that the damn thing started. I let my arm hang as I reached into my jeans, groping around for the keys that had to be there. Come on, come on. This was why Bruce Wayne had remote locks.

“Harding!” Rafiel yelled from the upstairs window. “Don’t you even think about it!”

Finally finding the keys in the pocket on my dead side, I smirked, despite the throb in my shoulder. Think about it? Oh Raf, we were so beyond thinking about it, that the warning didn’t even hold a threat.

It wasn’t a lie. Not really. I wasn’t thinking about doing anything. I was just doing it.

The car started with a cough and a sputtering roar, and I peeled around sloppily, steering with one arm. Thank the gods I didn’t have a manual transmission. It was only as I raced away from the house I had grown up in that Zeke’s question really hit. Where was I going? Was I right when I said it didn’t matter?

Anywhere other than here…even if it meant trading the wrath of one for the spurned anger of another.

Jacqueline was going to kill me. Kiss me, maybe, but then definitely kill me.