"But I don't want to crack my skull open when you tip us over. I remember the ATV incident all too well."

He frowned at me, brows dropping low over his bright-green eyes. "Lena. We. Will. Be. Fine. Even if there's a wreck. We aren't human anymore, we can take a licking and keep on ticking. Get on. We have to go. And the ATV flipping over was not my fault. There was a b.u.mp in the trail I didn't see."

Lips pursed, I stepped up, put my hands on his shoulders, and swung a leg over. My skirt bunched up between us, which exposed even more of my new long legs. I wrapped my arms around his waist, and he kicked the starter stand thingy once. The engine roared to life, and behind us, the sound of a diesel engine revving caught my ear.

Except it wasn't what I was hearing, it was what I was feeling along my skin, the vibration of sound in the air caressing my skin like an oversized cat purring.

"s.h.i.+t, they're on us already," Tad bit out.

He twisted the throttle and the bike leapt forward. I squeaked and clung tighter to my brother while my skirt flipped and flapped in the wind. My hair pulled out behind me, and I buried my face against his back.

"Tad, not so fast!"

"Don't hold me so tight!"

I tried to loosen my grip, but fear kept me clinging to him. He took a hard left, and the bike tipped precariously close to the ground. My knee was only inches above the asphalt.

"Stop screaming, you crazy woman!" he shouted at me. I couldn't help it. This was all happening so fast-in every sense of the word. The wind tore at me. Tiny pellets of water raining down from the sky hit my skin, and I knew they would make the road slick as slug snot.

We were on a straight stretch, and Tad pulled the throttle again. The bike shot forward as the diesel engine behind us roared again. I dared to look back, twisting my head to the side.

The diesel engine belonged to a large square truck-a semitruck with chrome stacks and a large cage on the back of it on top of a flat deck. "That will never catch us."

"It doesn't have to," Tad yelled back to me. "Runners."

Runners? From behind the black semi to either side two motorbikes-crotch rockets was what Dad called them-raced toward us. "Oh dear."

"No s.h.i.+t." Tad hunched his back, and I realized he intended to go faster. I didn't want to go faster. All I could see was us. .h.i.tting a pothole, wiping out on the asphalt, and watching all my skin peel away like wet toilet paper in the wind.

"What do we do?"

"Go faster than them," Tad said. "And if all else fails-" He reached to his waist and handed something back to me. I took it without thinking, the shape familiar to me even though I'd never handled one before.

"A gun? Are you out of your ever-loving mind? What's wrong with you? I can't shoot at them!"

"You have to. They'll take us downtown, and you don't want to be chipped, sis."

Chipped. What had Yaya said? "With a tracking device?"

"Exactly."

"Honey puffs," I whispered more to myself than Tad, but he heard me anyway.

"That the best you got?"

The two bikes roared up beside us, flanking us. Their helmets were completely dark, hiding any indication of a face.

"Shoot them, Lena!" Tad yelled, and the bikes wavered back. I held the gun but didn't know what to do. I didn't want a tracking device put in me. I didn't want to hurt anyone.

I didn't want to be a Super Duper; I just didn't want to die. This was ridiculous. "I can't."

Tad let out a hiss and hunched farther over the bike. The runner on the left pulled a weapon out and pointed it at me. A gun of sorts. Long like a spear with a funny little dart at the end of it.

"Are you kidding me?" I yelled. The gun went off, and the dart flew between Tad and me.

"Shoot them!" Tad yelled again.

I brought up my hand that held the gun as fast as I could, and it slipped out of my hand. I tipped my head back to see the gun rise and fall as we sped away from it. "Oh dear."

Tad groaned. "If you weren't my sister, I'd strangle you."

"That is not how we talk," I reminded him.

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy Do-little."

The puff of a second gun went off, and I s.h.i.+fted where I sat so the dart missed me. But it hit Tad in the back of the arm, the feathers on the end of it flapping in the wind like a miniature flag.

"d.a.m.n it!"

He wobbled and drooped forward.

"Tad! Don't do that!" I reached around him and grabbed the handles of the bike, somehow keeping us going. Even though I wanted to stop, I ended up gripping the throttle and shooting us forward. We left the bikes behind as I screamed into the wind.

"Mother-humping whales on the beach!" What in heaven's name was I going to do? How did I stop this thing and not wipe out?

Tad slumped to the side as he mumbled, "Dmfffhphh."

I had to let go of the one handle to catch him. The bike unbalanced and we were bucked off at high speed, on asphalt without helmets. I let go of him. The bike spun in a screeching circle below us, the tires burning rubber on the road, the metal crying out as it tore.

I closed my eyes as I went face-first toward the ground. This was going to hurt; there was no way around it.

But I never hit. Something snagged me around the waist and yanked me sideways. My eyes flew open. A rather large and solid-looking man wearing a suit of hard materials stared down at me. Flinty blue eyes. That was all I could see.

"You're under arrest for running from the Supernatural Division of Mounted Police."

"I wasn't running. We were on a bike." The words escaped my mouth before I could filter them. The blue eyes hardened further.

He spun me around, I squeaked, and he clamped a pair of zap straps over my wrists, tightening them until they bit into my skin. "Hey, that's not necessary." I twisted to look at him.

"You are in serious trouble, missy."

I looked around for Tad. He was nowhere to be seen. Had he gotten away and left me behind? No, I didn't think that was the case at all. "I really didn't know what was happening."

"Save it for the captain." He shoved me forward, through the wreckage.

My thoughts were all jumbled and messy, but something didn't seem right. "How did you catch me? I was falling and everything happened so fast."

He grunted. "I'm a s.h.i.+fter."

"Yeah, but how did you catch me?"

He spun me around to face him. "How new are you?"

I frowned. "I don't know what you mean."

His eyes widened and he laughed, but there was no smile to go with it. "Load her up, boys, we got a real fresh one here. Wet behind the ears."

Someone else barked a laugh. "I'd like to see where else she's wet."

I flushed, the heat in my face enough to bake a cupcake. Flinty Eyes stared hard past me, and no one else spoke a word.

Fresh, he didn't mean I was being fresh. He meant I was fresh off the delivery truck. Green as a Saint Patrick's Day cake. Raw as my infamous chocolate chip cookie dough.

"You're new to being a supernatural, correct?" He stared at me and I nodded. "Let me be the first to welcome you to our side of the Wall, then. This is your home, get used to it."

That wasn't possible. I'd been on Whidbey Island, and then . . . well, I suppose anything was possible. Not like I knew how Merlin did things.

They lifted me into the back of the semitruck, which had finally caught up to us, and stuffed me into the back. Where Tad already lay, flat on his back. He snored as they turned the big rig around and headed back the way we'd come. The slower pace gave me time to really see where we were. Surrey. The sign to the right of the road was clear as day. We were north of the border then, on the Supes' side of the Wall, exactly as Flinty Eyes had said. "A place for everyone" was the tagline for the town. I highly doubted that.

We drove past Merlin's place, and I was sure I saw a flash of his face at one of the windows. I lifted a hand. "Thanks a whole heck of a lot, Merlin. Some warning would have been nice."

A groan rumbled up from my feet. "I tried to warn you. Why didn't you shoot them?"

"I don't know how to use a gun, you d.i.n.k," I snapped at Tad. "Since when do I know anything like that? Give me a frying pan and I can do some damage, even a rolling pin and I could have flattened them."

He sat up, rubbing at his arm where the dart had been. "First lesson: SDMP uses a fast-acting tranquilizer that only works on supernaturals. They shoot first and ask questions later."

I went to my knees beside him, tucking my heels under my b.u.m. "But aren't they supposed to be the good guys? Aren't they the police here on this side of the Wall?"

He snorted. "They're paid thugs. The Supernatural Department of Mounted Police, SDMP, works for the human government, so their job is to keep us in line, to keep track of us, and make sure we know our place. And they can be bought, sister dear. Which means we are royally screwed."

"Oh dear, that can't be good." I mean, when had being screwed ever been good? Certainly not with Roger.

"Yeah." He scrubbed a hand over his hair. "We can't get out of this, Lena. They're going to put tracking devices in both of us. They've been on my case since the beginning, but I've been able to dodge them until now."

I reached out and took his hand. "I'm sorry that I messed this up for you. How bad is the tracking device?"

"Keeps you from crossing the Wall. They won't say that, but it does. You remember the shock collar we had on Petey?"

Petey had been our German shepherd. He'd loved to run, and we'd finally gotten him a shock collar that was tied to an underground wiring system. The farther he got from home, the more the collar shocked him. I swallowed hard. "Unfortunately, yes."

"Same theory."

"Oh dear." I put a hand to my neck. "So what do we do?"

He shrugged. "Get ready to be implanted."

"I don't want to get implanted."

"Little late for that."

Our conversation stalled as we pulled up to a large building that was actually quite pretty. The exterior was done in sheet metal polished to a high sheen so that it was a mirrored reflection. It looked like a giant version of the aluminum cookie sheets I had in my bakery. Three stories tall, it towered over every other building in the area. From what I could see, there were at least three wings to it, all of which circled around a central area.

Two sets of double doors were at the top of the stairs, and they opened up to the courtyard. In the center of the courtyard was a large fountain with an abstract paintingtype sculpture thing that at first looked like someone had let a child design it. Water spewed everywhere from multiple spouts on the fountain. The SDMP pulled us out of the back of the rig. Tad fought with them, trying to get free.

I didn't; I couldn't stop looking at the fountain. It called to me, and as I was escorted to the doors, which gave me more views of the fountain, I realized why. The fountain was actually a tree bursting out of the ground with such force the earth had exploded around it. But from the back all you saw was the mess of earth in every direction.

"Oh, that's lovely," I breathed.

"You aren't on a field trip." My escort with the blue eyes jerked my arm, making me stumble.

"You don't have to be mean, you know. I'm not fighting you," I said. "Mean-spirited people have holes in their hearts where all the goodness leaks out." I quoted my mother without thinking. "I bet you have lots of holes."

The men around us laughed, and even my escort chuckled. "Enough holes. You want to see them?"

My face flamed hot as I realized what I'd said and inadvertently stepped into. "That's not what I meant."

"I would make an exception for you," he muttered softly, low enough that I was sure only I heard. "What are you?"

"What do you mean you'd make an exception for me?" I looked up at him, knowing that his friends had heard me.

Several guffawed. "Making a move on her? Smithy, you're going to get your a.s.s ticketed if you even think of it."

My escort, Smithy, went stone-faced. He all but dragged me up the stairs so my feet barely touched the granite surface.

"Hey!" I yelped as he shoved me through the doors. I spun and ended up landing on my b.u.t.t in a heap. "That wasn't nice."

He glared down at me. "This world isn't nice, harpy. Get used to it. Nice people die here."

I fully admit my jaw dropped open. "I am not a harpy! You are a horrid man, and I hope you think about what you said the next time you kiss your mother with that mouth."

He handed me off to someone else, who took me through several more sets of doors before stuffing me into a tiny interrogation room. I was shoved into a chair, my zap straps were cut off, and then I was left alone.

I rubbed at my wrists. The room wasn't much. A table and two chairs. A large plate-gla.s.s window. On the other side stood three people. All men. I stood and walked to the window, putting my fingertips on it.

The vibrations of their words rumbled along my skin, and I heard them clearly, as if there were nothing between us.

"She was with the snake. You think he was going to make her like him?"

"No," the man in the middle said. "She's related. Same blood, but different creature, I'm sure of it. Naga smell like snakes. She doesn't. She smells human."

"Not possible. We spotted her coming out of Merlin's place, and she's dumb as a stick when it comes to supernatural goings-on."

Dumb as a stick? I frowned and tapped on the gla.s.s, but they ignored me.

The other two shrugged, and the man in the middle turned. "I'll see what I can get out of her. Maybe a date if she really is human." He winked.

I stepped back from the window. I didn't smell like a snake? Had Merlin saved me and kept me human somehow? Hope soared for a split second. Who was I kidding? I'd just listened in on a conversation using my hands as a microphone. That was not normal.