You've Been Warned--Again Read online

  I’m already up on my one good foot, limping, crying, begging. I’ve been a fool. There is no escape from the devil in this world.

  There’s something in my path almost blanketed over with snow. The dead body of the boy I thought I loved. Nate. I can’t stop, not now. I’m fleeing for my own life, my own soul.

  Headlights cut through the gloom ahead. I raise my arm against the glare, but I don’t look away. It’s the vintage Mustang I saw on the CCTV monitor earlier. It has flame decals burning along its sides. The devil’s ride.

  The rest of the world is buried in winter, but this car sits clear and dry. Every snowflake that falls on its surface heats into instant steam.

  I nearly collapse against its hood. An insect buzz takes over my head—exhaustion, blood loss. I feel like I’m floating away from the earth. Somehow I manage to drag myself to the driver’s door and pull the latch.

  When the door swings open, a rush of sulfurous heat wafts against my face and snaps me back to full awareness. Long enough that I can fold myself inside the car, pull the door shut, and slap the lock button down.

  The devil comes down the driveway, waving at me like a stranded motorist. He’s dangling something in his hand.…

  I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m stealing his car. I’m getting away. All I have to do is reach for the ignition, but it’s empty. No key.

  The devil’s at the window now. He jiggles the keys from his fingers, taunting me. Making it clear I never had a chance against him. The door lock pops up. I lean back and drift into dark.…

  Chapter 32

  And I wake up falling into an abyss.

  My right hand grasps something, the passenger armrest. I’m still in the Mustang—not falling, but speeding down a wooded road. The overhanging trees form a tunnel, and the snow swirls like ash from a fire.

  The devil is my driver.

  “No! Lord, please help me!” I cry out.

  “Oh, give it up, already,” the devil grumbles.

  The twists and turns on the country road jostle me back and forth. Somehow, the Mustang’s high-beam headlights seem to dispel the snow. I can’t help but think of the Red Sea parting.

  I grab for the door latch. I’ll throw myself out of the car before I’ll go where he wants to take me. But the door won’t open. The lock button and window crank are missing.

  “You can’t have me! I don’t deserve this!” I scream.

  “Yeah, yeah. Keep it down.”

  We must be going a hundred miles an hour, burning past speed limit signs for a quarter that speed. Any sharp turn could make us skid off the road and smash into a tree, a stone wall. There’s no seat belt. I’ll be thrown through the windshield.

  But something else happens. We pass mailboxes, a storage facility, a flashing yellow caution light—signs of civilization. There’s a welcome placard but I can’t read the town’s name.

  The devil begins to downshift, and we’re easing back into a reality I recognize. A village center takes shape among streetlights, everything closed except the bars. By the time we hit the town traffic circle, we’re driving at a normal speed.

  We stop in the middle of the street. The falling snow closes back in on the car like a theater curtain. The engine rumbles. The devil sets his eyes on the highest point in town—a white church steeple topped by a cross.

  “Beat it,” he says, without looking at me.

  “What? What is this?”

  “It’s your stop, Little Miss Goody Goody, High and Mighty, Saint Joanie. Police station’s a block down, but this is where you get off. I’m not driving past that.” He sneers at the church.

  “What am I supposed to—”

  “Your pops went nuts and executed the clan. You survived, and a friendly passerby picked you up. Do I have to spell it all out?”

  My mind won’t quite arrange these details. I try the latch again, and this time the door pops open. I press my injured foot down through the slushy snow, expecting a crippling surge of pain. But there’s nothing.

  Baffled, I pull up my blood-soaked pant leg. Everything is still drenched red, but when I wipe my fingers across the skin, there’s no wound.

  “A parting gift,” the devil grumbles, nodding at my miraculously healed gunshot wound. “I’m a gentleman, if nothing else. Anyway, you would’ve died innocent, and I can’t have that, now, can I?”

  When I lean out the door, he snatches me below the elbow. The startling heat of his grip makes me wince.

  “I gotta give it to you, Saint Joan,” he says. “I thought you Whitmores were a package deal. Tonight you win, but I’ll be watching, waiting for you to slip. You’ve been warned.”

  I wrench my arm away from him. “It’s Thanksgiving,” I tell him, “so I guess I’ll thank you for showing me what’s at stake. From now on, nothing’s going to drive me harder.”

  Satan chews on my words. They seem to leave a bitter taste.

  “Kiss my ass,” is all he can say before he yanks the gearshift and peels off. The door slaps shut. Black smoke spews from the muffler. He bolts down the street like a one-car drag race, headed straight past the church.

  But the Mustang never gets there. It vanishes through an unseen crack between this world and the one where the devil dwells.

  Where he took the rest of them, but has not taken me.

  The night chill makes me shiver, but my journey’s only a few more steps. I brush away the char lines his fingers made on my sweatshirt. He might be gone, but he’s left behind his mark.

  He will be with me, watching—but he won’t have my soul.

  As long as I heed the warning.

  About the Authors

  James Patterson has written more bestsellers and created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Florida with his family.

  Derek Nikitas is the Edgar-nominated author of Pyres, The Long Division, and Extra Life. With James Patterson, he has co-authored two BookShots.

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