14

11:27 P.M.

CHANGE OF PLAN

"So, Flyboy - clue me in here. Was that Rex we just saw speeding down the other lane?"

Jonathan's eyes swept the highway frantically. Now that the shock was wearing off, he'd realized they needed to turn around. Fast. "Yep."

"And that was Angie sitting next to him?"

"I don't think it was his mom."

"And - now this was the confusing part - there was this big black car chasing them, right? Like we were supposed to be doing? I mean, this isn't one of those time travel things where we just saw ourselves in the future, is it?"

"Not unless ten minutes in the future we've got a pair of Mercedes between us."

"There were two of them?"

"That's what I saw." Although at this point Jonathan wasn't completely sure what he'd seen.

Then he spotted a familiar exit, a mile up. He could pull off here and head back west without getting completely tangled in downtown Broken Arrow's web of warehouses and alleys.

Dess tapped her fingers on her window for a few seconds. "So that means Rex's plan isn't going very well, is it?"

"Nope. Hold on." Without slowing at all, Jonathan brought the car off the highway. Dess crushed against his shoulder as she leaned into the turn.

"Seat belt?" he suggested. He heard the slithering sound of vinyl as Dess scrambled to secure herself, then the click of a metal clasp.

He found himself glad that Melissa and Jess were still back in Bixby. Rex hadn't wanted them all inside Broken Arrow together in case this whole thing was some kind of Grayfoot trap.

Frankly, Jonathan had never thought much of the plan. It was pretty complicated, which always meant there were lots of things that could go wrong. Being involved in Rex's schemes had taught Jonathan that someone was always late (usually Jessica) or didn't pass along the message (usually Beth) or simply didn't do what they were supposed to do because they didn't feel like it (typically Melissa). And even if all the midnighters decided to play their parts, there were always cops, or parents, or teachers to screw things up.

Of course, even with all his doubts, Jonathan hadn't actually thought of this particular possibility.

"So wait," Dess said as they zoomed through the dark underbelly of a cluster of overpasses, huge concrete columns flashing past on either side. "The Grayfoots really did know that Angie was meeting with Rex?"

"Yeah. They must have been following her or something."

"Stupid cow."

"That's usually the problem with brilliant plans: not-so-brilliant people."

Dess shook her head as they climbed onto an entrance ramp and shot back up onto Highway 75. "Wow. So this afternoon, when Rex made us siphon most of the gas out of Melissa's tank? That was kind of a waste of two hours."

"My guess is that Rex feels the same way," Jonathan said. "When's he supposed to run out?"

"At exactly eleven forty-seven and... oh, wait. We're ahead of schedule here, aren't we?"

"About ten minutes."

She looked at Geostationary. "Well, they were supposed to come to a stop right when they got to the middle of Saddleback. Of course, Rex looked like he was driving a little faster than we figured, which is less fuel efficient, especially in an old beater like Melissa's car. So..."

"Pretty soon, right?"

"Yeah. About eleven-forty. Unless those guys in the Mercs have guns and shoot out their tires or something."

"Oh, right. Good point." Jonathan realized that he had been going a bit slower than maximum, not wanting to send Dess through the windshield if an eclipse sneaked up on them. But the more he thought about it, the worse trouble he figured Rex was in. He pressed the accelerator down harder.

"So, Dess, if you see any blue sweeping across the sky, you know what to do, right?"

"Grab your hand. No problem."

Jonathan nodded. If he was sharing his midnight gravity with someone, they probably wouldn't carry their momentum into the blue time. Two weeks before in the desert, Jessica and Dess had been whacked against their seat belts when his car had frozen and Melissa almost killed when she'd been, but nothing had happened to Jonathan.

Of course, no one had been crazy enough to test this hand-holding theory yet.

This zooming along at seventy-five miles an hour was another reason he was glad Melissa and Jess weren't here. He only had two hands.

They shot along the highway, the lights of central Bixby glowing before them, a great mass of darkness all around.

"Can you see anything?"

She leaned forward, squinting through the windshield at the dark road ahead. "Barely. I think that little cluster of taillights is them."

"So what are we supposed to do now?" Jonathan said. "Try to catch up and help Rex? Or stick to the plan when we hit the county line and head out to pick up Melissa and Jess?"

"Crap, I don't know. I hate all this plan stuff."

"Me too," Jonathan said.

"Maybe we should keep following Rex. We can swoop in and pick him up after he runs out of gas."

Jonathan swallowed. "You do realize that'll be trickier than it sounds, right, Dess? Remember what you said about them maybe having guns?"

"Absolutely. But we can't just leave him out here with real Grayfoots chasing him. Who knows what they'll do to him?"

Jonathan couldn't argue with that. Melissa's car couldn't outrun those two Mercedes even if it wasn't about to conk out. "I guess I could fly over and get Jessica after midnight falls."

"What about Melissa?" Dess said. "We'll need her if we're going to get into Angie's mind. You actually going to hold her hand?"

Cold fingers stroked Jonathan's spine at the thought. He'd touched Melissa exactly once before, for an emergency jump across a hundred yards of angry tarantulas. In those few seconds her tortured mind had flooded into him like a wave of nausea; it was something he never wanted to repeat.

He sighed. "I guess I'll have to. But what about you and Rex being alone in Saddleback? It'll take me ten minutes to get Jessica there, and that's the deep desert - darkling country."

"Don't worry about me." Dess kicked the duffel bag on the floor in front of her, which let out a clank. "I think our big problem right now is Rex staying alive until midnight."

"Yeah, you got that right. Those guys in the Mercs looked pretty pissed." Jonathan took a deep breath. "Okay, we go after Rex and save his sorry ass from the Grayfoots."

He accelerated still more, squeezing every drop of speed out of his father's car.

Dess scrunched down into her seat. "Sounds like a plan to me."