It was nothing short of a miracle that they made it back without crashing.
The roads were mostly empty at that hour, just the occasional streetlight flickering overhead, long stretches of asphalt stretching into the quiet of the night. The chaos from earlier hadn't reached this far yet, or perhaps it had and simply hadn't caught up with them.
Either way, it was the only reason Ethan hadn't wrapped Mark's precious car around a lamppost.
Mark groaned in the passenger seat, clutching his head as if it were about to split open.
"I swear… if you scratched it…" he muttered weakly.
Ethan snorted. "Relax. Your baby's fine."
"You floored it in a residential zone."
"And we survived."
"That's not the point-"
"Feels like it is."
From the back seat, Elara let out a soft, silent laugh, her shoulders shaking slightly beneath Ethan's oversized hoodie. Even exhausted and pale, she looked amused.
Mark glanced back at her, squinting. "Why are you encouraging him?"
