Criminal Destiny Read Online Free Page A

we’re not caught yet,” Eli argues stubbornly.
    As we reach the bottom of the hill and swerve onto the main road, we’re passed by a fire truck heading up toward the school, siren wailing. It already seems like hours ago that Tori pulled the fire alarm. But the truth is it’s only been a couple of minutes. Time slows down when you’re running for your life.
    The radio crackles as the chopper asks about our status once again. Only this time there’s a furious response from one of the Purples we left behind at McNally. “We’re still at the school! The kids took off with our car!”
    There’s a stunned silence, then, “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Repeat your status. Over.”
    Malik reaches up from the backseat, pushes the button on the radio, and barks, “Our status is ‘leaving’! What are you—blind?”
    After a long, static-filled pause, the voice from the chopper says, “Be reasonable, kids. We’re directly above you. There’s no way you can escape.”
    The unfairness of that really gets to me. “Like they have the right to tell us what’s reasonable!” I scoff. “The people who thought it was a great idea to clone criminals!”
    Malik presses the button again. “So land on our roof and arrest us!”
    â€œCut it out,” Eli says peevishly. “I’m having enough trouble as it is, keeping this thing on the road.”
    Without warning, Tori stretches over Eli, clamps a hand on the wheel, and wrenches it to the right. The SUV swerves off the road, lurches over some scrub brush, and bumps up onto pavement again, a narrow curved ramp. We whiz past a sign:

    I-25 NORTH—DENVER
    â€œWhat did you do that for?” Eli’s voice is an octave higher than usual.
    â€œThis is our route,” Tori insists.
    â€œOur route?” Malik echoes. “We don’t have a route! We don’t know where we’re going!”
    Tori points. “Look how crowded that road is. It must be a highway. We have to blend in with a lot of other cars if we want to lose that chopper.”
    She’s right. The strip we’re about to merge onto is humming with more cars and trucks than we’ve ever seen in our lives, all moving at high speeds.
    Eli inserts the SUV into the nearest lane of traffic, his shoulders up around his ears, like he’s bracing himself to get hit by another vehicle. There’s no accident, but a chorus of horns greets our arrival, and keeps on greeting as dozens of cars stream around us.
    I watch the parade of angry faces, many accompanied by rude gestures. I should be insulted, but really, I’m just fascinated. So this is the real world—infinite faces, infinite moods, infinite speeds, hurry, hurry, hurry. The first word that comes to mind is messy . There doesn’t seem to be any order out here. It’s just a clash of everybody doing their own thing, at the same time, in the same space. But it’s also messy the way a forest is messy, with its thousands of species of plant life, growing every which way. The sheer chaos of it is what makes it cool.
    Eventually, Eli figures out that he needs to match thespeed of the other cars. The horns and angry shouts begin to fade away. One problem solved, crossed off my mental list.
    Only nine hundred to go.
    For a guy who taught himself how to drive on Xbox, Eli’s doing a pretty good job. We continue on that way for about an hour, Malik watching through the sunroof, following every move the chopper makes overhead.
    â€œIt’s still up there, in case anybody’s interested,” he reports. “If they’re planning on losing us, they need to hurry up and do it.”
    â€œThey’re not going to lose us,” says Eli grimly. “They’re trained trackers. They’ll follow us to the ends of the earth.”
    Tori looks thoughtful. “We have to ditch the SUV.”
    â€œAnd do