Smash & Grab Read Online Free Page A

tonight, but if we stick around, we’ll be the only ones who get caught.
    I pull out into the intersection and head south, toward home, the girl still imprinted on my brain. I’m not superstitious, but I can’t help thinking that her landing on the car just as we were by our target bank is some kind of omen. Of what? I’m not sure yet.

Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen.
    I count down the seconds, wind rushing at me from all directions and a blur of lights and buildings speeding past, my whole body sinking like a lead weight, my stomach clenched tight against the pull of gravity, my eyes tearing up because I’ve forgotten to blink.
    I deploy my parachute when I run out of seconds to spare, and the canopy spreads out behind me like a giant shadow, lifting me before I begin to float balloon-like toward the ground. I work my lines, maneuvering myself between the buildings to my right and left, trying to keep my wits about me. There’s a car on the road, coming up fast. It’s a minivan, idling at the traffic light. My last thought as I try to avoid it is
I hope this van doesn’t contain sleeping babies.
    My legs buckle a bit when I hit the hood, and I go down hard on one knee. I put my hands out in front of me to keep from catapulting off the van and onto the asphalt headfirst. Picturing what I must look like and the shock on the face of whoever is driving is enough to get me laughing hysterically, especially when the guy in the passenger seat starts hollering.
    I turn enough to peer into the car. Two guys around my age are in the front seat, staring openmouthed at me. The driver leans forward like he wants to get a better look at me, his scruffy jawline getting closer to the steering wheel, his dark eyes coming into view.
    Time to bolt.
    I leap off the car and literally hit the ground running, my chute trailing behind me across the street, swishing on the asphalt. I can hear the van’s car doors open and I turn. Yep, both guys are standing beside the car. I pick up speed and duck out of sight. I don’t think they’ll follow me, but you never know.
    The key to any good maneuver is a quick getaway, so I run onto the sidewalk and immediately cross another street and then another, hoping like mad that my chute doesn’t catch on something and tangle, effectively tethering me to one spot. I can hear police sirens now, faint but getting louder every second. I run down a side street to a line of bushes and a patch of shadows where a streetlight’s gone out. I crouch in those shadows, safely tucked behind the bushes, and begin reeling in my chute, stuffing it into my pack as fast as I can, my breath loud in my ears, my hands shaking from the jump. I get the chute put away in seconds and rip the helmet from my head, stuffing it into the pack as well, and then start walking again, away from the sirens and toward the spot where Whitney’s supposed to pick me up.
    I shake out my hair, so blond that it’s almost white under the streetlights, and wrap the elastic around my wrist. My long-sleeved black shirt comes off next so that I’m in a sparkly gray tank top and jeans. I slip the necklaces I had stowed in my front pocket around my neck and then put on some bright red lipstick, dotting the color onto my lips with one finger so that it goes on right even though I can’t look in a mirror.
    My pack is a little too sporty to pass for a going-out-type bag, but that can’t be helped. I’m relying instead on the fact that I’m blond and a willowy five eight—about as dangerous-looking as a bunny rabbit—as reason enough for any passing police to rule me out as one of the jumpers. Quinn and the others will have more trouble being inconspicuous. It’s good they jumped first.
    Two blocks of brisk walking and I can see Whitney’s Escalade parked along the side of the road.
    “Lex.” Oliver pops up from somewhere behind me, bumps my shoulder with his own, and then drapes an arm around me. He has his lighter out—an old Sarome