"That building ahead, turn left! Left!"
Felicia wrapped her arms around Peter's neck, her long blond hair plastered across his face.
"I know! I'm turning left!"
"You're turning too slowly!"
"This is webbing, not a steering wheel! It doesn't have power steering, or GPS, or-"
Boom!
A rocket skimmed beneath their feet and slammed into the outer wall of an abandoned factory.
Bricks and stone exploded, and a scorching blast surged up from below. Peter held Felicia tight as the web snapped taut, flinging them sideways across the factory roof as though an invisible hand had hurled them away.
Felicia didn't scream.
Her green eyes widened as she watched the tracks and warehouses racing backward beneath her, a startling gleam in her gaze.
"This is more exciting than I imagined."
"You call this exciting?!"
Peter glanced up.
Out over the sea, a black attack helicopter was changing course. The missile pods beneath its fuselage opened, and a red targeting beam pierced the sea mist, locking firmly onto them.
"They have a helicopter too!"
"I see it." Felicia looked down at Peter. "Go faster."
"I'm already going fast enough!"
"Then go faster!"
"Aren't you asking a little too much of a college student who just got shot and is carrying another person?!"
Peter complained, but his wrists kept flicking.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
Three strands of webbing shot in different directions.
The first stuck to a crane's crossbeam, the second wrapped around the factory chimney, and the third shot straight into the window frame of a distant office building.
Peter released the old web and tightened his core.
They executed an almost vertical reversal in midair, narrowly avoiding the helicopter's bullets as they shot toward the other side of the harbor.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Bullets struck the steel framework, sending up bursts of sparks.