If that meant letting Lea assume he’d been hoodwinked, then so be it. His pride would live on after the adventure, and so would Kalani. That was all that mattered.
He’d tuned it all out so successfully that he didn’t even hear Kalani’s wild screams until after the final door slam, the driver’s side door, Kalani sitting behind the wheel and sobbing. He paid attention to that above all else. He studied how she got in the car and sat at the wheel, instead of how her sister slid in next to Ethan in the back seat, a gun stuck up hard against his ribs.
“Move and I’ll tear your guts out,” she said. “I mean it. Just do one stupid little fucking thing, and I’m gonna blast you away right in this car.”
Kalani screamed no, her face having turned around, that beautiful face having gone wet and red and distorted in the low glow of the car’s dome light. “What the fuck are you doing!?” she screamed to her sister. And then she screamed the same question to Ethan. What the hell was he doing? He’d so blatantly allowed it to happen.
Blatant to himself and Kalani, anyway, who knew how well trained he was with close-quarters combat. But Lea . . . He wasn’t sure how sold she was, but she had the gun’s muzzle so far between his ribs that it almost didn’t matter. There was enough to believe about the situation already.
“Get back down,” Lea said calmly, rationally, and just underneath the Kalani’s screams. She turned to her sister and said something that Ethan couldn’t understand, or hear. Something that shut her up.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Ethan told her, hoping she could hear him up at the front.
The sisters were making a run for it.
He could have gotten away, attempted to follow them, but Blackwoods would have picked up the tail and tried to pick him off within a mile of the safe house. He’d thought about several other plans, each with varying degrees of risk. The one he had chosen was definitely the riskiest. But it was also the closest to Kalani. He felt that, even in the back seat, with the taste of blood in his mouth, the psychotic next to him, the steel in his side. Through it all, he felt it. He felt close to her. He felt in love with her.
Ethan wanted to reach across and just touch Kalani, to let her know that it was going to be okay. He said it again to her, how okay everything was going to be, until Lea jabbed him even deeper with the gun. It cut off his words, and his breath. He stayed quiet.
“Alright, Lani,” Lea said. “You ready?”
There was no answer. She’d turned to stare through the windshield, her gaze locked straight ahead.
“Lani? Come on, wake up.” Lea punched the back of the seat, Kalani’s head rocking with the impact. “Come on, let’s go. Start the engine, Chica.”
After a moment that felt like an hour, the engine revved and then roared to life.
26
Kalani
Her first priority had to be the radio. Dear God, please, don’t let Lea see—or hear—the radio. Kalani had switched it off as best as she could figure, with its high-tech modifications, but there was still a lingering fear that at any moment a DARC voice would come crackling into the car. She remembered, at least, the little red light turning off after she clicked the dial all the way to the off position.
It had been off. She hoped.
She was sitting on it in such a way that Lea would never notice—especially from her vantage point in the back seat. Kalani had tucked it under her thigh, hoping that the next bump in the road wouldn’t somehow turn the switch and jar the radio to life.
Driving away, Kalani could only imagine what kind of chaos they’d just left at the house. Jackson and his men at the edge of the cave mouth, ready to “probe” as they’d called it. They might have already known about the latest abduction with Ethan. They might have heard the commotion. They might be following behind her. At the last moment, Lea had grabbed Ethan’s bag from the living room, claiming it would give them away if they’d left it behind. Maybe there was something in there she could use later to fix this fucked up situation. She could only hope.
Kalani glanced in the mirror and saw a very faint light behind her. It was far away, and nauseatingly indistinguishable. Could it have been another trailing car? She’d had so many lately.
Could it be someone from Blackwoods?
She had no answers at that point—except for the one she was sitting on. That radio, in the right hands, at the right moment, could be all she and Ethan had to survive.
Not only survive, but to finally put some of the shit behind them, as painful as she knew that would be.
She took a right turn down another of the many dark, nondescript, and mostly empty back roads. She was glad, at least, to have graduated to pavement from dirt and gravel. Less chance of a slipup with the radio.
She would have to find a better hiding place for it. She would have to be patient.
It was all about patience, going through that and keeping up the veneer of a totally panicked and submissive little sister, just typical old-school Kalani just blindly following the path—and the curt orders—of her older sister. It was a role she hadn’t played in a long time, but it was still, oddly, sickeningly, familiar.
It was easier than she’d liked to admit.
Lea had been saying her name again, repeatedly until Kalani replied with some mumbled acknowledgment.
“Do you know where you’re going, Lani?”
“I think so, but it’s dark.”
“You’ve got headlights,” Lea said.
“Yeah, you let me keep those, but you threw out our GPS.”
Lea didn’t reply.
“I can see the road just fine,” Kalani said. “But I’m not sure what the fucking road is. I’m going from memory here.”
“You know why I threw out the GPS,” she said. “We’ll definitely be followed by a team of hackers. I don’t want to make it too easy for them.”
“You’ve been down these roads, too. Don’t you have any idea where we—”
“Kalani, you never let me drive. If I drove, I would’ve been paying more attention.”
Good . . . Perfect . . . Just some more typical bickering between sisters. The classic Kalani and Lea dynamic. It was the perfect technique. Let the normalcy lower her guard and to lull her to sleep.
Kalani began wondering if the radio had a GPS tracker in it.
She wondered if Ethan had one implanted on him somewhere . . .
Why couldn’t the Feds have been smart and clamped an ankle monitor on Lea?
“Who is that?” Lea said.
“Who’s what?”
“Look behind you,” she said. “Look in your mirror. Haven’t you noticed those lights? That car following us?”
“I noticed a while back,” Kalani said. “But I thought we lost them.” She looked in the rearview mirror again. They’d definitely not lost them, whoever they were. At that point, she’d stopped feeling any distinguishable way about that possibility. Instead, she’d gone numb. There was already so much to think about, and to worry about.
There was a little bit to hope for, too. A little bit of a spark guiding her through the night: silent and strong Ethan sitting behind her. She could feel his quiet energy flowing through the seats. She could feel him, silently guiding their car. A psychic GPS.
There was a thumping sound from inside the car, at the back. Maybe even in the trunk.
“Stop!”
Lea’s voice rattled Kalani and the car immediately began to slow.
Another thump.
“What the crap is that?” Kalani said.
“Pull over here and just wait. Hurry up, just pull over.”
Kalani said nothing else, pulling the car over and slowing to a stop. The car radio was playing almost imperceptibly quietly.
“Just wait here,” Lea said. “And you, Ethan or whatever your name is, you just stay down. Alright?”
“No problem,” Ethan said, still slumped in the back seat. It was the first time in what felt like hours that Kalani heard him speak. She was glad he was still aw
ake with her. She was glad that he was alive, despite having a gun trained on him the whole time.
“Whoever this is,” Lea said, “I want them driving in front of us.”
The thumps had stopped. Had she imagined the whole thing? Kalani looked in the mirror again as the car approached, the closing speed a lot faster now, the lights brightening quickly. She could see the reflection beaming from the mirror into the back seat. She could see it cross Ethan’s face. Despite the blinding light in his eyes, he had relaxed his face for her. He was almost smiling. Smiling with his eyes, at least. A little of the stress left her at his expression. If he wasn’t worried, she’d try not to be, too.
“I just hope we get there on time,” Lea said.
Kalani’s brief moment of clarity washed away at the thought of what “there” was, and who would be there waiting for them. Her sister continued on about the new mission that had so far taken two reluctant companions—one perhaps a little more reluctant than the other.
“You better hope we’re there on time,” Lea said.
“Why Kalani? Why does she need to go?” Ethan said, producing an immediate frustrated huff from Lea next to him.
“My God,” she said. “You two are gonna drive me crazy. I guess I should just burst the bubble now before you two get any more serious than you already are.”
The car that had been following them passed alongside at speed. No slowdown, no blinker, nothing of significance at all. Just another back-road traveler in the night.
“Alright, good,” Lea said. “Now go ahead and take your first left.” She waited for Kalani to get the car moving again and said, “There,” as she approached a dirt road. “I know where this goes,” she says. “It’s not a shortcut, but it’ll get us away from whoever that was. Now, Kalani, keep an eye on those mirrors. You shouldn’t have to wait for me to—”
“Are you gonna burst the bubble or not?” Ethan said, his voice twanged with annoyance.
“Oh,” she said, “oh wow, aren’t we eager.”
Kalani couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much. She glanced at Ethan in the rearview mirror. “Don’t listen to her.”
“Oh, wow, Kalani . . .”
“Don’t listen to what?” Ethan said. “What do you mean?”
“She means bury your head in the sand,” Lea said, the gun poking at him again. “She means stay dumb about the whole thing. You like her, right? You like her enough to look past stuff like this.”
“Stuff like what?” he said. “Why not just tell me?”
“It’s bullshit,” Kalani said.
“Oh, is it? Is it really, Lani?”
Kalani cursed under her breath, driving down the bumpy dirt road, worrying about the radio turning on underneath her, worrying about who might be waiting for them at the end of the road. Worried that Lea was about to do something drastic and very, very stupid.
But Kalani had to admit it. She had to come clean, at least a little bit. Because a little bit of Lea’s horrible story would be true. Or at least come true through evidence and testimony at the trial—if Kalani let it come to that. She’d had ample time to take her sister down, to restrain her and call Jackson all the way back in the bedroom. She hadn’t. “Part of it . . . is true.”
Ethan kept quiet. But she knew he was burning up inside. The energy had changed.
The car hit a large pothole and she almost hit her head on the steering wheel. It was only after that she thought of the gun . . . Was Lea stupid enough to keep it still pointing at him? And with her finger on the trigger?
Was she stupid enough not to?
“Kalani,” Ethan said, “how can parts of it be true?”
“She’s got me. Okay?”
“I got her,” Lea said, laughter creeping into her voice. “But she actually got herself. And now I guess we both have you.”
“How does she have you, Kalani?”
“She’s got some shit on me,” Kalani said, feeling like she was back living her old life. The one before she gave up following Lea and found the straightened path. “Her and Blackwoods, they’ve got dirt on me. So they say.”
“What do they want?”
“Me,” Lea said. “Well, ideally, they want both of us, Kalani and—”
“Fuck no,” Kalani said quickly after.
“Well, we’ll see, Kalani. We’ll see what happens.”
Now it was Ethan’s turn for a “Fuck no, we won’t see. She’s not having anything to do with them.”
“Oh?” Lea said. “And so what are you going to do about it?”
“It might be a long drive, Lea.” He watched her shape in the darkened back seat. She’d been sitting at the far end, as far away as possible, leaning against the door while staring at him the whole time. He said, “Are you prepared to stay awake the whole way? It’s already been a long night. You’ll have to stay awake and alert this whole time while having this gun on me? How do I know you won’t just fall asleep and pull the trigger and waste me?”
“You don’t,” Lea said. “You don’t know that at all. No one does.”
Kalani got her sister’s attention by pumping the brakes hard enough to feel the weight of passengers against the front seats. “You’ll have to stop talking so stupid, Lea, or else I’ll drive even worse. I’m barely . . . cooperating as it is. Don’t give me so many reasons not to.”
“No,” Lea said, “it’s reasons for everyone to cooperate. It’s really simple.”
“Just keep the gun off him!” Kalani screamed. It felt good to let out even just a little of the anger she’d had stored up. She wanted to check the brakes again, really give them a good test.
But Ethan’s voice calmed her again.
“So,” he said, “we’re going there to make a deal with Blackwoods, then? What is it?”
“A swap,” Lea said. “Me, for Kalani’s freedom.”
“I was free until I got in this fucking car,” Kalani said, her voice cold and low.
“No, you weren’t, Sweetie, no you weren’t. First of all, that safe house? You think you were free with these DARC guys? And God knows you weren’t free as far as Blackwoods is concerned.”
“What about Ethan?” Kalani said. “Who or what does he get swapped for?”
Lea just laughed at that one.
Kalani pumped the brakes and the laughter came to a quick stop. And then a familiar groan.
The brakes were working very well.
But of course they were . . . She had just brought the car into the shop in Claxtonburg.
Yet another icy cold feeling came over her, a whole other dimension to worry about. Sabotage not through cut brake lines, but something much closer. Something much surer, like a tracking system installed at the behest of Blackwoods. Free of charge, she remembered.
27
Ethan
Part of his training as a soldier was to fight the symptoms of fatigue and sleep deprivation. He had used his training, oddly enough, as a journalist, staying up writing, working to beat out his latest deadline. In both theaters of battle, the Middle East and his own personal office, Ethan had excelled at staying awake and alert. Staying sharp enough to take hold of that moment of clarity that would always eventually come over him for the snappy concluding sentence to his latest story.
He’d thought he could rely on his talent that night, riding awake in the car and staying on guard all night if necessary. If anything, he figured he would at least beat out Lea.
He’d been watching her shape across the seat from him, waiting to see her head drooping low, waiting for her to nod off.
But her head was steady, eyes wide whenever a beam of headlights flashed by.
He kept watching, his own eyelids getting droopy.
His own head flopping forward.
Ethan caught himself twice already, falling asleep. But on the third time, he couldn’t pull himself away from the blackness. The last thing he remembered was hearing that odd thumping sound from the trunk. But that sound just mixed in with everything else. D
reaming. Distant. Safe.
28
Kalani
She hadn’t heard a sound from Ethan in a long time.
Was he even alive?
“Kalani, just park.”
Lea had become more and more agitated with her, especially as Kalani kept missing the entrance to the airport parking lot, and then as she kept circling around looking for the right spot. She was stalling for time, time to think and plan. But perhaps it was made too obvious, Lea sounding like she was almost ready to train the gun on her sister.
“Jesus Christ, just park this fucking thing,” Lea said. “What’s wrong with you?”
Kalani would have laughed at the question had the situation not been so dire and depressing
“There,” Lea cried, “to the right, there. Park there, for God’s sake.”
“I’m just trying to get close. Don’t you want us close?”
“We want the opposite of that,” Lea said. “Use your head.”
After what felt like hours of driving, they’d found themselves at a small cargo airport outside Charleston. Finally, there were other cars. Other people. Kalani felt good about that, and not so good, all at the same time. It was nice to get off the road and to finally be somewhere, to get things moving along in meeting the Blackwoods crew and finally getting it the hell over with. But it also meant that tiny window for reaching out for help, for doing any sort of intervention with Ethan, was becoming shorter and shorter.
And Ethan . . . he was sleeping.
Dark Discovery (DARC Ops Book 8) Page 20
