by Jaime Rush
Thank God he was getting rid of her the next day. He opened his glove compartment and took out a photograph tucked inside. Painful, looking at the face in that picture. A good reminder that people around him got killed. Innocents. He couldn’t let it happen again. He tucked the photo away, feeling the familiar burn in his chest.
The bathroom door opened, and in the rearview mirror he saw Petra’s head peer around it, bubble blobs on her hair. “That was so not ten minutes.”
“You’re right.”
“I knew it!”
“It was fifteen. You were lucky you got as much water as you did. There are some bottles of water beneath the kitchen sink if you need to rinse off.”
Since he was driving, he could hardly get them for her. She stepped out, wrapped in a towel. He saw her in his peripheral vision as he reached for another handful of peanuts. Long wet legs and soapy hair that hung halfway down her back. She knelt down, her knees cracking, and opened the cabinet. She grabbed two bottles and returned to the bathroom. A minute later he heard her howling.
“Cooooold!”
Served her right. She’d already taken over the Tank, his nickname for the RV, infiltrating it with her energy and her presence: chick magazines lying on her seat, the floor, and the table; beauty products filling every spare inch in the bathroom; and a bottle of aquamarine nail polish sitting in the cup holder. She was permeating his senses. Those few times he’d had a woman here, it wasn’t for long. And no one like Petra.
She spent another twenty minutes drying her hair, and then longer doing who knew what. When she finally came out, she smelled good, she looked good, and suddenly she was way too close when she grabbed up her magazine and dropped into the seat next to him.
“That’ll teach you to listen to me.” Yeah, he’d sounded terse, and the fact that it stole the soft expression from her face meant he’d done the right thing.
Fire lit eyes the color of a mountain lake on a summer day. “I had no idea how much time had passed. There’s no clock in the bathroom.”
“Running out of water is the least of your problems. You weren’t supposed to heal my wounds. I need to be able to count on you.”
“You saved my life. Why can’t I at least heal your scratches?”
“You need to conserve your strength. We don’t know what we’re going to encounter.”
He’d felt her healing him last night. It was warm and loving, and if he’d surged to wakefulness, he might have done more than admonish her. He prided himself on his iron control, and it was all he could do to will his body not to respond in obvious ways. Inviting her to join him on the bed, bad idea. It was an innocent gesture. When he woke, he watched her sleep, as he had before. She was an angel, hugging her pillow, body curled up. He didn’t feel the least bit innocent watching her, wanting her.
She pouted. “You sound like Eric, who forgets he’s actually my little brother.”
“That’s a good way to see me, like a bossy big brother.”
“Except my brother never kissed me the way you kissed me the night you saved my life.” She was stroking the arm of the seat, a quick, nervous gesture.
“Forget that kiss. It didn’t mean anything.” That was an indulgence he shouldn’t have allowed himself.
“Forgotten.” She picked up her magazine and flicked the pages, reminding him of the way an agitated cat flicks its tail. “When I didn’t hear from you, I realized it was just the whole saving-my-life thing that made it so powerful and magical. Sort of powerful and magical. I mean, it was nice. But, like LeAnn Rimes says in her song, ‘life goes on.’ I didn’t sit around hoping you’d call or anything. I’m enrolled in college, learning to be an esthetician. Next I want to take massage school.”
“It suits you.” And her date, too, but he didn’t want to know about the guy. As he’d walked up to their table, she had a glow on her face, smiling, happily unaware of her terrible fate. “The massage part of it, anyway. That jives with your healer.”
She looked at him from above the top of her magazine. “My healer?”
“You’re a healer. It’s a strong part of your psyche.”
She lowered the magazine, obviously forgetting that she was mad at him. “I remember how, whenever I would rub someone’s shoulders, they’d make such a big deal out of how good it felt. I didn’t know then that I was healing more than their tightened muscles. But I also felt uncomfortable touching people. Now I know it’s because I was taking on their pain. I’ve been working on that, though, touching without absorbing. You told me to put a shield up, and it works. I know you probably think teaching people to take care of their skin and apply makeup is trivial—”
“I didn’t say that—”
“—but it jives with my healing nature, too. You should see a woman’s face when she sees herself in the mirror looking beautiful, maybe for the first time. I help her to see her beauty. So many women only see their flaws.”
She had that glow now, her cheeks dimpled, her skin as smooth as the custom leather on the Tank’s seats. She wore just a touch of makeup, her lush lips shiny pink, catching the light . . . and his breath. He turned back to the road.
The kiss had been a really bad idea. Almost losing her tore him apart, rupturing his iron control. He hadn’t meant to lead her on. She was hurt because he’d never contacted her.
She continued to flip through those pages without looking at them. “You could have just told me why you had to stay away, instead of being so mysterious.”
“I wasn’t trying to be mysterious. You didn’t need to know I fought otherworldly beings, didn’t need to know that there were otherworldly beings.”
“Living in ignorance isn’t a bad thing, I suppose.” He felt her energy change, from defensive to sad. She said, “You have a lot of scars. I couldn’t heal those.”
But she’d tried, that was what she implied.
“How many of these creatures have you killed?” she asked.
“I don’t keep track.”
“Have you ever killed a human?”
Maybe if she understood what he was, she would know she had to stay away from him. The bond they shared pulled at them, but he couldn’t let it draw them together. “The men who hung my father were the first.”
“But you didn’t kill Steele, down in Key West. Zoe said you’d turned to a panther and had him on the ground.”
He had saved Zoe’s life from an assassin who was about to wipe her out. Then he’d taken her to the rest of the Rogues, and psychically summoned Petra so he could turn Zoe over to someone she’d feel safe with.
He checked the rearview monitor, an old habit. “I try not to kill humans, as a rule. And I didn’t want to leave a mauled corpse for the police to investigate. A wild cat attack in Key West? And my DNA.”
She set the magazine down. “You said something about not being able to come to me the day we all got infected by the crazy stuff.”
“My father saw my death; I can’t see my own future. He knew I was going to try to stop it, even though I saw no way to save you. I don’t know exactly what he did; he won’t tell me. But he knocked me out. When I woke and checked on you, it was over.”
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “And as soon as I take care of Yurek and Baal, you can go back to your life, your boyfriend.” He remembered her question about what he’d do if she were with another man when he visited. To his credit, he hadn’t gritted his teeth or clenched his jaw at the thought. Sure, he knew someday she’d take a lover, eventually get married. He told himself he’d be happy for her, while his cat yowled in rage and loneliness. She was his, yet he could never possess her. “And hopefully you can forget about all this.”
“And you.”
“Definitely me.”
She picked up the magazine again. “I will.”
He turned up the stereo. It was going to be a long day. The sooner he could hook her up with Pope, the better.
They’d been driving between towns, with little to see outside other
than acres of forest on either side. She’d fixed them lunch from a recipe in her Oprah mag and a quick stop at a grocery store. She went through two magazines and stank up the RV with the acrid scent of nail polish, all the while rearranging herself in the leather seat a dozen different ways. All hard to ignore, with her long legs propped on the dash, feet pressed against the windshield, and now her legs dangling over the arm of the seat, freshly painted toes wiggling an inch from his elbow. The black, tight pants hugged her ass, of which he’d gotten way too good of a view when she bent down to fish a magazine that had fallen to the floor. Her white ruffled top hugged her waist and made nice work of her cleavage.
She’d tried to engage him by reading aloud articles about what guys were really thinking in certain situations. Thankfully not the “How to Achieve Ultimate Orgasms” story promised in bold print on the cover. “Here’s a quiz. I love quizzes. Is your guy a keeper?” She eyed him playfully, raising her eyebrow. “Does he listen to you? Always, sometimes, or never. Do you listen?”
He ignored her.
“That’ll be a never.” She circled it. “Has he introduced you to his mother?” She tilted her head, studying him. “He hasn’t even talked about his mother. Another never.”
Honestly, he didn’t know whether to be amused or annoyed. Annoyed was better, because he was no keeper.
“How often does your guy turn into a scary, wild animal?”
“Why don’t you do the quiz for the boyfriend?” He hoped she hadn’t heard the sharpness in his voice.
She lowered her chin, looking at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Because that was our first date, and since we’d only gotten about twenty minutes into it before I was hauled away, I can hardly judge him. You’re all I have to work with.”
He was even more annoyed by the relief that coursed through him at that revelation. He should want her in a nice, solid relationship with a guy who didn’t turn into a scary animal.
The Geo Wave hit him at the same time as his father’s voice warned, Be careful. You’re being closed in on.
“We have trouble,” he said, looking at the rearview monitor. “One of them has tracked us.”
She studied the screen, too, her playful expression gone. “I don’t see a car anywhere. H-How do you know?”
“Geo Wave. It’s a cold wave of energy I feel when I’m near someone from Surfacia. I can’t tell if it’s Yurek or Baal. Either way, it’s bad news. Hold on.”
Chapter 6
Being bored was way better than feeling fear pulsing through her. The RV swerved as Cheveyo pulled off the road and into a gap in the woods. Now Petra knew why the thing had heavy-duty tires.
“Get your shoes on,” he ordered. “Just in case.”
She stuffed her feet into sneakers. “We are so going to die. I mean, how many times can I get lucky?”
“Surviving has nothing to do with luck. And don’t throw around words like ‘dying’ and ‘killing.’ ”
“They’re just words.”
“I take them literally because dying is always a real possibility in my life. And I don’t think predicting our deaths is a good idea either.”
Just out of sight of the highway he cut the engine. “I want to find him first and ambush him.” He moved fast, launching out of his chair. “To the bike,” he said, opening the door at the back of the RV that led to the garage.
The rear door was opening down into the ramp position, and he grabbed the helmets off the hooks. Her heart pounded, her hands already sweating as she took the one he thrust at her. She climbed on behind him before he could order her to. She was no stranger to having to move fast.
The engine started, and they shot out of the trailer. He turned sharply to the right and headed back to the highway. Any hair that wasn’t beneath the helmet whipped all around her.
Another sound roared up behind them. She turned. The same black car she’d seen trying to follow them at the restaurant. Yurek.
“He’s coming!”
Her grip tightened around Cheveyo’s chest. His body was already tensed; he knew the car was behind them. Coming faster, closer, like a train aimed right for them. Cheveyo shot forward, staying ahead of the car. A few seconds later it closed the gap.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the trident symbol in the grill. Closer. Sun glinted off the chrome in a blinding flash. About . . . to . . . hit—
Cheveyo swerved into the oncoming lane, tilting the bike with the movement. Only because she was holding on like a leech did she not fall off. She did scream, but her fright squeezed it into a guttural sound.
“Hold on, babe,” he said, hitting the brakes as the car zoomed past. He turned the bike around and headed back in the direction from which they’d come.
Tires screeched, and she turned to see the rear end of the car swerving as Yurek spun the car around and propelled toward them.
Cheveyo glanced in the rearview mirror. “Playing ‘tag, you’re it’ against a car is a bad idea. Keep holding tight. I’m going to lose him.”
As if she could do anything but hold on tight.
He thrust ahead again. They rounded a bend in the two-lane highway and came up on a semi. Her throat tightened. They were trapped!
Cars zoomed past them in the oncoming lane. Yurek was closing in. With what looked like about an inch to spare, Cheveyo pulled into the other lane a second after a car had passed. He sped around the semi and ducked back into their lane before a line of cars appeared over the slight rise in the road.
“Be ready to slow down fast,” he said.
“Why does that sound dangerously scary?” And why wasn’t he speeding ahead? Rather, he was staying right in front of the semi. The trucker blasted his horn at them, no doubt thinking them reckless.
In the rearview mirror she could see Yurek trying to pass the semi. Finally he got a break in oncoming traffic and started coming around.
“Hold on,” Cheveyo called out.
He pulled onto a little turnoff that had a call box mounted on a pole. They were going too fast, though, and couldn’t stop on the patch of asphalt. They bumped along on the grassy bank before slowing and turning in the opposite direction. Cheveyo watched the semi pass with another blast of his horn. No sign of the sports car that was on the other side.
“You’re brilliant!” she screamed, her heart thudding so hard it hurt.
Yurek would get around the semi and see no sign of them. He’d speed ahead, getting farther away. Unless he looked in his right-side mirror.
They had to wait out traffic, though, to get back on the highway. How long before Yurek figured out they weren’t on the road anymore?
Cheveyo slipped into a gap between cars that were coming and going. Everything went dark for a second, and then she realized she’d squeezed her eyes shut. Hey, good idea. No, bad idea. She wanted to know what was going on.
The car in front of them slowed before turning onto a side road. Cheveyo couldn’t pass until the car was nearly at a crawl. He finally zipped around and hit the gas. Minutes later she heard the familiar sound of the engine behind her at the same time Cheveyo said, “Damn, that didn’t take long.”
She felt the bike jerk toward the left. The car bumped their back tire just before they moved out of reach, sending them skidding onto the shoulder. Fear froze her scream in her chest. Trees. Don’t hit the trees. Hitting trees, bad!
Cheveyo turned the bike at an angle and twisted, his arm around her waist, pulling her off the bike as it slid to its side. She hit the ground, marginally cushioned by the overgrown grass and his body. The world spun. No, that was her spinning.
Brake lights burst into stars on the road nearby. She heard the car skid to a stop up ahead. She’d hardly stopped rolling when hands reached down and pulled her up. She wobbled as Cheveyo removed her helmet and set it down next to his in the grass. The car pulled off the road.
“You okay?” He was breathless. “Nod if you can run.”
She nodded, sending the world rocking again.
&nb
sp; “Go.”
She hardly had time to gain her equilibrium before he grabbed her hand and hauled her into the woods. No! She swore she’d never go into the woods again.
The sounds of their feet pounding earth and her heartbeat obliterated anything else, even with her preternatural hearing. She dared to flick a glance back but didn’t see anything. Except . . . that branch back there that was moving unnaturally.
Within a few minutes of jumping over dead trees and roots that grabbed at her shoelaces, they dead-ended at a wide river. Water tumbled over rocks that jutted out, foaming as though it too would devour them if given a chance. Cheveyo surveyed their options. He wasn’t breathing as hard as she was, but his face was flushed with exertion.
“S-Something’s back there,” she managed, pulling her hair away from her damp face, feeling dried grass tangled in the strands. She pointed to where the branch had moved.
He nodded, his gaze behind them. He pulled the fanglike knife from inside his shirt.
Something else moved a few feet to the right of them. They swiveled to face the hell dog.
“What the—” Cheveyo narrowed his eyes at it. They were blackening.
“You said Glouks couldn’t drive.”
“That’s not a Glouk. Doesn’t feel like one. Which means—” He pivoted to the left, where another hell dog broke through the bushes. Spittle dripped from its black and red gums, unlike the first dog.
Yurek! They’d teamed up, and he’d taken the hell dog’s form. “This is so not good.” She wanted to blink and disappear.
Cheveyo’s eyes darkened more, and she felt heat emanating from him. He shook his head. “I can’t change. If I engage one, you’re vulnerable.”
I’m a vulnerability. Even, worse, a liability. No. After everything I’ve been through, I know I’m stronger than I thought I was. And I sure as hell am not going to be a handicap.
She reached out to him, keeping her eyes on the two dogs. “Cheveyo, give me one of your knives.”
“Remember what I said earlier?”
“I remember.” Knives were for killing. She could kill if she had to.
