by Lane Hart
“Kate, we’ve got to go. He’s made his decision, and we need to leave.”
“No!” she screamed again as she grabbed her father. “Please!” she begged him.
I could tell his mind was made up, and she wouldn’t change it despite the pain on his face.
“Sam?” he said looking at me then nodding toward the open back of the truck.
“I’m sorry Kate,” I said as I picked her up kicking and screaming, then jumped out of the truck. I looked around and finally found what I assumed was his car up the hill on the side of the road.
“Sam! Sam, stop!” Kate yelled as I carried her.
I sat her in the car and then had to restrain her with one arm as I started the engine then swerved into traffic. She kept fighting and screaming for a few more miles.
“Kate, you’ve got to stop! You’re going to make us wreck! Please!”
She finally gave up, crumpling on me while she continued to sob.
After I could no longer hear any sirens I felt somewhat safe, but I didn’t stop checking the rear view mirror every few seconds. If I had to guess, we probably had about twenty more hours before we’d get to our destination – the Mexican border. If we could make it there, we’d probably be okay for a while. Thankfully Mexico wouldn’t extradite 1upernatural back to the United States, and they would lose their shit if the D.R.A. came across looking for us.
I drove us through the rest of South Carolina, then Georgia, and Alabama, trading out our car for a different one in each state. When you and the girl you love are on the run from what would be a certain execution, having grand theft auto on your conscience only felt as bad as stealing a candy bar.
I felt a little safer during our road trip knowing that whatever might happen, at least we had a wide variety of weapons to choose from. Kate’s dad’s car was loaded with guns, ammo, and was that a fucking grenade launder? I guess that’s how he had blasted that damn armored truck off the road.
Ten hours later, and halfway through Mississippi I had to call it a night, or I guess it was day. The sun was coming up and when you’re wanted, it’s much more difficult to hide in the daylight than at night.
To avoid the chance we’d be recognized I pulled into a rural, rundown hotel. I hated taking Kate to a shitty place like this, but our choices were limited, and I knew she had to be exhausted. She’d been awake the whole long trip, crying on and off, but she hadn’t said a word, even as I carried her and our artillery from one car to the next.
I’d withdrawn as much cash as I could in Georgia before trading our car, just in case it was visible on the surveillance cameras. A quarter of the cash had already gone for gas. It was a shame that none of the cars I’d stolen had full tanks.
I had also bought us baseball caps at one of the gas stations, along with sunglasses and a blue t-shirt. I hadn’t even realized I was still wearing the blood bank’s logo shirt until we were leaving Georgia. I was such an idiot since everything about us had probably been reported by now.
I told Kate I’d be right back, then headed into the front office of the hotel. The door jingled when I pushed it open. I hoped to God our faces hadn’t been on TV around here, but since I wasn’t actually the person on my ID I felt like I’d be okay.
“Hi, can I help ya’?” the old lady behind the counter asked in her southern accent.
“Yes, ma’am. I need a room for one.”
She barely looked up at me as she reached behind her for a key. “Okay, that’ll be eighty dollars a night. How many nights you need?”
None, we’d be gone then. But shit, eighty dollars was outrageous for this hell hole.
“For just me? You could do half price for me, right?”
“I could do half price for you.” Damn that had been easy. Almost too easy. It couldn’t be me, could it?
“And you don’t need my name or ID.”
“I don’t need your name or ID.” Holy shit! The Jedi-vampire mind trick was actually working on this ancient woman. Was I getting better at it with age or what? I hadn’t done anything different. I hadn’t even really been trying.
“Okay, here is your money, now hand over the key and make sure no one bothers me in,” I looked at the key when she handed it to me, “room sixteen today.”
I walked back out to the car I’d parked around the building out of sight, key in hand. Why had the mesmerizing suddenly worked after all this time? When I got to the car Kate was sitting in the passenger seat with her head on the window watching for me. It was good to see her upright and mostly coherent. Kate? Maybe her healthy witch blood was the difference. It had been years since I started drinking the sick donor’s blood, and that’s all I’d had until Kate’s the other night. Oh and the stripper’s. The memory of which made me want to throw up. I didn’t think hers really qualified as “healthy” though, with the amount of drugs in it.
I climbed back into the front seat to tell Kate the plan and move our car out of sight.
“Hey. How are you holding up?” I asked as I pulled her to me across the seat.
She laid her head back over on my chest and shrugged. I felt so bad for her but what else could we have done? Stayed behind with her dad and kill innocent police officers, more D.R.A. agents? They would have killed us all eventually, and I knew that given time she’d agree that we’d done what we had to do.
“I got us a room with no questions or names asked. Let’s find somewhere to put the car well out of sight and get some rest, okay?”
She only nodded before moving back to her seat.
I put our current car, a white Camry, beside a few other ones on the backside of the hotel, then walked Kate to room sixteen. It was probably time to trade cars again before we left tonight, to be on the safe side.
Our room wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. It was old, a little stuffy, but mostly clean. Kate laid down and curled into a ball on the bed as soon as she walked into the room. I left the light off then locked the deadbolt and chain on the door, propping one of the room chairs in front of it. I took my shoes off then climbed in bed cuddling up to Kate, wrapping my arm around her. I could hear and feel her stomach growling.
“Do you want me to find you something to eat or drink?”
She shook her head no. Maybe we could get some rest and find something when we woke up. If we could sleep.
I couldn’t fall sleep without knowing what was going on, how much danger we were in, and if they knew where we were. Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped driving so soon.
“Do you mind if I turn the TV on and see if they say anything on the news?”
She shook her head no, so I reached behind me and found the remote on the nightstand. I clicked it on and then surfed through the twenty or so channels looking for CNN or some other news channel. Finally I found it.
I watched for about half an hour before it finally came up. I thought Kate may have fallen asleep but she jerked up when she heard “D.R.A.” I turned the volume up so we could hear it better.
“Last night around ten p.m. a D.R.A. transfer vehicle caring a detained and dangerous supernatural was fired upon by what is believed to have been a former D.R.A. agent. The truck was traveling southbound on Interstate seventy-four in South Carolina when it wrecked, rolling several times down an embankment. The four agents manning the vehicle were injured from what appeared to be gunshot wounds as well as injuries arising from the crash. Two agents are now dead, and the other two are in critical condition. The suspects released the vampire that was being held in the D.R.A. truck’s detention container before fleeing the scene. Forty-eight-year-old former D.R.A. Senior Agent, Thomas Franklin Adams, is believed to have been one of the shooting suspects, along with his eighteen-year-old daughter, Kate Elizabeth Adams. A witness near the scene said that around that time a man who matched the description of Thomas Adams forced her out of her SUV at gunpoint, a red 2010 Ford Explorer, before making off with the vehicle at high speeds. Adams’s daughter was last seen in a D.R.A. issued black Crown Victoria on I-74 in South Carolina with a
vampire who goes by the name of Samuel West.”
At that point, three photos were posted on the TV, Kate and her dad, and then the Samuel West from my driver’s license picture. It didn’t look much like me other than the dark blonde hair. I didn’t have brown eyes and I was about thirty pounds leaner than that particular Samuel West.
“The two suspects and the vampire are considered to be armed and dangerous. Any information regarding their whereabouts should be immediately report to local authorities.”
“What the fuck?” were Kate’s first words in almost ten hours, as she jumped up off the bed and started pacing. “Are they lying to cover up killing him?”
“I don’t think so. Why would they? Wouldn’t they want to make it seem like they’d caught him or taken care of him to make themselves look better?”
“I have no idea,” she whispered.
“Maybe he changed his mind?”
She looked up at me with hopeful tears in her eyes. “You think he left after we did? You shouldn’t have left without him.” Now she was getting angry at me. Maybe it was a good sign that she was branching out from being sad.
“Really, Kate? You think I would have left him if I had thought there was even a possibility that he’d come with us? I wouldn’t have done that to him or you, and you know it. He told me to leave and take care of you, or did you forget that part?” I didn’t want to be so cold to her but I really didn’t want her to keep blaming me for the position her father put us in.
Chapter Thirty
Kate
I don’t know why I was getting mad at Sam. None of this was his fault. It was my father’s, and Sam had only done what he had to do to keep the two of us safe.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I went over and stood between his legs where he was sitting on the edge of the bed.
His arms went around my waist to pull me closer to him before he kissed me.
“It’s okay. I know you’d thought we’d left him for dead, but maybe he really did change his mind. They would’ve said so if they had him, I’m sure of it.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. I hoped he was right. I needed to stop worrying about all the ‘what ifs’ for my dad, and worry about what Sam and I were going to do. My dad was a grown man who’d made his own decisions, not all of them exactly stellar.
“So it looks like you’re pretty safe, and it’s me we need to worry about someone recognizing,” I told Sam as I put my arms around his neck and ran my hands through his hair, still standing in front of him.
“I hate to say it, but we might need to change your beautiful hair,” he said as he stroked a piece behind my ear.
“I don’t care. I can cut it and dye it, whatever I have to do.” It was such a small insignificant price to pay for staying alive.
“So is your name really Samuel West?” I asked him with as much of a smile as I could make. “Because that sure as hell isn’t your picture.”
He smiled and then pulled out his wallet from his back pocket, showing me his driver’s license. It was the same picture from the TV. Just glancing at it, no one would probably notice and maybe just think he’d lost weight. The address listed on it wasn’t really his.
“Yes, it’s really the name I was born with, but I can’t go around carrying an ID with my real picture and 1929 date of birth. So, every ten or so years I find a new birth certificate and social security card for a Samuel West in his mid-twenties and get a replacement license for him. Luckily it’s still a really common name.”
“That’s good to know,” I told him as his hands went back around me and he started rubbing comforting strokes up and down my back, underneath my shirt.
“I’m sorry about what my dad did to you. He told me he threatened to turn me in if you didn’t surrender, and that’s why you let them take you.”
He looked up at me and smiled. “I love you, and I’d do anything to keep you safe.”
“Thank you. I love you too and, I don’t know what I would have done if they’d…if we hadn’t got there in time,” I told him, as all the emotions started overwhelming me again.
“I still can’t believe you and your dad risked yourselves coming after me. How the hell did that come about exactly?”
I sniffed back the few tears my body was still capable of producing and told him my side of the story.
“My dad came to my apartment around eight last night and said to get my stuff, that I was leaving with him. I asked him why and he said he knew I’d been with you and that you’d been picked up. I told him I wasn’t going with him and I’d turn myself in if he didn’t help me find you. He refused, so I called 9-1-1 and told them my name, who my dad was and that I was a witch. After that, he didn’t really have a choice. Well, he had a choice but he decided to finally do the right thing. I still don’t know how he knew about us. I swear Sam, I didn’t say or do anything to give you away, unless he really was watching my phone records or following me.”
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t anything that you did. And don’t be mad at your dad, because he didn’t have a choice. He had a threat hanging over him – turn me in or you and him would both be turned in.” As Sam spoke I felt his hands tighten into fists behind my back and his jaw clenched like he wanted to punch someone.
“Chris! It was Chris?” I screamed as I pulled away from him. “I should have let you kill that son of a bitch the other night! Why would he do that to you?”
Sam raised an eyebrow in response.
“Because of me?” I asked.
“Yes, you. He was certain you’d prefer him over me before he even met you. That’s why he showed up to your apartment that night. He knew exactly what would happen and thought you’d forget about me.”
“But of course I didn’t. It only made me realize what a jerk he was and how stupid I’d been to push you away. I told him that too, the night you beat the shit out of him.”
“Yeah, you picked me even after you’d been with him, and he found an easy way to get me out of the picture. Your dad told me he called and threatened to report you, and I warned your dad that Chris was after you. Your dad said he was letting him think whatever he wanted, but that he was going to make damn sure he was dead before he found you.”
“His fucking ego almost got us all killed. It still might before this is over!” I screamed, so mad that if I ever saw Chris again I thought I could kill him myself. Add to that two D.R.A agents my dad had killed yesterday. But I didn’t feel nearly as guilty about them as I should. No telling how many innocent 1upernatural they’d killed. They’d chosen their profession knowing exactly what they’d have to do.
“Hey now, calm down and forget about that jackass,” Sam said. “Come here.”
I slumped from the exhaustion that was starting to take over my body, and went back to his arms.
“For now, I just want to lay down and hold you, okay? A few hours ago I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he said as his hands went caressing up the back of my shirt again.
I finally let myself relax. Warmth from the comfort of Sam’s hands around me started spreading through my body. He was right, we’d been so close to never seeing each other again. Never being able to feel his gentle touch again, holding me, loving me. I wanted and needed his hands and mouth on me more than anything.
I kissed him hungrily and I separated from him just long enough to pull my shirt over my head. I was a mess. My face was red and swollen from crying, and I really needed a shower, but I needed him more.
“Please make love to me, then hold me for the rest of the day,” I begged him.
“Hell yes,” he whispered as he started kissing down my neck and his hands worked on removing my jeans.
I pulled his shirt over his head and then he stood up so I could slide his jeans down his legs after he kicked off his shoes and socks.
Within moments we were both pressed against each other, without a shred of clothing on either of us, our mouths frantic. My arms were wrapped around Sam’s neck and he was holding
me to him so tight I could hardly breathe. But I didn’t want anything less from him.
Sam picked me up and laid me on the bed as he stretched out above me, covering me from head to toe with his warmth and love.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sam
I lay sweaty and spent on Kate, recovering but nowhere near ready to move yet. Her hands rubbing my back and her lips kissing my neck felt so good. I really liked feeling her soft breasts against my bare chest as her breathing slowed. The exhaustion of being up for so long that I couldn’t remember the last time I slept was finally wearing on me. If I wasn’t so damn heavy I probably would have fallen asleep right on top of her, but I had to be smothering her tiny frame with my big old body. I finally found the strength in my arms to push my chest off of her. I raised up so I could see her face and she could breathe without my weight on her.
“Hey, are you alright?” I asked her.
“I’m still recovering,” she said with a smile. “But don’t move yet. You feel so good on top of me.”
“I was afraid you couldn’t breathe.”
“No, you’re fine. I just want to feel you against me. You’re nice and warm.”
I slid my hands under her pillow and braced myself on my forearms. “This is nice,” I said as I kissed her lips, then her jaw and her neck, all right where I could easily get to them.
“Are you as tired as I am?” I asked her.
“I’m exhausted, and just want you to keep holding me,” she said so sweet and sad. I rolled us over until she was on top of me, and held her until she fell asleep, then I finally let myself doze off.
Nine hours or so later I woke up as the sun was setting. Kate was still sound asleep and I hated having to wake her up. I could at least run to the store for food and trade out the car while she got more rest.
I slid out from under her, taking a shower and dressing before letting her know I was leaving.
“Kate, I’m going to run out and pick up a few things. I’ll lock up and take the key, so don’t answer the door for anyone, okay?”
