Page 44 of Guarded By Them

He grinned down at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back—a real smile this time.

He was a tough guy, like Ryan. Neither of them wanted to ask for help, even when they needed it.

“Come on, then.” Kodee jerked his head toward the gas station. “Let’s get in and out. I feel safer when we’re moving.”

He was right. I did, too, but we couldn’t keep moving forever.

The attendant glanced up as we entered and quickly looked away again. Gone were the unruffled, smart men they’d been back in the city. Now they looked like men who fought to stay alive. None of them had shaved for a couple of days, and their stubbled jawlines combined with dark, shadowed, haunted eyes made them look dangerous. Hell, they were dangerous. I’d seen them kill five men now, and I knew they’d kill again if they had to.

A coffee machine stood beside a long refrigerator containing sandwiches, cold drinks, and other snacks. There was also a microwave available for us to heat up food ourselves.

“Breakfast sandwiches?” Kodee suggested, helping himself.

My stomach rumbled. “Sounds good.”

He heated them up for us, and then we took everything to the counter and paid.

We needed to keep moving, but we had to eat and do all the stuff normal humans needed to survive, so we took it in turns using the bathroom as well, and then went back to the car with our purchases.

I frowned down at Dillon’s leg. Bright red spots had seeped through the clean jeans. “The bandage is going to need changing soon. I wish we’d thought to bring the first aid kit from the cabin with us.”

He wrinkled his nose. “We weren’t exactly in the right frame of mind for planning ahead.”

I sighed. “Maybe not, but that still needs changing. You’d be better off seeing a doctor.”

“Uh-huh. No doctors. It’s too risky. They’ll want names and addresses and paperwork. I don’t want to leave any kind of trail where people are going to find us.”

“Besides,” Ryan said from the front of the car, “doctors have to report a gunshot wound to the police.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.” I felt deflated, stupid for not being aware of something so obvious. Of course they would have to report it—people couldn’t just go around shooting each other without the police being notified.

Dillon reached out and squeezed my hand. “It’s fine, Rue. Seriously. Stop worrying. You did a great job the first time around. I can handle a little blood.”

If we couldn’t go to a hospital or doctor, I guessed there wasn’t much choice. We could go to a drugstore, but we’d need to be in the city, or at least a reasonable sized town to do that.

We finished eating and got on the road again.

Ryan reached out and placed his hand on Kodee’s thigh. “How are you doing, Kodee?”

Kodee pressed his full lips together and nodded. “I’m coping.” He glanced over at the other man. “It’s important that I do this, though, you know?”

Ryan shot him a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, I know. You’re doing great.”

“Fake it till you make it, right?” His tone was laced with regret.

“Have we even decided where we’re going?” Ryan asked. “We can’t drive aimlessly forever.”

Kodee nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it. We don’t have to get on a plane. We can always just drive out of the country. Border patrol are likely to be less suspicious than if we were at an international airport.”

Ryan thought for a moment. “But we still have the problem of Rue not having a passport.”

Dillon leaned forward. “Is there any way we could smuggle her across the border?”

“It would be risky.” Ryan twisted in his seat to face Dillon. “We could end up locked up if we got caught.”

“I don’t want that,” I said. “This is all bad enough without having to worry about you guys in prison.”

Dillon snorted. “Especially since that’s also where Joe Nettie is right now. I imagine he’d have enough contacts inside to make life pretty unpleasant for us.”

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