Page 4 of Offside Angel

It was a good day.

I smooth his hair back from his forehead. Shit, it’s getting shaggy. He needs a haircut. “That doesn’t sound scary.”

“Not scary.” He scooches closer to me, his head pillowed on my knee. “But I woked up. I didn’t want to, but I did.”

My breath catches in my chest. I can’t believe I thought for even a second that Aiden would be better off without Mira around.

He sniffles, burrowing deeper into my side. “When is she coming back? Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” I mutter, stroking his unruly hair the way I so often saw Mira doing. “But I’m going to find out.”

2

MIRA

It takes everything in me not to run to him.

Zane’s golden hair is glowing in the moonlight. He looks like some mythical creature who crash-landed in this depressing reality. No one like him should be here.

The first few nights I spent on musty motel mattresses and showering in cloudy motel water, I thought the same thing about myself: I shouldn’t be here. I spent months in a fairy tale with Zane and Aiden and it made me soft, made me forget the rules of running.

But two incredibly long weeks later, I’m almost back to form. I can now brush a roach off the motel pillow and still sleep like a baby.

A baby who startles at every sound and wakes up screaming from nightmares, that is.

If it’s not roaches and mysterious stains testing my sleep, it’s dreams of blood and knives and mindless screaming. Every night, I wake up panting and gasping for air. I can never remember if I was the person with the knife or the person running.

Just like in real life, I’m probably both.

Zane cuts across the dark parking lot and jogs up the stairs. Twenty seconds later, I see him on the second floor walkway.

I have no idea how he found me. I thought I was being careful. But here he is.

Again.

The first time he caught up to me was at a truck stop just outside of Albuquerque. I thought I was seeing things. It had been over twenty-four hours since I’d eaten anything and I was standing in line to pay a quarter for a Styrofoam cup I could fill with water from the soda fountain. When I saw him walk past the windows, heading for the bathrooms around back, I thought I was delirious.

But it was really Zane.

It was Zane in Albuquerque and again in Flagstaff. He even picked up my trail in Mesa Verde.

It makes no sense. I use public libraries to read my email, I haven’t used my card since I cashed the final check Zane handed me, and I don’t stay anywhere for longer than a day.

So I have no idea how Zane is following me so closely.

All I know is I’m grateful Dante isn’t as resourceful as Zane. If he was, I’d already be dead.

And if Zane would finally give up, maybe I could bring myself to run farther away. I could put this part of the country and my name in my rearview mirror and never look back. I could forget about my brother’s crusade for revenge—for a little while, at least.

As it is, I live for these little glimpses of Zane. Even though I know he’s running himself ragged chasing after me. Even though I know I should want him to move on and find some nice, normal girl without a literal skeleton in her closet.

I don’t know what I’ll do when he stops chasing me.

Zane disappears around the side of the building and I sink deeper into the driver’s seat of the clunker I bought with the little bit of cash I still have. I’m parked in a used car lot across the street from the motel. I was on my way out of town when I saw Zane’s Ferrari roar past me. I should have kept going, but I couldn’t help myself.

Especially after the night I had.

I’ve taken to sleeping during the day and driving at night. Fewer eyes on me means fewer chances of being recognized. But today, I overslept. I should’ve checked out of the room a little after five. Instead, I woke up at one in the morning to pounding on my door.

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