Page 73 of Revenge of the Blood Pack

When I stare into it, a cold sweat breaks out across my body. Then I hear something calling out to me. It’s not Simon, who’snow walking away from me, off into the desert. It's something from within, something I can’t quite make out, just itching at my brain. It’s important, and yet indecipherable.

SIX

Asha

I’m rudely awakenedby a long, slobbery tongue swiping across my cheek. “Trouble! Down! Heel!” It’s Braxton, a few seconds too late.

The mutt relents as I sit up and clear the dog spit from my face. “A gentle poke would have done it,” I say groggily. Blinking against the sun, I assess my surroundings. We’ve stopped. That’s the first realization that dawns on me. The car no longer rumbles beneath me. My door’s open, and the three men I rode with stand in a semicircle staring in at me. Trouble jumps down from my lap and sits at Braxton’s foot.

The air is dry, laced with dust. Light radiates from every surface. My sight takes forever to adjust. “Where are we?” I ask. “The sun?”

“It’s bright in the desert,” Braxton says with an edge of snark.

Max shoots him a glance. "A stop for the night."

"Isn't it amazing how fast a landscape changes when you travel through mountains?" Orson says, studying the landscape like an explorer.

I feel my pupils constrict as I follow his gaze and finally the world appears out of the white light, expansive, desolate, empty. Except for the diner behind the boys, the landscape is a russet plane with distant rocky formations and a slate-gray streak of road cutting through it. Utah, western Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona — it doesn’t matter. We’re a roving band of hunters and the landscape will change again tomorrow.Am I always this melancholy after a nap?Maybe when I’m rudely awakened by an overfamiliar mutt.

Squinting, I peer between the twin brothers at the silver can of a restaurant behind them. It looks like a classic American greasy spoon and I think to myself that a fatty sandwich and some soggy fries sound pretty good right about now. “We grabbing a bite?”

Max, squinting like the Man With No Name, nods down the road. “There’s a motel a short distance from here where we’ll bed down. Figured we could all use a little nourishment before settling down for the night.”

“Night? They get those around here? Doesn’t even look like they allow shadows.”

Orson laughs, but neither of the Blackwells’ facial muscles budge an inch.

I hop out of the truck and start a series of stretches to reawaken my limbs. Man, how long was I asleep? I've been a pretty light sleeper for a long time. When sound means a Blood Mage is coming to cut your veins open and attach their test tubes, you learn to be alert. It's strange that my instincts failed me in a car with three men. Scary even. The kind of thing that could lead to me being hurt again.

Or did my instincts tell me I could trust them?It's a notion that instantly makes me alert.

“Let’s grab a table,” Max says.

"We can keep an eye out for rattlesnakes. This is their natural habitat.," Orson says, drumming his hand on his laptop case absentmindedly.

"You talk to people a lot, don't you?" I ask, the words leaping from my mouth before I can stop them.

He grins in response. "Only a couple people who have adjusted to my weirdness."

"Ah, so we're in the adjustment period," I say, like that explains everything.

He laughs.

Max steps between us, frowning. "Food time."

Orson falls in line behind him as he heads for the restaurant and I make to follow, but Braxton places his hand on my shoulder. I halt and glance up at him. “Hang back for a sec.”

Max pauses and throws a curious look back at us. A wordless message transmits between the twins.Give me a minute with her, I imagine Braxton thinking. Max and Orson continue into the diner while Braxton and I remain by the car.

The look in his eyes makes me afraid to ask what’s up. He reaches into the truck and for a split second, I think he’s grabbing a silencer or something, and this is the end of the line for me. It’s an absurd thought, but I can’t shake the feeling that the Enforcers eventually plan to direct the Blackwells to kill me, and it gives rise to all sorts of daymare scenarios.

I sigh furtively with relief when he retrieves a yellow tennis ball from the floor of the backseat. Braxton eyes me and smirks knowingly, but doesn’t say anything yet. He turns to his dog, who is presently relieving himself against a rock until a considerable moat encircles the stone.Good lord, Trouble.

Braxton hurls the ball and I lean against the side of the truck while the dog bolts after his toy. As he recedes, his tan coat blurs into the backdrop, disappearing into the hazy sizzle of the horizon. “Good throw,” I say.

“Trouble needs the workout,” Braxton says. Then he turns to me, and I’m not ready to fall under that intense gaze. “Who was that Blood Mage?”

I feel naked in his eyes, and not in the fun way I’d enjoy right now. There’s nowhere to hide the truth. Panic sets in, its symptoms of brow sweat and flushing conveniently excused by the unforgiving climate.Just lie.

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