That’s my plan, anyway. Several miles down the road, I feel it…that distinct wobble-thud that tells me I’ve got a flat.
Shit, hell, damnit.
How the hell did I manage to pick up a nail between here and Karla’s? Heaving a sigh, I steer to the side of the road, grab my phone to use as a flashlight, and climb out to inspect the damage.
What I find sends ice through my veins. Instead of a nail embedded in the tread or something similar, I discover a gash in the side of the tire. A neat slice, several inches in length.
Like it was made by, say…a knife.
I straighten slowly, looking around with a new wariness at the dark road and woods around me. In the distance, headlights crest the hill as a vehicle travels toward me. I fumble behind me for the door handle, reminded all at once of how something very similar happened to Shiloh before her abduction, when Doctor Adams disabled her car in order to manipulate an opportunity to either grab her or play the hero…we were never certain because Gunner screwed his plans up.
Maybe the Brothers Thurston like the same bag of tricks.
As if in sync with my musings, the vehicle slows and begins to pull over on the opposite side of the road, in the same direction it had been traveling. Quickly, I open my door and slide behind the wheel, closing and locking the door afterward. I unlock my phone, preparing to call 9-1-1, and slant a look out the window.
The dark form making his way toward me is huge. If he wants to break a window to get to me, I don’t stand a chance. The policewill never get here in time. Dropping the phone, I dig for the pepper spray in my purse on the seat beside me.
The hulking beast of a man knocks a fist against the window. Is it him? I truly don’t remember Henry Thurston being so big. “Go away!”
“Can’t do that. Open up, Tallulah.”
Tallulah. He called me that the other night, too. Nobody calls me Tallulah, not since my mother died.
“I’ve called the police,” I lie. “They’re on their way right now.”
Something that sounds suspiciously like a grunted curse sounds, and then the man bends until his face is framed by the tinted window. The air rushes out of me in a hiss.
“If you don’t open this fecking door straight away, I’m calling your cousin. After I tan your skinny ass.”
What the fuck, fuck a duck, motherfuck…I’m going to kill him. My cousin sent the worst possible person. The bane of my childhood existence. The biggest jerkface on the east coast.
“Bran-fucking-Kelly.”
His annoying face splits into a wide grin. “In the flesh.”
Five
Bran
This job is almostworth the expression on Tallulah’s face. Priceless.
Until she swings the door open, that is, almost braining me with it. I jerk back just in time to prevent being concussed.
“What the hell, Tallulah?”
She scrambles from the vehicle, some kind of sexy muscle car, to stand before me with her hands on her hips. “What the hell? I’ll give you what the hell, you overgrown…big…giant,” she trails off lamely, perhaps noticing for the first time that her head barely comes up to my pecs, and I could easily break her in half. “And don’t you dare call me Tallulah. It’s been Twiggy forever. Thanks to you, I might add.”
She’s still tiny, maybe five whole feet and a buck-twenty soaking wet. But unlike the twig I dubbed her years back, TallulahGentry is anything but a skinny stick these days. She’s still petite and delicate of bone structure, but that frame has filled out with compact, dangerous curves. Her hair has grown out from the boyish pixie cut she used to wear, into thick, shiny locks that sweep to one side, even tucked beneath a striped beanie. No one can mistake her for a boy anymore, that’s for sure.
Despite the changes, though, that’s still Twig shooting lasers my way like a pissed-off fairy with a lightsaber.
“Nah. You’re not a twig anymore. Look at Tinkerbell, all grown up,” I murmur.
She glares. “Look at the Incredible Hulk, still a child.” The retort comes immediately, and I can’t help but grin. She was always quick like that.
“Still a mouthy little brat, I see.”
“Still a jackass, can confirm.”