Page 82 of Crossover

Goddammit!

This was taking too long. We needed to take Daniel down now.

How dare he?I trusted him like a father, and the coward sent this lowlife to find us. He couldn’t even face me himself. Somewhere, deep down, my heart cracked at his latest betrayal, but I swallowed the pain; Daniel didn’t deserve to hurt me.

Instead of surrendering to the hurt, I clenched my jaw and kicked the scumbag in the ribs over and over, the thumps echoing through the fog. A lone bird took flight above my head as I kicked him repeatedly until I was panting from the effort, my foot throbbing.

Chest heaving, I screwed my eyes shut.

Get it together, Grayson. You need to make sure this guy is alone, and then you need to get Ivy out of here.

Methodically, I swept the surrounding forest, my muscles coiled and ready to spring into action, my ears a satellite dish, straining to detect any sound.

A light drizzle tapered through the trees and onto the fallen leaves as I performed a grid search—leaving Ivy where she was hiding. The cold moisture of the fog seeped through my clothes as I moved, chilling me to the bone, while mud squelched underfoot in areas of pooled water.

With the adrenaline slowly dissipating, the pain in my bicep flared to life, hot and frustrated. I gritted my teeth and finished my search with the motel and parking lot.

As I headed back toward the forest’s entrance, a high-pitched voice called out from the other side of the parking lot.

“Sir?”

I spun, hand going for my weapon, only to find a woman towing a suitcase.

“I wouldn’t go into the woods.” She nodded her chin toward the forest wall behind me. “Heard some hunters a bit ago. You shouldn’t go in there without an orange vest.”

“Hunters.”

She nodded. “Not sure if you’re from around here, but hunting is big here in Wisconsin.”

Right.At least it was less likely someone would call the cops based on the gunshots, then, which gave us a little more time to flee.

“They’resupposedto end thirty minutes after sunset, but I’d be careful if I was you,” she advised.

“Thank you.” I nodded. “I will be.”

She smiled politely, got into her car, and drove away.

I needed to retrieve Ivy, get her out of here, and go meet with Barry. We might have bought ourselves a little time by killing this guy, but if this tracker found us, another could, too.

47

IVY

“Grayson!” I shot to my feet.

With nothing but the company of silence, my head had been in dark places. I’d promised him I wouldn’t move this time, and I’d kept my promise, but as one minute bled into five, then ten, my body trembled with the fear that Grayson might’ve been killed.

The icy rain pelted my skin as I slammed into Grayson’s solid chest, my arms wrapping tightly around his muscular frame. When he jerked slightly, I didn’t have time to savor the heat of his chest warming me in the cold air; instead, I pulled back and noted his grimace.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Just a scratch,” he assured.

“A scratch? Wh?—”

“You almost got yourself killed, Ivy!” He dropped his hands into fists at his sides. His features darkened with fury. “What the fuck were you thinking, coming back into the woods?”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Instead, the only sounds were raindrops assaulting the forest while Grayson stood in the midst of it, looking like a dark angel in the moonlight—beautiful and terrifying.

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