Page 115 of Short, Lethal & Claimed

“I’m scared,” Caleb mumbled sadly as Shane pulled Emily closer to move her out of the way of a man screaming into his phone.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Shane absently said as he looked over his shoulder to make sure that no one was following them before shifting his attention back to the building that he was pretty sure they’d already walked past and added, “We need to keep moving.”

He moved to take a step towards the crosswalk only to sigh heavily and lead the twins off to the side so that he could figureout where they were. “Don’t move,” he said, giving Caleb a look that he prayed that his brother didn’t ignore and pulled his iPad out of the bag he stole from Jill.

“I don’t like it here,” Caleb said as he reached over and grabbed Emma’s hand.

“We’re not staying here,” Shane promised as he pulled up the map that he found a few days ago only to curse when he realized that they were back where they’d started.

Slowly exhaling, Shane looked for the train station that would take them far away from here and give him a chance to figure out what he was going to do until he reached his immortality and could protect them. This had to work because if it didn’t…

He didn’t know what he was going to do.

For the past few months, he’d been biding his time, knowing that he only had a few months before he reached his immortality and they stopped pretending. He knew that there was no way that he would be able to get Caleb and Emma out of the penthouse on his own, not with the shifters and demons guarding the building. He’d been hoping that Jill would figure out a way, but now he knew that she’d been part of this from the beginning. She was in love with the leech and had just been pretending that she was here against her will so that they would trust her.

After he realized that she’d lied to them, Shane started making plans and waited until the perfect moment to make his move. After everyone fell asleep in the closet, he’d waited until Tomas left to do whatever it was that he did for Logan every morning before he put his plan into action. He’d grabbed the backpack that Jill hid beneath the mattress before he made his way to the nightstand and swiped Logan’s cellphone.

Once he managed to wake the twins up and told them that it was time to go, Shane used Logan’s phone to open all the blindsin the house and smashed the control for the closet door shutter before tossing the phone aside and headed downstairs to find the car he’d ordered online for them waiting. Ten minutes later, they were on the first bus heading out of town.

Now, he just needed to figure out where the train station was and everything would be fine. With that, Shane shoved the iPad back in the bag and glanced around them, making sure that they hadn’t been followed before he reached back down and took the twins’ hands in his. “Let’s go,” Shane said, knowing that they needed to keep moving before someone found them.

“We’re lost,” Caleb said, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth as he moved closer to his side.

“We’re not lost,” Shane lied, looking for anything that looked promising.

“Then, where are we?” Caleb asked as he reached over and grabbed hold of his sweatshirt.

“We’re waiting,” Shane said, following that up by muttering, “Come on,” to himself as he searched for help.

“For what?”

“Something,” Shane murmured absently only to swallow hard when the only thing he found was a hot dog vendor glaring at everyone.

In the movies, there were subway and train stations on every street corner, but there was nothing here but cars, huge buildings, and a lot of angry people rushing past them. They’d been walking around for hours looking for the train station, but the only thing they’d managed to do was get lost. He had no idea where they were, but he knew that they needed to keep moving and get out of there before the sun went down.

When he felt Emma’s hand tremble in his, he gave it a reassuring squeeze. Telling himself that everything was going to be fine, Shane found himself watching the hot dog vendor again and-

“Come on,” Shane said, tightening his hold around their hands and quickly made his way over to the hot dog cart only to jump out of the way to avoid the angry humans rushing past them.

“I’m hungry,” Caleb grumbled when they finally reached the cart.

They didn’t have time to eat, but he knew that if he didn’t feed Caleb soon that they’d have problems. “Fine,” Shane said, sighing heavily as he reluctantly released their hands with a mumbled, “Don’t move,” as he pulled the bag off his shoulders so that he could grab their money and-

“Hey!” Shane snapped when the bag was suddenly ripped out of his hands.

He moved to run after the guy who stole their bag only to feel his stomach drop when he felt Emma grab hold of his hand. Swallowing hard, Shane was forced to stand there and watch as the thief ran off with all their money.

“I wanna go home to Mommy,” Caleb mumbled sadly.

“She’s not your mother,” Shane said absently as he grabbed Caleb’s hand and quickly made his way to the hot dog cart.

“You gonna order something, kid?” the man demanded.

“Do you know where the train station is?” Shane asked, deciding that he would figure out how he was going to pay for their tickets later.

Sighing heavily, the man gestured towards the cart. “Either order something or get the hell out of line.”

“Look, we’re lost and-”

---