Page 45 of No Place Left to Hide

Claire drops her pointy-ass finger with a huff. She still doesn’t take her eyes off me. “Fine. I guess you win again, Goodwin. But you can’t keep up this nice-girl facade forever. It’ll crack with or without me.”

“Says the girl who punched her in the face!” Jena shouts at my other side. I realize she’s the one who’s been rubbing my back.

With one final growl, Claire flips us all off and storms out of the lake house. Felix slams the door behind her, and just like that, the infection has been purged.

And all it took was a little blood.

Sixteen

Now

The Subaru spins almost a complete three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. We screech to a stop in the breakdown lane in a cloud of burnt rubber and something that smells distinctly mechanical. I’m honestly not sure how I stopped us.

Autopilot for the win, I guess.

Ialsohave no idea how we missed the deer. I swear I saw a tuft of white hair as we spun out but there’s nothing in the road, living or dead.

I smash the gas pedal to the floor and we take off again. If I can put some distance between us, maybe I can find a driveway to hide in before he can catch up.

Jena’s spewing a string offucks without breathing between them. I reach over and take her hand. “Are you okay?”

She grips it so tight I’m going to lose circulation to my fingers. “Yeah. Did a fucking deer just hit us?”

“As if tonight isn’t strange enough.”

The speedometer climbs past fifty before I can bring myself tolook in the rearview mirror. Reverse lights fill the road behind us. The Bronco makes a U-turn and the roar of their engine tells me we won’t have time to hide before he’ll be on us again.

The steering wheel jerks under my hands, and a heavyclunkcomes from somewhere beneath me, pulling my attention from the mirror. My check engine light blinks on and I groan. What the hell did they do, knock loose an axle?

Jena looks down, like she’ll be able to see through the floorboards. “What the hell was that?”

“No idea.”

I half expect the engine to start smoking or the car to blow up, but it doesn’t. We keep going, but the check engine light stays on. Are we leaking fluid of some kind? I don’t know enough about cars to wonder at the issue, but I know that light is the least of my worries.

My back window fills with high beams again.

This time, instead of fear, rage hits first. Maybe I’m all feared out. Maybe my body can only handle so much panic before it turns into something else. Regardless, that taut string of my patience reaches its limit and snaps.

I grit my teeth. “Who the fuck does Brandon think he is anyway? The guy got suspended for pooping in the urinals at Waldorf. His graduating GPA was 2.6 and all his electives were PE related. No fucking way does he win tonight.”

I sit up straighter, my mind spinning with a plan.

“What are you going to do?” Jena asks, sounding more nervous than she did a second ago. Maybe I sound as on edge as I feel.

“I’m not letting that dirtbag threaten me. Take the wheel.”

“What?!”

I reach down and hit the button for the seat adjuster. The driver’sseat slides back until my foot slips away from the gas pedal. I unbuckle my seatbelt and scoot to the edge of my seat to maintain my speed, then hit the cruise control. I lock it down at eighty-five. “You heard me. Take the wheel at the next straightaway.”

“You’re actually scaring me right now.”

“I’m about to scare him too.” I reach for her hand again and squeeze it. “He needs to be stopped, and I have a plan. But I can’t do it and drive at the same time. I need you to help me.”

I guide us around a bend. There’s a long straightaway that follows. When she doesn’t answer me, I glance over. She gapes at me in the darkness. I hold her stare for as long as I can without driving off the road, and she groans.

“Dammit… Fine!”

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