Page 68 of Visions of Darkness

And we flew.

In that same shock, I shifted to look at the man who clutched the steering wheel.

His jaw clenched.

Ferocity radiating from his skin.

And I knew there was nothing in this life that would remain the same.

Chapter Seventeen

Aria

“Are you okay?” Pax’s question sliced through the tension, eyes slanting between me and the road and the rearview mirror as we sped away from the facility.

The road blurred beneath us, and I whipped my attention over my shoulder to look behind us, too.

There was no movement beyond the rear window, and I flipped around to face forward, pressing my back into the seat and gasping for the oxygen I couldn’t seem to find. “I ... I think so.”

A cloak of darkness rested over the Earth, and the heavens were heavy and low. A steady drizzle fell, and our headlights blurred through the murky fog.

Pax’s fierce jaw clenched as he glanced in the rearview again before he made a quick right, the tires screeching as he peeled into a neighborhood, though he slowed his speed when he made another quick left before taking a right into a dark, empty alley.

My breaths were short and ragged, and I still clung to the door, sucking for air as I attempted to settle my heart, which rattled in my chest, to slow the furious pounding of blood that slugged through my veins.

My mind was disoriented, but my spirit was sharp.

Pax’s breaths were just as harsh, and his eyes continually flicked up to the rearview mirror to ensure we weren’t being followed. Tension bound the cab, lashes of energy striking through the cramped, enclosed space.

Heavy and ripe with questions I had no idea how to ask.

Unease rippled and blew.

It was as if now that the facility had disappeared behind us, neither of us knew where we stood.

Were able to process the line that had been crossed.

The rule that had been broken.

A fate that should never be.

The truth that we were here.

Alive and real and whole. No longer a figment or a fantasy.

It was surreal, being in someone’s space, someone who knew you best, yet they still could be a complete stranger.

Familiar yet distant.

Unmistakable yet indiscernible.

A shiver rocked through me, my clothes drenched, and an icy chill sank down to saturate me to the bone.

Pax trembled, too, though I thought it might be from the aggression that still radiated from his flesh. The way his muscles flexed and bowed with a restrained power.

I drank him in.

He was so much the same as I knew him in Tearsith. A shock of white hair, cropped up high on the sides and longer on top. His jaw was edged in severity. Cheeks razor sharp, every angle of him so acute that I thought if I reached out and ran my fingertips over his face I might be cut.

---