Page 65 of Secret Shifters Next Door

She took my shoulder and not so roughly pushed me into the car. “You’re distraught. You need a ride. I’m not letting my friend go through this alone in public. Let’s go.”

Emily closed the door behind me. I surreptitiously checked the handle, and a spike of fear hit me when I found the child locks were on. I couldn’t open the door. My eyes were big as saucers by the time she circled the car and jumped in. This was not part of the plan. Where was Steff? Where were the cops and Tate? Emily’s tires squealed as she pulled away from the curb.

One last glance back told me I was on my own. My heart pounded. Emily was a scam artist. She milked old people out of their money. She didn’t kill anyone, she wasn’t violent. At least, I hoped she wasn’t.

“Um… where are we going?” I asked, as she passed the turn that I would usually use to go home.

Ignoring my question, she punched the steering wheel, making me jump. “Filthy damned animals. Disgusting. I can’t believe this.”

Her voice was almost out of control, vibrating with anger and… what? Revulsion? The car slowly ticked up in speed. Going from thirty, to fifty, then to seventy miles an hour. Stealing glances at her, I clutched at the armrest and wrapped another hand around my growing belly.

Emily continued staring out the window and mumbled, “They all need to be eradicated. A full cleansing of the earth. It’s all they deserve.” Snapping out of her strange trance, she turned to me and said, “I’m so sorry. This isn’t how I wanted all this to go.”

“For… what? Howwhatwas supposed to go?” I asked, my fear building with every second. She seemed unhinged.

Emily shook her head and chuckled ruefully. She looked back at the road, and I noticed something impossible. Her hands. I had to be hallucinating. All the little creases in Emily’s knuckles were glowing. Almost like light was shining through them. I blinked, and instead of the light disappearing, it seemed to have spread. Now, the light was faintly radiating from both her hands. What the hell was going on? The world had taken on a surreal quality. So much so that I dug my nails into my leg, hoping to wake myself up from whatever fevered dream I was in. Unfortunately, I was already awake.

“This is all my fault,” Emily said, sounding apologetic. “It’s my fault that piece of shit found you.”

Snapping my head toward her, I said, “Luis?”

“No,” she said, exasperated. “Tate. He would have never found you if it wasn’t for me. You’d have gone your whole life without ever knowing it was even alive. But I forced it to find you.”

Nothing made sense, and why was she calling TateIt? Already I was wondering if, maybe, Miles had been wrong. Had she done more than steal money? Was she dangerous? My God, what if she was a serial killer or something? Every word she was saying sounded insane. I continued to huddle close to the door, putting as much space between Emily and myself as I could. Then the car picked up a little more speed, and I swallowed hard. We were rushing into the mountains, the wilderness.

“Don’t worry, Harley, I’m going to take care of everything. Tate will be the first to pay. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Wha… what does that mean, Emily?”

She looked at me, her eyes wild with rage and anger, psychotic eyes that sent shivers of terror into my soul. This was not the woman I’d gotten to know over the last few months. This was some other person entirely.

She hissed, “Every shifter, every single one of them, needs to be eradicated.”

“What the hell is a shif?—”

Before I could finish my question, I felt a thump behind us as the car was rear ended. A short yelp burst out of my mouth, and I tugged at my seatbelt, only to realize I hadn’t buckled it. I clicked it home and looked at Emily. She was checking her mirror, her teeth bared like an animal.

“You know, you’ve got shit taste in men, sweetie. First, you fuck a gangster, then you bed a damned shifter. You’ve got to try better, Harley.”

There it was again. What the hell was a shifter? Emily was deranged, that was the only explanation. Before she could sayanything else, another car shot in front of us. It wasn’t the car that had hit us. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see it was a white van, but the windshield was too dark for me to see the driver. I recognized the car in front of us as Steff’s car. I took a breath, knowing he was here. I wasn’t alone, but why just him? Where the hell were the cops? They’d said the cops would be nearby.

Emily leaned on the steering wheel and screamed at her windshield, “You’ll all pay. All of you animals.” Spit flew from her lips and spattered the glass as she screamed, fully unhinged now.

Another car slammed into the back of us. Emily’s hands slipped from the wheel as we were pushed into the car in front of us. Steff’s rear end spun around, and he slid off onto the shoulder. Our car began to spin out of control, pushed along by the car behind us. My hands dug into the upholstery, my teeth bared, bracing for impact. We were going at least seventy when the rear tires went off the road, and hit a tree stump. The car lifted, and we flipped through the air. I wrapped my arms around my belly, asking every God there might be in the universe to save my baby.

As my stomach did barrel rolls while the car spun in the air, a strange pulse of energy burst through the car. It rippled through, and it almost was like the air itself became thick and viscous. The car’s flip slowed and then stopped. While we were still in the air. I opened my eyes and saw Emily, her hands thrust out, glowing like miniature suns. Sweat beaded on her face and dripped down her cheeks. She looked like she was straining hard, almost as though she was holding the car up herself, but that was impossible––as equally impossible as the glow of her hands. Knowing that my mind must have snapped, I leaned back as the car slowly lowered to the ground and came to rest againsta tree that we’d been about to slam into when… whatever it was had happened.

My breath hissed in and out of my lungs like I’d run a marathon. I looked at Emily. She was slumped over. If Ifeltlike I’d run a marathon, she looked like she’dactuallyrun three or four in a row. She looked absolutely exhausted.

“Emily?” I gasped. “What in the hell just happened.”

Emily lifted her head as though it weighed a hundred pounds. Her eyes were half-lidded. She opened her mouth to speak, but she never got the words out. Her groggy eyes snapped open in surprise. Instead of speaking, I heard her scream, then I heard the passenger window behind me shatter. Before I could turn, a hand slid around my head. A gloved hand pressed something against my face. I slapped at the hand once, and then everything went dark.

TWENTY-SEVEN

TATE

Things had gone sideways in a bad way. My truck literally couldn’t go any faster, no matter how hard I stomped on the gas. My panic was almost enough to make driving dangerous. My heart was jackhammering, and I was sure it would tear free of my chest any second now. I’d never been so worried in my life.

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