Page 104 of Claimed by an Alien Warrior

Their tires wailed as she slowed to take the sharp turn. Fortunately, the road he’d directed her onto was fairly straight, and she floored the accelerator.

Ren twisted to look behind them. “I don’t know how they found us. You may be correct about them tracking my interference with electronics. I think Stantz also knew my ship was somewhere in this area. He implied that they’d detected its impact but had been unable to locate it. He might not have known all along, but our path might have led him directly to it.”

Headlights appeared in the rearview mirror. They grew from pinpricks of illumination to terrifying, unblinking eyes of fire in the darkness.

“Oh shit. They’re coming, Ren.”

“Drive faster, Zoey.”

She squeezed the wheel as she lurched into the left lane to pass a slower vehicle. The headlights of an oncoming car glared at her, but she swerved back into the right lane before causing an accident.

She followed the road around a curve, pressing the pedal down once it straightened out again. Fear and adrenaline sped her pounding heart. The homes that lined either side of the road rapidly thinned, until Zoey and Ren were left on a pitch-black country highway, zipping past snowy fields and copses of leafless trees.

A huge pool of light swung out from one of the fields and came toward them. Zoey leaned forward and gazed up to see a low-flying helicopter silhouetted against the dark clouds.

“Oh, my God,” Zoey said. She sat back and looked in the mirror. The vehicles behind them had fanned out to drive in both lanes, the SUV in front taking the center with two more flanking it. “Ren, what do we do?”

“We drive as far as we can, and when we stop, we go on foot.”

“They have helicopters!”

“We’ll figure it out, Zoey. Trust me.”

“How can you be so calm about this?”

She chanced a glance at him. His eyes were on her, gleaming with a strange, deep sadness. “This is all I knew for my entire life. Before you.”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

She screamed as a burst of bullets hit the road in front of them, kicking up chunks of asphalt.

“We aren’t going to die,kun’ia,” Ren shouted over her scream. “They want me alive. They won’t risk it, especially if they think I’m leading them to—”

Another burst of gunfire struck the road, panged on the hood of their car, and punched through the roof. There was a loudpopas something heavy struck Zoey’s thigh. She inhaled sharply, and warmth spread over her leg. The front end of the SUV bounced viciously.

They blew out a tire, and I’ve been shot, she thought dazedly.Always figured it would hurt more…

Then the SUV decided it had had enough of driving straight and swerved wildly to the side. The slick road offered no traction. She could almost hear its voice in her delirious mind —guess you shouldn’t’ve been driving so fast, huh?— just before the SUV flipped.

“Zoey!” Ren shouted.

Zoey was weightless for a split second. Ren wrapped his arms around her, crushing her against him as the SUV landed on its roof and continued tumbling. Strangely, she felt no pain. Ren’s body jolted with the impact, and her head struck something beside her — the window, or maybe the door. The sound was the worst part, all crunching steel and shattering glass and tons of machinery protesting at such harsh treatment.

The SUV came down on the driver’s side. She felt a strange pinch in her arm, and then the rolling continued. When the world finally stilled, and the tension in Ren’s body eased slightly, Zoey peeked past his arms to see that the vehicle had landed — rather lopsidedly — on its wheels.

Nailed it.

She might’ve laughed at any other time, but she couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t fill her lungs.

Her ears rang, and her vision dimmed to black.

Zoey.

The voice in her head sounded a lot like Ren, if he were calling her underwater, or through a stack of pillows.

There was so much pain now, pain everywhere.

Zoey!

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