Page 60 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

It was kind of funny. At least a little bit.

I had a small army of hellish creatures begging me to get them into Heaven, and I’d just turned down a one-way ticket to the place from a verified angel. I should have asked Evander if that shit was transferable. Passed it along to someone who wanted it.

Why would I go to Heaven? I was happy here. Happier by the minute, in fact.

Standing from the car brought the usual headrush, and I leaned into it. Bent all the way backward like I was being dipped in a dance. Let my eyes flutter closed while moonlight washed over my face. Then I giggled. Snort laughed.

I was home, and safe, and everything waswonderful.

Straightening made the world spin again. Everything was dark and bright with stars speckling the black sky and strings of lights spiderwebbing across the trailer park. They twinkled and winked, and I winked back.

It was a bit like the club here if I squinted just right. The Firebird’s speakers had decent bass, enough to make the side panels buzz, so I could even bring the jams. Be my own DJ. Party in the parking lot. Work off some of this energy before I slipped back into bed and let my mind run wild.

My head cocked as I surveyed the trailer park once more. I could spin my tires, kick up some gravel dust for fog, flip my headlights on and off like a strobe, get something todrink…

A dark silhouette interrupted my party scene dream: a figure coming closer.

For a blip of a moment, I thought Evander had teleported himself here somehow to give me hell. But this person was taller and slimmer with long, dark hair and a face that came clear as he passed under a lot light.

“Baby!” I exclaimed, beaming a grin.

This was perfect. This was better.

Dancing was more fun with a partner, and I was eager to relive the feeling of Loren’s body on mine. Long fingers wrapped around my hips, strong arms boxing me in, his chest cushioning my head while I rubbed my ass on his crotch. First, get him hot and bothered, then let him bend me over the Pontiac’s back end out here in the open air. For a supposedly heavenly being, I had quite an appetite for godless behavior.

“Loren!” I bounced on my bare feet. “Dance with me! Will you spin me, baby? I wanna spin…”

Wait.

Shit.

Not perfect. Not better.

He was supposed to be asleep. Not wandering around the trailer park looking like…

I focused on his face as he rushed toward me.

His cheeks were flushed, eyelashes clumped, and his face had a sheen of moisture that was unmistakable.

He’d been crying.

He was fully dressed, had his boots on and everything. They crunched against the gravel as he closed the gap, and I fought the urge to run the other way. To dive into my car and hide the X that felt like lead in my pocket. I still wasn’t sure if he could sniff the damn things or smell them on me, oozing out of my pores.

“Indy?”

His voice was a croak and, fuck, I needed to be sober for this. I scrubbed my hands over my face, wondering if I could slap myself out of the high taking me steadily up, up, up.

Loren crashed into me with a full-body hug that lifted me off the ground.

Baby, I almost chirped again because he felt so goddamn good. He could hug me like this forever. Crush me, and I’d die a happy man.

But he was shaking. His hand clasped the back of my head—cradled it—and was the car running?

“Where were you?” he rasped.

Excuses trickled in, and I tried to remember which ones had worked before. Which ones he believed because Ineededhim to believe me. More than that, I needed him to turn his ass around and go back to bed and let me ride this out. Faking sobriety was like passing for straight: I was shit at it.

Then, he spoke again, and the stream of lies coursing through my head crashed into a dam.

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