Page 84 of Montana Falls
“Be… be careful.” He stared at me, a strange look on his face. “I’ll be right behind you, okay? Don’t do anything stupid until I get there and just… just be safe. Cassie is… she’s… just be safe.”
“Okay.” I promised. “I’ll behave.” I turned back to Price when my brother walked away to stop Kody from trying to fight a firefighter so he could go and rescue his cousin. “Let’s hope Sapphire kept that crown on. I put a tracker in it for her.”
Price blinked. “A tracker? Jesus, you really are a genius, aren’t you?”
“I wanted it so I can track her, and we’d know if she was gone; there’s another one in her shoes too, and in one of the rings she always wears. But…” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I don’t know if Cassie will take them off her. I don’t know if they will work. But I figured it was better than nothing.”
Within moments, the screen lit up with Sapphire’s location, a blinking dot on the map leading her away from us.
My trackers were live and all of them were working.
Our girl wasn’t going to be lost again. Not now. Not ever.
“She’s heading south,” I said, my pulse quickening. “We need to find a car or something – we can catch her faster through the main road, not the woods.”
Without another word, we sprinted toward the driveway, where Lincoln’s car was parked. I reached for the driver’s side door, but the pain in my hands was unbearable as I grabbed it, and I flinched, unable to grip the handle properly.
“I can’t drive.” I muttered through gritted teeth, my frustration boiling over. “We’re going to have to wait for-”
“I’ll drive,” Price said firmly. “Get in the passenger seat.”
I turned to him in surprise. Sure, he knew how to drive in the paper sense. He knew what pedal did what and that he had to steer away from other things. But he’d never sat behind the wheel.
Never once even hinted at being able to do it.
“Are you sure?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “You don’t need to do that. I can fight through the pain or something and-”
He nodded, his eyes filled with determination as he yanked open the passenger door, then hurried to the driver’s side as he cut me off again. “I’ll do it. For her – I’d do it for you too if I had to.”
I swallowed hard, my chest tight with emotions that I had no time to say out loud as we got into the car, and as soon as Price turned the key, the engine roared to life. He hesitated for just a second before flooring the gas, sending the car speeding down the driveway and onto the road with only the slightest of groans from the car protesting his janky movements.
The tires screeched as we took the turns too fast; the landscape blurring past us. My heart raced, not just from the speed, but fromeverything.
We were far too close to trees. Fences. Other cars. Our speed was reckless and dangerous and I did not feel safe with it like Idid with Lincoln. I was almost gripping the edge of my seat with one hand and holding on for dear life, sure we were going to crash before we got to where we needed to go.
“You okay?” I asked, glancing at Price as we sped through the streets, and I kept dishing out directions from the tracker and he kept driving over sidewalks, gardens, and whatever the fuck else he needed to.
His hands gripped the wheel tightly, his knuckles white. “I’m fine. Just… keep talking to me. Keep me focused.”
I nodded, doing my best to keep him grounded as we raced towards our girl and the city rushed past us. With every mile, I could feel the tension building inside me and I didn’t know how I would cope when it finally exploded.
I didn’t know what I would do.
Chapter Twenty Eight
The heat was unbearable, and I was sure I was going to die. Thick, choking smoke filled the small reading room I’d been hiding in, curling in through the cracks between the door and the debris, suffocating in the air. I could barely breathe, my lungs struggling against the bitter sting of ash and burning wood. My vision swam, the fire roaring somewhere beyond the walls, casting flickering shadows through all the cracks that danced like demons across the room.
The Montana mansion was burning down around us, and we were trapped.
Fuck.
“Yeva,” Rika’s voice came from behind me, weak but trying to sound like it wasn’t. “Do you think I’m pretty? Tell me that I am pretty before I die in such a bad way.”
I turned and knelt beside her, my breath shallow, the heat making it hard to think. She had a nasty gash on her forehead,blood streaking down the side of her face, mixing with the soot and sweat. Her tawny skin was too pale, her eyes fluttering in and out of focus as she leaned back against the wall, her lips twitching into a faint, almost absurdly calm smile.
Even with all that, she was still flirting with me and pretending everything was fine. It was honestly ridiculous, but I kind of liked it. It helped me panic less about being trapped in a place I could not escape. And sure, had she been a man, I would have sown her mouth shut for the things she kept saying to me. But she was a woman, and I also knew she was joking; Rika flirted with her own reflection sometimes. She was just funny like that.
“You already know you are pretty,” I said, gripping her hand. “But maybe we can talk of things later. Right now, we’re getting out of this death and fire.”
