Page 46 of The Wayward Sons & The Vampires of Fortune
“It’s fire, right?” He beamed as he showed off my flannel shirt—my favorite flannel, to be exact. “I look so old.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I grumbled while Sam laughed. “Why is he wearing my clothes?”
“To make sure he smells like you,” Sam whispered, giving me a strong inkling that this kid had no idea what he was involved in. He held open the door for the kid. “Drive like hell. Don’t stop until you hit the pin dropped on the GPS. Half the money has been sent to your Cash App. The other half will be sent to you after you deliver the car to its location.”
“Easiest thousand dollarsever!” he exclaimed. He was all too eager to slide into the driver’s seat. “This car is lit! Even if it is missing the front windshield. Why’s it missing—”
“Drive safe,” Sam cut him off.
“You got it, boss man.” The kid saluted—dutiful and serious in a way that wasn’t convincing, considering the gleeful waves of joy washing over him.
“You can’t seriously let him out there—”
“He’s human,” Sam interrupted, and I made a face. “They’ll catch your scent on him, but as soon as they’re close, they’ll realize he’s human and not give a fuck. By the time they do, we should be long gone.”
I stood there watching him as he closed the big door and moved to the other side of the garage. He pulled the tarp off a second car, revealing the most nondescript four-door sedan possible. Unlike the first car, this one wouldn’t stand out.Good.
“We’re not stopping until we cross the state,” he informed me. “The bathroom is back there, and I already have snacks in the car. Once we get on the road, I’ll get you on the phone with Gray. You get five minutes, and then we need to get the fuck out of here.”
I didn’t waste time as I headed to the back of the garage. While I didn’t need to go to the bathroom, I did need a minute.
Inside the tiny room, I didn’t bother turning the light on. I welcomed the dark and the quiet. No emotions going haywire. No surges of adrenaline. No yelling. No fighting. No screaming.
Just the dark and the quiet.I needed it. Badly.
I splashed cold water on my face, letting it seep into my skin. It wasn’t enough to make me feel better, but it did take the edge off. That’d have to do.
I was torn—stuck between wanting to stay hidden in the bathroom to recoup and wanting to get the hell out of there. Getting the hell out of there meant spending what? Hours? Maybe hours with Sam in the car. I didn’t like him, and I sure as fuck didn’t want to spendquality timewith him, even if he did save my life.
But I wanted to get back to Gray and then…
And then what?
Well, I didn’t have a clue what we were going to do next. Where did we go from here? The whole point of my going to prison was so that Gray would be safe and so would I. Did we just stick to the road constantly with vampire-killing bullets loaded in our guns?
I sighed and ran my hands over my face once more. We couldn’t live like that.Gray didn’t deserve a life like that.
Every question led to another question and then another. I did my best to clamp down on them—to keep my rampant anxiety at bay as the adrenaline began to wear off. There was no point in dealing with those thoughts. Not here in a garage bathroom.
Still, I ate up every second of the five minutes I could just to revel in the silence before being trapped in a car with Sam. I used that time to rapidly rebuild what I could of my emotional barriers. It wasn’t much, but it’d have to do.
The single light in the garage was off when I came out.Odd.Before I had any chance to figure out why, a hand clamped tightaround my mouth and an arm locked around my chest. I was dragged back against the wall—hard and fast.
Sam made a quiet shushing sound in my ear, his breath uncomfortably hot against the shell of my ear.
I was ready to push him off, but then I heard it.
The rapid clicking in the dark.
CHAPTER 32
My heart lodged in my throat. Neither Sam nor I moved as the vampire surveyed the garage, that awful clicking growing louder. We were only safe for so long while we hid.
Was it just the one?
Or more?
Were we surrounded?
