Page 25 of Her Keeper
I caught myself in the thought and almost laughed. Since when had I cared about innocent people getting caught up in a life-or-death situation? This was Penny’s life we were talking about—and mine. I didn’t have the luxury of caring about the other people on the road.
The car shot forward, my hands guiding it past one car and then another as we ducked and wove through the traffic. I hit 50 MPH, and then 60, and the guy behind me accelerated right along with me. He slammed through a mailbox and then a trashcan, seeming like he didn’t give a single fuck about keeping the car in one piece, and he was gaining on us, now. Tough to outrun a guy who was willing to hit everything in his path to get to us.
Beside me, Penny was starting to hyperventilate, her eyes on the guy chasing us and her hands clasping the seat so hard I thought she might break it. This was probably the first time she’d ever had something like this happen. She’d lived a sheltered life and wasn’t used to people chasing her or going out of their way to hurt her.
But this happened to me often enough that my breathing was barely even elevated.
In fact, I was starting to figure out how we’d lose this guy.
There was a traffic light ahead and I could already see that we were going to hit it just as it turned red. It was a suicide mission to go across an intersection in this part of town against the light. Even now, when there were fewer cars on the road, you were bound to be hit.
But if I could time it so that we got through the intersection before the other light turned green...
I pressed on the accelerator, pushing our speed up to 70, and steered quickly around one car, then two, and then a third. Moments later we were on the verge of entering the intersection. The light went from yellow to red. Horns blared, tires screeched.
Penny screamed.
Then we were through and racing down the next block, the car untouched and Penny’s screams gone silent.
Behind us, the other car was stopped at the red light, incapable of coming through an intersection crowded with cars coming and going.
I breathed out quietly, thanking whoever had been watching over us when we went through there, and then reached over and took Penny’s hand. “You’re going to be okay,” I told her quietly. “We’re going somewhere safe, and no one’s going to get you there.”
She squeezed my hand and nodded, but didn’t say anything. I could feel her shaking, hear her shallow breaths as she tried to get herself under control. And the guilt was killing me. It was my fault she was in this situation. Everyone had told me not to hire her, told me to keep her out of this world, and instead I’d dragged her right into it. Thinking I was going to keep her safe by keeping her close to me.
God, it was laughable. I’d wanted to protect her, and instead she was running for her life with no one but me to protect her.
11
PENNY
By the time Michael finally came to a stop in front of a house in the suburbs, I felt like we’d been through a war. I also felt like we’d left Brooks’ house hours ago and driven to another state. No one else had followed us after that first car, but that didn’t mean we’d stopped looking. Michael and I had spent the entire drive with our eyes on our mirrors, looking for anyone that was following too closely or taking the same turns we took. We watched the cars behind us and in front of us, and anyone coming onto our street.
God, I’d even watched the pedestrians who walked past us when we were stopped, to see whether they had guns on them or were looking at us too closely. I’d never been more terrified in my life.
And at the same time, I’d never felt safer. Sure, there were people out there hunting for me, ready to shoot me on sight—or so I assumed—but I also had Michael with me, and he’d promised again and again that he wasn’t going to let anyone hurt me. He’d said he was going to keep me safe, and I believed him.
It seemed insane to think that when I was running for my life, but here we were.
When I looked up and realized we were stopped, I cocked my head. I didn’t recognize the house and it looked like no one else was even here.
“Where are we?” I asked, feeling a doubt I hadn’t felt up to this point.
Michael hadn’t changed his mind, had he? Brought me out here to keep me isolated and defenseless while he had his way with me and tortured me for information? I hadn’t thought of it before but now that I did, the idea seemed all too possible.
After all, he’d thought at first that I had sold him out, and now he knew for a fact that I’d passed information to Monica Hart. It would be well within his rights, I supposed, to want to get to the bottom of it and need me on my own to do that.
I turned to him with terrified eyes, hating the thought of going back to being on opposite sides, and he chuckled when he saw my face.
“We just got to the best safe house I have to offer. Why do you look more scared now than you did when we were at Brooks’ house?”
I bit my lip. “Probably because I was pretty sure you weren’t going to be able to kill me while we were at Brooks’ house. Brooks and Sloane would have murdered you if you tried. Here...” I looked at the house and then back to him, trying to figure out whether I could trust him or not. I’d gotten in the car with him sure that I could, but now that we were here...
Michael huffed out a laugh. “So you don’t trust me after all. If I was going to kill you, Penny, I would already have done it. Let’s go.”
And with that, he was out of the car and walking around to my side like he didn’t trust me to get out of the car by myself. He yanked my door open, reached in, and grabbed my arm. “Are you coming or do I need to carry you again?”
Well, this wasn’t going the way I’d thought it would. I yanked my arm out of his hand, suddenly angry. “I can walk on my own, thanks so much.”
