This truck was a lot more comfortable than the last one, Willow decided as she rested her head against the back of the seat. Her earlier happiness was starting to return.
They’d find a phone and be home soon, and once they were, she couldn’t wait to hug her family. She knew her parents would go to the compound to wait for her.
Most of her siblings would probably want to go too, but she didn’t think Ronan would allow so many outsiders in at once. She hoped Abby and Brian hadn’t cut their trip short; her sister was looking forward to their vacation.
Still holding Declan’s hand, she clasped it in both of hers and rested it on her thigh. She didn’t know what would happen when they returned to the compound. She suspected he might try to avoid her, and as much as the idea of that made her want to kick him, she couldn’t stop him. Fantastic orgasm or not, she wasn’t going to chase the stubborn fool.
Declan’s hand constricting around hers was how she knew something was wrong before she saw the problem. The murderous look on his face was completely out of place with the tranquil, twilit street.
“Gus, I’m going to need you to turn around,” Declan said.
The air crackled with a force Gus couldn’t feel as Declan took control of his mind. Declan’s power caused the hair on her arms and nape to rise, and the amount of it oozing from him made her wonder if he’d been right and she didn’t know what he was.
“Okay,” Gus said and turned on his blinker as they rounded a bend in the road.
Gus turned onto a street a few feet beyond the bend, but not before Willow saw a police car parked at the end of the main road. A couple of shadowy figures sat inside the vehicle. She sat up straighter as she realized Declan somehow knew that car was there before it came into view.
“What that’s all about?” Gus asked.
Willow suspected it was about them, but how was that possible? They’d lost the Savages in the woods, hadn’t they?
She’d never been so hot and cold at the same time. She was freezing as sweat trickled down her back, and a sense of impending doom descended over her like a downpour sweeping over the land.
The phones were down, one of the roads was blocked, and possibly the other two. She tried not to let her imagination run away from her, but right now, it was gallivanting down numerous paths, and all of them ended with Savages.
“Is that the only road out of town?” Declan asked.
“No,” Gus said. “There are two more, but they go in the opposite direction of the town where we’re going.”
“That’s okay. Right now, we have to get out of this town.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t turn around here,” Declan said when Gus started to pull into a driveway. “Is there another way to get to one of the other roads leading out of town?”
“Yes, but turning around would be faster.”
“It doesn’t matter. Take us another way.”
Gus didn’t speak as he navigated the road. Willow’s good mood was gone as she studied the shadows and searched for the enemy. It was only a fluke. It’s the only road that’s blocked. She kept telling herself this, but she wasn’t exactly buying it.
“How did you know something was there before we turned the corner?” Willow asked Declan. She didn’t worry about Gus hearing their conversation; Declan had control of his mind, and they would have to change his memories now.
“I can sense things,” he said.
Willow stared at him as she tried to ascertain what that meant, but he didn’t elaborate.
“What kind of things?” she prodded.
“Different things,” Declan said.
Willow stared daggers into the side of his head, but he was either oblivious to her death stare or ignoring her. She didn’t know which option was more annoying. She decided not to ask more about it now, they had a few more important things to deal with, but she would find out what those different things were at some point.
“What do you think is going on?” Willow asked.
“I’m not sure,” Declan said. “They could be doing roadwork, and the cop car was there to detour us.”
“There were no signs,” Gus said.
“What?” Willow asked.
“If they were doing roadwork, there would be signs alerting drivers to it, but there were no signs. Besides, whenever there’s going to be roadwork, everyone is discussing it in the town Facebook group for weeks beforehand. No one has mentioned anything.”
“Have they talked about anything else that might explain why the road was blocked?” Declan asked.
“No, but if a tree did come down after the storm and take down the power lines, maybe it came down across that road.”
“Maybe,” Declan muttered. “Let me know when we're on the next road leading out of town.”
“I will,” Gus said.
Declan didn’t like keeping control of the man’s mind, especially since Gus was helping them, but he didn’t have a choice. He needed Gus to do what he commanded, and the man couldn’t remember any of this.
His thumb stroked Willow’s hand as he turned to look at her. The set of her jaw belied the fear he sensed within her. He hated that she was so scared and wished he could take it from her, but he couldn’t.
She would want to know more about him, and he would tell her, but he didn’t feel like discussing his strange ability in front of Gus. He also wasn’t sure how to explain it. He barely understood it himself; he didn’t know how to make another understand it too.
A flash of something in the shadows of a side yard caught Willow’s attention. Over Declan’s shoulder, she watched the creature lope across the yard before vanishing around a porch.
“Savages,” she murmured.
Declan turned to follow where she was looking, but he didn’t see anything. “Where?”
Willow pointed to where it disappeared. “It went into that backyard.”
“The other roads will be blocked too,” Declan said. “If they tracked us here, then they probably went to the police first.”
“What do we do?” Willow asked. “What about Gus and his family?”
“We find a way out of this. And don’t forget I changed the memories of the people at the camp. If the Savages talk with anyone from there, they won’t know we left with Gus. As long as no one knows we’re with them, they’ll be okay.”
“Some of the neighbors saw us, and we don’t know what he told them when he was asking about their phones.”
Shit. “When you went to ask about the phones, did you tell your neighbors about us?” Declan asked Gus.
“No,” Gus said. “I just asked about their phones. If I’d told them about you, it would have taken more time as they would have asked for details. I planned on telling them later.”
“So, it’s only the woman with the bags we have to worry about,” Declan said. “And thankfully, she couldn’t call someone to tell them about seeing strangers at Gus’s house.”
He knew how small towns worked, and that could be a very real possibility.
“Someone else could have seen us,” Willow said.
“We’ll have to do damage control. There were only a few houses where anyone could have seen us. It will be fine.”
She hoped so, but her imagination was being a devious, taunting bitch that she’d love to punch in the face.
“How do we keep the rest of the town safe?” she asked.
“We shouldn’t have to,” Declan said. “They won’t destroy an entire town.”
Or at least he hoped they wouldn’t; he had no idea what the Savages would do anymore. At one time, he never would have expected them to enter a town and involve humans in the affairs of vampires, but that changed when they included the media in their hunt for Elyse.
That was when he realized the Savages weren’t playing by the old rules, and the demons would do anything to get what they wanted. He suspected they weren’t as concerned the humans would find out about them. That troubled him more than anything else they did.
Gus started drumming his fingers on the steering wheel; despite Declan’s control over his mind, he sensed the man’s growing unease. Gus understood his family was in jeopardy and wanted to be with them.
“Drive home, Gus,” Declan said.
“You got it,” Gus said and pulled into the driveway of a small ranch house to turn around.
Light from inside the house spilled across the wraparound porch and illuminated the red eyes of a Savage watching the truck. It was too dark for the creature to see into the cab, and it couldn’t know they were inside the vehicle, but it slipped from the shadows and jogged after them as Gus pulled out of the drive and headed down the road.
“There’s one following us,” Declan said.
Willow closed her eyes as she prepared herself for another battle. This was her life, it was what she signed up for, and she would do it until the day she died. However, there was so much death this week, and they’d been so close to getting free only to have it snatched away from them.
Releasing Declan’s hand, she reached into her jacket and ran her fingers over the stake tucked safely inside. The feel of the stake reassured her, but she’d much prefer a rocket launcher for these things. If she ever got her hands on one, she’d blow them all to pieces.
She glanced at Gus as he sat with a perplexed look on his face. “My family—”
“I’m going to keep them safe,” she vowed.
If it’s the last thing I do. They’d gotten them into this mess, and she would make sure they survived it.
“What is going on?” Gus asked as they drove beneath a streetlight that suddenly came to life.
The Savage slowed in its pursuit before veering off.
“Shit!” Declan hissed. “It saw us.”