Smoke wafted from Killean’s fingers as he merged the car onto the highway. When they’d had the truck, he avoided the main roads, but now he saw them as his savior. Joseph may be able to monitor them on the highways better than the back roads, but he wouldn’t come after them if there were too many witnesses. He would wait until Killean was somewhere remote, so he had to avoid those places if he could.
Killean removed his smoking hand from the wheel and replaced it with his other one. Blisters immediately broke out on his flesh. After only a few minutes on the road, he’d discarded the towels when they nearly caught fire, and now his hands were fully exposed to the UV light.
Some of the other drivers gave him strange looks when they passed, but he ignored them. He may look odd in his shroud, but he would look odder with flames shooting out of his head.
Simone gazed worriedly at Killean as the flesh on his fingers peeled back to reveal his sinew and then the tips of his bones. The set of his jaw and a muscle twitching in the corner of his right eye were the only indications he gave of pain.
“Maybe I can try driving,” she offered as he switched hands again.
“Not on the highway,” he murmured. “Not for your first time.”
Thankfully, he’d discovered sunglasses in the car, but his eyes still stung behind the dark lenses, and he kept blinking against the light. It was a good thing he’d fed on the woman as he weakened every time his body healed the burns it sustained. After a while, his healing ability couldn’t keep up with the burns, and his skin stopped completely repairing itself before he had to switch hands again.
He glanced at the GPS in the center of the dash. He’d programmed it to avoid tollbooths; he may be able to change the memories of the collector, but he couldn’t alter what was on the cameras monitoring those tolls.
In the rearview mirror, he searched for someone following them, but he hadn’t seen any of the same cars since leaving the motel. But whoever had been at the motel wouldn’t have to follow them; they could monitor the car’s GPS from afar. They needed a new ride, but he couldn’t get out of this one until nightfall; he hoped the constant healing wouldn’t have him too exhausted to do what was necessary when that time came.
He also hoped the couple they’d left behind would remain undiscovered and tied up until they acquired a new car. They couldn’t risk being stopped by the police while driving a stolen car. Unable to change the woman’s memories, he’d made a slit in her neck to hide his bite and left it to their booted stalker to do what was necessary to cover their tracks. And if their stalker decided not to do it, the drugs Killean left in plain view would explain whatever tales the couple spun to whoever found them.
Killean switched hands again. “Can you get the phone?”
Simone opened the glove box to pull out the woman’s phone. “There are a dozen missed calls,” she murmured as she gazed at it. She wasn’t familiar with the things, but that’s what the words on the screen said.
“I didn’t hear it ring. Is it on silent?”
Simone turned it over in her hand before hitting a button that lit up the screen, but it didn’t reveal anything. “I… I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“The hunters didn’t teach you about cell phones either?” he asked.
“They were starting to before I left Nathan’s stronghold; I chose not to learn,” she admitted.
Killean extended his charred fingers toward her. “Let me see it.”
Simone winced at his brutalized skin, but she handed the phone over before she accidentally broke it.
Killean frowned when he saw the missed calls were all from the same number and all within the past hour. For every call, there was a voice mail. Whoever was calling wasn’t a contact of the woman’s as the phone didn’t reveal a name, only a number. He glanced at the road before turning his attention back to the phone as it lit up in his hand with another incoming call. The phone made no noise, but the same number displayed on the screen.
Killean waited for voice mail to pick up and the call to end before scrolling through to listen to the first message. He hit speaker and set the phone in the cup holder as he switched hands.
“Hello, Killean.” His grip tightened on the steering wheel, and his charred skin broke apart when Joseph’s voice filled the car. “I see you.”
The message ended when Joseph hung up. Beside him, Simone’s hands gripped her thighs, and her lower lip trembled. She cast him a fearful glance before gazing around the car.
“Hit delete,” Killean instructed her.
Simone gulped, found the delete button, and pushed it.
“Now hit the arrow in the middle,” Killean said.
When Simone did, Joseph’s voice came over the speaker again. “Peek-a-boo.”
The sick feeling in her stomach grew as she deleted it before moving onto the next message. “I seeeeee you.”
Then the next one. “She sure is a purty one, Killean. I always was a sucker for a beautiful lady myself, but I think there’s something more between you, isn’t there?”
“I’m going to kill him,” Killean muttered.
Simone went through the rest of the taunting messages and deleted the last one before the phone started ringing again. Before Simone could figure out what to do, Killean hit the green button on the screen. The ringing stopped, but he didn’t speak.
“Well, helllllooo,” Joseph purred. “I was wondering when you’d answer.”
“Joseph,” he greeted dryly.
“Killean.”
The silence stretched until Simone’s fingers became cramped from clenching her legs so fiercely. She glanced between Killean, the phone, and back again. She swore some of the smoke wafting from Killean had nothing to do with the sun and everything to do with the fury he exuded.
“Do you really think you’re going to get away from me, Killean?” Joseph asked.
“I already have.”
“Ahh, but you haven’t gotten far at all. You’re only about a hundred miles from where you started. Quite a pathetic escape attempt in all honesty.”
Killean didn’t respond as he switched lanes to pass a Mac truck. Pressing on the gas, he surged past the truck and over in front of it. Unwilling to risk being pulled over and caught on the camera in a police car, Killean had kept his speed down, but now he wanted to floor it all the way to the state border.
Instead, he eased off the gas as he struggled to rein in the Savage side of him seeking to be freed.
“And where are you going to go?” Joseph inquired. “We both know Ronan won’t take you back; you’re too far gone. All enshrouded against the sun—”
Killean hung up when Simone gasped. She stared at the screen in horror before her gaze swung to him. “He is watching us!”
“He had someone at the motel who saw us leave,” Killean said. “And this car has GPS; he’s probably tracking our every move.”
“What do we do?”
“We wait until night, and then we switch vehicles.”
“But if he’s tracking this vehicle, won’t he know when we stop? And won’t he know which vehicle we switch into.”
Killean had been hoping she wouldn’t think of that; he didn’t want her to worry any more than necessary. “It’s a possibility.”
“Killean…” Her words trailed off when the screen lit up again. Killean hit the red button, and it went black.
“He’s going to kill us,” she whispered.
“I’m going to keep you safe,” he vowed. He didn’t tell her they would probably prefer death if Joseph got his hands on them.
The screen lit up again, and Killean hit the decline button. This went on for the next five minutes before the screen lit up with words instead of a number.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Text message,” Killean replied. “Read it to me.”
Simone lifted the phone from the cup holder. “It says… It’s not Joseph. Answer the phone.”
She had no idea why, but a chill ran down her spine at the cryptic words. Unlike Kadence and Nathan, she didn’t have any gifts, but her instincts screamed a warning at her now.
“You have to answer when it rings,” she said.
The distress in her voice drew Killean’s attention. Somehow, he knew the creature in the bunker was the one who sent the message, and so did Simone. The screen lit up to reveal the same number once more. Simone stared at it while the seconds ticked by and the screen continued to glow.
“Please, Killean,” she whispered.
He hit the green button.
“Killean.”
The unfamiliar, ancient voice made him think of cobwebbed crypts and sandstorms blowing across desert roads. Killean rested a blackened hand briefly on Simone’s knee when she started rapidly tapping her foot.
“That would be me,” he said.
There was a brief pause before the creature spoke again. “I’m going to make you a one-time offer. I’ll let you keep the girl. I’ll even let you keep her as she is and not turn her into a Savage if you return to me now.”
“And why would you make such an offer?” Killean asked.
“Because it’s you I want. The girl is a nonentity.”
Simone’s back straightened as resentment boiled within her. She’d lived most of her life as a nonentity, and she refused to be considered one by this thing.
“I’d prefer not to kill you, but I will,” the creature continued.
“And what would Joseph prefer?” he asked.
“Whatever I say he does.”
So this thing was the brain behind Joseph’s operation, but what was that brain plotting? Killean pulled his hands off the wheel and propped his knee against the bottom to steer for a little bit.
“And what do you want me for?” Killean inquired.
“You can bring Ronan to my side.”
Killean almost laughed at the notion this thing believed that could be a possibility. However, he suspected laughing might bring the full wrath of this creature down on them. It may prefer him alive, but it would also splatter him like a bug on a windshield, and it knew where they were.
“I see,” Killean murmured.
“And if you can’t bring him to my side, then you’ve at least been with him for a while, and I suspect you know more of his weaknesses than Joseph does.”
Killean opened his mouth to tell it Ronan had no weaknesses, but he wouldn’t reveal anything about Ronan to this creature. Besides, it would have been a lie, and he suspected this creature already knew that Ronan had one very big weakness in the form of his mate.
Killean glanced at Simone as she glared at the phone. He had one huge weakness now too.
“Plus,” the creature said, “you’re an extremely powerful vampire, Killean. I sensed it when we passed in the hall. If the girl is your mate, then you’ll be even more powerful, and I like power. You can keep the girl, as she is if you come to me before tonight.”
Killean stared at the road as he contemplated a response that wouldn’t get them killed in the next hour. “And where would I go to find you?”
Simone shot him a look.
“I’ll call back with a location; answer when I do.”
The phone went dead, and only the hum of the tires punctuated the silence.
“I’d rather be dead than have either of us under that thing’s control,” Simone finally said.
Killean winced at the mention of her death, but he wasn’t sure how to prevent it from happening. They were under a microscope right now. If he turned himself in, he would be handing himself over to become a monster, but they would keep Simone alive if only because they could use her to control him. To have her under the control of such a thing was unthinkable, but even more unthinkable was her death.
“Killean,” she said when he didn’t reply. She knew he didn’t want to be a puppet against Ronan, but he would do what he believed necessary to keep her alive. “I mean it, Killean.”
He shifted his knee and reclaimed the wheel with one of his barely healed hands. Even with the woman’s blood so fresh in him, he was weakening fast. When that thing came after them later, and it would, he wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight against it.
“If you turn yourself over because of me, I’ll never forgive you, and I’ll blame myself,” she said. “Besides, it won’t let me stay as I am, and we both know it.”
She was right. If he turned himself over, they would be allowed to live, but the vampires they were now would cease to exist. Though he would lay down his life for her, he couldn’t let them destroy her in such a way.
“Killean,” she said when he lifted the phone and punched in another number.
“I’m not calling them,” he assured her.
“Speak,” Saxon said after the third ring.
“It’s me, and we’ve got a problem.” Killean proceeded to fill him in on everything that had happened since they last spoke.
“Shit,” Saxon muttered when Killean finished. “Do you know the license plate number of that car?”
“Can you look in the glove box for the registration?” he asked Simone.
When she stared at him in confusion, he inwardly cursed the hunters for making her so vulnerable and asked her to pull the papers out. He spotted the registration as she sorted through everything. He had her hold it so he could read the plate number to Saxon.
“Maybe Declan can do something with it,” Saxon said. “Call you back at this number?”
“Yeah, and if you don’t hear from me again, it’s because we’re dead.”
Killean hung up before Saxon could reply and leaned back in his seat. The sun was sinking behind the horizon and his skin was burning at a slower rate, but this knowledge didn’t ease the turmoil churning within him.
Simone rested her hand on his knee and squeezed it.