Whiteout (Aurora Sky

by Nikki Jefford

  Hell, why bother driving when they could fly? The agency was on an air force base. They could send a helicopter up the highway.

  A cold sweat broke out along my hairline.

  They’d probably wait until morning if they were going to send a helicopter. Right now it was pitch black, and they’d be focused on Fairbanks. Perhaps they’d fly straight there and begin the search at the last known sighting.

  Shit!

  Or they could be around the next bend in the road.

  It didn’t matter what Melcher had up his sleeves. Being on the road was too risky. Regardless of that, gut instinct told me I’d made the wrong choice.

  To go back to Anchorage was to give up.

  I slowed the vehicle. “Oh hell!” I bellowed into the car.

  It wasn’t as if Dante had forced me on this trip. If anything, I’d set the whole damn thing in motion. I’d rescued Giselle in Sitka, which led to Dante’s capture. I’d drugged Jared and tried to shoot him, which led to our abrupt departure from town. Dante’s world had turned upside down as much as mine had. The agency he loved had betrayed him. They’d turned him into the thing he’d been trained to scorn and hunt. I’d sprung it all on him in the heat of the moment. The lies. The corruption. The fact that we weren’t fully human. And what had Dante done? Taken my word for it and stuck by my side.

  I couldn’t abandon him now. For better or worse, we’d see this thing through together.

  Decision made, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. Dante would be so relieved when I radioed him that I’d come back. I just needed to find a place to turn around.

  Being the only one on the road had its advantages. I could slow the car to ten miles per hour and not worry about a vehicle barreling into me from behind. I checked my mirrors to be safe, but all was dark, like viewing the world through tinted glasses. Might as well do a U-turn in the middle of the road. It was a one-lane highway on either side, so I wanted to make certain there was enough shoulder to accommodate a U-ey. The last thing I needed out here was a flat tire or to dive nose first into a snowbank.

  I slowed almost to a stop, ready to make a one-eighty when headlights in the distance caught my attention. Under normal circumstances, a light in the darkness should have provided comfort, like a beacon when you’ve been lost at sea. Instead, it struck terror in my heart—a feeling like the voyage was over and I was about to capsize and drown.

  It could be a random person driving through the interior in the middle of the night. That was hardly out of the question.

  But in my heart I knew.

  I pressed on the gas. It would look suspicious if I suddenly turned around or coasted too far below the speed limit. I didn’t want to give the driver any reason to take notice. Damn it! I should have kept the blue wig. Not that it mattered. It was too dark. They wouldn’t notice anything if they passed.

  As the vehicle neared, it was plain to see it was the only one on the road besides me. Rather than speed by, it slowed, sending my heart into acrobatic leaps across my chest. The driver flashed his lights at me.

  Oh shit!

  I floored the gas pedal and flew past the vehicle on the other side of the highway. My heart sped up, as though in a race with the car.

  Headlights blinded me after my pursuer did a U-ey in the road and zoomed after me.

  Damn my self-fulfilling prophecy. Damn it to hell!

  18

  Double Or Nothing

  Fear twisted inside my gut. It wasn’t just from being chased down on the highway. The more my speedometer increased, the more panic tore through my body. I wasn’t comfortable at this speed. I could crash. Hurt myself. Lose another kidney. Bleed out on the side of the road.

  I felt nanoseconds away from spinning out of control. Coming full circle.

  Ain’t life a bitch?

  The vehicle chasing me flashed its lights and honked.

  “Sure,” I said aloud. “Like I’m really going to pull over and surrender.”

  I pried one of my hands from its death grip around the steering wheel to raise a middle finger in the air.

  Oh shit, what if it was Jared? He’d ram me off the road any second now. But the vehicle behind seemed only to match my speed. I brought the speed down to a more comfortable fifty miles per hour and glanced in the mirror to see what my pursuer would do.

  He slowed as well.

  Okay. Okay. What to do?

  Pulling off the highway to ambush Ashley had worked well earlier. Then again, she hadn’t been expecting it. She thought she was following us undetected to our hideaway. This person obviously knew he’d been detected. He flashed his headlights again as though to accentuate the point.

  Well, then, if not an ambush, a standoff. I still had my gun and knife. All I had to do was pull over and blast a hole through the driver the moment he stepped out. There it was. A plan. Simple. Effective.

  I slowed gradually. It would do me no good to slam on my brakes and risk skidding, hitting my head on the dash and giving myself a concussion. I wasn’t exactly a sharpshooter to begin with, especially in the dark. I’d have to take him out from close range.

  The speedometer dropped below forty then thirty then twenty. The car behind me slowed as well. I unbuckled my seatbelt and pulled the gun out of my coat pocket and set it on my lap.

  I didn’t want to give him too much time to prepare.

  At thirteen miles per hour, I pulled onto the shoulder and slammed on the brakes. Instead of stopping, the car began to slide. Shit! Black ice. Or just regular ice; both blended into the road at night.

  Good thing I’d slowed down before braking, but the sudden halt still caused the car to skid forward.

  I pumped the gas. Slow. Skid. Slow. Skid. Then cranked the wheel to the right. The car jettisoned off the shoulder, gliding like a winter Olympian across the ice—luckily not spinning—before finally coming to a stop in the snow.

  Heart churning, it took me a moment to realize I’d come to a safe stop. Moment over, I yanked open my door and scrambled out of the car, not bothering to turn off the ignition.

  My pursuer was still in his car, slowing steadily. Good thing or he might have rear-ended me.

  As he slowed, I hurried around to the other side of Ashley’s car. If the man stepped out shooting, I could use it for cover. Unfortunately, the snow was deeper than I realized and I sank down about a foot.

  “Shit.” That single curse had pretty much been on repeat inside my brain since Dante noticed the first car following us. Twice in one night. Really? I’d only wanted to double our odds of making it out of here alive. Now it seemed I’d doubled the odds of getting caught.

  Snow went inside my shoes. I seemed to sink into it deeper, as though I’d stepped into quicksand.

  I crouched down as the car stopped, prepared to pop back up and fire. I pulled the safety back on my gun.

  Only seconds of silence remained until a door opened and a familiar voice called through the darkness. The kind of voice that had the power to chase all the demons away and bring sunshine back to my soul.

  “Aurora? Is that you out there?”

  The voice was Fane Donado’s.

  I was dreaming. I had to be dreaming. This couldn’t be real.

  “Fane?” I called out, keeping cover in case my ears were playing tricks on me.

  “Aurora!” he said, voice rising in excitement.

  I stood up in time to see a tall, dark figure moving toward me. Even in the night I could make out a light tuft of blond hair on top of his head.

  I wanted to run to him and throw my arms around him and never let go. The running-through-snow part was the problem.

  Fane hurried toward me, wading through the white powder once he crossed over into the snowbank. When he was a foot away, I dropped my gun and launched myself into his arms. Fane’s eyes widened as I collided into him. Guess he wasn’t expecting a full-body assault. I knocked him backward, and together we tumbled toward the ground. I tried to divert my weight sideways so I wouldn’t cr
ush Fane once we hit the ground, but he wrapped his arms around me, taking me down with him into the snow. I landed on Fane’s chest. The snow helped cushion the blow.

  Before Fane could right himself, I grabbed his shoulders and kissed him with reckless abandon. The heat of his lips contrasted with the cold surrounding us. I never wanted to leave their warmth.

  I was too overcome to speak. All I could do was kiss the man senseless until he caught up and kissed me back.

  Well, of course he did. This was my dream. I was back to questioning reality. At what point had the dream started? Had I fallen asleep waiting for Dante in Ashley’s car? Or worse, had I crashed the car and been knocked unconscious while trying to evade my pursuer? Maybe my mind had shut down, taken me to a happy place.

  Real or not, this is where I wanted to be. With Fane.

  I broke the kiss off and brought myself upright, straddling him at the hips.

  I heard a low chuckle followed by Fane’s taunting tone. “You’re determined to have your way with me, aren’t you?” He tsked. It reminded me of our time together at Denali High. “Bad girl.”

  “The worst,” I said, pushing my pelvis against his until I felt him respond.

  Fane gripped my thighs. “What exactly are you doing?” he asked.

  I lowered my face to Fane’s and sucked gently on his lower lip before leaning back.

  “Savoring the moment,” I said. “If this is a dream, I want to get the most out of it before it’s over.”

  “Dreams don’t give your ass frostbite.”

  “I thought vampires couldn’t get frostbite,” I countered.

  Fane sat up. Our noses practically touched when he did. He brushed strands of my hair over my shoulder.

  “I think it’s your own ass you should be worrying about. What were you doing on the road, out in the open?”

  “The open?” I repeated. “It’s the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. There’s no one around for miles.”

  “And yet I found you.”

  I squinted at Fane in the dark. “How did you find me?”

  “An informant reported seeing you at a club in Fairbanks several hours ago. She said she was going to follow you after you came out. I headed out as soon as I heard. The last communication I received was that Dante had gotten his hands on her somewhere outside of Anderson.”

  Since we’d already established this wasn’t a dream, it must have been an alternate universe. How else would Fane know about Agent Scott or that she’d reported seeing us?

  “Fane,” I drew out, “what’s going on? Don’t tell me you’ve been recruited by the agency.”

  “It’s a long story, but no, I don’t work for the agency. They’ve been working with me to find you.” I could see Fane’s teeth when he smiled. “Mission accomplished. I’ll explain everything in the car, but we need to go.” He lifted me by the hips, rising from the ground once I no longer blocked him.

  I reached around until I found my gun in the snow and made sure the safety was back on and secure before pocketing the weapon. Back on our feet, we brushed snow off our clothes.

  “How is that even possible?” I asked.

  “Like I said, I’ll explain everything on the drive home.” Fane reached for my hand and grasped it in his. My heart fluttered at his touch.

  “Wait,” I said, planting my feet in the snow. “I have to go back and tell Dante.”

  Fane gave my hand a firm squeeze. “Where is he? And why the hell did he let you go off on your own?”

  “He didn’t,” I said defensively. My shoulders sagged in the next instant. “I, uh, sorta left him behind.”

  My fingers slipped through Fane’s as he let go and faced me.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Well, as you already seem to know, we were being followed by an informant. We were able to lead her down a deserted road and apprehend her. Dante wanted to convince her the agency is corrupt and to help us find someone higher up the food chain to hold Melcher accountable so that we’d be safe to come home.”

  “Not a terrible plan,” Fane said.

  “That’s been our biggest goal, aside from not getting killed,” I said. “We wanted to somehow reach out to someone with enough authority to set things right.”

  “That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing out here on your own.” Fane folded his arms across his chest.

  “We were going to come back to Anchorage after diverting the agency’s attention on a sighting of us in Fairbanks. We wanted to team up with you and Noel, but after we realized we’d kidnapped an informant, Dante saw it as a new opportunity. I wasn’t ready to give up on the first plan. I wanted to get back home. I wanted to get back to you.” My eyes glistened.

  Fane’s arms relaxed to his sides. “Come on,” he said. “You can tell me the rest on the way. Where are Dante and Agent Scott?”

  “They’re at a fishing lodge that’s closed for the winter. It’s about ten miles up,” I said, matching Fane’s pace. “Giselle’s there too.”

  “Giselle?” Fane asked.

  “Yeah, she’s been traveling with us the whole time.”

  Fane had left his Range Rover running on the shoulder of the highway.

  “What about Agent Scott’s car?” I asked when we reached the shoulder.

  Fane walked around it to the driver’s side, turned off the ignition, and pocketed the keys.

  “I’ll inform the agency of its location tomorrow so they can have it towed,” he said.

  It still sounded totally Twilight Zone to hear him talk about the agency as though he was part of the team.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  I was just headed to the passenger door of the Range Rover when I remembered the walkie-talkie.

  “Hold on just a minute,” I said, jogging to Agent Scott’s car. I opened the door and reached inside for the radio. Once I had it in hand, I jogged back to Fane’s vehicle and got inside. When Fane had the car turned around, heading north, I asked, “Where’s the Tank?” referring to his gray hunk of metal on wheels.

  “Back in Anchorage,” Fane answered.

  “And Joss?” I asked hopefully. “Did you get him back from the agency?”

  “Joss is fine.”

  I released a great big sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. Now please tell me how in the world you managed to take control of the agency.”

  After our time locked inside the music room together, I’d learned a lot more about Fane’s past, including his life of privilege and wealth in Italy, and that he had stayed in contact with his family throughout the generations. That was impressive all on its own, but to have gained access to the agency would have required help from up high.

  Fane Donado had done the impossible. If anyone could, it was Fane.

  As he drove, Fane filled me in on the private search he’d conducted the moment I disappeared from town. He told me about Senator Davis and the contributions his family had made to his campaign for the past eight months—ever since he’d become aware of what I was, what all agents were, when he tasted Noel’s blood.

  Fane navigated the road carefully. The conditions were about medium high on the nightmare-o-meter. There were patches of ice and the visibility was poor without any lights other than our own. It could have been worse. It could have been dark AND snowing. And at least we were the only ones on the road and could temper our speed as Fane did now. He must have floored it to get this far, this quick.

  As fond as I was of the Tank, I was glad he’d come in more reliable transportation.

  “Is this vehicle agency issued?” I asked, looking over the dashboard.

  “It’s my cousin’s rental. He let me borrow it as soon as I got word of your location.”

  “Your cousin?”

  “Alfonso,” Fane said. “He accompanied me to the senator’s office and on base. Now he’s looking after Joss.”

  “That’s nice of him,” I said.

  “He’ll be happy to hear I found you,” Fane said. �
�You really lucked out that I was the one to spot you.”

  “No kidding,” I huffed. “I suppose it was Melcher’s bright idea to hand out wanted flyers of Dante and me to vampires?”

  Fane’s grip on the wheel tightened. “You know about those? That wasn’t Melcher. That was Jared. When he heard that the senator was appointing someone to oversee agency operations, he took off, but not before getting your photos out of the database and making up flyers.”

  I shot up in my seat, nearly hitting my head on the ceiling. “Wait a minute? Jared’s the one behind the flyers?”

  Fane met my eyes briefly. “Jared’s now a rogue agent,” he said, returning his attention to the road.

  “Son of a bitch!” I bellowed. “We thought the agency put out the flyers, so we grabbed a vampire at the same club Agent Scott saw us in and told him to report a sighting. We gave him a copy of the flyer we got off a vampire we came across on the way up so he could call the number on it.”

  Fane whipped his gaze toward me. “Tell me you didn’t.”

  I pursed my lips. What more could I say? I just did.

  “Damn it,” Fane said when I didn’t answer. “Now Jared knows what area to start searching. Bad move, Aurora.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stiffened. Easy for Fane to say when he had money and resources at his fingertips. He wasn’t the one who’d been cut off from the world, hiding in cabins without running water or electricity for over a month.

  Bad, Aurora. That’s essentially what he’d said. I hated how much his opinion twisted inside my gut.

  “Yeah, well, if we hadn’t gone to that club, you wouldn’t have found me,” I said, my jaw tightening as my voice deepened.

  “That’s true,” Fane acknowledged.

  “And it doesn’t really matter, does it?” I asked. “We’re getting Dante and getting out of here.”

  “I still don’t like that maniac knowing where you were last seen,” Fane said. “For all we know, he’s headed up as we speak—same as me.”

  I fiddled with the zipper on my coat. “I don’t like it either,” I said, voice wavering.

  Fane reached over and placed a hand on my thigh. “We’re almost out of the woods. I won’t let anyone stop us now.”