Alex’s voice yanked me from my fantasy. “Sure, I understand.” He paid the cashier for the drinks, then twisted to face me. “I don’t want to speak out of turn, but remember I’m a medical doctor, so if you need anything ... medical ... just give me a shout.”
I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Then it dawned on me that Alex and Clay had just spent several hours alone in the car together. Had Clay told him about what we’d done the previous night? Had it been like boy-talk, discussing the details, ribbing each other about what I was like in bed?
My cheeks flared with heat. Medical stuff. Did he mean birth control? Oh, my God. I just about wanted to die.
“I’m fine,” I said, my tone curt. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with him. It made me feel as though he was trying to be some concerned big brother, or even my dad, and the whole thing made me feel icky. That wasn’t how I thought about Alex at all, and I hated the idea of him and Clay talking about me in that way.
The clerk placed a couple of coffee cups on the counter, and I grabbed them to take them back out to the others, wanting to be out of there. I shoved open the door of the café with my shoulder, ignoring the stares from the truckers, and stormed back to where the rest of the guys were waiting. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Clay, even when he approached to take one of the coffees, so I handed the cups to Isaac and Kingsley instead.
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” I announced, and spun on my heel before any of them could say anything. Had Clay told them all? Perhaps finding out if he was the kind of guy who screwed and spilled was the sort of thing I should have done before I’d slept with him. I don’t know why it bothered me so much. After all, it wasn’t as though the other guys hadn’t witnessed Isaac with his fingers inside me the previous day. I guessed it was just the idea that I hadn’t been there—the feeling of being talked about behind my back.
I stalked back up to the café. Heat curled around my throat, spreading across my chest. One of the guys—Lorcan, I thought—called my name, but I ignored him and kept going. I’d get over it, but right now I needed a moment to get myself together. Guys were guys, but that wasn’t an excuse. I expected a bit of common decency, even if the rules did seem to be different with me and them.
Keeping my head down so as not to make eye contact with anyone, I went straight to the bathrooms. I’d already spotted where they were while we’d been waiting for the coffee—at the back of the restaurant, through a door, and into a small corridor. The men’s was on the left, the women’s on the right.
I pushed my way inside the ladies’ room, the stench of stale urine and damp hitting me. The café hadn’t been great, and the bathrooms were no better. I dreaded to think what the men’s was like, but then guys seemed to care less about these things. I wrinkled my nose, but this was better than taking a pee in the bush—just. They were thankfully empty, with no sign of the older women I’d spotted when I’d been lining up with Alex to order. I paused at the sink, placing my hands against the grubby porcelain and letting my neck drop, my head suddenly heavy. I took a shallow breath, not wanting to take a deep one because of my location. Maybe Clay had only told Alex because he thought he could help. I might be blowing it all up in my mind, and it had been a mature conversation between the two of them instead of the ribbing session I was imagining.
I pulled myself together. Considering everything else going on, this wasn’t a big deal. I was probably being oversensitive.
I used the toilet, then washed my hands and splashed water on my face. It was one benefit of not having worn mascara for almost a week—I could splash water on my face without worrying about black smearing halfway down my cheeks.
I left the bathroom just as someone was leaving the men’s room. I looked up to find a big, round body blocking my way, and my heart dropped. It was the guy from earlier—the older one with the big gut and the filthy smile.
“Well, looky here.” He smiled to reveal yellowing, crooked teeth. “Now what’s a young lady like you doing out here so early in the morning?”
“I’m with my friends.” I tried to step past him, but he moved the same way I did, blocking my way.
“Friends, huh? Is that what they are?”
“Yes, and they’re going to wonder where I am if you don’t move out of the way.”
“I’m not in your way. We’re just having a little chat, aren’t we?”
The underarms of his t-shirt were stained yellow with old sweat, and I noticed the same color ringing around his neck. “No, we’re not. I want to go now.”
His eyes narrowed and his lip curled. “Five guys and one girl. What are they doing, passing you around?”
My face burned at how close this disgusting stranger was to speaking the truth. “That’s none of your business. Now get out of my fucking way.”
“Jeez, you’ve got a mouth worse than some of the truckers.” He laughed. “If you can handle five of them, you can have one extra. Lemme show you what it’s like to have a real man.”
“Real man?” My lips curled in a sneer, but I was using it to hide how I really felt inside, my heart racing, my stomach coiling in dismay and fear. But I knew you had to stand up to men like him. Show them you’re afraid, and they fed on that. Where were the others? I prayed someone else would come in to use the bathroom. “You’re disgusting. Get out of my way. Now.” I didn’t want to put my hands on him to push him out of the way, mainly because I couldn’t stand the thought of having to touch him, but that was what I’d do if I had to.
Behind him, the door leading back to the café slammed open and Kingsley’s huge shape filled the space. I exhaled a sigh of relief, my shoulders dropping.
The guy gave a nervous glance backward. “Get out of here, we’re busy,” he bluffed.
But Kingsley moved forward, and close behind him was Clay, his shoulders squared and walking with a swagger. Both of them stepped into the corridor, but someone else followed, and I saw it was Isaac. Isaac kept back for the moment, as though he was overseeing events.
“The lady doesn’t look like she wants to be kept busy by you,” Clay said.
“Yeah, well, we were just talking. No need to get your panties in a twist.”
Kingsley looked to me, his chocolate brown eyes narrowed. “Is that what was happening, Darcy?”
I shook my head. “No, he wouldn’t let me leave.”
The trucker’s head spun back in my direction. “Shut your mouth, bitch!”
Clay barreled forward. “What the fuck did you just call her?”
The man seemed to figure he was in this fully now, and there was no point in backing out. “I think bitch is putting it mildly. I seen her with all you guys. She’s a little whore, isn’t she?” He looked back to me. “Whatever they’re paying, I’ll make it double if you come with me.”
I didn’t even get a chance to tell him to go and screw himself.
Kingsley reached out and grabbed him by the throat, hoisting him up and slamming him against the wall. The man struggled, choking, but Clay moved in, and reached between the man’s legs and grabbed the exact spot where his balls would be. The trucker instantly fell still, his eyes widening.
“If you even think about putting your limp dick inside her again,” Clay snarled, “I’ll make sure I find you, cut it off, and shove it down your fucking throat. Do you understand?”
The man nodded frantically, as best he could with Kingsley’s massive fist still around his throat.
Isaac stood back, his arms folded, watching all this happen.
“Can we just go now?” I glanced anxiously at the door. Even though I was relieved the guys were here, I knew the trucker had plenty of friends, and they might come looking for him at any moment.
Isaac’s head tilted to one side, his expression cool. “You can go, love. We’re just going to make sure our mate here knows exactly what we’re talking about.”
“I think he got it, guys.” My pulse continued to race.
<
br /> Isaac shot me a look. “Just go.”
I wasn’t going to argue with Isaac when he had that look on his face. I hurried past them, but paused at the door and glanced over my shoulder. Kingsley dropped the trucker and he fell to the floor, coughing and gasping for air. He was on his knees, curled over, his hands raised as though to say ‘surrender.’
Isaac stepped forward, and a flash of metal caught my eye. He had a gun in his hand.
The man spotted the weapon and his eyes bulged, his head shaking. “No, no, please. I’ve got a wife. A family!”
“Then that makes you worse than scum.” He placed the barrel against the man’s head. “This is to let you know what we’re capable of. If you try to get your trucker mates to follow us down the freeway and cause trouble, I swear to God, you’re going to end up with one of these bullets lodged in your pathetic little brain. Got it?”
He nodded. “Got it. I won’t say a word to anyone, I swear.”
Isaac did that little head tilt I’d come to recognize in him. “Glad we’re on the same page.” He put the gun away and looked to Kingsley and Clay. “Let’s get out of here.”
I spun around and hurried from the bathroom, keeping my head down as I passed between tables and my hands in my jeans pockets so no one noticed how much I was shaking.
Only once I’d gotten out of there did I allow myself to breathe, and yet we still weren’t out of danger. The truckers’ vehicles loomed around us like metal dinosaurs, and I saw how it would be easy for one of them to push us off the road if they decided to exact revenge. That was why Isaac had pulled the gun. Because he’d had to let the trucker know we weren’t people to mess with.
Lorcan and Alex both waited by the cars. I assumed they’d remained behind to keep an eye on the vehicles, though it might also have been because Lorcan was still injured and Alex probably thought he’d done something to upset me, which was why the others had been the ones to come after me.
I was shaken from what had happened, but I still gave Alex a smile to show him we were okay. I’d overreacted. Alex had only been trying to look out for me, and, if the six of us remained together for much longer, getting some birth control pills probably wasn’t a bad idea.
Lorcan gave me his slow half smile as I approached. “You attracting trouble again, princess?”
“Yeah, seems I can’t get away from it.”
“The guys handled it, though.” It was a statement rather than a question, his gaze flicking over my shoulder as the others followed me down to the car.
I flicked a grateful smile to them, my shaking from the confrontation only just starting to subside.
“Yeah, they handled it.”
Chapter Eight
Everyone took a few gulps of their rapidly cooling coffees then threw the paper cups in the trash. None of us wanted to hang around the truck stop any longer than we had to. Hopefully, the man who’d been bothering me would have more sense than to go tell his buddies, but there was always the chance they’d come after us.
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.
We piled back into the vehicles again and peeled out of the parking lot. No one gave chase, so it looked as though Isaac’s warning had worked.
My mind went to how hard Isaac had appeared when he’d held the gun to the trucker’s head. How many had he killed before? I didn’t know how I felt about it. I was glad to have him on my side, but our relationship was still on rocky ground. I never quite knew how he was going to respond to me. One moment, he hated me, the next he was protective. I didn’t really know if he was on my side or not.
I took sips from the bottle of water as the car burned through miles, getting closer to home. The guys were professionals and they knew what they were doing, but that didn’t stop my nerves. I swung wildly between hoping Hollan was waiting at the house so we could move forward, and praying he wouldn’t be anywhere to be seen, so I could feel as though I was getting back to my regular life. But even that thought caused conflict to rise inside me. Did I really want to go back to my old life, where there was no Clay, or Alex, or any of the others? I spent my days plodding through with little direction. I didn’t want anyone to be in danger or get hurt, but the idea of saying goodbye to the guys and going back to that nothingness filled me with as much dread as having to face Hollan.
The night sky grew lighter, and, as it did, Isaac turned his attention to the laptop again. He was able to monitor the area around my house, so we’d be better prepared when we arrived, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t miss something. He studied the screen for a while, then twisted back and held it up so I was able to see.
“Anything look out of place to you?”
I leaned in closer, scanning the image of the roof of my house, my yard, and the surrounding streets. I watched as one of my neighbors—a middle-management man in his forties who I’d never really spoken to—left his house and climbed into his car in the driveway. The car reversed out onto the road and drove away.
I marveled at the clarity of the image. It must have cost a fortune to gather that kind of data. “Are we seeing this in real time?” I asked.
“As close as we can get to real time. Obviously, there’s some lag. The data has to be captured, processed by some seriously powerful computers, and then it’s sent to the laptop so we can see it. We’re lucky there’s no cloud cover today, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to do this at all.”
“And you have control over the satellite?” My mind boggled at what that meant. It was crazy to think I was looking at the images in real time. The guys weren’t just a part of some small vigilante group. This kind of thing took big money.
“It’s not solely ours, but we’re able to access it if we need to.”
“Wow.” To get this kind of resolution was crazy, too. I didn’t know much about satellite imagery, apart from the few times I’d used Google Earth to look at something, but I knew this kind of resolution wouldn’t come cheap.
Were they spies?
Isaac looked up, studying me with that intensity he owned which put me on the side of uncomfortable. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
He sighed, as though frustrated by my lack of understanding. “Is there anything different that stands out to you?”
I refocused my attention back on the screen and shook my head. “No, it looks just like it always does.”
“You’re sure? No strange cars nearby?”
I shrugged. “I don’t exactly have every vehicle in my neighborhood memorized, but as far as I can tell, it’s all as it should be.” I stared at the screen again, willing Aunt Sarah to come out of the house, perhaps wander down to the mailbox, just so I could check she was okay. A possibility occurred to me. She might not even be there. If Hollan thought she might have information about my location, he might have taken her with him after I’d called.
I told Isaac my concerns, but he shook his head. “She’s the best tool they’ve got to find you. They won’t remove her from this location if they think there’s any chance of you going to her. And believe me, Hollan won’t have given up trying to get his hands on you. Losing you back at the house will only have made him more determined.”
My gut twisted at the thought of a more determined Hollan, but then I remembered he was the one who needed to beware of us. We were going to win this and find out what he’d done with the flash drive. It was hard to imagine that he’d had hold of it all these years. It must have been so frustrating to have the drive in his possession, yet be unable to access the information.
“So, nothing looks out of place to you?”
I shook my head. “No, nothing looks any different.”
“Okay, let’s hope we’re getting to the house first, then. Hollan might have suffered bigger losses than we’d anticipated, and it’s slowed him down. Stay alert, though. He will be on his way, I’m certain of it.”
I nodded, agreeing with him. Hollan had waited years to get his hands on this data. He wasn’t going to simply give up.
As we approached the outskirts of the city, traffic began to build, and with it, so did my nerves. I didn’t want to admit it, but as well as the possible confrontation with Hollan, I was nervous about seeing Aunt Sarah again. Explaining all of this wasn’t going to be easy, especially as Hollan had already been feeding her lies.
Isaac produced a cell phone from his pocket. I thought they’d gotten rid of all the cell phones back at the house, but there must have been replacements at the cabin. He swiped the screen a couple of times then put it on speaker so we could hear what was being said.
Alex answered, and I realized they must have sorted out cell phones for themselves while I’d been in the shower. “What’s the next move?”
“I’ll go with Darcy and Kingsley into the house. We’ll park on the street, but not right outside. Lorcan will stay with the car.”
I glanced over at Lorcan to see how he felt about being left behind, but he only nodded.
“What will we be doing?” Alex asked through the phone.
“Circle a couple of blocks. Keep your eyes open for anything that looks suspicious and call as soon as you spot anything, however small it may be.”
Unraveling Darkness Page 6