She hesitated a moment as memories of the last time she woke a dead car came flashing back to her. It was her junior year in high school and she and her friend Rachel Simmans decided to go to a party at one of their friend’s house. Anne decided to meet Rachel at the party once she was done at work. Unfortunately, she had to stay late at work because some patrons didn’t want to leave. By the time she got to the party, there were squad cars all over and half a dozen kids were arrested. Anne was secretly grateful that she wasn’t involved in that mess. She didn’t like to drink or do any drugs, especially since she had to keep her powers a secret from everyone.
She called Rachel to see if she was all right but instead she got her voice mail. Since Rachel was known to do spontaneous things on occasion, Anne waved it off as Rachel just being Rachel.
The next day, though, she got a call that shook her to the core. Rachel crashed her car right into a tree and died at the scene. Everyone said that she was slightly intoxicated and freaked out when she heard the first squad car pull up. Running out the back, she jumped in her car and drove like the devil was on her tail and lost control a few miles down a side road.
The memory of the pain that filled her heart came back. She had such a hard time believing that Rachel would have been that reckless. Anne needed to know the truth and she knew that it would be in Rachel’s wrecked car.
When she went to the police station, she tearfully asked Stan if she could see Rachel’s car for some sense of closure since Rachel’s casket was closed and everything to her seemed unreal. With a heavy heart, he reluctantly brought her into the garage where it was stored under a tarp.
“Can I have a moment alone please?” she asked him as tears streamed down her cheeks.
He nodded and left her and she timidly lifted the gray soiled tarp. There was Rachel’s red coupe, all crumbled with the windshield torn away and airbags deflated.
Her hand shook as she gently placed it on the only smooth surface on the car, “Please, tell me what happened.”
Nothing happened, and she crouched down and rested both her hands and forehead against the car as tears began to come down again and again until she felt like she couldn’t cry anymore. When she stopped she looked back up at the car. Her sorrow was replaced by fury and she lifted her hand and smacked the hood as hard as she could. That’s when she noticed the soft humming that steadily became louder and images flashed in her mind.
Rachel running in and fumbling with the keys to start the car. Rachel hitting the gas so hard that rocks sputtered everywhere and cause the car to swerve. The car increasing speed down the road as Rachel laughed. “Stupid cops! No way are they going to catch me and arrest me!” Her speech was slurred and she kept on accelerating down the road until… she crashed right into a tree.
The next thing Anne knew Stan tried to revive her and she rubbed her head where she hit it on the way to the floor. Her head hurt for days after that.
Anne tried to shake the memory away. This was the only way she would know for sure what happened to Missy and Evan.
As she placed her right hand on Evan’s car, she closed her eyes and tried to remember what she did the last time. She focused her energy towards it to try and wake it. In an instant there was a humming noise that came from it.
Her eyes opened and she spoke to it, "What happened? Tell me everything."
The hum started to develop different tones and pitches as Anne nodded. Her eyes then widened, "What? Where?"
Then she looked at Dean. "He says he was in the parking lot waiting for Evan and Missy and some guy came and got under him and did something to his brake line."
"Where?"
"Passenger's side in the front."
Dean looked at the car. It was crushed badly in the front from the impact but there had to be a way for him to squeeze and take a look. He crouched down and rolled on his back to look at how the car was sitting. So far, it looked like it was in no danger of falling on him. The whole frame was put up on stands and looked very stable. He slowly inched his way under the front wheel. It was crushed from the impact but he could still see the brake line.
"Can you hand me a flashlight?"
"Where is it?"
"I think I saw one over by the workbench."
Anne let go of Evan's car and the hum still continued. She found the flashlight and handed it to Dean. "He's worried about Evan. He said he tried to warn him in the parking lot, but he didn't listen to him."
"Evan was probably more preoccupied with Missy."
"Yeah, he thinks so."
Dean shone the light onto the brake line. With the front so damaged anyone would have just mistaken the damage as part of the accident, but since he was specifically looking for something he found it. The brake line was crimped, there were indentations from the tool used to create the damage. It looked like it was purposely crimped to let the brake fluid bleed out slowly instead of right away so that the driver would have no way of knowing that there was a problem until it was too late.
"Not good," he said as he looked at the line.
"What? What do you see?"
"Brake line was purposely damaged by someone." He slid out from under the car and looked at the car again, which still hummed. "Now we need to figure out who and why."
Anne was visibly shaken by the news. "Why would anyone want to hurt my sister? She's the nicest person that I know!"
Dean got up and grabbed her by the shoulders to face him. "We're going to find out, Anne. I'm going to need you to find out from Evan's car anything you can. What the guy looked like, what he was wearing, did he see the car he was driving… anything will help."
She looked at his car and closed her eyes. It felt like her body went into a trance as he held her. The hum once again got louder and the pitch changed slightly. The car's interior lights went on and one of the headlights that was still attached began to pulse. Anne lifted her palm up towards Evan's car and the hum changed again. He let her go when her hand began to emit a crackling sound and he saw tiny sparks dance around her entire hand. Then, within an instant, Anne started to swoon and Dean grabbed hold of her before she fell to the concrete floor.
"Anne!" he called to her as he gently brought her down to the floor. "Talk to me, what's going on?"
Her eyes opened and she looked very dazed. The hum ceased as did the flashing lights from Evan's car.
"What happened? You fainted there for a minute."
"I'm sorry." She moved some stray pieces of hair away from her face. "I'll be okay. I'm going to need some aspirin soon."
"You scared the hell out of me. What was all that? I've never seen anything like that before."
She slowly started to sit up. "It happens when a car doesn't have its own power."
He looked so confused she couldn't help but smile. "Usually, when I talk to cars they are able to run by themselves, they have a working engine and gas and are able to generate their own power." She started to rub her temple. "When they don't like in this case, I'm the one giving them power and it takes a lot out of me." She rubbed her forehead. "And a killer headache."
She leaned her head down and took some deep breaths.
"Stay here. I'll go and find some aspirin. Are you going to be okay for a few?"
"Yeah."
He ran off to the office in the far corner. He placed his hand on the lock, opened the door and walked inside. They should have a first aid kit somewhere and there was always some sort of pain reliever there. Sure enough, he found the kit on the second shelf in the front of the office. He popped it opened and found a foil packet with two aspirin. He grabbed one packet and closed the kit. In the corner he saw a case of bottled water, grabbed one, and headed out of the office.
Anne still sat where he left her with her head in her hands. He leaned down and ripped open the packet.
"Thanks." She grabbed them and the opened bottle of water he handed to her and drank them down.
"Anything else I can do?"
"No, I'll be fine. Just give me five minutes."
Getting up, he walked over to Evan's car and looked at the damage. When Anne glanced back at it she could see it was obvious it hit the median head on, maybe going sixty or seventy mph. It was amazing that it was still intact as much as it was. The front of the car was crushed. Part of the engine was pushed into the firewall yet somehow managed not to puncture through it. Both airbags were depleted, and Anne shivered at the thought of Missy and Evan being in the car. Anne started to get up, and Dean was instantly by her side and held on to her. It felt good to be held again by a man, a real man, not one who threw money around to make himself look good.
"How about we get out of here? I have a small boat docked at a pier not far from here where we can stay. No one knows about it except Jeri and your Dad."
Anne knew that she looked terrible, but she needed to push on so they wouldn’t get caught. When he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, her body started to tremble.
Keep it together. The pier shouldn’t be too far from here.
They quietly exited the building and Anne kept pushing her feet to move forward and keep going. Her body screamed to rest but she was determined to make it to the boat. She’d rest there. Her fingers dug into Dean’s arm as they walked through an unpaved area and her feet kept finding rocks to trip on.
Just a little more. She coaxed her exhausted body.
About a block away from the boat, Anne's legs finally buckled under her and Dean caught her before she hit the cement. He lifted her into his arms and she laid her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"I'm sorry." Her breath whispered against his neck.
"It's okay."
The scent of him comforted her as the world around her went black.
Chapter 8
The lightning bolts that she saw before she opened her eyes reminded Anne she was not going to escape the killer headache. The bolts along with the throbbing that wrapped from the front of her forehead to the back like a rubber band made her want to crawl into a deep dark hole. She buried her head as a moan escaped into the pillow she clutched. There was a scent, a new one that brought her a sense of peace. Dean. His scent was the last thing she remembered before she passed out. Now, it was on the pillow she clung to as the throb of pain assaulted her.
The soft hum of an engine in the background piqued her curiosity. With the small amount of strength she had, she pushed the small tendril of energy she still had inside and threw it towards the engine. When it touched the engine it began to grow, and Anne sighed as the throbbing in her head began to become less intense.
After a few minutes, she hesitantly opened one of her eyes and peeked at her surroundings. There were small porthole windows around her and the soft slap of waves made her guess that she was on the boat Dean told her about. As she rolled her body over, she tried to open her other eye and decided against it once the sharp rays of sun stung it.
Dean’s masculine scent wrapped itself around her and she relived their passionate kiss. It shocked her how much she actually enjoyed it. She must have kissed about a dozen or so men both on screen and off and none of them left a lingering impression or reaction like Dean did.
But he’s so arrogant and bossy! her mind screamed at her. Maybe that’s what she needed right now. Maybe she got so out of touch with reality that she needed him to bring her back down. But dating him could hurt her career – at least that’s what her publicist always told her.
“Date someone who’s more popular than you are. It’s a sure way to stay at the top!” she told her when she started dating her ex.
A lot of good that advice did for her. She was lucky she found out about his infidelity before they had any kids.
She inhaled Dean’s scent again and decided to try and get out of bed. She had to find out how Missy was doing and try to find Hawk to take her back to the hospital. It was a good plan, but Anne wasn’t sure if her legs would cooperate. She swung her legs off the side of the bed and tried to lift herself up. It worked, but with the swaying of the boat she had to hold on to anything she could so she wouldn’t kiss the floor. It was quite a while since she communicated that way with a car and she hoped she wouldn’t have to do it anytime soon.
The scent of freshly-made coffee and scrambled eggs led her out of the room and to something that looked like a living room. On the other side, she saw a small kitchenette and Dean hovering over a frying pan.
"Hey," she managed, as she wobbled her way to one of the couches and plopped down.
Dean looked over to her and smiled. "You look better. How do you feel?"
"Like I was at a frat party last night. Do you have any aspirin?"
"Yeah, want some coffee too?"
She tried shaking her head, but realized that was a bad idea. "No, the caffeine would actually make it worse. I'll just have some water or juice even, if you have any."
"Orange juice?"
"Yes, that would be perfect."
He reached into the mini fridge and pulled out the carton of juice. He leaned over and grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it for her.
"Your mom called this morning." He walked over and handed the glass to her.
“Is Missy awake?” she asked as she gently took a sip.
"No, not yet. She wanted to let us know that Hawk took the paparazzi to one of the forest preserves and stopped there. They all thought we got out and ran into the woods." He opened a different cabinet and found a bottle of aspirin. "They went into the woods to go search for us." Normally, he would have tossed the bottle to her, but given her state he opted to just walk over to her with it.
Thankful that her hands weren’t shaking anymore, she opened the bottle and pulled out two tablets. "I hope some wild animals ate them.”
“No such luck. They camped all night around him. He’s apparently still there, so your dad and Elle will go pick him up this afternoon. In the meantime, she said your dad was going to make sure Logan was at the pier when we get back.”
“Good thinking.” Anne sipped her drink again. Logan was her Dad’s thirty-year-old van. He was the car that Anne first rode in from the hospital and he was the family’s vacation cruiser for years. With Anne being around him so long, he became alive like Hawk, and now he was a permanent part of the family. Her father always took him when he, George, and Stan went on their yearly fishing trip. Logan probably knew more secrets about her dad than her own mother did. He was like an uncle to Anne but made out of metal. No one would ever think she would be driving an old conversion van.
“Did Mom say if Missy was getting better?" She sipped the orange juice as she popped the pills in her mouth.
"She said there was no change, but if there is we'll be the first ones to know. She was just worried about you, especially after I explained what you did with Evan's car. She told me to make sure you rest today no matter what. I told her she shouldn't worry because you were safe with me."
"And she actually believed you?" She told him sarcastically.
"Of course, she did. She doesn’t have a reason not to. I’ve been in worse situations than the one we had last night.”
Anne caught his icy tone with that statement and wondered what he saw and had to do when he was deployed.
"So how did you discover your gift?" she asked as she rubbed her temples.
He took the eggs off the stove and reached into the cabinet for plates. "I was about the same age as you were. A bunch of friends and I were horsing around in an old warehouse because it was supposedly haunted and they decided to lock me in one of the rooms and left me to go downstairs. I started to freak out, and that's when I put my hand on the lock and realized I could see the lock and was able to open it. I scared the crap out of my friends when I went downstairs."
“Do you want some eggs?” he asked as he filled the first plate.
“No, thanks. I’ll pass for now. I’m sure your friends never played any pranks
on you again.”
He took the plate and sat down at the small table. “Yeah, they learned really fast not to try anything with me.”
Anne stopped rubbing her forehead as the pain started to subside. "What about your other ability? The tracking thing. That sounds really interesting,"
"It's come in handy on numerous occasions when I was in the Marines. Especially during the special missions.” He shoveled a full fork of eggs into his mouth and began to chow down on his breakfast.
Her curiosity crept higher. "What kind of missions were they?"
"They were very dangerous. Half the time, I had no idea where we were going or what would be waiting for us there."
As she sipped on the orange juice, she couldn’t begin to imagine how scared she would be if she were put into that kind of situation. "That sounds horrible."
"It was all part of the job. We got in and out as quickly as possible to get the job done."
"You're probably ecstatic to be back in the States."
"Yeah, I needed to get out of there." He got up and grabbed a mug from the cabinet and filled it with coffee.
There was a lot of relief in his voice, and she didn't want to pry anymore and bring up bad memories or even nightmares.
"So, who was the first person you tracked?"
He chucked as he took a sip of his coffee. "It was actually a girl that I had a crush on. We went out on a date and I remember thinking to myself it would be so neat to know where she was so I could surprise her. I was holding her hand and I then felt a slight spark come out of my pointer finger. She didn't feel anything but later on that week, I just knew where she was at and I went to the place and sure enough she was there. It scared her a bit and she stopped talking to me after a while. I didn't blame her, because I was scared too."
"That is scary." She rubbed her forehead again. There was only a small amount of pain left that slowly started to disappear, but she knew that she couldn't push herself too much.
Dean's phone started to ring and he glanced at the screen. "It's your mom."
Driven By Love (The Heirs 0f Orion Series Book 1) Page 8