by Jess Haines
Even as I said it, the words lisping around growing fangs, I knew it was true. He had Sara. Iana. Vivian. Na’man. All those other people. As soon as I found a safe place, a pay phone, a cell phone to borrow—anything—I would get in touch with Royce and get his help to end Max’s operation once and for all.
It still hurt to move, but I felt stronger, invigorated somehow. Like the violence was spurring some kind of survival instinct to heal and move at a greater pace. Whatever Other-ness was in my blood, it had some benefits aside from making me Hulk out with minimal provocation. I would have to be careful not to give in to the hunger cramping my stomach. Blood or flesh, either would do, but feeding that inner beast with something more tangible would send me down a path I didn’t want to explore.
Once I reached the wall, I looked back over my shoulder. The guy who had attacked me was still on the ground and more dark figures were coming toward me from the house. I didn’t hesitate, reaching for the lip of the wall well above my head. The jump was smoother than I expected, almost leading me to miss grabbing for the iron spikes set into the top. It was getting easier to ignore the cold and pain as I pulled myself up to the edge, toes curling against the ice.
Distant shouts followed me as I lowered myself over the other side and dropped into the drift of snow below.
And cursed as I landed on a rock or something. Ow, ow, ow.
At least I didn’t break anything. And I wasn’t bleeding. Yay, go me.
Hopping over to a nearby rock jutting above the snow, I brushed off the worst of it and sat down. Then I brushed as much snow off my feet as I could with one of the extra socks I’d stuffed in my pocket. That out of the way, with a groan, I pulled on the boots, wriggling my toes to settle them in the material I’d stuffed inside. My feet felt like blocks of solid ice, but hopefully the boots and socks would provide enough insulation for them to warm up before any damage was done.
Levering to my feet, I wobbled unsteadily on the heels. It was uncomfortable, and the ankle of the foot that had landed on the rock ached, but it was better than losing my toes to frostbite.
Glancing around, I looked for any sign of civilization. No roads were visible through the evergreens and skeletal bones of trees that had shed their leaves for winter. No man-made structures, either. There might have been something out there, but I didn’t want to risk stumbling around lost in the woods at this time of year. Max wouldn’t call for an official search party and anyone he sent to find me wouldn’t make the trip back pleasant. Assuming there would be a trip back.
Stepping carefully, I made my way a few yards from the wall, always keeping it in sight and on my right. If I followed the wall, eventually I would find a driveway, which would lead to a road, which would (presumably) lead to civilization. I’d have to take care not to trip on anything unseen under the blanket of white, and to keep moving, no matter how much everything hurt. My feet, my ankles, my hip—the pain reminded me I was alive. I was free, and I had a chance.
That was all that kept me going. I wanted to lie down. I wanted to curl up and cry in the snow. I wanted to go back, to make sure Sara was okay. I just wanted to rest, for someone else to take over, to fix everything I’d broken and make it all go away.
And if I gave in to that temptation, Max would win. All those people still trapped with him would continue to suffer—maybe more, if he was as angry with my escape as I imagined he was going to be when he heard the news. I’d hate to be the messenger on his security team for that little tidbit.
I had to reach Royce as soon as possible, and pray it was before Max got it into his head to hurt Sara.
The collar was tugged up to keep the wind from biting too deep against my face, and I hugged the jacket tight to myself as I got moving. I kept checking back the way I had come and listening for any sounds of pursuit as I hobbled along. It was only a matter of time before the other guards came looking for my trail.
Every sound made me jump. Crunching ice. The muted thump of piles of snow falling from tree limbs. Snapping branches. Even telling myself that I had more strength than Max’s human minions and that I knew enough self-defense to hurt them if they should find me didn’t help. The thought made me feel even colder than I already was. Psyching myself up was a fine art I had never perfected.
Even though I was watching and listening, hypersensitive to anything out of place, I almost walked right into one of the guards looking for me. His clothing blended in with the snow, all whites and grays, and he was leaning against a birch tree with pale, peeling bark. I froze, the guy only inches away, hood pulled low over his eyes and head ducked with a glove in his teeth as he tapped on a cell phone. That distracting piece of modern technology was the only reason he didn’t notice me.
Hands clapped over my mouth, I backed up, quick, silent, pain momentarily forgotten as I faded into the brush. Ducking behind a tree, I stayed there, pressed against the bark, trying not to hyperventilate or make a sound.
The strains of the James Bond theme started playing. I almost screamed, but managed to swallow back the urge once it sank in that it was just the guy’s cell phone.
“Yeah? ... What? No, haven’t seen any sign.” He quieted, but I couldn’t make out whatever the other person was saying. “. . . Yeah, give me a minute. I’ll be right there.”
He stomped off in the direction I’d come from, muttering under his breath. I made out “jackass,” but that was about it.
I needed to be much more careful. That was too close a call. I stayed where I was for another minute, listening, making sure he was gone and that no one else was coming. They’d pick up on my trail anytime now.
On the bright side, they appeared human. I didn’t think they had heightened senses, if cell phone guy was anything to go by. I didn’t hear any dogs, so most likely they didn’t have anything that could follow me by scent. Not until dark, when the vampires came out to play. If I could disguise my trail, maybe it would keep them from finding me.
I looked around, studying the trees. There was some kind of cedar not far from where I was standing. The short, stiff needles would make a decent broom to hide some of my tracks. I moved around the far side of it, opposite the wall, and broke off a small branch. The scent of the sap was sharp on the crisp air. Put me in mind of hamster shavings.
Brushing up my tracks turned out to be easier than expected with the way that guy had been moving through the snow. Sure, the depressions were still there, but my passage was far less noticeable when I swept away the signs. At one point when I backtracked I even found a place where cell phone bro had—I am pretty sure unknowingly—crossed over mine. A great and wily hunter, he was not. I made a few new tracks to make it look as if I had gone deeper into the woods before following his tracks the way he had originally come. Oh, and I held on to that cedar branch, just in case.
I did have to be careful. He had been moving closer to the wall than I intended to be, and despite my best efforts, I ended up dragging my bad leg a few times. Still, it made it easier not to trip on anything when I knew exactly where to step, and having a clear path to follow gave me the opportunity to move with more speed and certainty.
It took a lot longer than I expected to reach the recessed door in the wall where the guy had come out. On the bright side, there was a brick walkway leading up to that locked, wrought iron gate back into hell. A swept brick walkway that led straight to a winding, paved road only a few yards away. Hallelujah and praise be to whoever above was finally looking out for me.
Just before the urge to make a run for the road hit me, common sense reasserted itself. I stayed where I was for a moment, studying the path. If it looked too good to be true, it probably was.
I crouched down—bit off the screamed curse that thoughtless move almost spurred out of me—then peered at the upper slope of the archway above the gate after wiping away the tears of pain. As I suspected, there was a security camera angled to see the walkway and even the road. Probably to watch for anyone who might think to drop in unexpecte
dly. Knowing who was coming gave Max and his people a chance to hide the evildoing, hide the bodies, hide the human trafficking, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a few dozen hidden closets or creepy basements to shove those skeletons into if the police should stop by, as I had already witnessed.
Even the thought of the last of his basements I’d visited was enough to bring up a sudden urge to vomit and a flare of unexpected heat on my hip. Shoving it to the back of my mind, I rose—much more carefully than I’d crouched—and faded back a few steps, sweeping up my tracks with the branch as I went. I knew where the road was now. Even if my everything hurt, I had a direction and a plan. Better than what I’d had an hour ago.
Then it hit me. The urge to walk to that gate. The naked desire to return to Max’s side. To beg forgiveness.
I locked my muscles and closed my eyes, biting my lip until it bled. He knew. He knew I was gone and he wanted me back. Was demanding I come back, using that ephemeral connection between us.
It wasn’t like hearing words or seeing images, exactly. The feel of him in my head was familiar from those few days when I had first been bound to him by blood. He’d been able to pull my strings then, puppet-like, making me walk and talk however he wanted. Since the connection was never fully set between us by another taste of his blood, now it was just a bone-deep knowledge that something greater than me was trying to take the wheel and make me do what it desired. Something that was pushing at the walls I erected to keep it out, spider-claws tickling over my brain in search of any weakness to worm their way inside.
Freedom tasted better. Even if it did taste like my own black, corrupted blood. Bit by bit, I shored up my defenses with memories of what he had done to hurt me, hurt Sara, hurt Mouse, and what he might do to me if I gave in to that urge to return to his side. The more I thought about the pain he’d inflicted, the easier it was to keep him out.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, out in the open, easy pickings for anyone in his employ to find me. It was too overcast to be sure, but the angle of the sun seemed different once the worst of the urge to go running back to Max’s side faded. Still there. Still urgent. Still painful.
But I’d just learned a whole new definition of pain at Max’s hands a few hours ago, and his mental nudges couldn’t hold a candle to that.
Fists clenched, eyes narrowed to the point I could barely see, I took a step toward the trees and the unseen road ahead. Then another. Another.
I remembered at the last minute that I needed to continue sweeping up my tracks behind me, but by then, it wasn’t so hard to move independently.
I walked away from hell with my head high, knowing that I would be back. And that next time it would be to see it burned to the ground.
Chapter Thirteen
Keeping to the trees, I made my way toward the road. This area seemed a little too rural for much traffic, but maybe I could flag someone down to help me.
I didn’t see them at first, but the murmur of voices told me there were people up ahead. Male. Low. Urgent. I slowed down, moving as silently as I could, peering through the underbrush to try to spot who was talking. I didn’t want to accidentally walk into a gaggle of suited idiots, all under Max’s thumb and ready to make me pay for running.
My heart leapt in my chest when I spotted the black-and-white parked at the side of the road. Then it stuttered and fell like a stone when I recognized Stokes, the man with the scarred face and eye patch, leaning against the other side and talking through the open window to the two uniformed officers in the car. His gravelly voice carried on the crisp, cold air, stopping me in my tracks and removing any last hope of rescue I might have been clinging to.
“Call me if someone spots her. Hopefully this crap weather will clear out so we can get the tracker working again.”
“Creepy shit, man. I thought they only did that to dogs and cats.”
The laughter of the guy with the eye patch chilled me worse than the snow and biting wind. “What do you think they are? They’re pets, man. We’ve gotta protect our investments. They run away, we need to be able to find them again. Just remember, this one bites. Someone calls it in, you let us deal with her.”
“We’ll keep an eye out.”
I hadn’t thought it would be possible for me to feel any sicker about Max’s slave trade activities, but that took it to a whole new level of what-the-fuck. Did that mean there was a tracking chip implanted somewhere on my body? Did the local cops get a piece of the slave trading pie in return for their silence and sometimes cooperation in returning escapees? I would have been violently ill at the thought if I had the luxury. The need for stealth outweighed my need to hork up the churning bile in my stomach.
I had made it this far and I wasn’t about to give up and turn myself in without a fight. Maybe luck would stay with me and I could find a way out of town before their GPS kicked in. If they found me, I’d do everything in my power to make them work for every inch they dragged me back.
As I made my way through the woods, I lost track of time. It got dark. Cold. Well, colder. The pain in my hip turned into a dull throb and felt like the only warm place on my body as I tucked my hands under my armpits and hunched over against the chill wind.
There was no way to know if any cars on the road belonged to Max or one of his cronies. No way to be sure which of the cops were in his pocket. I kept the street in sight but stayed in the trees, following the road much as I had the wall. Oddly enough—or maybe not oddly at all—I could see just fine in the dark. The blacktop shimmered under the moonlight, slick with ice in places, gleaming in monochrome shades to my no-longer-human eyes. Easily visible between the trees.
A few cars passed by now and again, including a cop car or two, but I didn’t dare flag any of them down. There were also occasional driveways and dirt paths swept free of snow. I didn’t know where those paths led, or who lived in the houses out here in the middle of nowhere. Even though I was tired and hungry and the blisters on my feet from ill-fitting shoes were making this trek even more miserable than it was already, I didn’t trust a damned thing about this neighborhood. If they were Max’s neighbors, even if they didn’t know him directly, they would be too likely to call the cops or other unwanted attention down on me.
It might have been paranoid of me, but knowing what I did about how Royce ran his city, I would not be surprised if Max had his fingers in all the local community service pies. Police. Fire department. Hospitals. Who knew? By now, the word was likely out that he wanted me. I had no phone, no local contacts, ill-fitting clothes and shoes—but I did have one thing.
I had free will.
Funny, free will doesn’t make your hurts any less painful, or your teeth stop chattering from cold, but it sure makes it easier to carry the burden and appreciate the smell of fresh air. And to mentally tell that creeping intruder, who was still insisting now and then that I return, to take a hike straight to the corners of Fuck and Off. I would be following my own path, not the one he wanted for me.
He probably figured out before too long that I had built up some resistance to his mind tricks, or that more pain wasn’t going to be the goad that drove me back to him. The pressure of his mental intrusion didn’t stay with me; it only came up intermittently. The savagery of it told me he was growing impatient, and might also mean their tracker probably wasn’t working. I took it as a good, if uncomfortable, sign.
When I reached a crossroads, I stopped, uncertain. My sense of direction wasn’t that great without the sun or any stars visible to guide me, but there were lights in the distance. Not just streetlights or house lights. A gas station or small store, I thought, though I couldn’t be sure at this distance.
On the one hand, it was a well-lit, relatively public space, and they probably had a phone. On the other, Max might have sent someone ahead to keep an eye out for me, or told someone there to contact him if I showed my face. The tracker might even tell him where to send people to pick me up if I went to a l
ocal landmark.
It was a dilemma, but I preferred taking the risk of needing to run over dying slowly of exposure.
After making a note of the street names, limping a little faster, I focused on that light like it was the last glass of water in the desert. All that mattered was reaching my salvation—and Sara’s. Even if they caught me and dragged me back, if I could get on the phone just long enough to tell Royce where we were, he’d send someone to save us.
It felt like an age crawled by before I made it to the edge of the parking lot of what turned out to be a twenty-four-hour gas station and mini-mart. Pulling out the wallet of ... hmm ... John Smith, if his license was to be believed (not in this lifetime), I checked for cash. Luckily, in addition to a few receipts, there were some bills in there. A couple hundreds, which just made everything easier, as well as a few twenties. I could make my call to Royce, get a cab, and maybe a night in a decent hotel.
It probably wasn’t going to help much, considering what I was wearing, but I took a little time to finger-brush my hair and pluck the worst of the burrs and dead leaves off of myself. I’m sure I still looked like a slice of hell warmed over. I know I felt like it, anyway.
Pulling out a twenty, then stuffing the wallet in an inside pocket, I hobbled my way across the pavement and just inside the doorway, squinting against the bright lights as I got my bearings. The teenaged clerk behind the counter stared at me, his gum falling out of his mouth to land with a wet “plop” on the magazine he’d been reading.
“Um, hi,” I said, then cleared my throat to sound less like an asthmatic smoker. “Got a pay phone?”
He shook his head, eyes never leaving my face, still giving me a mute stare. I scrubbed a hand over my cheek self-consciously, breaking eye contact to see if there was anything in the store I could use. Ooh, potato chips. That sounded awesome right about now.
Limping across the linoleum, I got myself a bottle of some red sports drink, a bottle of water, some chips, and a handful of protein bars. The coffee was tempting, but I didn’t think it would be a good idea with how wind-burned my chapped lips felt. I dropped the stuff on the counter, plucked a container of lip balm out of a display bin next to the register, and put the twenty down.