“Fucking idiot!”

I hit the end button and quickly dialed in a number, holding the phone gingerly to my ear. It rang three times before picked up.

“This better be good,” he grumbled, sleep heavy in his words,ry.n his w the sound of static belying the fact he was a supernatural using a phone.

I snorted. “Doran, I need ride.”

The phone was so damn sensitive I heard the slide of sheets over his body as he moved around. Unreal.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that?” Doran all but purred into the phone, all trace of sleepiness gone.

“From the cave, to Dox’s. Then maybe to Louisa’s. I’m not sure yet.” Always best to ignore his less than subtle innuendos. His rocker punk boy style wasn’t really to my taste, even if I hadn’t been with Liam. Not to mention, being a Daywalker did nothing for his stock with me.

“When?” Good, he was back to business.

I checked the clock. “Half hour to the mine shaft, half hour to the doorway. Hour at most.”

“Shit, it’ll be close. Wait for me, I’ll be there.” He hung up and so did I.

Everything was coming together better than I could have hoped when I’d left Giselle’s in the dead of night.

Which should have made me feel good, but the rolling in my gut made me question whether I was wrong about this whole trip. No, I needed that book, needed help. And if there was nothing else I’d learned in the last few months, it was I couldn’t do it alone. I needed those around me to help with the nastiness in the world.

Then again, the tingle of fear and subtle twist of premonition in my heart could be due to the fact I was driving a truck that had belonged to Faris and he’d been followed—oh yeah, he had a phone in it that worked around supernaturals.

I stared at the phone and then picked it up, flipping it open. The call log was easy to access and I re-dialed Faris.

He answered right away. “Technology is a beautiful thing when it works, isn’t it?”

“Where the fuck did you get this phone?”

“It was a gift. From a lovely lady with mocha skin and delicious lips, amongst her other delicious bits … would you like the details of how we met, and how she showed me her gun, so I showed her mine?”

I hung up on him with a snarl and threw the phone onto the dash. Pig. The phone may have been a gift, but no doubt strings were attached. Could Faris be working with those who had the deadly accurate guns? A shiver rippled down my spine at the thought. For now, there was nothing I could do, nothing to change this.

Half an hour later we were on the highway, cruising toward the mineshaft with no issues. Red and blue lights flickered behind us, and I checked the speedometer. Nope, all good there.

No doubt Faris had reported the missing truck and set them on me. Fuck a duck, Faris was an asshat. For a brief moment, I thought about making a run for it, knowing I could outrun the cop once we hit the badlands. No, I had time to deal with a cop. I took my foot off the gas pedal and let the truck slow, steering it to the side.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered and Alex nodded.

“Bad guys.”

I shook my head. “No, not bad guys. Just pain in the ass cops doing their job.”

When the first shot ricocheted off the back of the truck, I thought I was hearing things. The second and third shot, I knew we were in shit. Again.

“Motherfuckers!” I yelped when a bullet slammed through the back window and out the front. “Faris, I hate you, you bastard!”

I put tereify">I he pedal to the floor, taking us back onto the highway. Horns blared around us as I did a half-assed merge into traffic. At that moment, I didn’t care if Faris was using me, I was grateful he had the foresight to steal a truck and not some pansy-assed girly car.

The shots kept coming and again, I wondered how the fuck they were doing this, and with what technology—how they were able to overcome the vibrations supernaturals gave off. Our exit came up fast and I waited until the last second to yank the truck to the right and skidded sideways the off-ramp. Teeth gritted, I fought the wheel to stay in control, the slush and ice pulling at the tires.

“Weeeee!” Alex bounced in his seat, not understanding the severity of the situation. If it had been magic or monsters chasing us, he might have got it. But he didn’t understand guns; they had never been a factor in our lives.

“Alex, sit still.”

He slammed his butt onto the seat and gripped the dash, claws digging into the plastic. “Fun, Alex likes rides with Ryleeeeeee!”

He bounced into me, and the wheel slipped through my hands, spinning the truck in a 180-degree circle so a brief second we were staring back at our pursuers. A black sedan was alongside the police car, like the last one. Just like all the cars the FBI drove. What the fuck was going on, had Agent Valley decided we were a liability—and if so, was Liam in trouble? But that didn’t make sense. The thoughts ran through my head faster than ever, slipping through before I could do anything about them.

The truck continued to spin until we faced the right way, though looking at the wrong side of traffic. Cars peeled off around us, fishtailing and sliding in fresh snow. A mess of metal and rubber collided around us.

“Son of a bitch.” I slammed the truck into four wheel drive, the extra grip giving me the power I needed to get our asses back on the right side of the road and avoid the collision of cars that sprung up around us.

I glanced in the rearview mirror to see the sedan stuck behind the pile up of cars, unable to cut through the snow and grass median as we had. A figure stepped out, tall and slender, feminine with a distinct mocha hue to her skin highlighting her jet black hair. At this distance, I couldn’t tell anything else. She lifted a hand and saluted us as we sped away.

I rolled down the window, stuck my hand out and saluted her back. Though not with the respect she’d shown us. How the fuck had they found me? Had Faris actually called in the stolen truck? No, that wasn’t his style.

But how else … my eyes landed on the phone. If it was null to the supernatural, they could easily put a tracking device in it.

“FUCK!” I grabbed the phone from the dash and tossed it out the window.

Whoever had the guns, also had a desire to deal with vampires. Not good, not good at all. I hoped Liam would be able to handle this shit for a few hours until I was back.

The road twisted to the right, the wreck disappearing behind us, and then it curved to the left. With the speed we were going, and the kickback from the last curve, I was pretty sure we were about to eat it. “Hang on, Alex!”