Page 43 of Healing Conviction

“Shanna! Get off of him!” Screams, arms, shouts, legs, curses, and hands were everywhere as Nora climbed on top of the flailing woman to peel her off of Drake while he kept trying to navigate the shaking truck. “Shanna!”

The truck swerved hard right and stopped suddenly, but Shanna was still fighting for the wheel. Nora fell back into the seat and grabbed one of the syringes she’d seen in the kit and stabbed Shanna in the back of the thigh, depressing the plunger.

The woman howled and reached for her leg, but the syringe was in too awkward of a spot for her to reach it. She writhed and Drake pushed her off of him until all of a sudden her voice cut off mid-scream. Her body went rigid just before she collapsed across the center console and slid upside down into the front passenger seat. A heavy breath escaped from her on one long groan.

“Oh my gods… is she—”

Shanna snored on a powerful inhale, giving Nora the ability to breathe again herself. She deflated against the back seat, gulping back her stress and taking stock of her surroundings.

Drake had been able to pull over on the empty back road, and he seemed relatively unscathed, although the shoulder of his shirt had a rip in it. She then shifted back to the perpetrator, who was currently sawing logs headfirst on the front passenger floorboard.

“Drake… what the actual fucking fuck did I fucking give that poor girl?”

Hehmphedas he reached for the syringe, pulling it unceremoniously from Shanna’s thigh before examining it. His placid face remained unchanging except for the slight widening of his eyes.

“Drake… I don’t like that look.”

“It’s fine. Just something we had leftover from MF7.” He laid the syringe in a cup holder before beginning to tap on his phone screen. “Should be fine.”

“No, no, no. Tell me right now. Whatwasit?”

An agonizingly long moment passed where Nora wanted to yank his stupid, disheveled blond hair out of his stupid, sexy head.

“Drake!”

He finally looked up and deposited his phone back in his pocket. “It’s fine. Seriously.” He grabbed the syringe and rolled down Shanna’s window before chucking it into the woods. “She’ll probably wake up in a couple hours.”

“Probably?”

“Hand me one of those wipes back there.”

Nora caught an inscription on the outside of the kit as she retrieved a pack of baby wipes. “What’s this writing?” She peered closer at the inked words. “Is this Arabic?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He shrugged. “Get me a wipe, will you? And use one on your hands, too.”

“Was that syringedangerous? Is she gonna be okay?” Nora followed his directions and scrubbed her palms and fingers, curious at the way the cool cloth left a damp tingling behind.

“She’ll be fine. And hey, these wipes are heavy duty stuff, so just swipe over your skin once, don’t keep using it or it’ll start to burn. When you’re done, toss it in the bio bag.”

“Why didn’t you put the syringe in the bio bag?”

His hands paused in their movements before he cleared his throat. “We, uh, we uh, just didn’t want that in here anymore.”

“Oh my gods and goddesses and all the entities, Draco Malfoy, if you don’t start giving me some godsdamned answers I’m gonna attack you too—”

A rumble from the previously silent back road made them both still.

Drake’s eyes darted to the rearview mirror. “Shit, someone’s coming.”

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

She turned around to see faint headlights in the dimming summer night before shrugging and facing forward. “Big deal, it’s a road. We’ve got bigger problems like, say… I don’t know, maybe the unconscious woman in the front seat?”

Drake put the truck in drive again and rolled out onto the street. “Yeah. It’s abackroad that hasn’t had anyone on it yet besides us. I can’t tell yet because it’s too far behind us, but if it’s a police cruiser, he’s going to want to know why we stopped on the side of this road.And, as you pointed out, he’s going to wonder why we have a passed-out junkie in the front seat.”

The idea of having to finesse their way out of a nosy cop conversation had the back of her neck sweating. “That’s fair. Let’s get a move on and hope we’re in the clear.”

“That’s the current plan. Help me right her, will you?”