Page 45 of Hounded (Fire & Brimstone)

45

Loren

Three hours passed in excruciating silence. Indy huddled against the truck’s passenger door, balled up and sniffling while I took the highway out of Ohio headed toward New York, planning a detour on the way.

If Indy noticed we were backtracking, he didn’t ask why. I snuck glimpses of his face in the window’s reflection. His freckled cheeks were streaked with tears, and his hands fisted in the blanket he’d wrapped around himself despite the afternoon sun making the cab uncomfortably hot.

Before we left Ohio, I threw on clean clothes to cover the wounds slowly stitching themselves closed. My hair was caked with blood, so I tied it back in a low ponytail and hoped the dark color blended into my ebony locks.

The needle on the gas gauge was tipping toward empty when I turned off the interstate. I’d found the campgrounds by chance. A billboard on the side of the highway advertised it as family-friendly with amenities like minigolf, an arcade, and two swimming pools. It seemed wholesome. Safe. A suitable place to stash the love of my life while I carried on to New York alone.

Indy stayed in the truck while I parked and went to the front office to pay for one night. Only one night. We’d stopped just past Pittsburgh, a couple hundred miles from our close call in Ohio, and six hours from Brooklyn. With any luck, I would be back early tomorrow with a ward of my own, no longer a liability, and able to take Indy wherever he wanted to go.

When I climbed back into the truck cab, Indy was sniffling again. He rubbed his chapped cheeks on his fleece blanket while dodging my attention.

I put the truck in gear and steered toward the campsite we’d been assigned. Backing the Airstream into position took multiple attempts. Maneuvering the thirty-four-foot behemoth came with a steep learning curve.

On my third effort, I got the trailer situated and killed the engine. My sore muscles throbbed in protest as I exited the truck, and I fought a limp as I walked around to Indy’s door. When I opened it, he looked at me at last. His golden eyes were bloodshot, and his nose was running. He snuffled a wet breath.

“Are you taking me back to rehab?” he asked.

I hadn’t even considered that.

Turning, I extended my hand toward the sunny scene before him. A group of kids chased each other with water guns two lots away, and a family of five crowded around a fire pit in the spot beside ours, holding skewered hot dogs over an open flame.

“Does this look like rehab?” I asked.

Indy’s brows dipped in a frown. “After this.”

A heavy breath left me. Rehab had been my Hail Mary. My last resort. And it had failed.

“No.” I shook my head, then immediately questioned my certainty. “Maybe,” I amended, then corrected myself once more. “I don’t know.”

Indy nodded and looked away. His face scrunched until it seemed he might start sobbing again.

I stepped closer, and he turned into me so I could stand between his legs. The open truck door blocked the view of the campfire crew, so I laid my palms on his thighs and rubbed slowly over them while glistening tears dripped from his lashes.

“There’s something wrong with me,” he mumbled, raking his fingers down his damp cheeks. “Fucking everything is wrong with me.”

He looked spent, so low after his high, and weak. Moving around beside him, I slid one arm under his knees and the other across his back to scoop him into a cradle hold.

“Let’s get you inside,” I murmured as I lifted his blanket-shrouded body out of the truck, caring less about the weenie roasters gawking than about how good it felt to have Indy so close.

The drive here had been tortuous when I’d wanted so badly to comfort him. It felt a bit like a betrayal to close myself off, knowing he used the drugs to get to me. But, by his own admission, he was chasing memories of me, immersing himself in lives past, and that stung when his addiction was taking him away from the me who was here and now.

He lay against me as I carried him up the steps into the trailer. The place was a wreck. I hadn’t been alert enough to realize during our Ohio stopover, but since we’d only ever used the Airstream parked and hadn’t packed or secured anything before we left New York, our time on the road had tossed the contents from every surface into piles on the floor.

I shuffled through the mess to deposit Indy on the couch. He slumped on the cushions, scooting away from the bloodstains I’d left there earlier.

Those must have jogged his memory, or at least spurred him to speak because he said, “You got better.”

I nodded, then headed into the kitchen. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and must have been thirsty after all the crying. And the amphetamines.

I raided the pantry for something he would like. A few seconds of rifling yielded a package of blueberry Pop-Tarts, and I filled a glass with milk before carrying both back to the living room. Indy sat, staring out the window where the curtain had slid aside, watching the kids soak each other with water guns.

Setting the food and drink on the coffee table—clear for once since everything was on the floor—I sat beside him. He didn’t move closer, just kept looking ahead with his brows pinched.

“They attacked you.” He sounded distant. “Why? I thought they wanted me.”

I clasped my hands in my lap, though I wanted to hold his instead. The subject was sobering. I meant it when I said he saved me, and I tried not to think about how frightened I’d been while pinned down in that greasy garage.

If it had been Indy—because they did want him— could I have fended them off? Or would I have been equally helpless and forced to watch them destroy him?

After a moment, I tried to explain. “I’m not supposed to be here. My…” I fidgeted with my collar, trying to ease the phantom tightness. “My owner wants me in Hell. She sent the other hounds to take me back.”

Indy glanced over. Concern deepened the wrinkles on his face. “What if they do?”

“They won’t.”

Indy’s hand found my knee, and he squeezed it hard. “ Loren ,” he said, then repeated, “What if they do?”

That was the crux of it. The reason we were here, a truth he would not like. I didn’t like it, either.

Lifting his hand from my knee, I brought it to my lips and kissed his knuckles. “Then you’ll still be safe because I’m going to lead them away.”

Indy blanched. “What?” He yanked his hand back and recoiled, nearly tumbling off the couch.

I moved after him, needing him close for a few minutes more. “They have my scent,” I explained. “They can track me, and they’ll follow me to you. I have to go.”

He gathered the blanket to his chest and hugged it, paling while his eyes swam with fresh tears.

“You’re leaving?” He sounded choked. “When?”

“Now,” I replied.

“Tonight?”

“ Now .”

Indy sprung off the couch and stomped his foot. “No!” he shouted. “You can’t ditch me here! Where even are we?”

My hound whined, and I grimaced. He should have understood. Protection was his job, like Sully said, and it was his instinct to lure the predators away from what needed protecting.

I stayed seated, looking up at Indy while he grew increasingly agitated.

“Pennsylvania,” I replied quietly. “I’ll be back—”

“The last time you said that, you were gone for ten fucking days.” Indy shook his head, whipping his curls around his face. “You’re not leaving me in Pennsylvania , Loren. I’m coming with you.”

He was quaking all over, shaking so hard I thought he might break apart. I stood and tiptoed through the clutter on the floor to draw close to him.

Taking hold of his shoulders, I ducked into his line of sight to speak in earnest. “Indy. Doll. They’re following me. I can’t stay here.”

His arms crossed over the wadded blanket, and his bottom lip quivered. I remembered the raw power he’d displayed at the automotive store, every bit the immortal, formidable being I knew him to be. Now, a few hours later, he seemed entirely the opposite.

“They almost killed you.” He blinked his watery eyes. “And I killed them because they… they were ripping you apart.” His knuckles went white where they clenched around the fleece.

I traded my grip on his shoulders to cup his face instead. I tipped it toward mine and brushed my thumbs over his freckled cheeks.

“Look at me, Doll,” I said.

He reluctantly obeyed.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “I’ll be fine. ”

“I’m supposed to take care of you,” he protested, and my hound whimpered again.

He looked fragile, ready to fall apart, so I held him. I wrapped him in my arms and pulled him to my chest, then laid my head on top of his.

“You already did,” I said. “Now, I’m taking care of you.”

Releasing the blanket, Indy clung to me instead. I nuzzled into his curls, missing the honey-sweet smell masked by Sully’s ward, but loving the feel of him all the same. It was a sensation imprinted on my memory after a century spent together. His body fit against mine. He made me whole.

I wanted to be confident that I would be back. That the hounds wouldn’t catch me. That this would work. But life had taught me more about failure than success, and I wasn’t confident enough to offer any further assurance before Indy spoke again.

“I’m sorry about the drugs.” His face pressed against my chest, softening his voice as he continued. “I just… They make me feel things. And I think I need them to be… me.”

“I know,” I replied.

He rattled on without a pause for breath. “There’s so much missing, and it’s like this hole I’ve gotta fill, and I…” He pushed back and blinked, belatedly registering my words. “You know?”

I nodded.

His features relaxed, then he sagged against me with a heavy breath. “But you’re still mad.”

“I’m not mad. ”

Not mad. Hurt. Afraid. And out of time.

Catching Indy’s chin with one crooked finger, I drew him in for a kiss. He pushed onto his tiptoes, savoring the moment that ended too soon. I straightened and brushed his hair back, then placed one more kiss on the tip of his nose. That never failed to make him smile.

I turned and picked my way across the room to the DVD cabinet. Its contents were shuffled and scattered, worse for wear after our time on the road, but I found what I was looking for: a young Molly Ringwald posed on the cover of Pretty in Pink .

“This is one of your favorites.” I waved the case so Indy could see.

He gathered his blanket from where it had piled around his ankles and returned to the couch. I heard the crinkle of the Pop-Tart wrapper opening while I fed the DVD into the player.

The opening credits rolled, and I dug through the menagerie on the floor till I found the remote and set it on the coffee table beside the glass of milk.

Then I stood, surveying our tossed trailer, our home, and trying to memorize this moment. A lump formed in my throat when I caught Indy watching me instead of the TV. My perfect, beautiful boy. My treasure.

“You’ll be right back?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Not like last time,” he said.

I shook my head. “Not like last time.”

Sucking a breath, I moved toward the door. The bags of charms Sully had made to ward our lot at Trailer Trove were heaped beside the kitchen cabinets, and I scooped them up. I would stop on my way out to place them around the entrance of this campground in case any hellhounds tried to sniff Indy out in my absence. With his spelled bracelet, he should have been safe, but I would take every precaution I could.

When I grasped the door handle, Indy called my name.

I glanced back and watched him swallow, set his jaw, and swallow again. “Be safe,” he said at last.

I could have kissed him. I could have held him but, if I didn’t go now, I never would. So, I nodded and stepped out of the trailer, then locked the door behind me.