Page 5

Chapter

Five

GRACE

B etween the violent shaking of the van as Alphabet raced across the desert, coupled with the vibrations rattling my body, I was kind of surprised it didn’t make my head hurt worse. Honestly, it had, for a bit, but the noise and the bouncing seemed to drown out the ache. Weird.

Or maybe not. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done plenty of shoots with a hangover. Sometimes, you just had to rely on the music and the laughter to boost your endorphins. Granted, a race over inhospitable landscape in an ancient Volkswagen Bus van that reminded me of the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine had never been on my bucket list.

But hey, here we were.

I tightened my grip on the oh shit handle as the van bounced into a dip and then up again. This was not the vehicle we needed to catch air in. Alphabet’s sudden laugh reached me and I whipped my head to look at him. The wide grin on his face was wildly infectious and I found myself smiling in response.

Until he looked at me.

“Eyes on the—” I ordered, glancing forward. “Dirt or whatever.”

A fresh bark of laughter escaped him. “Don’t worry, Gracie-girl, we’re almost there.”

That shouldn’t be comforting, yet my grin felt just this side of feral as I held on tight. I stole a look at the map on the phone. The distance had been shaved considerably. What had been thirty-ish minutes had been trimmed to under five now.

If I’d thought it had been remote before, it had nothing on this. There were rises ahead. Dark rocks jutting upward like dark fingers reaching for the sky. Despite the starry sky, I wasn’t sure how I could make out any of these details. The next hard bounce had my teeth clacking together.

That definitely didn’t help the headache. Light spilled over the side of one rock, giving it a red, ruddy appearance. Like it had been stained with blood…

The moon was on the horizon, where it hadn’t been before. Half-full, it offered so much light to turn the inky blackness into a more velvet blue-black. We were already slowing down from the juddering pace. I was going to feel those vibrations in my soul permanently.

It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes since he took us off-roading. I reached for the phone where he had it set. We were almost to the flagged location. And I was right… It hadn't been more than fifteen minutes. It had been twelve.

“Gonna find a place to set up. I’m going to need you to stay in the van, Gracie-girl.”

“I hate that.” The answer escaped me almost automatically and he shot me a glance. At least I could hear myself think again. The thud of my headache was still there and it seemed to throb into my teeth. “I get it, I’m not some super bad-ass spy-mercenary-action hero chick, but I’m not some helpless damsel either.”

We were amongst the huge rocks when he finally stopped the van and cut a look toward me. Lips pursed, he studied me.

“Before you say anything…” I said, pointing a finger at him. “The vehicle isn’t always safe either .” Granted, he hadn’t been there when Voodoo, Bones, and I had been forced off the road and down that hill, but it was a fact.

Instead of arguing, Alphabet smashed his lips flat as he stared forward. I could almost see him arguing with himself. That was better than arguing with me, so I wouldn’t complain. I glanced at the phone. The blue dot was getting closer to us. But it was coming from a different angle.

Hopefully, they were on the road and not taking our shortcut. “Not sure how far away they are, but they are headed to us.”

“If you go with me and Goblin, you do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, no questions or arguments.”

“Okay.” I could agree with that. Because it also meant I wouldn’t be stuck here in the van wondering what the hell was going on or risking getting hit again. The barn was safe the first time we wandered out to it at the safe house. I had no idea where that man came from or who he was or why he’d attacked me.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure why any of this had targeted me or if they had targeted Am and I’d been swept up into it. The sickening realization had been there in the pit of my stomach since the nightmare began—none of this was an accident.

If that was true, then it was a solid chance that Am was definitely missing. The cold dread of that reality struck like a sucker punch to the gut. Tears burned in my eyes and I forgot how to breathe.

A whine from the backseat had Alphabet twisting toward me. “Hey…”

I swallowed around the hard lump in my throat and blinked furiously. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to feel any of this. Am had to be okay. If it was me living in denial, then I would invest in a vacation home here. I was going to hold on until my fingernails were gone and I didn’t have the strength for it anymore.

“I’m okay,” I lied. “I mean, I’m not, but I will be. What do you need me to do?” The last thing I wanted to do was talk about any of this. Not about what happened or why or who…

Alphabet touched my chin with light fingers and I shifted my gaze to meet his. The contact was barely there, another illusion of connection but one I leaned into this time, instead of away.

“I will be okay,” I told him. “I promise. We don’t have time for me to be anything else.”

He studied me and I hoped he found whatever he was looking for, because I couldn’t fake it anymore than I already had. Not when we had a whole other threat on its way to us.

“We’re going to talk about this again,” he said in a voice that was almost too soft. It held more force than when he’d yelled earlier.

“Later,” I murmured, needing him to agree. But would he? “If you insist.”

“I do,” he said, with a nod. “For now, unbuckle Goblin and let him out.” He swept a look down me. “It’s going to be chilly out there, grab a jacket from the back and a knit cap.”

He was agreeing and an unreasonable amount of gratitude spilled through me. “Okay.”

With that, he let me go, shut off the van and climbed out. He wasn’t kidding about the cooler air. Goosebumps decorated my skin as I released my own seatbelt then climbed into the back to free Goblin.

The dog gave me an open mouth grin before he licked me from chin to eyeball. It was ridiculous and made me laugh. “You’re welcome,” I told him before I slid open the side door. Goblin hopped right out without needing me to say a word.

Even without a breeze, the sweat on me seemed to make it colder. I hadn’t even realized I had been sweating. I closed the side door before I circled to the back. Alphabet had a huge case in his hand and he passed me a jacket and a knit cap. I put them on then took the next bag he handed me.

“Let’s go.”

True to my word, I didn’t ask anything as I followed him up the rise to where the rocks continued to stretch toward the sky. It didn’t seem like we were that much higher, and we weren’t—from the van. Apparently, we’d come up an incline or to the top of an incline.

Goblin paused to piss on a rock before he trotted after us. The walk was up a bit more of a gentle sloping hill. Or maybe not so gentle, it made the backs of my legs protest. Once we got to a spot where we could see the desert spread out below us or as much as we could with the light of the moon, he set down his case.

“Get down, flat to your belly.”

“Where do you want the bag?” I mean, he’d said no questions, but then he gave me the bag.

He faced me and lifted the strap off my shoulder with a faint smile. “I have it.”

I nodded once then dropped to lay on my belly. The rock was definitely cold and hard. Alphabet didn’t say anything, just unlocked the case and flipped it open. There was a gun inside… a really big gun.

He set his phone on the ground next to me so I could see the screen too. We were still the red dot, I assumed, and that blue dot was definitely getting closer. Goblin came to sit next to me while Alphabet assembled the gun.

I didn’t know what it was, but it was damn impressive. A dozen questions formed and died on my tongue. Maybe we could revisit those later too. Still, once he had the gun together, he set it up on some kind of stand that kept the barrel up while he laid down and put his eye to the scope.

The silence grew deeper now that the shivers of metal scraping on metal as he put the pieces together faded. Then he unzipped the bag, splitting the quiet. He passed me a pair of binoculars and then pulled out a huge cartridge that he plugged into the gun itself.

With a sharp clack of the slide bolt, he had loaded a bullet. There was no mistaking that sound. I swallowed again. “Use the binoculars, let me know the minute you see a vehicle heading this way. They should be close enough to spot by now.”

Happy to pull my attention from his monster weapon, I put the binoculars to my eyes and then snickered. His monster weapon.

Oh my god, Grace. Shut up.

“What’s funny?”

“Absolutely nothing,” I said, sobering immediately. Because it shouldn’t be funny. Voodoo was definitely packing and it wouldn’t surprise me if Alphabet was.

Shut. Up. Brain .

As inappropriate and insane as those thoughts were, they buoyed my mood. How much crazier could my life get? Binoculars up, I frowned because the world wasn’t dark through them. If anything, it was?—

“Oh, these are night vision.” That was cool.

Alphabet chuckled then said something in what sounded like Dutch. I didn’t speak that as well as I did German. Hmm, maybe a new language to learn. But rather than ask, I focused.

I caught the dust of their movement first. “Got them.”

“Tell me how many and what the configuration is…”

Didn’t he— No questions, Grace.

“SUV, large in the front, followed by two more, one is an SUV, the other looks like a bigger car. There’s something smaller too…”

Flashes of white popped into and out of view. I backed my head up a little then frowned again. Some flashes of white came from the SUV in the front.

Gunfire.

It was gunfire.

How had they made it all this way shooting at each other? The SUV in the front kept pulling away and the one behind it kept trying to catch up. There were more flashes and the cars behind it dropped back.

That was how.

“Okay, there’s also a motorcycle, SUV and a big car, I don’t know what kind it is.”

“That’s fine,” Alphabet said in a comforting voice. “Hit the right button on the binoculars, it’s going to start giving you numbers. Focus on the closest vehicle behind the first SUV.”

That made sense. The first SUV was our guys, I would guess. Lines appeared in my view, then green numbers began to flicker, once I had the feel for it, I shifted the view to the vehicles behind the SUV.

They were definitely getting closer.

I rattled off the first series of numbers. Then said, “They are getting lower. Do I need to count it down?”

“You can,” Alphabet said.

I didn’t make it two numbers before the gun next to me fired. The report of it was loud and I jerked, but not before I saw an explosion hit the back tire of the vehicle I’d been tracking. Another sharp report and a second explosion hit the vehicle and it was suddenly tumbling.

“Second vehicle.” The command in the snap of his voice had me reversing my attention back to the chase unfolding below. The quake in my hands made focusing harder. Then Goblin laid down next to me and pressed into my side. It wasn’t a lot but it helped.

Mouth dry, I finally got the second car in my sight and gave him the numbers. He did something, I could practically feel the movement next to me, but I didn’t want to look away. This time, I made it four numbers before he fired and there was no missing the way the engine hood blew upward and back toward the car or that it swerved wildly before it too started rolling.

Another report from the gun and there was a bright flash of white from the under carriage as it kept flipping and then the whole car exploded. I could imagine the heat billowing out from it. The motorcycle vanished in the conflagration because there was a sudden bright flash a half mile back. The SUV had gone up too.

My heart slammed against my ribs almost painfully and my skin was tight. “Looking for the motorcycle.”

“Deep breaths, Gracie-girl,” Alphabet said in that same lulling tone he’d used earlier. “We have time.”

Did we? It didn’t feel like it. The shaking seemed to intensify. I was shuddering harder than the van had when we’d been flooring it across the landscape. Sweat trickled between my shoulder blades and I was boiling despite the cold rock below me.

Where was it? Had it actually been taken out with the others? No, I didn’t see it, but would I—there.

“Got him. He’s off road.” Then I gave him the numbers.

“Sneaky little bastard,” Alphabet murmured. “Isn’t he?” Then before I could answer, he added, “Fire in the hole.”

I almost didn’t jump this time when he fired. Almost. And maybe I was a glutton for punishment, because I didn’t look away. The back tire on the motorcycle went up in flames and the vehicle pitched forward, sending the rider flying.

He was also on fire.

I saw everything before I closed my eyes and lowered the binoculars. Goblin scooted up along my side and whined. Turning, I rubbed the top of his head and let him lick me. The tears I’d fought earlier escaped, and my heart raced so fast, I thought I was going to throw up.

“You did good, Gracie-girl,” Alphabet said in that low silken tone. He also ran a hand over the top of my head. Okay, maybe he was petting me and Goblin both. “Real good.”