Page 139 of The Vigilante's Lover

“Okay. Thank you.” I kill the call and throw the phone across the parking lot. It lands in a thorny bush. Maybe that will slow them down since they can track it.

I turn back to Jax. I want to take his car so we can be cloaked, but I can’t move him. He’s starting to stir.

I lean in. “Jax, baby, if you want to take your car, you have to move. The Vigilantes know where we are.”

He opens his eyes. He shakes his head, then suddenly he’s all action. He reaches behind the seat and grabs his knapsack. He pauses a moment, staring at the floorboard, and picks up Klaus’s metallic blue gun.

I back away as he lunges for his car as if he’s going to drive.

“Oh, no,” I say. “You have to sit in the passenger seat.” I grab his arm. He jerks away, then shakes his head again. I know what he’s going through. I remember this manic phase. I wonder if I should take the gun away.

I walk him around and open the door. “In,” I order, and he obeys.

Then I race around the car and jump in.

I don’t want to go back toward the arena. That seems the most likely place they’ll come from.

“Cloaking levels one, two, and three,” I tell the car as we bounce over a curb and onto a dark back street.

“Cloaking initiated,” the woman says.

“Look at you,” Jax says. “Like you were born to it.”

I flash him a smile. “You got a Crybaby in this one?” I ask.

He shakes his head, his hand on his temple. “Just drive away. They can’t track us unless they get a visual. Blend into traffic as soon as you can.”

I bump along the back road, scanning ahead for a busier street. We zigzag through the neighborhood, then I spot a traffic light. That should intersect with something else.

“Is it safe to go back to the hotel?” I ask him.

“Should be, as long as we’re not followed.” He scans the road ahead, then turns and looks behind. “We seem clear.”

I look over at him and he meets my eyes. “You were great back there,” he says.

I’m coming down from the horrifying adrenaline rush. “What happened?”

Jax ruffles his hair. “Klaus poisoned me. Slick new device embedded in prosthetic skin.”

I grimace. “Sounds disgusting.”

“It got me.”

“Do you have people trying to kill you all the time?” I ask.

He holds the gun in his hand for a moment longer, letting it glint in the passing streetlights, then drops it into his knapsack. As we merge into traffic, he says, “Only once or twice a day.”

17: Jax

Probably the only thing worse than dying from a Vigilante poison is surviving it.

I always imagine that this is what college kids feel like after a night of cheap liquor. Head pounding. Stomach like a punch to the gut. I don’t appreciate feeling weak or slow.

And Jovana got away. Klaus has admitted to a bigger plot, but for what? I don’t have a next step other than to go for Sutherland himself.

Which is suicide.

Mia drives the car with alert attention. The lights passing by light up her face and hair, then she falls into darkness again. She glances at me every few seconds as if to make sure I’m really still alive.