Page 101 of Walking in Darkness

Ran through the fields toward Dani’s car.

Dani and Timothy were right there, racing beside me, their gazes slanting to me with every pounding footstep.

Dread poured from their beings.

Heavy and harsh.

We ran through it, Timothy pushing himself faster so he could get the door on the rear passenger side open to have it ready when I got there. I ducked through it with Aria on my lap.

Timothy slammed the door shut and hopped in the front passenger side. Dani was already inside and had the car started and in gear. The tires spun in the dirt as she gunned it, and she made a U-turn in the middle of the field, the car jostling back across the uneven terrain as she headed for the road.

While I held Aria in my arms. Begging and begging her. “Stay with me. Please, you got to hold on. You can’t leave. This world needs you. I need you.”

I hugged her to me, rocking her, my mouth at the top of her head as I kept breathing the unintelligible words into her.

Begging her to stay.

Pleading with her to be okay.

Her wound was pressed tight against my abdomen. I could feel the sticky warmth of her blood saturating my stomach and crawling down into the waistband of my jeans. Could feel it spreading with every second that passed.

Dani flew, even faster than she had the first time. Though there was silence in the car as we blew down the two-lane road. A baited disquiet that clawed through the dense, suffocating air.

“What the hell is that?” Timothy asked as he sat forward, peering through the windshield.

A woman was in the distance, pulled off to the side of the road. She came up fast since we were traveling at such a high speed.

She stood at the back of a big white work van.

Flares in both hands as she waved them overhead.

At the sight of her, something unsettled rolled over me.

“The fuck is she doing? That would be a solid no, even if we did have time for that,” Timothy muttered.

That unsettled something convulsed.

Pushing and prodding.

Dani moved into the middle of the two lanes and blazed right past her.

It took me two more seconds to realize where I’d seen her.

Short, curly brown hair and desperation on her face.

It was the nurse who’d helped us escape the facility.

Jill.

Maybe I was being a fool, but I suddenly shouted, “Stop!”

“What?” Doubt tore through the single word as Dani glanced at me in the rearview mirror like she was wondering if I’d lost it.

“Pull over. That woman. She helped me get Aria out of the institution back in New York.”

Had no fucking clue how she was here. But it had to mean something.

Worry passed over Dani’s features, but she hit the brakes, skidding to a stop in the middle of the road. She threw it in reverse and flew backward to come to a stop in front of the van where it sat on the shoulder.