I didn’t want to believe it either, if only for Ford. I hated seeing how it broke him, even if he was trying to hide it.
One thing was for sure, I was going to hurt Violet severely for what he’d done to Ford.
“Where can we find him?” Ford asked after I hit the brakes again.
“I don’t know,” he replied. His voice was cold, telling me that he knew it was over for himself.
Ford pulled a gun from the back of his pants. A second later, the shot rang out, marking the end.
I cut the ATV off and stepped out.
“Don’t,” he barked at me. “I don’t want to hear it. Violet didn’t sell me out.”
His face was hard as he walked away from me.
I let him go because it was what he needed. Also, the crash was hitting me hard and I was dizzy all over again.
Yeah, I was just going to sit back down and take a little rest before I went after him.
Not long, just like five minutes.
25
Ford
“Reed, I don’t know what to do,” I admitted as I raced down the narrow dirt trail, leaving Austin’s house half-covered in flames behind us.
I’d given Reed the quickest rundown of what had just happened, clearly ending the whole thing sounding completely at a loss at what to do next.
Austin was in the passenger seat, head bobbing like he was struggling to hold onto consciousness but failing hard. I thought it wasn’t a good idea to let someone with a concussion sleep, but what the fuck could I do about it right now? It was a bit of a tight situation, The house was going down in flames and we’d killed more people than I wanted to think about. We were in a stolen vehicle and had nothing,again.
How had this become my life on repeat?
This phone I was on wasn’t the one we’d been using. I knew we had to ditch that one. Our location was compromised. The phone was compromised. I thought we were fucked. That was until I found another phone on Austin’s unconscious body while patting him down for the original one. There had only been one contact added, and instead of a name, the number two was used. When I checked the call log, I’d found it empty, which either meant the phone had never been used or he’d deleted it. Who knew? Austin did, but he hadn’t been with it enough for me to question him about it. And I had so many questions.
I had no other choice but to use it, and was grateful for my memory when it came to numbers. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to call Reed. With Austin currently down at the moment, Reed was the one thread holding me together.
I was sure Reed also had some questions when I’d called him from it. Or maybe he knew about the phone and why Austin had it. Then again, it was customary to switch phones a lot when you tended to work in the shadow of good, so to speak. Vigilante justice wasn’t exactly cool when it came to the eyes of the law.
Honestly, the whole thing left me feeling shaky. I didn’t think Austin had outright lied to me since we’d been… together in the sense of being on the run, but this felt like there was something big he was hiding. I just hoped I was wrong. Hoped I was letting paranoia get to me because of the situation.
“Were they FBI?” Reed asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
“No,” I said. “Mercenaries, I believe. Likely sent by Lipton, but I can’t confirm it.
“The guy didn’t say?”
“No. He didn’t seem to know much.” I sighed in frustration. He made it seem like Violet had given up my location, but I refused to believe it. There had to be something else. “I think Lipton’s plan is to have me killed so I can never defend myself. I won’t be able to tell anyone I’m innocent.”
How the hell did Lipton know where to find us? That was the one question burning in my head. Violet hadn’t sold me out, there was no way. But I had to admit, it was hard to think of how else Lipton knew where I was.
“Shit,” he swore under his breath. “This is bad.”
“I agree,” I said flatly. “But right now, I’m worried about Austin.”
“I’ve got a safe house outside Memphis. It looks like it will take you about eleven hours to get there. Do you think you can make it to Tennessee?”
I chanced a glance at Austin. We didn’t have any other options.
