“I don’t wanna hide.”
“No?”
“No, I’m shit at hide and seek. I always get found.”
“Too talkative?”
“Who’s too talkative?”
He chuckled and said, “Why don’t we try to be very quiet for a few minutes?”
“Mm-kay.”
Made sense to be quiet. He might’ve killed one government SUV with that statue, but there had been plenty more to take up the chase. Could probably get, like, six guys in each car. That could be a lot of guys driving around looking for us. Not to mention the helicopter!
I realized he was carrying me in his arms like I weighed nothing. “You aresostrong.”
“Hush, love.”
“Right.” Yeah, he’d said we should be quiet. Somebody could be nearby. I realized my head was on his shoulder and managed to, like, flick it back and look over to see behind us. I could have his six even when I was messed up. “All clear back here.”
Hamilton sighed heavily, and then he walked us into someplace that got a lot darker. And rounder. Literally, as he walked away from it, the entrance to this place turned out to be a Hobbit-hole.
“Are we going to Middle Earth?” It seemed like a fair question, what with everything I knew about supernatural creatures and all.
“Middle— No, we’re in a storm drain. It’s a bit obvious, I know, but it’ll keep us out of sight until you’re feeling better. And if we’re still here when the sun comes up, it’ll help with that as well.”
“A storm drain? Like a sewer?” I screwed my nose up in anticipation of a stinky smell, but honestly, it was like a damp basement, if anything.
“No, not a sewer, though it might connect to the storm drains under the roads, if we need to go deeper to escape pursuit.”
It wasreallydark now. Hamilton did one of his echolocation scream squeaks, so he could probably see just fine, but I couldn’t see anything anymore. I closed my eyes, hoping that choosing the darkness would feel less scary. I wanted to grab onto him, but my hand only sort of flopped around.
“This drug wore off a lot faster last time,” I complained as Hamilton kept walking.
“I sucked it out of you, and it wasn’t enough to affect me much.”
I groaned. Yep, he sure had. Right there in his cage, he’d pinned me to the wall and had at me for the first time.
“Feel like a snack?”
“In a moment.” He kissed my forehead.
He walkedforever. We must’ve gone miles into this place, and I still wasn’t sure what it was for. Like a biblical flood? Because it was huge inside. Hamilton wasn’t ducking or squeezing through passageways. Every little noise was amplified to the point I could hear his bare feet padding along and the scurry of a few critters.
There better not be spiders. Swear to god.
“Here we are then.” And Hamilton seemed to open a door but, like, with his hip and probably popping a lock. “And, look, there’s a cot.”
As he set me down, I was having a very hard time connecting a storm drain with a room that had a cot. “Wherearewe?”
“Oh. One moment.”
I heard him walk away, and then a fluorescent light flickered to life. I had to squint after all that darkness, but then I could make out that we were in a very barebones office with nothing more than a gray metal table, a single chair, and this cot. “Is this place abandoned or something?”
Hamilton shrugged, standing there bare legged in his red blanket toga. “It might only be used when there’s a bad storm. But it has a phone,” he said, gesturing to the desk, “so we can communicate with The Coalition at some point.”
He didn’t sound eager to do that, and I couldn’t lift my head enough to see anything on top of the desk. “Dammit, Hammy, please get this drug out of me. I hate being souseless.”
