Until they provided the perfect roadblock to keep Nix from catching up to us.
Ryder took another hard right, going the correct way down the street. I spun around in my seat, anxious, terrified and trembling. After thirty seconds, when they didn’t appear, I started to feel the smallest blossom of hope.
After a minute, when I could no longer see the turn and I knew the SUV would have a difficult time finding us, I started to breathe normally again.
After five minutes, when Ryder slowed down to a more normal speed and there was a good amount of space between where we’d lost them and where we were now, I turned back around and sat down again.
Ryder reached out and squeezed my shaking hand with his. His warm, calloused fingers wrapped around mind and I felt comfort so intense, so profoundly familiar, that I had to close my eyes from the force of it. I inhaled deeply, breathing in his coconut shampoo. For a moment I just soaked in the peace and simplicity of his touch , the miracle of his dare-devil driving andfinallyfelt relief.
We made it.
I hoped.
Ryder continued to make random turns, blowing off the speed limit completely. I never calmed down completely. I couldn’t.
After so long of being free, Nix was in the same town as me. All of the freedom I’d felt over the last year, even if it had been lonely freedom, evaporated on sight. I wasn’t free anymore, I was a prisoner.
And Nix owned me.
I could fight him for my entire life, I could run every day until the end of time, but he would hunt me just as long. As long as Nix was alive, I would never be free.
I would never let him have me, but he would never let me go either.
I realized that now. It had taken coming back to this place, nearly getting captured again, to realize there was only one way I would ever get to truly enjoy my freedom.
I had to kill a god.
Chapter Nine
Ryder parked the car and silence filled the space where the engine had roared moments before. We looked out on the small town of Council Bluffs, IA and at the bluffs where the city had gotten its name.
The sun set in front of us, painting the sky with vivid pastels that stretched with long fingers overhead. The natural forest around us created walls that kept us hidden. Cicadas buzzed loudly in hidden places and lightning bugs blinked on and off in the cover of the trees to either side of us.
I finally felt a small amount of peace after a very stressful day.
Ryder and I had been constantly moving since we ran into Nix. Ryder developed a plan quickly, born out of necessity and the will to live. He would drive us somewhere and we’d sit for a few minutes, until we were dreadfully paranoid and convinced that Nix was going to pop up at any second, then we’d get going again.
He’d driven almost all of the way to Des Moines before we got gas and turned around. We stopped for fast food around two, but it was after eight now and I was starving again.
I’d asked Ryder what his plan was earlier, but he hadn’t answered directly. He just didn’t want to stop long enough for Nix to catch up with us. We were close to Omaha again now. Council Bluffs was just over the Missouri River, only ten minutes from his downtown loft and fifteen from my midtown condo.
We were high up in the bluffs. Ryder had driven to an overlook that was near the Lewis and Clark Landing. Trains chugged along interweaving tracks at the base of our tall cliff. The rumble of their movement and clang of metal added a soundtrack to the summer sounds that filled in our quiet places.
“What now?” I broke the silence, anxious to speak again just to make sure that I could.
“I need to go home and get my passport.”
His words shocked the hell out of me. I didn’t know what he meant or what to say, but I could guess. Ryder had taken care of me today. I would be dead by now if he hadn’t been with me and acted so quickly.
Or worse than that, I would be with Nix. I owed Ryder everything and because of that I couldn’t ask anything else of him.
I had spent the majority of the day on the verge of a panic attack while hundreds of escape scenarios played out in my head.
The best one I thought of involved Ryder driving to Kansas City. He could drop me off at the airport there and I could slip into the crowd unseen and unnoticed. I didn’t know if he was down for the long trip though. I pretty much needed his car services to get anywhere or I was completely screwed.
I couldn’t take a cab to Kansas City and expect to stay alive. Nix would find me. The bus left me completely vulnerable and I was sure that Nix had already staked out Eppley.
In fact, looking back, I was surprised Nix didn’t have someone watching the airport when I first got here. He should have tagged me the second I stepped off the plane.
