Ice lifted the gun that had fallen out of the glove box. “You do not touch my woman in ways she does not like.”
“Don’t,” Elle ordered. “Let me handle this.”
But really, it was too late. Ice had a gun on a law enforcement officer. There was no coming back from that. He’d be arrested, put into the system, exposed for what he was.
“You don’t want to do this,” Officer Beckstead warned.
“Shit,” Elle swore under her breath. She pushed off the car, spinning on her heels. She used the momentum to add strength to her punch as she knocked the officer square in the jaw.
Her knuckles cracked. He stumbled in surprise.
“I’m sorry.” She hit him a second time. As he fell, she reached forward to catch him. She stumbled under his weight. “Ice, help me get him to his car.”
Ice lifted the man and hefted him over his shoulder. He strode toward the police cruiser. Elle ran ahead of him and opened the driver-side door. She found her ID on a small clipboard and grabbed it before turning to the computer. Her name and the car info had been typed in, but it didn’t look as if he’d saved the information. She hit the delete key.
“No dashboard cam,” she said. She tore the paper copy of her information off his clipboard. “Let’s hope he didn’t tell the station my name or license number.”
Elle wasn’t sure how long her luck would hold out. She flexed her sore hand. There were so many ways this could go wrong—had gone wrong.
“We need to ditch this car,” Elle said, leading the way back to the Ford. “Another officer could be on the way. They’ll issue an alert when they figure out what we did, making us Utah’s most wanted for assaulting an officer. The Milano Foundation is undoubtedly tracking us, and this little stunt will help them zero in on our location.” She opened the door and slid into the seat. She slammed the door shut and turned the screwdriver in the ignition. “Oh, and we probably have drug dealers after us.”
“What are drug dealers?” he asked, slamming the door shut as she had.
“Criminals who will be looking for that gun and that bag of coke, or crank, or heroin, or whatever it is. They were probably using this car as some kind of drop point. I doubt they expected someone would want to steal this piece of crap.”
She put the car into gear and stepped on the gas, speeding down the dark highway. The policeman’s lights blinked in the rearview.
You really fucked things up this time, Elle.
Chapter Ten
Ice held the bag Elle told him to carry as they quickly crossed the parking lot of what she called a truck stop. They’d left the car in a darkened corner of the lot. She’d made him wait outside of the complex as she went in. He did not like being the lookout. The baby aspirin took a while to work, and she said after the police car incident they’d be looking for a blue man accompanying a female.
Giant vehicles towered over them as they passed through the narrow aisles between. Bearded men lifted white sticks to their mouths and blew smoke into the air.
“Hey, sweetheart, you lost?” a man called.
“Not interested,” Elle yelled, not bothering to look at who spoke to her.
Ice came out from behind a semi-truck’s cab. A man stopped mid-stride on his way to following Elle. He quickly averted his eyes and turned when he saw Ice.
“We’re looking for a truck with a red logo that reads ‘Pan Darrell’ on the side.” Elle quickened her pace.
“Are we stealing another car?”
“We’re going to stow away in one of the trailers. The Pan Darrell driver told me his next stop is Boulder. That’s right outside of Denver. I went around and told everyone I was looking for a ride. I had two offers, but the first one was sketchy and smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a while. The second one only had room for one passenger in his cab, and I think he wanted to trade sex for travel. He said he was leaving in twenty minutes, so we don’t have much time. We are going to have to sneak onto the back of his truck.” She glanced at Ice. “Do you know how to read English?”
Ice nodded. “It was part of my uploads.”
“Uploads?” She continued her search.
“The Galaxy Brides aliens inject the information into our brain so that we may have the knowledge. Once it processes, we are able to possess a new skill.” Ice noticed a long white truck with a red cab. The rounded logo looked as if it said the words she was looking for. “Is that it?”
“You let someone inject a whole language into your brain, so you could come to Earth and meet women?” She frowned at him. “That seems extreme.”
“Actually, they injected two.” Ice paused, accessing the ability to add in the gurgling nuances of the Venimice. “Though we didn’t need the first one.”
“That’s the noise you were making when we,” she paused before finishing, “found you.”
