“Coordinates won’t help me. I can hear cars. We must be near the highway.”
We were surrounded by trees, but I could hear the familiar sound of trucks whooshing down the highway and car horns honking like crazy. Rush hour would have the city grid locked for about another hour, so escaping by car would have been senseless.
“Can you do another one of these teleports?” I asked.
“It would help if I knew where we were going.”
“What about your ship? You said it was nearby?”
“Yes. It’s in Vermont.”
“Vermont isn’t nearby?!” I half-yelled.
Vidar wrinkled his nose.
“Of course it is. It’s not in England or anything.”
Right. To him, anywhere within this country counted as “nearby”. If we were to get to Vermont, and could only teleport five miles at a time, I’d be sucking my body through that tiny needle hole over and over again… I didn’t think I could take it.
“Surely there’s a more sophisticated way to get to Vermont.”
“I’m supposed to be here for six months. To get an emergency broadcast to my people I’d need a HAM radio and an amplifier.”
“I wouldn’t begin to know where to find that.”
“I need you to think, Minerva. Where can we be safe. Think.”
He grabbed my shoulders and gazed into my eyes with such fearsome determination. He’d protected me so far. It was my turn to protect him.
“If we can make it to the highway, I can figure out where to go next. I think I know someone we can trust.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Billings. John Billings. Things are a bit awkward between us but we’ve been good friends for years. If we explain everything to him, he’ll help us out.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Yes,” I replied after giving it some thought, “John’s a good person.”
“Okay. You wait here. I can make it to the highway and back faster than you can.”
Not only could he teleport, but Vidar could move faster than any human being. I rested my back up against a large tree,still gasping for breath. The image of Dr. Trout’s neck as blood spurted forth from the bullet wound couldn’t leave my mind. I gasped and sank to the ground, crouching and pulling my knees in close.
Pull it together, Minerva.
By now, the soldiers had likely discovered the bloody, gruesome scene in the lab. I wanted someone to blame for what happened, but I had to admit to myself that Vidar was only protecting me. Dr. Trout wanted to hurt me and he planned on it. Vidar followed his instincts. His instincts to protect me were stronger than I could have predicted, just like my instincts to save him after we’d… bonded.
What had only happened a few days ago felt like aeons ago. And I couldn’t help but feels more strongly for him than I had for any man. He was strong, masculine, intelligent, quick and…
Vidar appeared beside me, his chest heaving slowly as if he were barely out of breath.
“We’re just off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.”
“Okay. I think we can get to John’s apartment, but we should wait until it’s darker.”
“Alright.”
“I think we can make it in five rounds of teleportation.”
