I try to remember if I checked all the rooms for stray occupants, but my head is in a tangle, still half caught in whatjust passed between us, overloaded with physical sensations it’s never had to sort before.
But we’ve been here for minutes. Anyone inside will have fled.
I can’t leave her to hop to safety. I pause long enough to scoop her into my arms, wincing as she punches me in the side of the head, trying to struggle free.
The dealer whose head I stomped is gone. Like any cockroach, he’s probably regenerated, stronger than before.
Zane hovers by the exit, anxiety streaming off him in waves. “We got to go. There are sirens on the way.”
He barely glances at the girl in my arms, just holding the door wide enough that I can walk through with her still cradled against my chest, limbs still flailing, one blow glancing across my jaw.
“Quit it,” I growl, flinching away from another close call, “or I’ll dump you back inside to burn.”
The words ignite a new flurry of motion, then she stills as I sprint for my vehicle. Wilder is already in his and I hear Zane’s running footsteps, the slam of his car door as I open the back seat of mine, dumping the girl inside, clicking the double lock control so she can’t escape from the rear doors.
Flames lick around the windows, tasting the concrete, drawing back, then surging as the heat inside propels a new explosion.
Sirens cut through the air, dulling as they curve around the lake's edge, then surging in volume.
I take one last look, then manually unlock my door and scramble inside. I floor the accelerator, halfway along the driveway before I clip my seatbelt into place, tugging the scarf from my face. The tyres spew gravel as I round the corner, heading in the opposite direction to Wilder and Zane.
And all the while the girl huddles into a ball in the back seat.
CHAPTER THREE
MADDOX
Once I’mout of earshot of the sirens, I stop the car near a public playing field, ripping away the cardboard I used to obscure my licence plates, before taking off again, heading for the central city.
When I glance in the rearview mirror, the girl has her one remaining high heel gripped tightly in her hand. I meet the reflection of her eyes and see the malevolent thoughts dancing. Probably imagining what it would look like buried in my skull.
“You hungry?”
She frowns, mouth twisting in confusion, the expressive face as cute as hell.
“I’m gonna stop for a burger,” I say, indicating for the next turnoff.
When I pull into the fast food carpark, I lean over to the glovebox, hooking the lever to the secret compartment in the back. The gun only just fits, and I feel careless for taking it with me. I should have tossed it, letting the fire burn my prints away.
Now I have to get rid of the damn thing.
Or keep it.
My eyes lock with the girl in the rearview mirror. She licks her lips, and part of my brain melts.
But I don’t have time for whatever this is. I’ll order food, but what I really want is the super clean bathroom in back where I can tidy myself and return to being a normal human with normal human impulses.
Not the goblin creature that took control back at the dealers’ squat.
There’s a pair of thick socks in the glovebox left there from last year’s rugby season, and I toss them into the back seat for her. “You got a name?”
“Maddox,” she says, and I jump like someone attached an electrode. Her eyes narrow as I turn towards her.
“You look exactly like your father,” she adds, and my eyes drop to her jacket, reading the name of the club over the front pocket.Cherry Red Gentlemen’s Club and Barwouldn’t fit, but the nickname ‘Chezzers’ slots in easier.
I face forward, lip curving into a sneer. Of course, she knows my dad.
He’s at the strip club more than he’s at home. The girls he enjoys watching gyrate on stage are a world apart from the age-appropriate ladies he escorts to black tie affairs.
