“You’re in my way,” she spat. “And I’mso scared. Who knows what I’ll have to do to get away from you? I’m thatdesperate. I’m frantic with fear.”
A terrifying calm swamped me, sudden and absolute. “You’re a fucking lunatic, Lauren. Do whatever you like, but Ivy will be with me tonight, and you’re never going to see her again.”
She laughed again, her foot on the accelerator. “Move, Seth.”
I didn’t.
Instead, that numbing tranquillity put down roots, and I spread my hands and let her do to me what she’d been doing every damn day since we’d met.
I let her run me down.
25
FOLK
Preparing for vigilante terrorism was a tough gig. I had a dozen things to do at a dozen different locations, but the only place on earth I wanted to be was wherever Decoy was. Missing him was a tangible throb in my bones and I hadn’t even left him yet. Not for real, anyway. It was a sad fact that the meeting with his solicitor was going to be the highlight of mylongday.
“You have the detonators?”
Alexei’s voice was muffled. I peered around the stack of ammo boxes he was crouched behind and replied to his feet. “Not here. We need to go to the other storage unit on route.”
“We won’t have time for that if you’re gone too long this afternoon.”
A sarcastic retort bubbled up my throat.
I swallowed it down. It wasn’t Alexei’s fault that I’d found something more important to do on a day he needed my undivided focus. “We’ll have time.”
Alexei muttered something in Russian. But ignoring him was coming easy to me today, and I tuned him out, letting my thoughts wander instead of engaging with his nervous impatience, happily allowing my brain to spin out of control until it took me all the way home to Decoy’s house.
To his kitchen and his quiet, rough moans.
His sweat-slick skin and trembling hands.
Heat flooded my veins. I took a slow breath, grateful Alexei was otherwise occupied. He’d given me some strange looks today already, and I pondered if I’d walked into the storage unit with how I’d spent my morning written all over my face.
Fucking Decoy like that... I wasn’t over it. I still felt shook. Destroyed. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t with him right now. Life just wasn’t fair.
“We need these.”
I forced my gaze back into focus.
Alexei was too close for comfort, brandishing a box of death, reminding me that I’d left himunsupervisedand gathering weapons. Until now, we hadn’t needed them, but where we were headed tonight, all bets were off. If Alexei had his way, we’d have guns stashed every couple of miles, and for once, I didn’t blame him, though I drew the line at the grenades he’d found in a fishing tackle box.
“No.”
“Veles, you are no fun.”
I could live with that. I stern-faced him and took the backup respirators out to the van.
Alexei lingered to secure his concealed storage unit. Then he popped up at my shoulder. “We cannot carry that much oxygen. Not with everything else.”
“We’re not carrying it. We’re leaving one on the boat and one on the van.”
Alexei arched a brow. “That is dangerous. A smoking gun, no?”
“It’s a risk,” I agreed. “But this dive... it’s dangerous even for me, and I have fifteen years more experience than you. Trust me, if we surface with anything less than perfect circumstances, we’re gonna need that air.”
Alexei treated me to his most penetrating stare. “I do trust you. Is why you are here. But what is this—” He waved a hand at me. “—this thing you are not telling me? Every time I see you, a different man has become you.”
