They wanted to kill her, so why not?
Except she couldn’t handle it if she did.That was why the world needed people like Callum and Hayden.
“Stay down.”He took the gun and twisted in his seat.“You blew their engine up.”He reached into the backseat and handed her a handgun, taking the rifle from her hands.“Anyone comes at you, pull the trigger.I’ll be back.”
The gun shook in her trembling hands.It had to be more dangerous to hold it than not.She set it down and peered out the space where their back windshield had been.
Callum had the gun up and was yelling.Her ears rang, yet still she heard the pop, pop, pop of guns.The car she had seen on the side of the road with the tire spikes raced toward them.Callum jumped onto the smoking hood of the SUV she’d shot and crouched down.
Two people from the car that had just arrived rushed toward the disabled SUV.Grace didn’t know how Callum could see them, but they definitely couldn’t see Callum.
As one drew even with him, he swung the back of his gun like a baseball bat.The person dropped and didn’t move.Callum jumped on top of the other, and they crashed to the asphalt, wrestling.
She didn’t know what would happen if someone pulled over and tried to help.She hadn’t seen any vehicles, and wouldn’t know if they were their enemy or a Good Samaritan.
Callum landed another punch, and the attacker fell back.He strode up to their truck.“Get our bags.Phone.”He reloaded his weapons and pulled zip ties from a compartment.“Let’s go.”
A minute later, he tied up the two men and took pictures of their faces.She followed him to the car, barely able to feel her legs.Hell, she couldn’t feel any part of her body.Only the sensation of every muscle jittering under the flood of adrenaline.
Callum snapped pictures of the truck and the SUV, and their plates and the plates on the car they were about to take.“Let’s go.”
“We’re leaving them here?”she asked.
“A cleanup team will handle them and extract intel.”He quickly inspected the new vehicle.“Get in.”
“We’re taking their car?”
“Got a better idea?”
She didn’t and shook her head.Callum placed his weapons in the backseat and gestured for her to do the same with their bags.
“What are we going to do now?”she asked.
“Be anywhere but here.”He nodded toward the car.“Kinda like that joyride you and your friends went on in my car your senior year.”
Laughter bubbled in her chest when every part of her wanted to curl into a ball and cry.“But without anyone shooting at us.”
That night seemed so long ago and like it was just yesterday, both when she would have done anything for his attention, including taking his car from the neighborhood pool and driving around the block.“You were mad enough that you might have if you’d had a weapon.”
Callum pulled onto the quiet road and left the wreckage of the run-in behind them.Their new ride had an impersonal scent of pine and plastic.Its clean carpets and console reminded Grace of a rental car, which reminded her that everything in her life over the last few years had been temporary.A rental cabin.A loaner vehicle.A friend’s house.It had all been temporary and left her untethered to anything that was actually hers—like Callum.He was hers, wasn’t he?
He swiped his thumb across the screen of his cell phone, opened his phone app, and called his office.
Vivian answered, “Have a game plan?”
“No, but I need a cleanup team.Who’s with you?”
“Gage and Dean.”
Callum explained the last five minutes and handed over his phone again.“Send the pics in the same way you did before.”
Grace selected the pictures and uploaded them through the secure portal she had used for the first person who had shot at them.She returned the phone to Callum as he waited for his office to receive them.
“Look,” Callum grumbled.“We need a plan, but you need to get a handle on whoever’s tracking us and how.Any idea who’s behind this?”
“Not yet.”
“They’re moving faster than we are—”
