I slowly turn to look at the woman who owns me, in disbelief she’s there. Leaning over the center console, I kiss the top of Sasha’s head. “Do it. We found her.”
She looks up at me with an innocent smile on her face, whispering, “You did it.”
“We did. You know I couldn’t do shit without you, right?”
“Yeah, you’re my brother,” she says even lower, dragging in a rough breath as she tenses. “You put the warmers on.” She jabs her finger on the button.
I laugh at surrealness of having Delilah in the car with us as we get further away from the fuckers. “We fucking did it.” I continue laughing.
“This is chocolate sprinkle donuts,” Sasha says, looking back at the road as she pulls her arm through the seats.
“Yeah, little one. It is.”
We both fall silent as Delilah stirs on the back seat. The hood is off her head but it takes her too long to be able to see as she groans. She’ll be coming down from her trip since we left TRR hours ago. I turn the internal light on so she can see it’s me before removing my mask.
“Delilah?” I whisper when she’s not an image on my phone anymore. “Are you with us, pretty girl?”
She groans louder as she clumsily sits herself up, making no attempt to move her hair out of her face as she blankly stares at me. Fuck, I should have got in the back seat with her, but the guards were watching us leave and I didn’t want to risk it. I can’t reach her or touch her, so I push my cheek against the headrestto watch her. Her head rolls back and her lashes flutter before she knocks out again.
“Kane,” Sasha says forcefully.
I turn, seeing her eyes fixed on the mirror but as I turn back to see what she’s staring at, my phone vibrates. Little shards of glass have fallen out of the screen, leaving black spots so I can’t make out the caller as I answer, expecting it to be Decker or Vlad.
“Mr. Kobalt,” the bitch says instead, “You now understand we all have choices. As you refused to make one, I’ve made it for you.”
One beaming light illuminates the car as she ends the call. Sasha tightly wraps both hands around the steering wheel, the engine roaring under the weight of her slamming her foot down as the back window cracks and a bullet pierces the back of my seat. There’s another one whizzing into the car as I try to climb through the gap in the seats to pull Delilah down but the raw stub hits her bicep, shooting pain up my arm while she groggily blinks.
“Get the fuck down!” I shout, frustrated at not being able to do it for her as the beam of light moves around the car. The small shards of glass have embedded themselves into my cheek and Sasha’s evasive driving slams me into the headrest as she laughs.
The unlit streets don’t help me see who it is with Sasha speeding up. She’s a fucking nutcase, rolling her window down and sticking her middle finger up. The roar of a bike combats her cackling as she pushes her hand into the gap between her seat and the center console to pull her knife out. Rather than keep the weapon, she throws it at them as she swerves through the lanes, while I singlehandedly dig under my seat to find the other weapons we hid in the car.
I battle the limitations of my body and the little nutcase’s erratic driving, managing to get the pistol free. Using my elbowto press against her shoulder so she sits back, I see the man on the bike dressed in all black with his visor up. The portion of his face I can see resembles a skull, like it’s tattooed on rather than a mask. I fight the pain, shaking my limbs to get a clear shot. But Sasha looks out of the window, blocking me as her foot lifts from the pedal.
“You…” she says on a breath, paling, then quickly puts her foot down without moving her head from the open window. There’s no more laughter or joy on her face as she chokes the steering wheel, her eyes flicking to the mirror to watch them chase us.
“Move back,” I grit as I check on Delilah.
Sasha doesn’t acknowledge me. Her arms are like bars as her leather gloves squeak against the steering wheel from how tightly she squeezes. I can’t twist my body at the right angle to reach into the back, but there’s no more gunshots.
Leaning forward with my forearm on the dash, I look through the small gap around Sasha’s head to see the bike further back. The nutcase is going over 120 miles per hour, yet they don’t speed up to catch her. She abruptly takes a sharp right turn, nearly toppling the SUV, kicking up smoke and burning rubber as she turns off all of the lights, even the internal ones. Her breathing is erratic as she slams on the brakes behind an abandoned mill. Without turning the engine off, she calmly says, “Drive away.”
I grab the lapel of her jacket, but she slips her arm free. Quickly twisting the fabric to trap her arm, I pull, rushing out, “Stay the fuck here.”
She pauses for a moment.
“We’re travelling the world, remember?” I beg.
I’ve never seen so much emotion in her eyes as she whispers, “You have Delilah now.”
“Listen to me, crazy pants,” I grit, dropping her arm to grab her jaw. “You’re not fucking going anywhere. Close the door, put your foot down, and fucking drive.”
“Bye, Kane.” She digs her nails into the healing stitches on my stub.
“You’re not fucking leaving me.” My fingers dig into her cheeks, pushing her mask up, but she has the advantage of two hands as she punches into my elbow, tearing through my stitches. Pushing back with her entire body weight, she escapes my hand and lifts the small pickaxe from the driver’s door before slamming it in my face. She doesn’t even give me a second look as the bike’s headlight shines further away.
The little fucking nutcase takes off running at the biker while I remain hidden in the shadows of the old mill. The murky grey clouds part, uncovering the moon as she tips her head back, howling up at the silvery light. The sound makes the biker falter, and they slide across the road. Sasha turns to look at me, slowly waving towards a second exit. When I don’t move, she lifts her hand with two fingers sticking out, the other two tucked to her palm, then points at the back of the car where Delilah is staring into space before making a trigger motion, quickly pulling her hand up.
Fuck.
