“Nothing.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“Then you’ll just have to respect my intent.” I twisted on the bench seat to face him, tugging at the shoulder strap of my seatbelt. “Lucas, I need a favor.”
“No.” His grip on the steering wheel tightened, and the plastic creaked beneath the added stress.
“You don’t even know what I—”
“I know you want to stay here, but Jace is right. You need to go home and let Dad work on your defense. They’re going to bring you up on charges, Abby. Do you even know how serious that is?”
“Of course I know!” The only thing keeping that understanding from reducing me to a puddle of tears and panic was the more urgent terror Hargrove had driven deep into me right before he’d died.
The charges that would be leveled against me were inevitable, but the Darren problem…that couldn’t wait.
“I’ll do or say whatever Dad says I should.” The scent of Hargrove’s drying blood was a constant reminder of how soon I’d have to face the consequences of a crime I’d had no choice but to commit. “I’m not trying to make this worse. I just… I need to be here right now.”
“What thehellis wrong with you?” Lucas’s foot got heavier, and I wondered if accelerator aggression was a trait all toms shared. “I feel like my little sister went to college and a hellcat came back in her place.”
He was very nearly right. Only, college hadn’t been the trigger.
“I don’t expect you to understand.” Because I couldn’t explain it to him. “But I really am trying to do the right thing.”
“Good.” Lucas put his right blinker on and swerved onto the off ramp, where a sign advertised food, fuel, and an outlet mall full of discount stores.
I recognized the mall. We were only a few miles from campus and less than half an hour from the airport. My time was running out, and the sun wasn’t sinking fast enough.
Lucas pulled into a parking spot near the back of the outlet mall’s parking lot. This close to Christmas, most of the lot was full, even with storm clouds rolling in. “Now you’re going to stay in the car, and I’m going to get you some clean clothes.” Because he could take off his blood-smeared jacket to look presentable, but I was splattered all the way down to my white boots. Which, Lucas had informed me, was why enforcers typically wore all black. “You still wear the same sizes?” he asked, and I nodded. In spite of summers spent training with Faythe, I hadn’t put on much muscle, and I hadn’t gained even an inch in height since high school. “Any requests?”
“No pink. It clashes with my hair.” Which wasn’t an issue my redheaded brother had to deal with.
“Got it.” Lucas got out of the car, then bent to peer in at me. “I won’t be gone long enough for it to get cold in here. Stay put.”
I watched him walk toward the entrance to the mall, and where it shone through the clouds, the sinking sun seemed to set his hair on fire. I hadmaybehalf an hour of daylight left, but that was half an hour too much.
A glance around the lot showed me more cars than shoppers, and the few people I saw were all headed toward the mall, focused on getting out of the cold before the rain started. They didn’t look back once they’d left their cars. No one was watching me.
I wasn’t going to get a better shot.
Still watching the parking lot for any unwanted attention, I stripped out of Robyn’s jacket, careful not to get my hands any bloodier than they already were. My green sweater was clean, except for a spot of blood at the hem, which had been exposed when I’d…taken care of the Hargrove problem.
I’d known from the moment Jace started questioning him that I would have to kill Hargrove to keep him from talking, and I wouldnotlet myself feel too bad about that. Hargrove had tortured and killed many of my fellow shifters, and he’d have done the same—or worse—to me if he’d gotten the chance. And to Jace. And to all of his men, including my brothers. But I’d hoped for a more obviously justified homicide; I’d been prepared to bait him into attacking me.
What I hadn’t counted on was Hargrove’s cowardly nature. As soon as he’d been disarmed, he’d considered himself helpless. I’d had to act with no obvious provocation, and the only part I regretted was how that would make Jace look. I desperately didn’t want my actions to reflect badly upon him, but in that moment, I’d had no other choice.
In this one, you don’t either.
I shoved Robyn’s jacket onto the floorboard and glanced briefly at my ruined phone, wishing for the millionth time that it hadn’t gone for a dive in a pot of greasy water. Or that Lucas had left his accessible. But like Faythe had once told me, wishes are for victims. Survivors make their own luck.
With that in mind, I climbed into the back of the truck cab, where I found several plastic bags wadded up on the floor. Lucas couldn’t drive for more than half an hour without a soda and a stick of beef jerky, and he always threw the grocery bags over his shoulder, onto the backseat of the king cab.
I wadded the bag up in my fist, then got out of the truck and closed the door softly, stuffing my hands and the bag into my pockets. The blood splattered across my dark jeans could easily have been water, and no human nose would be able to tell otherwise. There was nothing I could do about the blood on my white boots, although the drier it got, the more it looked like tar and the less it looked like blood.
Shivering from the cold, I walked away from the mall, headed for a gas station across the street. It had recently been upgraded with new credit-card-accepting pumps and a digital sign, but the building itself was old and still had a bathroom built onto the outside, with its own entrance/exit.
The restroom wasn’t an ideal place to shed my human disguise, but that was better than stripping down to a blue leotard in a phone booth.
The overgrown field stretching behind the gas station was just a bonus.
