“Jared, I need my stuff! I don’t have anyclothes.”
“We’ll find something for you to wear at thecompound.”
The compound. In California. Where Paul Blackwell was probably breeding sexism and anti-stray mentality into his great grandchildren. Which he had several of. By his age, most Alphas had long-since retired and passed on the baton to a son-in-law, but Blackwell clung to his power with a death grip that seemed stronger every year, in spite of the increasing weakness of his actual arthriticgrip.
“Call Faythe. You have to callFaythe.”
“My grandfather will handle that. My job is to bring you in. Nothing you say will changethat.”
Nothing Isay…
I grabbed the handle of the passenger’s side door and pulled until it creaked. Then I pulled a littlemore.
The handle broke off in myhand.
Jared glanced over his shoulder. “You’re just racking up debt now, and you’re going to pay for everycentof damage you do to mycar.”
“Somehow, I think whoever awards those damages might sympathize with the girl you locked into a homemade prison cell in the back of your car, like a psycho!” I scooted across the seat and ripped the other door handle off, but by then, the goal was no longer simply doing damage to piss him off. It was finding a way to make him stop thecar.
If I could expose the mechanics behind the door panel, therehadto be a way to disengage the child safetylocks…
With the door handle gone, I began pulling on the “oh shit” handle over the window. The one you hold onto when you ride with Marc, and he takes all the turns too fast. I pulled and pulled, but it didn’t budge, so I turned to face the door and propped both feet against it for betterpurchase.
The plastic casing around the handle creaked, then finally split apart beneath my hands. A jagged edge of plastic speared my palm and drewblood.
“Shit!”
Jared sniffed the air on the other side of the plexiglass. “Did you just hurtyourself?”
“Well, let’s put it this way—I hope you weren’t supposed to deliver me without a scratch, because that ship has sailed.” I slapped my bleeding palm onto the clear divider and rubbed it around, leaving a bright red smear of blood in the approximate shape of myhand.
“You know, if you obstruct my view, I can’t drive safely, and that puts us both atrisk.”
“Then stop the fucking car.” I squeezed my palm to draw more blood, then slapped my hand against the screen again, directly in line with the rearview mirror. “As fast as you’re driving, this isn’t safe anyway.” I frowned at the speedometer, viewed through a smear of my own blood. “Why are you going so fast? This isn’t arace.”
Or wasit?
I spun to look through the rear windshield, leaving a bloody print on the fabric of the seat back, but if Justus were somehow following us, I couldn’t see him. However, Icouldsee several other cars. None were close enough to see me yet,but…
Pulse racing, I scratched at the wound on my palm to reopen it. Then I smeared my finger in the blood and began writing in reverse on the rearwindshield.
I’d finished capital letters H and E when Jarednoticed.
“Hey!” He twisted to look over his shoulder and the car swerved to the right. I fell over on the seat, and Jared turned back to the road. “Stopthat!”
“Make me!” I shouted as I pushed myself upright. Perhaps not my most mature comeback, but whatever. I squeezed more blood onto my palm, then started on the capital L. “If you don’t want every motorist who drives by to call 911 and give them your license plate number, you better stop this fucking car right now!” I finished the bottom of the L and started on the P, but my palm was scabbing over again. The cut was prettyshallow.
“Kaci! This isn’t a joke. We do not bring human authorities into shifterbusiness!”
“We also don’t kidnap girls from parking lots! Stop the fuckingcar!”
“Kaci!” He twisted to look over his shoulder again, and I noticed that the tip of his right elbow actually dipped below the plexiglass screen. Which gave me anotheridea.
I glanced around at the traffic and was pleased to see that the nearest other cars were well behind us. And that there was a flat, broad shoulder leading into brown Nevada dirt. No place is a good place for a car wreck, but I couldn’t imagine a better-casescenario.
“Stop the car!” I shouted again as I slid down into the floorboard of thecar.
Jared glanced into the rearview mirror, and when he didn’t see me, he turnedagain.
