“Floorit!” Edgar commanded.
Felipe slammed his foot down on the gas pedal. Dirt and stones clattered and banged off the underside of the vehicle as the tires spun on the road before catching. When the SUV lurched forward, Simone was thrown back against her seat.
The pitted road had kept their speed to ten miles per hour, but now the speedometer climbed steadily toward twenty and on to thirty. Simone bounced in her seat, and her teeth clattered together as they crashed in and out of the potholes while their speed crept toward forty.
Despite the vehicle rocketing toward him with increasing speed, Joseph didn’t move. Instead, in the beams of the bouncing headlights, his smile widened, and an evil smugness radiated from him. Simone had the feeling they were playing right into his hands, but they had no other choice. They couldn’t just sit and wait to be surrounded by his followers.
The SUV closed the distance from three hundred feet to two hundred to one hundred. When they hit a rut at fifty miles per hour, all four tires left the earth, and the vehicle soared for a few feet before crashing down with a grinding screech. Simone waited for the tires to explode or pop, but somehow they remained intact.
“Oh, shit!” Felipe cried.
Felipe stomped on the brake and gripped the wheel until he was rising out of his seat at an almost half-standing position behind the wheel. Plumes of smoke shot up from the tires, and the rancid stench of something burning filled the air as the backend of the vehicle swung to the side.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the following scene emblazoned on Simone’s mind in vivid detail. From within some of the potholes, metal glinted in the headlights and the SUV continued its slide toward holes as Felipe jerked the wheel to try to avoid them. With the backend of the vehicle almost even with the front, Simone watched the jagged edges of metal drew closer.
When she rested her fingers against the glass, she realized she’d done so in a subconscious gesture to push the metal away, but there was no stopping the inevitable. The SUV lurched to the side as the passenger side tires slid into the potholes first and then loud pops resonated through the air.
The vehicle sagged further as air left the tires, and Simone realized what was coming before the ground rushed up to smash against the window beside her. When the window shattered, she threw her arms up to protect herself from the beads of glass raining over her.
The inexplicable sensation of time slowing abruptly ended as the SUV rolled across the ground at a perilous velocity. The seat belt dug into her shoulder and lap while her head bounced back and forth. The roof dented in with a screech of metal before the vehicle went airborne once more.
A scream lodged in her throat as one echoed endlessly in her head.
Killean!
* * *
Leaningagainst the front doorframe of the asylum, Killean searched the road for an approaching vehicle. The road was so long he never saw them coming until they were only a couple of hundred feet away. And even then, he heard the engine before he saw the lights.
Lucien walked out the open door and halfway across the porch Killean had almost finished building. The newly built porch ran the entire front of the building and had a beamed roof. It would also have a railing running around all of it, but he hadn’t gotten that far yet. When he finished with it, he planned to hang a hammock and porch swing from the beams.
Declan sat on the steps with his hands propped behind him while he studied the sky already turning more gray than black as the stars faded from view. A few feet away from Killean, Saxon leaned against the brick wall with his legs crossed and his chin resting on his chest as if he were sleeping.
“Have you had any more hallucinations?” Lucien asked Killean.
An undercurrent of hostility still tinted Lucien’s tone when they spoke, but his animosity had eased.
“Not in a couple of weeks,” Killean replied. “Feeding regularly, killing Savages, and, mostly, Simone keep them at bay.”
“What about the sun? Does it still bother you?” Saxon asked.
“Yes,” Killean said. Everything else may have eased, but the effect of the sun remained the same.
“That will get better too,” Declan said.
“And what makes you such an expert?” Lucien demanded.
Declan shrugged. “It’s the way of the world; given enough time, everything changes.”
“Hmm,” Lucien grunted.
“Besides, in case you haven’t heard, I’m a genius,” Declan said.
Lucien scowled when Declan grinned at him. Killean knew they were here because they didn’t like leaving him alone until Simone arrived. Some nights, Ronan sat with them too, and on other nights there would only be one or two who stayed with him. He didn’t know if they stayed because they didn’t trust him or if they were offering him support, but he welcomed their company even if they were babysitting him.
Killean glanced impatiently at his watch as a strange sense of unease gripped him. Simone and her guards weren’t late, but something didn’t feel right. Killean prowled toward the steps and strained to hear while he studied the woods.
“What is it?” Declan asked.
