“Maybe,” Declan muttered. “Let me know when we're on the next road leading out of town.”
“I will,” Gus said.
Declan didn’t like keeping control of the man’s mind, especially since Gus was helping them, but he didn’t have a choice. He needed Gus to do what he commanded, and the man couldn’t remember any of this.
His thumb stroked Willow’s hand as he turned to look at her. The set of her jaw belied the fear he sensed within her. He hated that she was so scared and wished he could take it from her, but he couldn’t.
She would want to know more about him, and he would tell her, but he didn’t feel like discussing his strange ability in front of Gus. He also wasn’t sure how to explain it. He barely understood it himself; he didn’t know how to make another understand it too.
A flash of something in the shadows of a side yard caught Willow’s attention. Over Declan’s shoulder, she watched the creature lope across the yard before vanishing around a porch.
“Savages,” she murmured.
Declan turned to follow where she was looking, but he didn’t see anything. “Where?”
Willow pointed to where it disappeared. “It went into that backyard.”
“The other roads will be blocked too,” Declan said. “If they tracked us here, then they probably went to the police first.”
“What do we do?” Willow asked. “What about Gus and his family?”
“We find a way out of this. And don’t forget I changed the memories of the people at the camp. If the Savages talk with anyone from there, they won’t know we left with Gus. As long as no one knows we’re with them, they’ll be okay.”
“Some of the neighbors saw us, and we don’t know what he told them when he was asking about their phones.”
Shit.“When you went to ask about the phones, did you tell your neighbors about us?” Declan asked Gus.
“No,” Gus said. “I just asked about their phones. If I’d told them about you, it would have taken more time as they would have asked for details. I planned on telling them later.”
“So, it’s only the woman with the bags we have to worry about,” Declan said. “And thankfully, she couldn’t call someone to tell them about seeing strangers at Gus’s house.”
He knew how small towns worked, and that could be a very real possibility.
“Someone else could have seen us,” Willow said.
“We’ll have to do damage control. There were only a few houses where anyone could have seen us. It will be fine.”
She hoped so, but her imagination was being a devious, taunting bitch that she’d love to punch in the face.
“How do we keep the rest of the town safe?” she asked.
“We shouldn’t have to,” Declan said. “They won’t destroy an entire town.”
Or at least he hoped they wouldn’t; he had no idea what the Savages would do anymore. At one time, he never would have expected them to enter a town and involve humans in the affairs of vampires, but that changed when they included the media in their hunt for Elyse.
That was when he realized the Savages weren’t playing by the old rules, and the demons would do anything to get what they wanted. He suspected they weren’t as concerned the humans would find out about them. That troubled him more than anything else they did.
Gus started drumming his fingers on the steering wheel; despite Declan’s control over his mind, he sensed the man’s growing unease. Gus understood his family was in jeopardy and wanted to be with them.
“Drive home, Gus,” Declan said.
“You got it,” Gus said and pulled into the driveway of a small ranch house to turn around.
Light from inside the house spilled across the wraparound porch and illuminated the red eyes of a Savage watching the truck. It was too dark for the creature to see into the cab, and it couldn’t know they were inside the vehicle, but it slipped from the shadows and jogged after them as Gus pulled out of the drive and headed down the road.
“There’s one following us,” Declan said.
Willow closed her eyes as she prepared herself for another battle. This was her life, it was what she signed up for, and she would do it until the day she died. However, there was so much death this week, and they’d been so close to getting free only to have it snatched away from them.
