Omar and I shake our heads.Definitely not.
“Come on then, there’s time to talk later.”
Olivia takes off and after sharing a look, Omar and I follow.
In front of us lies nothing but desert.
“Yo, where we heading?” Omar asks.
“See those rocks?” Olivia gestures up ahead but all I can make out is a couple of trees and the night sky.
Olivia picks up the pace and so do we. My blood-wolf senses tingle, pulling my attention to our right, where I notice other bodies moving in the dark. Whether they’re friendly or a cohort of pissed-off alphas, I can’t tell yet.
Eventually, we do come to a pile of boulders, arranged into a shape resembling an armadillo curled up to protect itself. We run behind them, and I sigh in relief to see Jasper’s car waiting, next to a black van and a dust-covered Volvo. Another familiar face is leaning on the trunk of Jasper’s ride.
“Mia!” I say.
“What took you so long?” she says, pushing off from the car. She’s gone full Kim Possible, in a black turtleneck and similar cargo pants to Olivia. “Hop in.”
She clicks some device and the doors to Jasper’s car unlock, she opens the driver’s side and gestures for me to get in.
“Follow us,” she says.
Olivia is already at the door of the dusty Volvo as the figures I sensed running through the night emerge from all sides. On the whole they’re young, and there’s a mix of genders, which alleviates some of my stress. They’re not the alphas. One of them slings open the back door of the van and they pile in while a girl I hadn’t noticed but who must have been there the whole time leans out of the driver-side window.
“Hustle, hustle, hustle!” she cries.
Omar has jumped in the passenger side of Jasper’s car. Mia leaves the door to the driver’s seat open as she heads for her and Olivia’s ride.
“Wait, I don’t understand,” I say, one foot in the car.
“Don’t worry about it now, just drive,” Mia says. “It’s good to see you, Max.”
I watch bemused as she jumps into her car. The engines on either side of me roar to life.
“Hurry up, chico!” Olivia calls from her open window. “Don’t get left behind.”
The van throws up a dust cloud as it pulls away, already plowing across the desert. Olivia and Mia tear into the night as well. Suddenly terrified of being left with no way to know where Ishould be going—and of course, still thinking of the angry, likely bloodthirsty mob that is almost certainly looking for the people who destroyed their sanctuary—I swiftly turn on the engine and hit the gas.
Through the dust and night it’s hard to follow our little caravan but I do my best to keep us from spinning out as the van and Olivia wind across the dirt.
I almost lose them completely when without forewarning they both swerve, taking a hard left. Panicked, I spin the wheel, trying to keep control as the ass end of the car almost pulls us into a tailspin. Once I’ve regained control, I realize we’ve turned onto an actual paved road and now, with less dust and more traction, it’s easier to keep pace with the other two vehicles.
Single file, we speed down the road, putting distance between ourselves and the settlement behind us.
“What just happened?” I ask, glancing at Omar, who has one hand pressed against the roof, bracing himself, clearly worried about my driving ability at this speed.
“No idea, man. But those dudes sure got what was coming to them.”
Eventually we turn again, and to my absolute relief we slow to a coasting pace.
From there we settle in as we drive for hours.
Omar and I don’t talk much, still confused and trying to process everything that just went down. The landscape changes as we drive, we pass suburbs and towns, trees spring up, and eventually, as the dawn arrives, pale light rising, we find ourselves rocking along a bumpy dirt road through a dense forest.
Compared to the desert these surroundings feel super lush and fertile. Everything is green and richly colored. The air is cooler.
We follow our escorts until they arrive in a clearing, where a number of other vehicles are parked, all as dusty as each other. I cruise into a spot next to Mia and Olivia, hit the parking brake then take a moment.
