Chapter Eleven
Savannah yawned and shrugged her shoulders, shifting in her seat, desperately trying to stay awake.
It was morning, and the days were starting to blur into one. Tonight was the full moon. Normally she’d feel the wonderful – the wild call of the moon, singing to her animal, coaxing her to the surface. Right now her brain was so fogged with exhaustion that she wanted to just crawl into a foxhole and sleep for a million years.
And now Roy was clanking his chains again, because he’d just woken up.
She braced herself to hear Roy howling and struggling, but he didn’t. Instead he growled, his voice low and hoarse, “Give me water.”
“Screw yourself,” Austin said.
“If we give you water, will you promise to stop trying to get out of your chains for the rest of the trip?” Savannah called back to him.
“Fuck, no.” Roy croaked out a horrible laugh.
Well, it had been worth a try. “Or at least not to attempt to get out of your chains for six hours straight?”
“Running low on tranquilizer, are we?” Roy sneered.
She flicked an annoyed look at the rearview mirror. Austin picked the wrench up off the seat next to him and slammed it down on Roy’s skull with all his might. It made a dullkongsound. Roy didn’t even blink.
“Do you really want to die thirsty, Roy?” Savannah tried again. “Because we know how this trip ends, and being thirsty sucks. So you can either promise not to pull on your chains, and get a bottle of water, or you can just lie there and suck it up. Dealer’s choice.”
Roy grunted, glaring at the front seat with bleary eyes. “What makes you think I’ll keep my word?”
She sighed. “Well, I’m just hoping that you will. I’m hoping that you will think about the memory of your mate, and that you’ll decide to go out with honor, to respect her memory.”
There was dead silence in the back of the truck.
“I don’t appreciate people using the memory of my dead mate to manipulate me.” There was something in Roy’s tone that sent an icy shiver through Savannah’s veins. His mate was no-go territory. Duly noted.
“I am not in any way using your dead mate to manipulate you,” she said, keeping her tone calm and even. “I am sorry about your loss, and I’m not saying that in the bullshit way that everybody says it when they don’t know what else to say. My father died four years ago. He was severely injured in a trap, and we kept bringing him back to a healer, but he died a year later, and it was devastating. My mother was in mourning for years, and the only thing that kept her going was the need to take care of her family. For the longest time, she was like a zombie, moving her emotionally dead body through her days. And she’s the strongest woman I know. I know how awful it is.”
Roy made a scoffing noise. “Yeah, whatever. Your mother didn’t go crazy and kill a bunch of innocent people.”
“Well, Roy, here’s the thing. The people you killed who were torturing wild animals, they were about as far from innocent as they could be. It sounds as if you screwed up and let humans see you, which was stupid and possibly deliberately suicidal, but you rid the world of a revolting cancer. As for the family that was murdered, I’m actually starting to wonder whether you did it, given that you didn’t even know what was done to them.”
“Told you. When you’ve killed as many as I have, you lose track.”
“If you’d killed anyone else, it would have been on the report,” she said impatiently. “Harris provides very thorough information on his marks. And we do monitor the news, you know. All the time.”
“Well, listen to shifter Nancy Drew.”
Roy’s voice was hoarse and it cracked on the last sentence. She pulled over to the side of the road.
“You are not giving him water.” Austin’s voice was tight and angry.
“Yes, I am.” Savannah stifled a flare of impatience. She was too tired and stressed out for arguing. “It’s going to take us several more days to get to our destination, and he is going to have to drink at some point. As for the tranquilizers, either we will have enough to get us through, or we won’t. We will deal with it at that point. If he lies to us this time, then we don’t give him any more water or food for the rest of the trip.”
She got out of the car, walked around to the door on the opposite side from Austin, and pulled it open. Roy looked up at her as she stood there, his gaze sullen.
Austin’s face was twisting, his expression strange and tormented. She’d never seen him look like that before.
“Fuck!” he screamed. He threw the rifle down on the seat and stormed off down the road. She gaped after him in astonishment.
Was that how he handled disagreements?
No. She’d never seen him behave like that before.
