Page 43 of Last Man Standing

My pulse thunders loudly in my ears. It’s like a cannon boom I swear the rest of the world can hear.

Satisfied, he locks his phone and slips it into his pocket. “Let’s go.” He re-holsters his gun and wraps one hand around the handle of my suitcase. The other, around my wrist. “Straight through. Out the back door, down the porch steps, and into my truck.”

“B-but your truck is out the front.” I attempt to twist back toward the living room. “Sebastion? It’s⁠—”

“I bring it around before bed every night. Put it back in the mornings.” He drags me across the kitchen and pushes me against the wall by the door. He’s rough. Handsy. He doesn’t seem to care that I’m smaller than him, or that my lungs refuse to work when I need them most of all. He simply fists the door handle, slowly inches it open, and stares out into the darkness. His broad body blocks my view, he robs me of a chance to get my bearings, and when he decides it’s time to move, he yanks the door wide and grabs my suitcase again. He half-drags, half-carries me into the freezing cold, where snow drifts mercilessly from the sky, and just as he promised, his truck sits waiting for us.

It’s not just ‘out the back’. The driver’s side door sits perfectly aligned with the porch steps.

He tugs me toward it, his grip bruising and tight, then he beeps the truck unlocked, releases me just long enough to tear the door open, then he shoves me in so I have no choice but to crawl to the other side with tears in my eyes, snot running from my nostrils, and enough anxiety in my belly that I want to puke.

This truck is massive, one of those dual-cab kinds, so he lobs my suitcase onto the back seat and slides into the front, then we’re moving, skidding off of Nova’s property and onto the road.

“You can go back to sleep if you want.” His eyes jump from the rear-view mirror to the road ahead of us. To the side mirrors. To the rear again. Never stopping. Never relaxing. “We’re gonna be driving for a long time, so you may as well get comfortable.”

Sleep? Is he crazy?

“W-what if we just did exactly what the person wanted?” My hands tremble as I reach around and clip my seatbelt into place. “He left the note, and we reacted. Maybe he’s following us now.”

Sebastion’s eyes jump to the rear-view mirror again, even as he yanks his seatbelt on and plugs his phone into the cradle on his dash. “No one’s following us.”

“They know where I live,” I rasp. “They left the note, and they let me come home and discover it. Then they let me leave again and get on a plane.” I peel my cross-body bag up, over my head and down again until it sits in my lap. “It’s clear they’re not interested in hurting me. Scaring me seems to be the main objective.”

I swallow a painful sob and study Sebastion’s phone screen as it lights up with an incoming call from Lincoln.

“I’m scared whoever left the note never wanted my attention at all. Maybe they want Linc’s, and they knew I’d run straight to him.”

“He knows how to take care of himself.” He reaches forward and declines the call with a cruel swipe of his finger. “And he’s visible, anyway. If they want him, they know where to find him.”

“So what then? Scare me to death… for fun?”

He shakes his head and meets my eyes. Dragging my hand down, my fingernail away from my teeth, though I didn’t even realize I was biting, he lays it back on my lap and returns to his determined study of the road. “I won’t let anyone kill you, Princess. I promise.”

“Unless the choice is between me and your mission…”

Silence fills the dark cab for a long beat; the only light is the orange emanating from his dash. The only sound, my racing, shuddering breath.

Finally, Sebastion’s eyes, midnight black in the darkness, come back to mine. “Hopefully I never have to choose.”

16

SEBASTION

SHE: TEACHER

Idon’t accept Castro’s calls for hours, but I send him GPS dots periodically.

I don’t talk to him for as long as it takes me to make up my mind, and even when I do, I can’t quite find the energy to hear his voice.

Worse, I don’t want to hear mine while I speak the words and tell him where I intend to take his sister.

I simply drive toward the horizon, I’m meeting the sun head-on, and now and then, I allow myself the luxury of glancing to my right and studying the pixie-sized woman curled into her seat.

She sleeps. Finally. But it took her at least three hours of staring at the road before she so much as blinked.

Where I ignored Castro’s calls, she texted and assured him she was safe.

When he asked her where she was going, I knew I’d made the right decision not to tell her. Not quite yet.