Page 20 of Guardian

Knowing she wouldn’t believe if he told her that nothing was wrong, he decided to dish up a lie instead. “The safe house I was planning to take you to isn’t available. We’ll have to go somewhere else. And we’ll have to cover our tracks.” He motioned to the car. “Get in. We need to leave.”

He took her bag and tossed it on the backseat, then slid into the driver’s seat, waited until Winter was seated, and drove off.

“Where to?” she asked.

“I’m working on that.” He tapped on the navigation system in the car and expanded the map so he could get a better overview of the area. “We have to ditch the car.” And he’d already figured out where.

“But without the car—”

He tossed her a comforting look. “We’ll be fine. There’s other transportation. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

She met his look and held it for a few seconds. She nodded. “I trust you.”

He swallowed hard and looked back to the street in front of him. She trusted the man who’d saved her life back there in her apartment. But would she trust the man who was supposed to kill her? What would she do if she found out? Would she still trust him then?

Logan pushed away the thoughts. It wasn’t important right now. The only thing that mattered was getting Winter to a safe place, hiding her from the demons and the Stealth Guardians, and then figuring out how to convince the council to let her live under the protection of their people.

The Philadelphia bus station looked depressing, like an old mental hospital with fluorescent lighting. For a large city like Philadelphia, it was rather small. Located only a block from the Convention Center and a few short blocks from City Hall, it was smack-bang in the heart of the city.

Logan parked the car at a metered parking spot on the same block and turned to Winter. “Take your bag. We’re leaving the car here.”

While Winter retrieved her bag from the backseat, Logan set an alarm that would disable the car until a Stealth Guardian entered a code. It would prevent thieves from absconding with the vehicle. Then he looked around to make sure he hadn’t left anything that could identify him or Winter and got out of the car.

From the trunk, he pulled the bag with his soiled clothing. He quickly navigated to an app on his cell phone, typed in a short command, then memorized the three results the app offered him. Then he locked the cell phone, dropped it in the bag with the dirty clothes—leaving it switched on—and zipped it back up. From the bag with the daggers he’d taken off the dead demons, he took two blades, slipped one into the sheath in his boot, the other into the inside pocket of his jacket. Then he locked the doors with his key remote and put several coins into the meter to mitigate the risk of the car being towed within the next two hours. He needed to give his colleagues enough time to follow the trail he was laying out for them.

“Where to?” Winter was waiting for him on the sidewalk.

Logan pointed to the bus station. “We need to buy tickets.”

Winter walked by his side as they headed for the glass-fronted entrance of the building. “We’re taking the bus?”

“Something like that.”

He felt her eyes on him, her brows raised inquisitively.

“You’ll see in a minute.”

Logan opened the door and let Winter walk inside ahead of him, while he looked around. There were a couple of short lines at the ticket counters, about two dozen people sitting on benches waiting for their bus, and a few lowlifes lingering near the restrooms. As he walked farther into the hall, Logan looked out through the side doors that led to the depot. More people were waiting outside, some boarding a bus. He read the destination listed on the side: Chicago.

He steered Winter toward one of the ticket windows.

“I need your credit card,” he said in a low voice.

She looked at him. “But won’t the demons be able to trace us if we use a credit card? I mean, if they know how to use a computer.”

“That’s the point. I want them to follow our trail.”

Looking confused, she shrugged, then dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out her wallet. She handed him her credit card a moment later.

The female clerk finished with the customer she was serving and called out, “Next.”

Logan took Winter’s elbow and walked toward the window with her. “Good afternoon. Do you still have tickets for the bus to Chicago?”

Bored, the clerk looked at the clock. “Bus leaves in eight minutes.”

That didn’t exactly answer his question, so he went a different route. “Two tickets, please.”

The clerk typed something on her computer, then looked up and said, “That’ll be $87 per person. $174 in total. Will that be cash or card?”