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“Hold on tight,” Noel called back to Grey as he rocketed down the path.
Grey pulled back slightly, like he was twisting around to keep his eye on their pursuers. “Shit,” he hissed. “They’re catching up.”
“Brace for some turns,” Noel growled, leaning forward with Grey pasted against him again. His vision tunneled as the horrid clunking of the van’s engine closed in behind them during this reckless pursuit.
“Don’t run, you little shit!” Doctor Cavan called, his hair whipping around his head in Noel’s cracked mirror. “Give me Grey, and I won’t have you ripped to pieces.”
Grey’s arms tightened around Noel’s torso, giving him just the boost he needed to play a little more reckless.
Fuck you.
He made a sharp turn and tore off the trail, his tires ripping through the grass and bumping over stones in the wake of squelching tires pressing into the earth behind them.
“Give him back, you fuck—Goddamnit.” A quick glance in the mirror again showed the doctor’s retreat into the passenger’s seat, and his head bobbed down to vanish behind the dash.
Hot breath curled against the back of Noel’s neck. “If they knock us off the bike?—”
“They won’t,” Noel snapped.
“But you have your knife, right?”
“In my boo?—”
His heart hammered in his chest as Grey reached down and ripped the dagger free. “If they get too close, I’m going for the driver.”
“You’re going to fucking stab the driver while we’re on a bike? Have you fucking lost your mind?”
“I’m not going to stab him?—”
Noel gritted his teeth. “Oh, hell no—Grey, put the knife back.”
“I’m trusting you, so I’m asking you to trust me.”
“I trust you, but you’re saying you’re going to stab yourself to try to siphon some asshole, and I’d rather you not do that?—”
“Then lose them, and I won’t have to,” Grey breathed, his tone carrying a resigned, serious edge as he shifted against him. “But I’m not letting them drag me away to that thing without a fight.”
“And what if you accidentally drain me instead?” Noel demanded, the memory of Grey’s stunned expression in the depths of the basement and his lightheaded realization that he’d tapped into the doctor’s lifeblood, rather than his. He couldn’t tell if it’d been intentional or not, but then he was dragged away. And Noel was locked up with the heart-wrenching visual of Grey’s panic before it ebbed into a numb fear. How much control he actually had there, Noel didn’t know.
“I won’t.”
“Give me a chance to lose them first,” Noel breathed, jerking the bike around a tree and aiming for the narrow gaps. The van fishtailed behind them, swerving through the larger openings before a shot rang out and birds sprung from the trees up ahead.
“Holy shit—” Grey winced. “He’s got a gun.”
“Fuck.”
“Stop the damn bike!” Doctor Cavan shouted, a murderous glint in his eyes reflected in the mirror.
Another shot, and they ducked. Noel gritted his teeth. “Is he fucking crazy? He’s going to kill us both.”
“Just keep driv—” A yelp cut through as a bullet whizzed past and smacked into a tree up ahead.
That’s when he saw the final obstacle: a wall of brush and brambles with the smallest gaps cut through. “Oh, fuck me,” Noel hissed. “Brace yourself.”
“What?” Grey’s voice rose in panic as Noel leaned forward, holding himself steady in the wake of a gasp like a breath before hitting water and another gunshot rippling through the air. Thorns ripped through denim and pierced flesh, too quick to sting on impact on their way through.
The van rumbled behind them and crashed into the brambles with a horrid series of snaps and pops before wild yells and curses fell into the distance. Noel’s wounds receded as the tall grass along the path browned and drooped for a few feet. Grey’s face fell against Noel’s back, and a sigh of relief tore from his lungs as they sped off further into the woods, out of the line of fire and into the shadows of the fair folk’s domain.
