Kneeling between the two bodies, Logan rested a hand on Asher’s shoulder and rolled his friend toward him. The gunshot wound to his upper shoulder had soaked his shirt with blood. But as Logan moved him, he groaned, and his eyelids fluttered open before closing again.
“Hold on,” Logan said. “I’m going to get us out of here.”
He turned his attention to Elena, and with a trembling hand, he brushed the hair back from her face. Her golden skin had paled considerably, and her cupid’s bow lips parted on a tremulous breath.
Logan’s head bowed, and his shoulders slumped as an unexpected shout of joy swelled in his throat. They were both alive… for now, but if he didn’t get them out of here, that might not last.
He took in the blood soaking her upper thigh and sticking her jeans to her flesh. Another trail of blood skimmed across her temple; a thick bruise accompanied it. The bullet that grazed her had also packed a bit of a punch, but it wasn’t deadly. The gunshot wound to her thigh was causing a great deal of blood loss and might kill her if he didn’t do something about it.
Like a coffin opening in a bad horror movie, a creaking sound broke the silence. He glanced back at the gate and saw it was starting to inch open.
With a sense of urgency propelling him, he pulled off his shirt and ripped it into two pieces. His blood stained the material, but it would have to do. He used one of the pieces to tie a tourniquet around Elena’s upper thigh. He then used the other piece to wrap Asher’s shoulder.
When he finished, he scooped Elena up and ran with her back to the car. He had no idea why he was taking her with them. If he left her here, the hunters would take care of her, but as he repeated this perfectly logical explanation to himself, he still didn’t put her down.
He told himself it was because they could use her as leverage against the hunters. Told himself it was to keep the hunters from attacking them, but that wasn’t true.
If he were honest with himself, he would acknowledge it was because he couldn’t walk away and leave her here without knowing what would become of her. Someone had killed her father, and one of her own shot her. She wasn’t safe here.
He opened the front door and placed her in the passenger seat before returning for Asher. His friend moaned when Logan lifted him, but he didn’t wake.
Sprinting for the car, Logan pulled open the back door and placed his friend carefully inside. He slammed the door shut and ran over the top of Mateo, who grunted when Logan’s foot hit him in the chest.
As he ran around the back of the car, he busted out the taillights in the hopes of making it more difficult to follow them. The gate was still opening when he slid behind the wheel, turned off the headlights, and hit the gas.
Chapter Four
Logan speddown the sandy road leading away from the hunter compound. He hoped he wasn’t heading deeper into the desert, but he had no idea where they were. All he knew was there was a paved road somewhere nearby.
The only illumination guiding his way were the millions of stars in the sky and the sliver of the crescent moon. They weren’t much, but he didn’t dare turn on the headlights. He didn’t see any lights in the rearview mirror yet, but it was only a matter of time before the hunters came after him.
Then, like a mirage rising out of the night, the asphalt surface of the main road came into view. Once there, he paused to take in his surroundings. To his left was nothing but darkness and road. To his right was the distant, shimmering glow of a town.
He didn’t know if it was the best decision, but he turned toward the town in the hopes it was the one where he and Logan were staying. This car was a hunter vehicle, which meant it probably had a tracking device on it. If one of their own didn’t return from a hunt, they would have a way to track them as best as they could.
Which meant he had to get rid of this car, and since the hunters blindfolded them whenever they brought them out to the compound, he wasn’t sure where to locate the tracker or wheretheirvehicle was.
If he could find the town where he and Logan were staying, he could get their SUV, ditch this car, and disappear before the hunters caught up to them. It may be easier said than done, but it was his best plan right now.
He didn’t know how good of a plan it was as headlights pierced the blanket of the night behind him. Logan pushed down further on the accelerator and watched as the needle climbed from sixty to seventy.
The car, a black Cadillac, handled those speeds like a race car on the track as its tires clung to the road. His hands tightened on the wheel as the speedometer reached one hundred. The headlights behind him didn’t get any further away, but they weren’t gaining ground either.
One thing he loved to do was drive. He relished the rush of the scenery speeding by him, the feel of the power in the wheel beneath his hands, and he was good at it.
There was nothing out here, and if he crashed now, he would live; the other two wouldn’t. He and Asher wouldn’t survive if the hunters caught them, and he didn’t know what they would do to Elena. He was willing to take his chances with crashing over those unknowns.
The Cadillac hit one twenty as he went over a small dip in the road. All four tires left the ground, and for a second, they flew before crashing to the earth with less of a jolt than he anticipated.
As the lights in the distant town grew brighter, Elena moaned, and her head lolled to the side. As much as he hated the idea of her hurting, she couldn’t wake now. He couldn’t control her and flee from the others.
When her head fell against the glass, she whimpered as her head wound came into contact with the window. Logan squeezed the wheel tighter while he prepared himself for a whole lot of trouble, but she didn’t move again.
As he neared the town, Logan eased off the accelerator before they got pulled over. They’d never get away from the hunters if that happened, and he couldn’t accidentally take out any innocent bystanders in town.
He was still doing a little over the speed limit as he entered the town, but it wasn’t enough to get him pulled over. He switched on his headlights because not having them onwouldget him pulled over.
He and Asher had spent enough time exploring the town that he recognized the white adobe buildings with their pink, orange, and red-tiled roofs. Thiswasthe town where he and Asher were staying, and he wasn’t far from their hotel.
