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“Accept my sympathy.” He bowed his head a little, and I witnessed the confusion on Reese’s face through the rearview mirror.
“Thanks.”
“We can never do that again,” Marilyn groaned. “Ever.”
Sariel shrugged. “On the bright side, the Paras didn't follow us over.”
“Good,” Johnny breathed. But he didn’t relax. “Now that we’ve got some semblance of peace going, can someone explain to me why this angel—” he motioned to Neo in the passenger seat “—is with us? Because I’m confused.”
I shrugged. “Because I said so. What wereallyneed to figure out is how the two of them—” I motioned between Marilyn and Neo, “—know each other.”
“Or… we could start with the getaway driver,” Sariel said. “Who the hell is she? And I’d like to know quickly, because my angel is a single tick of the speedometer away from snapping and taking the car with it.”
I’d been so caught up in myself, I hadn’t even felt his emotions going haywire. “She’s the one who saved me from Tyler,” I answered softly. “He chased me into the woods until I got to a road she happened to be driving on. The rest is history.”
Johnny shook his head. “The rest isnothistory. She got a ride all the way to Virginia, and then this little thing tried to lock me out of the car when they pulled into a rest stop.”
Sariel’s eyebrows rose into his hairline. “What?”
“Could you blame me? You’re intimidating,” Reese pressed. “And that was before I knew you could shift into a big ass wolf. I’d just saved ‘Joy’—” She gave me a pointed look through the rearview mirror, “—from some asshole chasing her through the woods, and then you show up looking like the asshole in question. You were scary, but I would’ve fought tooth and nail to keep her in the car.”
“Thank you, Reese,” I said. “I can’t explain how much what you did for me means to me—”
“And me,” Sariel added. “Thank you for taking care of her.”
“Isn’t Johnny the one that brought you back to Ambrose Estate, though?” Neo asked out loud. “Or did I mix the names up?”
“What?!” Reese squawked, jerking her head around to glare at Johnny. The car swerved, and Neo reached across the dashboard to steady it on the road. I heard rather than saw the way his contact caused Reese to suck in a sharp breath. “Sorry, that just surprised me. He didn’t mention that when he told me you were on the brink of death and he needed my help.”
“On the brink of death?” I echoed.
“Needed your help with what, exactly?” Sariel wondered out loud.
“We needed a driver,” Johnny explained. “We couldn’t get a driver from one of our friends. I saw how much money was being thrown at them to testify against you two. So, I brought in the best person in my opinion.”
“I told him a human was a bad idea,” Marilyn informed us. “They’re fragile and don’t do well in high stress situations. They have very malleable mental fortitude—”
“Yeah, but he knew this particularhumanwould come running for Aria. I managed to do phenomenally, despite the fireball and tree limbs that were attacking us,” Reese interjected, her tone biting. Her eyes were glued to the road. “I need you to stop being a biased, jealous, prissy little bitch. You may hold some high-ranking position in your world, but in mine, you’re nothing. Just a mean girl wannabe. Get it together.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Johnny said. “You don’t know her—”
“And she doesn’t know me,” Reese responded.
“That might be the problem,” I said. “We don’t know each other.”
“True!” Johnny caught on. “I’ll start. Hi, I’m Johnathan Hart. I’m an architect by day, and sometimes, if I sneeze too hard, I shift into a wolf. It’s nice to meet you all.”
We stared at him in silence.
And then Neo followed him.
“Name’s Neo Griffith,” he started, taking his hand away from the steering wheel to sit back in his chair. “I am, orwas, a Heaven-appointed angel, until I started asking too many questions and the Council sentenced me to death for high treason. They murdered my family… my lover and her family, I mean. They were humans that treated me like one of their own, and the Council killed them and left them for me to find.”
“Oh, fuck,” Sariel breathed quietly. “Fuck, man.”
“My sympathies, Neo,” Marilyn said. “I didn’t realize—”
“I know,” Neo said. “You were too busy being a Captain and staying alive. I don’t blame you.”
