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We drove in the dark toward Fire and Fluorite, not seeing any other cars on the road for the first hour. When we finally did, there was a dark-colored van pulled over with two men standing on the outside of it.
My skin began to crawl, and not in the itchy way it had been before, but in the “my stomach was churning and something wasn’t right” way.
“Pull over,” I told Grayson when we’d already passed the vehicle.
“No,” he retorted.
Fine. I didn’t need his permission before when I’d jumped out the window, and I didn’t need it now.
Though I hadn’t considered that last time the jeep had been stopped before I’d leapt onto the road…
I heard Lia’s shocked gasp and Grayson snarl my name, but there was nothing I could do once I’d committed to exiting the jeep one way or another.
To my surprise, I didn’t fall into a heap of arms and legs, knocking the shit out of my body like I’d expected. I somehow managed to land gracefully on my feet, then kneeled quietly in the tall grass at the side of the road.
Grayson hit the brakes, but I wasn’t paying attention to the jeep. No, my sights were set on the van still on the side of the road. I could faintly hear a child crying and two men arguing.
“You fucking moron!” one shouted. “Do you know what this fuckup is going to cost you? Go back to Fire and Fluorite and fix this.”
The sound of metal bending came next. “This is on you, man. You gave me the picture with three kids. I took the one you pointed to.”
There was a low growl. “Shit. This is why Johnathon only trusts the witch. We had one shot to move up. One fucking shot.”
Grayson’s heat pressed against my side as he and Lia joined me.
“Did he just say ‘Johnathon’?” Grayson hissed, and I nodded. “We need to get them alive.”
I glanced around. “Are we still in No Man’s Land, or are we in Fire and Fluorite yet?”
Learning the boundaries was something I needed to figure out sooner rather than later.
“No Man’s Land,” Lia answered with a whisper. “The border is only another mile up, though. We need to be careful.”
The child wailed again, and I tensed. We had to save the kid. I wasn’t leaving here until that happened. No matter what.
“You two stay here,” Grayson demanded, and I rolled my eyes.
He was such a man. More than that, I was a stubborn woman.
I let him go ahead a few yards, and then I stood, taking soft steps forward.
Lia’s hand rested on my shoulder. “You’re going to be such a badass.”
Her words were quiet but sure and warmed my heart. A complete contrast to how I’d been feeling the night before.
I needed to ask her what had been happening yesterday, because I didn’t do well with not knowing exactly where I stood with people. A life of being politely shunned had a way of fucking with one’s head like that.
We followed Grayson to the van, but he was so singularly focused that he had no clue we were behind him until he’d paused at the rear. By then, it was too late to say anything or he’d have given away our current advantage.
I winked at him and peeked my head up to try to see through the window. There was a little boy bound with what I was pretty sure to be duct tape. He was lying on his side on the floor.
Fucking bastards hadn’t even put him in a proper seat.
Without any idea as to what Grayson had planned, I at least wanted to let him lead. I might not have been afraid of these guys, but I also wasn’t an idiot.
I had zero life skills when it came to this shit. I could fight alongside the best of them, but I wasn’t about to act first without thinking and get the child hurt.
“What was that?” the man in the worn, black leather jacket asked.
