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‘I don’t think you should go back to your house, Carrie.’
‘Where should I go, then?’ she croaked. ‘Grandma and Grandpa’s?’
Prue hesitated. ‘It will only be a matter of time before they make the connection and show up there too.’
The phone began to shake. It took Carrie a second to realise that it was her hand that was trembling, not the phone.
‘I cannot believe this is happening,’ she moaned, covering her eyes with her hand. ‘I can’t go through this again, Mom.’
‘Sweetheart, just breathe.’
Carrie did as her mother told her, clinging to the calming familiarity of her voice.
‘You can get through this. It will be all right.’
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
Damon’s sharp voice cut through the air and she uncovered her eyes, but all she could make out was his blurry outline towering over her.
‘Carrie?’
Impatience made his voice a harsh rasp against her tender senses and she flinched.
‘It’s... I...’
But she couldn’t form the words, couldn’t find enough air to take a breath. All she could think about was the mayhem that was waiting for her outside the four walls she was currently surrounded by.
‘Carrie, give Damon the phone. Let me speak to him,’ her mother instructed, and without another thought she held the phone out to Damon, who took it with a sceptical glance.
His eyes narrowed as he listened, his jaw hardening to such a degree she thought it could have cut through glass as easily as a knife through butter, but he held his composure—a feat that to Carrie seemed superhuman as she continued to shake so badly it wouldn’t have surprised her if she’d actually started to crack apart.
‘No, you’re completely right,’ he said finally. ‘Being here right now is not a good idea, especially if we don’t want them learning about the pregnancy. I’ll take care of it. I know a place Carrie and I can go to lie low. No, I’ll tell her. It will be a few hours, but we will let you know when we get there. Okay. Bye.’
Pocketing her phone, Damon didn’t waste a second before springing into determined action. ‘We need to get out of here. Now.’ He picked up his possessions and quickly checked outside the window. ‘Come on.’
Carrie heard the urgency in his voice and knew she needed to move. Only she couldn’t. She was frozen.
‘Carrie...’
The hand that curled around her cheek was strong and warm, its touch so tender that she felt herself leaning into it, sinking into the reassurance and security it offered. Damon was crouching to her level, his luxuriant dark eyes boring into hers, burning all the way down to her toes, burning through the fear and making it easier for her to breathe the longer she looked into that beautiful gaze.
‘We need to leave. I will keep you safe, but we have to gonow. I need you to trust me.’
Trust me.
He was asking for the impossible, but as his gaze held hers in a silent promise she felt herself nodding. He clasped her hand and gently pulled her to her feet, steering her out through the door. He didn’t let go all the way out of the clinic and to his car, like a solid anchor keeping her steady.
He put her in the car, helped her pull the seatbelt across her weak and trembling body, and within minutes they were speeding down the freeway, out of Santa Barbara. By that time Carrie had regained some of her equilibrium, though she was still frightened and darting her eyes out through the back window to see if they were being followed.
‘It’s okay. There’s no one following us.’
Damon didn’t take his eyes off the road ahead as he offered his reassurance, and the speedometer was racing upwards at a frightening speed.
‘Are you sure?’
He nodded, deftly darting into the neighbouring lane on the freeway, his strong, tanned hands steady on the wheel. ‘I have some experience with this.’
‘So do I,’ Carrie muttered, twisting her hands together in her lap, an action she knew his alert eyes didn’t miss even as she quickly pulled them apart and wedged them beneath her legs.
