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I nodded. “It was the only way.”
Grey squinted at me in disbelief. “And then you ran over twenty miles through the forest to the road?”
“About that. I don’t really know exactly how far it was. That was what it felt like. It could’ve been less. I passed out somewhere in the middle.”
“And then you two just happened to find her on the road?” Corvus asked the guys, and I didn’t miss how they were focusing their inquiries on my escape rather than my capture. It took me a couple days to be ready to recap it. It would take them longer.
Rook nodded. “She was trying to hijack a minivan.”
“How else was I supposed to get back to Thorn Valley? Walk?”
Rook shook his head, his attempt at a smile dying before it could be born. “No one’s judging, Ghost.”
“What do you think he meant about Thorn Valley rightfully belonging to him?” Corvus asked, changing the subject.
“I don’t know, but I fucking knew Mav was just a front man. Guy has no balls.” Rook sniffed, rubbing his nose between his thumb and finger. No doubt it was still bothering him.
At least my intel gave him something else to think about. I didn’t realize I even had so many little useful tidbits until I started going through it all step by stomach-churning step.
Grey cocked his head to the side. “Does this mean we were right about the Kings gunning for us from the start?”
Rook sighed. “Diesel is going to shit a brick.”
A tap on the door interrupted their questions and I didn’t think I’d ever been so happy to see a man in uniform. “Mr. James,” the doc said, coming in without an invitation. “We’re ready for your final tests.”
“You heard the man. Get your ass out of here.”
His lips pressed into a taut line as he stood, coming to stand in front of me where I sat on the side of his hospital bed. He stared at me for a moment, with an emotion I couldn’t name raging behind his eyes. Then he brushed the hair back from my chest, his fingers running along the skin behind my ear as he leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to my forehead. “I swear to you,” he whispered in my ear. “You will never have to endure anything like that again. Not while I’m still breathing.”
His hand fell away, and he walked past me to the door. “Don’t leave for Sanctum without me.”
“AJ, if I bring up a map of the area around where we found you, do you think you could pinpoint the location of the underground shelter? Or at least the direction?”
Grey turned the laptop screen around on his lap, and I frowned at the crisscrossed lines of the map there. “I-I don’t know.”
“Try?”
I sighed, but got to my feet, crossing the room to kneel in front of him, squinting at the screen. “Well, there’s the tracks I crossed.”
I pointed to them, tracing the line in a northeasterly direction. “I crossed about here, so maybe somewhere in that direction.”
Grey leaned over the screen, watching my finger trace a path further into the national park. He nodded. “Okay, that’s good. I can work with that.”
He turned the laptop back around, and when I didn’t move from my spot in front of him, he lifted a brow at me.
“Thanks.”
The word was a dismissal, and I felt it like a slap to the face.
“Come on, Ghost,” Rook called for me, his hand extended in my direction. “I don’t know about you, but I need a fucking drink before we head over to Sanctum. Want to go see what these docs keep hidden in their office drawers?”
“Only if we can go torment the emergency patients after.”
“It’s a date.”
* * *
Something about leavingthe hospital and driving the familiar streets to Sanctum felt surreal. And I realized that for all my stubbornness and shit talking in that fucking hole in the ground, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be here again.
