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“He’s done what he had to do,” I answered as the barn doors closed once more.
“My father did all this?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “He did.”
“I don’t know who he is anymore.”
Maybe she never had. Maybe none of us had, not really.
Nick climbed in, shoved the car into gear, and pulled away from the barn and the house…and everything. Pain pulsed and gnawed, pulling my focus to that heat that burned my thigh. I gripped the armrest, bit down on a moan, and closed my eyes, hoping like hell sleep took me down, and all the while I prayed.
Just hold on…
Just hold the fuck on.
NINE
Ryth
The car was quiet…toodamn quiet.
Nick scanned the rear-view mirror as we hauled ass from the farmhouse, searching the roads behind us for a glint of headlights. I didn’t know where we were driving, but he seemed to have some idea.
In the front passenger seat, Caleb silently stared out his window and beside me, Tobias was asleep. He was acting strange. Not screaming, not threatening. Not at all what I expected after what we’d just been through. I brushed my fingers down his arm and he opened his eyes.
“Princess.” He licked his lips, dropping his gaze to my breasts.
One carnal look and my breath caught. Desire followed as it always did with them, making my nipples tighten and my thighs clench. But he never made a move as we drove past farmhouses, skirting the outside of the city, just watched me for a while before he slept again.
I'd expected anger. I'd expected ranting.
But this silence was worrying, fraying my damn nerves. I forced my focus instead to the darkness outside. A low whine at my feet made me reach down and ruffle Rebel’s ears. She leaned into the touch, nuzzling my palm as dad pushed into my mind.
Whatever happens, I want you to leave with Caleb, sweetheart. Nothing good will ever come of you if you stay in that fucking place a second longer…
Tobias wanted me to trust dad, said that he'd gone in there with a plan. But I couldn’t stop the panic from gripping me tight. He'd just walked in there without a fight. I couldn’t shake the image of him being pushed by the guards toward the doors.
Were they hurting him?
I closed my eyes, were they killing him?
My hand clenched against the armrest on the door.
Trust…
It was hard to come by, especially where family had been concerned. But dad had come for me. I touched my cheek and winced, the tenderness still there from my own mother’s palm.
Dad had come for us.That meant more than anything. I dropped my hand to the leather seat of the car he’d hidden for this exact moment. The clothes, the guns, the medical kit, all stowed away in the trunk. He knew we were going to run at some stage, with or without him.
But run where? There wasn’t a place we could go where The Order didn’t reach? That question haunted me as we wound around the hills, inching closer to the city until, in the distance, the faint lights of an all-night diner shone in the dark.
“We’ll pull over.” Nick lifted his gaze to the mirror. “Get something to eat, find our bearings before we leave again, okay?”
“Sounds good,” Caleb answered carefully.
Still, Tobias was quiet, now staring out the window. I lowered my gaze to his hand, clenched around the armrest like a vise. Moonlight caressed his face, bouncing off the sheen of sweat across his forehead. It figured. Here I was, shivering with the cold, and he was hot as ever. I scowled, maybe too hot.
Nick slowed as the diner's lights became brighter. Dust kicked up in a cloud behind us as we hit the shoulder of the road, pulled past a truck parked outside, and nosed the car into the side of the building.
