3 Hit the Road Jack (30 page)

“Even if it is, we have tonight. Let’s not waste it worrying about what may or may not happen.”

Not given me a moment to think or say otherwise, he lifted me, wrapping my legs around his waist and carried me to the bed. He gently laid me back on the pillows, cascading soft kisses on my lips and jawline. He lifted off my dress, his eyes going directly to the permanent scar on my shoulder where he bit me. He showered kisses over the spot as I sunk into him.

Chapter 28

“Dear God that flight was brutal,” Gabi complained as we grabbed the few pieces of luggage that had survived off the belt. Security in the San Juan airport had been worse than customs, especially with our luggage. We’d been pulled into a back room when they found our weapons doing a scan. I lost count at how many people we had to glamour. “Next time we ship our weapons,” she huffed.

Craig chuckled at her dramatics. It had been quite an experience, but I felt somewhat reassured by the way they handled everything.

The second we stepped outside the airport, the heat swarmed us despite the island breeze. I was surprised given that it was
Januar
y. My pulse sped up the second we climbed into the black van. I clutched Kellan’s hand, intertwining our fingers and squeezing.

“This is it. We’re really here.”

“Regardless of what happens, I would still choose to do this with you. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
He kissed my fingers, surrounded by his.

“Likewise. I love you.”

“I love you.”

“The hotel is down the street from El Yunque. We’ll be able to see it from below. Maybe seeing it from afar will help us plan so we don’t go in blind,” Kalel said.

“You are visiting El Yunque?” the driver asked.

“Yes,” Kalel replied.

“El Yunque is magical
, but
s
tay on the main road. People get lost in there,” he warned. My stomach knotted even tighter, something I didn’t know it was capable of.

“Thanks for the warning,” Kalel nodded.

Thirty minutes later t
he van pulled up in front of a couple condo buildings
next to a good size intersection
;
t
hey were
an orange
stucco that stood out against the backdrop of El Yunque. It was vast, covering the entire backdrop to that area of town with green in the shape of mountains. It was overwhelming in presence from a distance, so I could only imagine once we were inside it.

“We rented a 3-bedroom condo for the week,” Kalel announced as we walked into the space. Sand colored tiles ran diagonally across the entire space. The white walls and Caribbean-style dark rattan furniture only emphasized the fact that this was a Puerto Rican villa. “I plan to tell Art of our location. I told him if we haven’t contacted him in four days to empty the condo so no one knows anything.”

I looked wide-eyed at Kalel.
Oh God. He’s planning for the worst, as if he’s expecting it.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m just taking precautions. I don’t expect to die in the next couple days, but just in case I’d rather not leave a mess for other vamps to clean up with the humans.” I slowly nodded my head. “You’re the only one who needs to sleep so you can have the master. I plan to set up all my equipment in the second bedroom since it has a built in desk.”

“Thanks. I’ll help you set up.”

“No offense Leka, but you
’d probably be more of a hindrance than a help.”

“None taken. You’re probably right. Me and technology don’t seem to
be getting along lately anyways,” I chuckled nervously, looking down at my necklace. I didn’t know why I even bothered keeping it on. I guess I was hoping that it would miraculously start working again when I needed it most. That had me staring at the veins in my hands, looking normal and slightly blue beneath my skin at the moment.

“You ok Lex?” Gabi cocked her head at me. “You seem a little off.”

“Huh? Yea, I’m good.” I wrung my fingers around each other as I tried to convince myself and her that I wasn’t on the border of an anxiety attack. She frowned, her brow creasing with concern as she looked straight a
t
my hands. I dropped them to my side, rubbing them against the tops of my thighs.

Kellan came behind me and massaged my shoulders, trying to get me to relax. My mind had already left on the ‘what if’ roller coaster though. All the different scenarios were running through my head as to how this could all turn out. Of course, I was probably way off. Either this would go a lot better or a lot worse than my worst case scenario
.
Being that I wasn’t as evil and twisted as Jack, I was leaning more towards the last one.

I needed to stop thinking about it though. I was only projecting my negative energy into the space, making the open, airy living room suddenly feel very tiny and dark.

“Snap out of it Lex!” Gabi snapped her fingers in front of my face.

“Sorry.” I looked around the room. Everyone had some sort of wary expression on their face as they studied me. I blushed under the scrutiny. The last thing I needed was them worrying about me breaking under the pressure.

Something felt different about this mission versus my last though. I guess it could just be the fact that I knew I was walking into a trap this time around. And I wasn’t just walking into the trap alone
;
I was bringing the people who meant the most to me with me.

“What do you say we go out and try some authentic Puerto Rican cuisine?” Gabi suggested. “It can be our last little hoorah before we go into the pits of hell,” she laughed, but no one laughed with her. She rolled her eyes. “Oh come on guys. We knew what we were getting ourselves into. We know what we’re facing as well. One way or another we’re going into El Yunque tomorrow and I’d rather go in knowing I’d had some good food the night before.”

“You’re right Gabi. We should try to relax; we’re sloppy when we go into something on edge and tense, vamp or not,” Al agreed.

“Let me set up the office first and get the equip
ment connect
ed
to the satellites.” Kalel headed in that direction with three luggage bags.

“I need to check in on our troops as well. Christian hasn’t reported in over seventy-two hours,”
Kai added, quickly following Kalel.

“Come along love. We can canoodle with a movie until these
boy
s are ready,” Craig said, slinging an arm around my shoulder and leading me towards the master bedroom.

“Hey man, that’s my girl and only I can cuddle with her.” Kellan playfully punched Craig’s shoulder so he dropped his arm.

“I’m a frag lonely mate. I only want to snickle with her for an hour.” He sounded so sad and pathetic, but then again, he was a good actor.

“There’s enough of me to go around boys,” I chuckled lightly
, rolling my eyes at myself
.

“I guess nobody wants to cuddle my excess sexiness,” Gabi pouted, quickly coming into the room behind us.

“Girls in the middle!” I yelled, yanking her onto the bed with me.

We greedily took up the middle of the king-sized bed
.
Gabi snatch
ed
the remote from the nightstand before the guys could even blink. We smiled up at them innocently, fluttering our lashes.

“Um, I’m going to go hang with my dad for a little while,” Kellan stated, running his hand through his hair, messing up his Jersey style spikes. We’d had a bit of fun with the styling serum th
at
morning and he never fixed it.

“Suit yourself mate. Move over ladies and share the love with the Craig.” Gabi and I shifted, putting a gap between us. Craig went to the front of the bed and leapt backwards, landing perfectly in the center of us with his hands behind his head as it rested on the pillow. It was a perfect backwards dive. “Ah, so this is how it feels to be Mr. Hefner,” he grinned from ear to ear.

Gabi and I exchanged a conniving look. We shook our heads and each yanked a pillow from under Craig’s head and whacked him with it.

“Hey! Ow! Ow! You’re craggling my pitter putter pipe loves!” He sat up, throwing up his arms in surrender. When we didn’t respond, he snatched the pillows from our hands and tossed them across the room.

“Hey! We were having fun!” Gabi cried.

“By abusing poor me,” Craig argued.

We shrugged in unison. “Serves you right playboy,” Gabi laughed.

“Humph. I’ll be joining my mates. I rather love myself and don’t deserve such horseradish.”

“See you later Craig,” I waved.

“Later love,” he smiled, waving back before he went to join Kellan and his dad in the living room.

“Guess it’s just us girls.”

“Guess so. What movie should we watch Lex? Now that the boys are gone, we can actually watch something in Spanish.”

“Surprise me. Just no English movies that have been dubbed over with old voices for young stars.”

“I can guarantee that we won’t be watching any of those. I can’t stand them. I never watch the movie. I always get caught up in laughing at how horrible they sound.”

“I know, right?”

We settled on an overly dramatic novella.
Right as it was ending, the guys came to get us.

“Where are we going?” Gabi asked.

“There’s a restaurant down the street at the bottom of El Yunque. It’ll give us a chance to get a closer look without actually going in,” Kai said.

“Let’s go.”

We all shuffled out into two cabs one of the guys had called for. My guess was Al since no one else but Gabi and I spoke Spanish, although most Puerto Ricans knew some English.

I hadn’t paid much attention on the drive to the condo from the airport, but this time I studied my surroundings. Puerto Rico was different from the US. It held an eclectic mix of old and new, run
-
down and modern usually along the same road. Even the plazas had mom and pop shops mixed with retail chains. The true vision of this was in the neighborhoods. In the US, one side of the neighborhood was older homes and the other side was new, but they never intermingled. In Puerto Rico, there was a rundown home followed by a semi-structurally sound homestead followed by a mansion, then another decent house followed by another battered one.
Regardless of the home’s condition, they all had bars on their windows, doors and garages, and every house
was a different color. Miami was truly the closest city in regards to atmosphere and structure.

We turned down a narrow, rough road, the sign for El Yunque standing off to the side. The houses looked more old than new in this neighborhood. It didn’t matter though because they had a priceless view. I looked out the window and up at the glory that was El Yunque above us. I was still staring up at the mountains when we stopped in front of a restaurant, in the middle of a neighborhood. There was a large wrap
-
around
,
screened
-
in
porch, and the windows had only bars on them, no actual glass. Music was playing in the background
with patrons standing around eating finger foods like b
acalaitos while drinking their C
orona of choice.

We walked up the scuffed white boards and over to the open bar and kitchen. The crowd worked for us and against us. Busy meant good food, but it also meant we had to be more careful with our blood.

“We’ll go grab a table while you guys order,” Gabi said, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards a pub table in the back corner overlooking the back view. We dragged the high top beside it up to ours so the guys could all fit.

We both sat down and stared out at El Yunque. “That’s it,” I mused.

“That’s it,” she stated reverently.

“Are you nervous Gab?”

“A little, but the way I look at it is I’ve lived for so long that if I die now I
ca
n’t be mad because I got a lot more time than most could ever dream of having.”

“Hm.”

“That’s me Lex. You’ve only had sixteen years. If you don’
t walk
out of that jungle tomorrow, then I’ll be pissed for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Dealing the cards early?” Craig asked as he approached the table.

“I guess,” I said, still engrossed in the mountain scape behind us.

“Food’ll be out in a bit,” Kellan said as he came to sit next to me.

“What’d ya
’l
l order?” Gabi pressed. I was learning that she was quite picky about her food, especially for a vampire.

“A mix of stuff,” Kai shrugged.

Like a scene in a movie, we all stared out the open back, through the screens, beyond the other homes dotting the mountain floor behind this one and up at El Yunque. It was intimidating, even to m
e
as a vampeen. At vamp speed, it would still take me quite a bit of time to navigate the beast, which was the scary part. I could definitely see and understand how people got lost within it.
I was afraid of doing that
even
with all my vamp abilities.