Whiteout (Aurora Sky (32 page)

I buckled in.

Not for long.

 

    
     

 

Life is a dark and lonely highway, one I hoped led me back to the one I loved. The first five minutes of the drive were freeing, like I'd just broken out of prison. All too soon, reality began raising pesky objections. I hadn't been released. I was making a run for it. Again.

I tried to sing “Life Is a Highway” by Tom Cochrane. My voice started out loud, shouting the lyrics more than singing them.

“I'm going to ride it all night long!” I yelled out, gripping the wheel and shaking my arms as though spur
ring a horse on with the reins.

Ride it all night? Or was it drive it all night? Or both?

My voice began to drop and eventually fade. Singing made me think of Dante
.
Dante, whom I'd left behind to fend for himself. And who did I leave him with for company?
The vampire who'd kidnapped and threatened his life.

My gut clenched.

It
wasn't
like I wanted to leave him
that
way. We had big problems. I was only trying to make things better and lessen the risk to the people I cared about.

But when had that ever gone
according to plan?

For all I knew, I might not make it back to Anchorage. The agency could have a whole
convoy
on the way up at this moment. They could spot me from the road. It
wasn't
like there were alternate routes into the city.

Hell, why bother drivin
g when they could fly? The agency was on an air force base. They could send a helicopter up the highway.

A cold sweat broke out al
ong my hairline
.

They'd probably wait until morning if they were going to send a helicopter. Right now it was pitch black
, a
nd
they'd be focused on Fairbanks. Perhaps they'd fly straight there and begin the search at the last known sighting.

Shit!

Or they could be around the next bend in the road.

It didn't matter what Melcher had up his sleeves. Being on the road was too risky.
Regardless of that, gut instinct told me I'd made the wrong choice.

To go back to Anchorage was to give up.

I slowed the vehicle. “Oh hell!” I bellowed into the car.

It
wasn't as if
Dante had forced me on this trip. If anything, I'd set the whole damn thi
ng in motion. I'd rescued Giselle in Sitka, which led to Dante's capture. I'd drugged Jared and tried to shoot him, which led to our abrupt departure from town. Dante's world had turned upside down as much as mine had. The agency he loved had betrayed him.
They'd turned him into the thing he'd been trained to scorn and hunt. I'd sprung it all on him in the heat of the moment. The lies. The corruption. The fact that we weren't fully human. And what had Dante done? Taken my word for it and stuck by my side.

I
couldn't abandon him now. For better or worse, we'd see this thing through together.

Decision made, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. Dante would be so relieved when I radioed him that I'd come back. I just needed to find a place to turn around.

Be
ing the only one on the road had its advantages. I could slow the car to ten miles per hour and not worry about a vehicle barreling into me from behind. I checked my mirrors to be safe, but all was dark, like viewing the world through tinted glasses. Might
as well do a
U
-turn in the middle of the road. It was a one
-
lane highway on either side
,
so I wanted to make certain there was enough shoulder to accommodate a
U
-ey. The last thing I needed out here was a flat tire or to dive nose first into a snowbank.

I
slowed almost to a stop, ready to make a
one-eighty
when headlights in the distance caught my attention. Under normal circumstances, a light in the darkness should have provided comfort, like a beacon when you've been lost at sea. Instead, it struck terro
r in my heart—a feeling like the voyage was over and I was about to capsize and drown.

It could be a random person driving through the interior in the mi
ddle of the night. That
was hardly out of the question.

But in my heart I knew.

I pressed on the gas. I
t would look suspicious if I suddenly turned around or coasted too far below the speed limit. I didn't want to give the driver any reason to take notice. Damn it! I should have kept the blue wig. Not that it mattered. It was too dark. They wouldn't notice
anything if they passed.

As the vehicle neared
,
it was plain to see it was the only one on the road besides me. Rather than speed by, it slowed, sending my heart into acrobatic leaps across my chest. The driver flashed his lights at me.

Oh shit!

I floored
the gas pedal and flew past the vehicle on the other side of the highway. My heart sped up, as though in a race with the car.

Headlights blinded me after my pursuer did a
U-ey
in the road and zoomed after me.

Damn my self-fulfilling prophecy. Damn it to he
ll!

 

 

 18

Double Or Nothing

 

Fear twisted inside my gut. It wasn't just from being chased down on the highway. The more my speedometer increased, the more panic tore through my body. I wasn't comfortable at this speed. I could crash. Hurt myself. Lose another kidney. Bleed out on the side of the road.

I felt nanoseconds away from spinning out of control. Coming full circle.

Ain't life a bitch?

The vehicle chasing me flashed its lights and honked.

“Sure,” I said aloud. “Like I'm really going to pull over and surrender.”

I pried one of
my hands from its death grip around the steering wheel to raise a middle finger in the air.

Oh shit, what if it was Jared? He'd ram me off the road any second now. But the vehicle behind seemed only to match my speed. I brought the speed down to a more com
fortable fifty miles per hour and glanced in the mirror to see what my pursuer would do.

He slowed as well.

Okay. Okay. What to do?

Pulling off the highway to ambush Ashley had worked well earlier. Then again, she hadn't been expecting it. She thought she
was following us undetected to our hideaway. This person obviously knew he'd been detected. He flashed his headlights again as though to
accentuate
the point.

Well, then, if not an ambush, a standoff. I still had my gun and knife. All I had to do
was
pull
over and blast a hole through the driver the moment he stepped out. There it was. A plan. Simple. Effective.

I slowed gradually. It would do me no good to slam on my brakes and risk skidding, hitting my head on the dash and giving myself a concussion. I wa
sn't exactly a
sharpshooter
to begin with, especially in the dark. I'd have to take him out from close range.

The speedometer dropped below forty then thirty then twenty. The car behind me slowed as well. I unbuckled my seatbelt and pulled the gun out of m
y coat pocket and set it on my lap.

I didn't want to give him too much time to prepare.

At thirteen miles per hour, I pulled onto the shoulder and slammed on the brakes. Instead of stopping, the car began to slide. Shit! Black ice. Or just regular ice
;
bot
h blended into the road at night.

Good thing I'd slowed down before braking, but the sudden halt still caused the car to skid forward.

I pumped the gas. Slow. Skid. Slow. Skid. Then cranked the wheel to the right. The car jettisoned off the shoulder, gli
ding like a winter Olympian across the ice—luckily not spinning—before finally coming to a stop in the snow.

Heart churning, it took me a moment to realize I'd come to a safe stop. Moment over, I yanked open my door and scrambled out of the car, not bother
ing to turn off the ignition.

My pursuer was still in his car, slowing steadily. Good thing or he might have rear
-
ended me.

As he slowed, I hurried around to the other side of Ashley's car. If the man stepped out shooting
,
I could use it for cover. Unfortu
nately, the snow was deeper than I realized and I
sank
down about a foot.

“Shit.” That single curse
had
pretty much been on repeat inside my brain since Dante noticed the first car following us. Twice in one night. Really? I'd only wanted to double our odd
s of making it out of here alive. Now it seemed I'd doubled the odds of getting
caught.

Snow went inside my shoes. I seemed to sink into it deeper, as though I'd stepped into quicksand.

I crouched down as the car stopped, prepared to
pop back up and fire.
I pulled the safety back
on my gun.

Only seconds of silence remained until a door opened and
a
familiar voice called through the darkness. The kind of voice that had the power to chase all the demons away and bring sunshine back to my soul.

“Aurora? Is tha
t you out there?”

The voice was Fane Donado's.

I was dreaming. I had to be dreaming. This couldn't be real.

“Fane?” I called out, keeping cover in case my ears were playing tricks on me.

“Aurora!” he said, voice rising in excitement.

I stood up in time to
see a tall
,
dark figure moving toward me. Even in the night I could make out a light
tuft
of blond hair on top of his head.

I wanted to run to him and throw my arms around him and never let go. The running
-
through
-
snow part was the problem.

Fane hurried to
ward me, wading through the white powder once he crossed over into the snowbank. When he was a foot away, I dropped my gun and launched myself into his arms. Fane's eyes widened as I collided into him. Guess he wasn't expecting a full
-
body assault. I
knocked him backward
,
and together we tumbled toward the ground. I tried to divert my weight sideways so I wouldn't crush Fane once we hit the ground, but he wrapped his arms around me, taking me down with him into the snow. I la
nded on Fane's chest. T
he s
now helped cushion the blow.

Before Fane could right himself, I grabbed his shoulders and kissed him with reckless abandon. The heat of his lips contrasted with the cold surrounding us. I never wanted to leave their warmth.

I was too overcome to speak. Al
l I could do was kiss the
man senseless until he caught up and kissed me back.

Well, of course he did. This was my dream. I was back to questioning reality. At what point had the dream started? Had I fallen asleep waiting for Dante in Ashley's car? Or wors
e
,
had I crashed the car and been knocked unconscious while trying to evade my pursuer? Maybe my mind had shut down, taken me to a happy place.

Real or not, this is where I wanted to be. With Fane.

I broke the kiss off and brought myself upright, straddlin
g him at the hips.

I heard a low chuckle followed by Fane's taunting tone. “You're determined to have your way with me, aren't you?” He tsked. It reminded me of our time together at Denali High. “Bad girl.”

“The worst,” I said, pushing my pelvis against hi
s until I felt him respond.

Fane gripped my thighs. “What exactly are you doing?” he asked.

I lowered my face to Fane's and sucked gently on his lower lip before leaning back.

“Savoring the moment,” I said. “If this is a dream, I want to get the most out o
f it before it's over.”

“Dreams don't give your ass frostbite.”

“I thought vampires couldn't get frostbite,” I countered.

Fane sat up. Our noses practically touched when he did. He brushed strands of my hair over my shoulder.

“I think it's your own ass you
should be worrying about. What were you doing on the road, out in the open?”

“The open?” I repeated. “It's the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. There's no one around for miles.”

“And yet I found you.”

I squinted at Fane in the dark. “How did
you find me?”

“An informant reported seeing you at a club in Fairbanks several hours ago. She said she was going to follow you after you came out. I headed out as soon as I heard. The last communication I received was that Dante had gotten his hands on her
somewhere outside of Anderson.”

Since we'd already established this wasn't a dream, it must
have been
an alternate universe. How else would Fane know about Agent Scott or that she'd reported seeing us?

“Fane,” I
drew out,
“
what's
going on? Don't tell me y
ou've been recruited by the agency.”

“It's a long story, but no, I don't work for the agency. They've been working with me to find you.” I could see Fane's teeth when he smiled. “Mission accomplished. I'll explain everything in the car, but we need to go.”
He lifted me by the hips, rising from the ground once I no longer blocked him.

I reached around until I found my gun in the snow and made sure the safety was back on and secure before pocketing the weapon. Back on our feet, we brushed snow off our clothes
.

“How is that even possible?” I asked.

“Like I said, I'll explain everything on the drive home.” Fane reached for my hand and grasped it in his. My heart fluttered at his touch.

“Wait,” I said, planting my feet in the snow. “I have to go back and tell Da
nte.”

Fane gave my hand a firm squeeze. “Where is he? And why the hell did he let you go off on your own?”

“He didn't,” I said defensively. My shoulders sagged in the next
instant. “I, uh, sorta left
him
behind
.”

My fingers slipped through Fane's as he let
go and faced me.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Well, as you already seem to know, we were being followed by an informant. We were able to lead her down a deserted road and apprehend her. Dante wanted to convince her the agency is corrupt and to help us find
someone higher up the food chain to hold Melcher accountable so that we'd be safe to come home.”

“Not a terrible plan,” Fane said.

“That's been our biggest goal, aside from not getting killed,” I said. “We wanted to somehow reach out to someone with enou
gh authority to set things right.”