“I’m sorry, Ryder.”
And even through the pain, his lips kicked up at the corners. “You know, most other people I’d tell them they were fucking crazy and to stay the fuck away from me. You, I’m still bugging for that date.”
I blinked and almost let down my guard. Damn it. “What?”
“You promised me a date, didn’t you?” he asked. “Well, I still want it.”
I stared at him. “You’re the crazy one.”
He let out a soft laugh. “Yeah. Like I haven’t heard that one before.”
“We’re here.”
Van coasted into a brightly lit parking lot filled with bustling figures, most of them with auras that seeped darkness like light filtering through a thin curtain.
Being around this many bloodsuckers made the hair on the back of my neck rise. “Good. Turn off the ignition and let me get out.”
Ryder gaped at me. “That’s it? You’re just going to leave?”
“How badly do you want that date?” What a stupid idea. Still, if I could use it as a bargaining chip, perhaps it wasn’t such a dumb idea, after all.
“Um,” he said slowly. “Not enough to make Vincent pissed at me.”
“Van! What are your orders?”
“Escort you to safety. Keep you alive at any costs.”
I shifted in the seat and felt backwards for the door handle. “Well, you’ve brought me to safety, or so you succintly put it. Well, if you want to follow your orders, then I guess you’re just going to have to follow me.”
There was a car idling in the next parking spot, a truck with flames riding up the sides of it. As far as getaway vehicles went, it wasn’t the most sauve, but at this point, I would have jumped into a Smartcar if I thought it could get me to Jason.
I squeezed the lever and fell out onto the parking lot, my back hitting the pavement, breathing leaving my body in a whoosh.
Somehow managing to roll onto my feet, I leaped the half foot into the interior of the truck, almost bashing my forehead on the doorway.
The clutch provided to be a bit of a obstacle and I wasted precious seconds trying to work past it, but finally I had my foot on the dash and I peeled out of the parking lot like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were behind me.
I didn’t dare look back, too afraid of what I was going to see.
A sudden blow in the cab rocked the truck to and fro and I almost plowed straight through a set of mailboxes in the strip mall across from the club.
Jerking the steering wheel back before I could ram into the front window of a nail salon, I let my gaze flit to the rear-view mirror.
Ryder waved merrily, his light hair blowing in the fifty mile per hour wind.
I cursed and had to swerve into the next lane to avoid hitting a slow moving silver Volvo.
“We got you to the club!” I heard Ryder scream over the roar. “Now I just got to keep you safe! If Vincent gets angry, then he can go and sit on a spike!”
Crazy vampire.
Oh God.
Why was I smiling?
I chalked it up to the general insanity of the night and concentrated on driving without causing any accidents.
Too bad I wasn’t driving slower.
A blare of red and blue filled the peripheral of my eyes as I ran a red light and sirens rent the air.
Another look in the rear view mirror showed Ryder looking backwards at a Centennial City police car catching up.
“I think we just broke about three different laws!” screamed Ryder and I resisted the urge to bash my head against the steering wheel.
I couldn’t afford the delay. Even now, I could smell Jason’s sandlewood scent in the air, barely discernible but I could trace it.
Not if a police car was following me. He had probably called up half the squad and pretty soon the one police car would multiply into fifteen.
I had to ditch this car.
I rolled down the window and screamed over the roar of winter air. “Hang on!”
Banking a sharp right into a parking structure, for one sickening moment, I felt the wheels skid and then the truck listing to the left.
No, no, no, no!
The car was going to flip!
“I got it!”
With a bone-rattling thud, the car righted itself and I spared a glance behind to see Ryder hanging onto the right side of the cab. He had forced it down and in doing so, saved my life.
Probably Jason’s, too.
The red in my ledger was starting to get