Tex (Hell's Ankhor #5) - Aiden Bates Page 0,65

something happen?”

I chewed on my lower lip. I didn’t want to scare him, but—

“Is it Tex?”

I huffed a surprised laugh. With how quiet he could be, it was easy to underestimate how observant Heath was. “No. Sort of. Not really. Come on, get in the truck, I’ll tell you on the way back to Elkin Lake.”

I walked around the front of the truck to the driver’s side, slid into the seat, and inserted the keys in the ignition.

But Heath didn’t get in.

He shouted once, cut off in the middle like someone had stopped it.

Fear lanced through my spine. I leaped out of the truck and rushed to the passenger side where a scrawny, wiry guy in a beat-up leather jacket had Heath’s arms caught in a hold in one arm, and was pressing a blade to his throat. Heath was pale, his eyes wide in terror as he stared at me, his breath coming in shallow gasps as he tried to breathe without disturbing the sharp edge of the blade.

At his side stood Crave.

In broad fucking daylight. The audacity of it. Around us, students fled the scene, some already with their phones out.

Where were the fucking feds?

“Hi, Jasper,” Crave said. “Been looking for you.”

Heath stared at me, wide-eyed.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I had to buy a little time. Someone had to have called the cops already—I just had to stall Crave until they got here.

“Thought our rendezvous was scheduled a little later,” I said casually, and crossed my arms over my chest. “Couldn’t wait to see me?”

Crave looked down his nose. “Do you think I’m a fucking idiot?”

I bit back my affirmative answer and said nothing. I wasn’t going to make him angrier, not with the scrawny guy’s knife against Heath’s jugular.

“I had a fucking tail,” Crave said. “The feds. Just happened to pop up after our little conversation. You really thought I wouldn’t put the pieces together?”

In my back pocket my phone began to buzz. I didn’t risk going for it, because it’d look like I was going for a weapon—even though my knife was in the inner pocket of my jacket. Crave was clearly losing his grasp on reality more than I’d thought if he was willing to draw weapons in broad daylight.

And my handgun was in the truck’s glove compartment. Fuck.

I met Heath’s wide, terrified eyes.

I ducked my chin down slightly, and then carefully, intentionally stepped my right foot forward and then dragged my heel back in an arc.

Heath tracked the motion, and to my immense relief, understood it. He set his jaw and his gaze turned from scared to determined.

I clenched my fist and shifted my weight the barest amount, onto the balls of my feet, too subtle for Crave to notice. But Heath did. He swept his foot backward hard, rocked backward, and shoved his hand in between his throat and the blade. He hissed in pain as the knife bit deep into his hand in an explosion of blood, but it didn’t knock him off balance: he got the scrawny guy’s feet out from under him, shifted his bloodied hand from the knife to his attacker’s wrist, and then wrenched his arm behind him. The guy barked in shock. The knife clattered to the ground.

I sprung forward and charged at Crave. He barely had a chance to breathe before I barreled bodily into him and slammed my shoulder into his solar plexus. The force of it drove us both to the ground. I braced my forearm against Crave’s neck and glanced over at Heath, who was still scuffling with the scrawny guy—holding his own pretty well.

Crave used my momentary distraction against me and socked me hard in the ribs. The sudden pain weakened my grip, and Crave wrestled my arm off his neck.

“Fucking shit-for-brains,” he cursed as he drove his knee up and into my gut, forcing me off him.

He tried to pin me and I slammed my head up into his chin—the sound of his teeth clacking together was viciously satisfying. He hissed in pain, showing bloody red teeth, and then ripped a gun from the holster under his jacket.

He was wild-eyed with rage.

He’d kill me in cold blood, in broad daylight. I knew it. He wasn’t thinking about the Vipers, or his future, or even his desire to take down Hell’s Ankhor. He was fixated totally on me, and how I’d gotten in his way. It didn’t matter that he’d get sent to jail. Killing me was all he was thinking about now,