Colt (Devil's Nightmare MC #10) - Lena Bourne Page 0,51

and Ace share an amused look. “We’ll make sure we’re not seen,” Cross assures me as he puts the truck in drive and takes off. “You just keep your eyes on the road and see if you can recognize any of the landmarks to tell us we’re near.”

“OK,” I say and turn my head to better see outside.

But that was easier promised than done. One shrub looks exactly like all the others lining this road and, besides, it was full dark when me and Piston rode this way. If it was even this way. I’m not sure about anything anymore.

But Colt is giving me very assuring looks and smiles each time I glance at him. So I am sure that whatever else happens, we’re in this together all the way. Man, I hope that lasts forever, because I really, really want it to.

The drive continues in silence, which for me isn’t pleasant at all, since with each mile I recognize less and less of the countryside. I must’ve sent them down the wrong way. I must’ve.

And that could very well be a death sentence.

They’re Devil’s Nightmare MC, according to the backs of the cuts Cross and Ace are wearing.

And that club is not to be messed with. It’s the club Piston and Horse were attacked by the night that Ace saved their lives. Now I’m thinking that was all staged. Does Stormi know who Ace really is? He’s a member of Devil’s Nightmare MC, and they have a long-standing reputation of being merciless and ruthless killers for hire. So’s Colt. But I can’t dwell on that, not now.

I’ve proven myself useless to them, and I’m afraid to think about what they do to useless people. What if Cross decides I’ve been lying to him and sent him on a wild goose chase? What does he do to people like that? Monarch would kill a person he thought was disrespecting him on sight. Horse and Piston were forever feeling slighted, as was Griff. None of them hesitated to punch or kill for it. What then?

My panic is so high I’m getting nauseous and I’m already rehearsing the apology I have to deliver now. I have to convince Cross that I wasn’t just making this stuff up, that I really thought the ghost town was this way. Should I start speaking now? We’ve been driving a long time, much longer than the ride me and Piston took. Or does it just seem that way, because I was so happy to be out of the bar that night, on the back of a bike, going fast? I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I should say something…

The setting sun behind us suddenly glimmers off metal roofs in front of us. There rows of houses, about ten per row are visible from the road, their roofs glowing orange. And one of them, the big house built slightly above the rest of the town on an elevation with the hill behind it, as though looking down on it, is reflecting the orange of the setting sun all over. The last time I was here, the light of the full moon was doing the same thing, only everything was bright silver then.

“That’s it!” I say. “We found it!”

I’m breathless because I’ve been holding my breath in fright and panic for so long. My heart is still hammering in my chest, but not in a bad way. I did what I told them I’d do. Now they’ll let me go, now they’ll let Colt and me spend as much time together as we want to. Now I’m truly free.

Cross slows down as we approach the town. It was only clearly visible from that bend in the road where I spotted it, and we get no glimpse of it again until we reach the dirt road that leads to it.

“This is the way to the gate,” I tell them once we do.

Even to my untrained eye, the fresh tire tracks in the gravel leading up to it are clearly visible.

“I think they are here,” I mutter.

“Seems that way, but we need to find a spot to observe the town unseen from and make sure,” Cross says. “How big is the town, do you remember?”

“It’s not huge,” I mutter, remembering how Piston insisted we ride slowly down every street with the lights off to watch for ghosts. “Maybe like a hundred houses and like a bunch of streets off the main one. But everything was pretty tightly packed