The Darkest Legacy (Darkest Min - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,95

cup holders. Less than a foot away, a key was sticking out of the ignition. An empty water bottle remained in the door.

I slid into the driver’s seat, breathing in the heavy air. I closed my eyes, trying to picture Ruby there, in that same place. Green eyes staring straight ahead.

What were you doing here?

Why would she ever come to a place like this alone?

“Should I open the trunk?” Priyanka asked carefully.

“Oh God,” I whispered. “I didn’t even…I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I don’t know if this is going to make you feel better, but based on my limited experience with dead bodies, I think we would have smelled it by now,” Priyanka said. Sweat poured down over her face and neck, wrapping her thick, wavy hair into tighter curls.

I nodded, resting my hands on the steering wheel. The car rocked as she opened the trunk. It swung up in the rearview mirror.

Please, I thought. Please…

“Empty!” she called back. “Oh, wait—”

At her note of surprise, I shoved the driver’s door open again and jumped out.

Priyanka took my arm, tugging me forward. It was empty. The exterior of the car was covered with a light sheen of dust that had been spotted by recent rain, but inside was almost pristine.

“No, look—” She pointed toward the cover on the spare-tire well, which hung slightly open. Priyanka pulled it off and inside, there was a gun. Fake ID papers. And Ruby’s cell phone.

“I see dust, about five miles back,” Roman said. “Someone’s coming.”

I grabbed all three, pressed the cover back into place, and stepped away so Priyanka could slam the trunk shut again. Our footsteps pounded against the heat-cracked surface of the asphalt until we found the dirt road out again.

Up ahead, about a mile away, Roman was using the remnants of a burned-out gas station to cover our own car. Seeing us, he lowered his binoculars—judging our actual distance, no doubt—then pulled them back up to his eyes to gaze at the road behind us.

I threw a quick glance over my shoulder. Just long enough to see the flares of red and blue lights flashing through the screen of dust.

Priyanka and I took a hard turn as we reached the car, sliding to a stop on the other side of it. We kept low to the ground beside Roman.

“We should go,” Priyanka said. “Come on.”

“No, they’re turning into the parking lot,” he said. “We need to stay until they leave.”

I spun back just as the cars crossed onto the paved surface. They surrounded Ruby’s car in a jagged circle.

“Let me see,” I said, reaching for the binoculars.

I blinked, trying to adjust to their strength. Uniformed men and women surrounded the abandoned car, guns up. It was a strange mix of forces: UN peacekeepers, FBI, Defenders, and—

Vida.

Her brown skin shone in the afternoon sunlight, but it took me a moment to recognize her with her dark hair. She’d stopped dyeing it years ago, when she’d been named as a special assistant to the interim director of the FBI. It hadn’t sat right with me the first time I’d seen her with it, and now, as she wove in and out of the uniformed officers wearing her trim, professional-looking suit, it felt like I was spying on a stranger.

I lowered the binoculars, my throat too tight to say anything.

“How could they have found the car?” Priyanka whispered. “They couldn’t have followed us….”

“Is it possible they found the Haven kids?” Roman asked. His brow creased as he raked a hand back through the waves of his hair.

I shook my head. Even in a situation that made no sense, there was one thing I was certain of: “Vida never would have let the government near them. If she showed up at Haven and found it the way we left it, she’d know to contact Liam’s stepfather, Harry. It’s possible he told her what he knew and she had to give something to the government to keep them from getting suspicious.”

Or maybe she thinks you’re guilty after all.

“I’m going to try to power this up again,” Priyanka said, holding up Ruby’s cell phone. “Let’s hope the heat didn’t get to it.”

She disappeared into the backseat, rummaging through the seat pockets for the charger, hissing out a cuss when she accidentally bumped her head against one of the handle grips.

“Vida is the smartest person I know,” I told Roman. “And probably the toughest. She can handle whatever this is.”

That was the truth, on both fronts. Chubs might have been