smart. “How about no? My father probably has a whole army of men there to protect him!”
“I suppose… I should have shot him the night we broke into your house.”
I sigh. “I know, but… it was my fault. I’m sorry.”
Shepherd reaches over and squeezes my leg. “We’re still going to stop him. It’ll be fine, I promise.”
Twenty-Seven
Getting out of the city ended up being more of a pain in the ass than we thought it would be. Father had the police guarding every main highway looking for Tony and me. So we ditched the car near one of the main highways and headed out on foot. When we finally got past the police barricades, we managed to hitch a ride with a truck driver who took us about two hours in the wrong direction, but we were more concerned about just getting the fuck away from it all. There, he passed us off to a buddy of his who took us another three hours where we decided that we would spend the night in a hotel in the middle of a big city in the hopes of being invisible as faces among many.
“I’m exhausted,” I say as I push through the hotel room door and into the room. When I walk into the bathroom and turn on the lights, I jerk back in horror when I get a good look at myself. “My god, no wonder they were scared to get a room for us.”
Shepherd, being the planner he is, not only managed to snag Bear, but he also got our backpack with some money in it. But when we passed the money to the lady behind the counter, she looked a bit horrified and scared.
Shepherd comes in and looks me over, like he’s checking me out. “Remember that day when you drove the car instead of running?” he asks. “And I told you that one day you’d regret choosing to drive instead of run?”
“No,” I lie.
“All of this would have been avoided if you’d have just ran more.”
“Where’s your bullet wound? Let me stab it with my finger.”
He cackles as he aims his shoulder away from me. “No!”
“Fine, then at least let me clean it. Did you take your antibiotic?”
“As soon as we got in the car, I did. I’m doing good,” he assures me. I don’t feel too assured, but I make him sit on the edge of the tub so I can assess it. It’s draining some, but the wound doesn’t look too bad. Thankfully, with the first aid kit I have, I’ve been able to keep on top of it.
“It looks alright. Like I can actually look at it without nearly passing out, so that must mean it looks much better.”
“Good. So what are we going to do about this flash drive?”
There’s no telling if my father has traced the text I’d sent him from that forest. If he has, has he found the cabin we were staying at? Tony’s men found us there, but it’s unlikely he would have shared that information with my father. There are dozens of cabins within ten miles of that spot and we’d managed to travel quite a bit, so can he track it down? If he does, will he find the flash drive before us?
“I don’t know… I guess we just hope they’re not swarming the place when we get there?”
“We could ask Dave to go get it,” Shepherd says.
I bite my lip. “What if they’re watching the cabin? They could kill Dave or torture him for information.”
Shepherd nods. “That’s true. Why don’t we call him and just ask if he’s seen anything and warn him to stay away?”
“Okay,” I say. “But I don’t know his number.”
Shepherd stands up and heads out of the bathroom and over to the beds. “I remember it,” Shepherd says as he sits down on the edge of the bed and grabs the receiver. He dials the number and the phone rings three times before Dave answers.
“Dave speaking,” he says.
“Dave, it’s Shep… er… Nick.”
“Where the hell have you two been? Your car tires are slit, there’s bullet holes everywhere. I didn’t know if I should call the police or if that’d draw them to you. I searched all day for you guys, unsure of what to do.”
“We’re both… good. They tracked us down to the cabin—”
“Was it because of the hospital trip? Was it my fault?” He sounds really upset. “I’m sorry. We should have moved you guys quicker. I heard there was a