On Midnight Wings

A metallic glint, then Heather felt a punch to her lower back, right above her left kidney; felt another. She felt the warm trickle of blood. Bastard was using the fork. She knew it should hurt, knew it would hurt, but adrenaline blurred the pain, kept it at bay—for now.

She lashed out with her foot, felt it connect. Heard a pained grunt. And kept kicking. Grabbing the holstered gun with both hands, the worn leather almost slippery beneath her sweat-slick grasp, she fumbled with the holster’s snap.

Hands seized her foot, immobilized it. Twisted. Heather felt something give in her ankle and this time, a nauseating twist of pain corkscrewed up into the pit of her belly.

Shaking the holster free of the Colt Super, Heather flipped off the safety and rolled onto her back. Aimed the gun between James Wallace’s eyes. Curled her finger around the trigger and began applying pressure.

Her aim was true. Her hands steady. She wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.

And in that moment, in the sudden contraction of his pupils, the thinning of his lips, the emotions chasing across the hard landscape of his face—disbelief to indignation to scorn to ice-cold fury—he knew it too.

Time’s slow stretch stopped, snapped back in on itself.

“You don’t want to do this,” James warned, her foot still held between his hands. “I can only overlook that bloodsucker’s influence on you for so long.”

Heather ignored the comment, refusing to waste any more time and energy arguing with him or trying to convince him that she was an adult making her own decisions. His opinions had ceased to matter a long time ago.

Breath rasping hot in her throat, she tightened her finger on the trigger, adding more pressure. James released her foot and shoved it away, a muscle bunching in his jaw.

“Leave your cell phone,” Heather said, scooting upright on the seat, her aim unwavering. Her ankle was beginning to throb and her back, sticky with blood, stung. “Then get out of the goddamned car.”

Pulling his cell phone from one of the trench’s inside pockets, James tossed it carelessly onto the floorboards. He held Heather’s gaze, his eyes bitter and cold. “I’m not sure I can forgive this, pumpkin. One straw too many and all that.”

“Ask me if I care.”

“No need. I’m pretty sure I know the answer.”

“Great. Now get out.”

James studied her for a moment, then nodded—almost as if to himself. Swiveling in his seat, he unlocked the doors, and climbed out of the Lexus. The door shut behind him with a solid thunk.

Heather slid into the driver’s seat and hit the door-lock button, her pulse still racing. He was outside and she was in, but she still wasn’t safe, not by a long shot. Not until he was many miles behind her.

Heather motioned with the Colt for James to move to the side of the road. As he complied, walking around the front of the car, he turned his head and squinted as headlights flared on the road behind them.

Heather shifted and looked out the rear window. The headlights loomed larger and brighter, twin miniature suns illuminating the empty stretch of road and sweeping light and shadows across the brush and trees along its edges. She glanced away, blinking dazzles from her vision. Headlight glow filled the rearview mirror.

The car cruised past without slowing, its passengers probably assuming, given the lack of emergency flashers, that James was heading off into the brush to take a leak. Heather exhaled in relief.

She decided to drive a distance, maybe find a rest stop or gas station, before pulling over to use the tin snips to cut off the flex-cuffs. Wrestling with the tin snips would probably be more like it, she reflected ruefully.

Then she would call Annie and ask to speak to Von.

Tucking the Colt into the front of her jeans, Heather fastened her seat belt. She slid the gearshift into drive, then did just that, curling her fingers around the bottom of the steering wheel. She watched James recede in the rearview until he vanished from sight, swallowed by the night.

Deep down, like an ache in her bones, Heather had a feeling that the next time she and James met, it would be the final time—and, for one of them, fatal. Her throat tightened. Even though she never wanted to see or speak to him again, even though a part of her believed he more than deserved to die, nothing in that stark realization offered her any comfort.

With each mile rolling beneath the Lexus’s tires, the eastern tug grew stronger, as though hooks had snagged her at heart and mind and were reeling her in. She needed to get off the highway she was on and find one that would take her into Louisiana.

After nearly twenty minutes, she spotted a sign for a gas station five miles ahead. Perfect. She’d pull off, get out of the flex-cuffs, call Von, then get directions and—

Her heart jumped into her throat.

A car was slanted sideways across her lane, lights off, an accident or a barricade, and she was almost on top of it. A figure stepped out from beside the stopped vehicle and aimed something at her.