The next morning, we were back on the road before the sun had a chance to peek over the horizon.

I leaned against the window, watching the sky lighten and the stars disappear. Red, orange, and gold streaked overhead, the beauty dulled by the proximity of danger.

I didn’t like not speaking to Chaser.

Even though he pissed me off more often than he turned me on, the silence made me uneasy. The things he’d admitted to last night should’ve settled some of the gnawing in my chest, but it hadn’t. Questions had been answered with words that’d stirred up even more unknowns. About the men who were trying to kill me, about Chaser and his involvement with Fortitude, and about his feelings toward me.

How was I supposed to know if he was telling the truth when there were so many secrets between us?

Shit, the man was even more fucked up than I was.

“Have you ever seen that movie Thelma and Louise?” I asked sometime between dawn and midday.

“No.”

“Because you’re Louise, and I’m Thelma.” I waited, but he didn’t react. “Wanna know why?”

He glanced sidelong at me. “Not really.”

“Louise is the levelheaded one,” I said, not caring if he wanted to listen or not. I just needed some noise. “She’s got the clear-cut plan. Thelma is an abused housewife who goes on a trip with her best friend—that’s you—only to become the victim of an attempted rape. Louise saves her by shooting and killing the guy, so they go on this road trip across America to escape the law.”

“I can see the parallels, but it’s not the same,” Chaser drawled.

“Since when do bikers use the word parallels.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re not doing a good job of hiding your educated ex-marine past.”

“Who said I was a marine?”

“I don’t know. Were you?” I gave him a pointed stare, which only earned me another full minute of silence.

Nothing. He didn’t even flinch. I glanced at his cock but couldn’t decide if he was hard or not.

“Stop looking at my cock, Sloane.”

I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, as the movie goes along, Thelma awakens as this law-breaking badass. She robs a gas station, and they blow up a tanker after the driver makes a lewd gesture at them. Does female empowerment make you hard?”

He gritted his teeth. “Is there a point to this?”

“I’m not going to peer over my shoulder all day,” I said, staring at my reflection in the side mirror. “Or for the rest of this road trip to the seventh layer of Hell. Fuck ’em. I want a gun, Chaser. Specifically mine. I want to be Thelma.”

“No.”

“Why not?” I was on the verge of pouting and stamping my foot, but I’d already promised to stop the ‘too stupid to live through stubbornness’ routine. Besides, it wasn’t appropriate to give a firearm to a child.

“I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

And there he was being all alpha asshole again. Up and down like we were on the mother of all seesaw mood swings.

“Don’t you like me challenging your masculinity?” I asked. “I said I’d let you fu—”

“Sloane.” He sighed and tightened his grip on the wheel. “I told you already. I care about you, I do, but it’s my job to protect you. Mine alone. You’re not making it easy for me.”

“Ditto.”

I could go on all day and night about how he was wearing a mask. About how he was hiding some big secret about the douchebags hunting us. I could crap on about a lot of things, but when it came to me having a gun? It should be a no-brainer.

“I’m not going to shoot you,” I said. “I want to be Thelma.”

Chaser cursed and straightened up in his seat.

“What?”

“Fuel light is on.”

“We need to stop for gas?” I glanced out the window, not liking the uneasy feeling the vast nothingness gave me. “Out here?”

“I was hoping it would last until the next major city,” Chaser said. “There’s no fucking cover out here.”

“Don’t you mean, there are zero witnesses?”

He glared at me and pulled off the road, turning toward the nearest town. Likely some little pimple with a population of ten.

The gas station he found was rather modern, and luckily for us, it was mostly empty. Only one other car sat at a gas pump as we stopped, obviously belonging to the woman who was just walking in to pay as Chaser cut the engine.

It boded well for us, I suppose. Less people meant less chance of being spotted by the elusive enemy. I still had no idea who they were, and the farther we drove, the more it bothered me.

“Can I get out?” I asked. “I’m a little hungry, and my ass is numb.”

“Stay in the car, and get down,” Chaser ordered.

Sliding down in the front seat, I grimaced and peered over the top of the dash at the garage beyond. The automatic doors swished open as the woman exited and walked over to her car. A dark-colored sedan pulled in off the road and turned into a spot by the windows.

Glancing at Chaser, I wondered how he knew what to look for. The notion of detecting a threat through body language was a foreign concept to me. So was spotting a tail. I’d watched a lot of movies with those kinds of things in them, but who knew if they were real or not? I always thought a silencer on a gun made the shot go pew-pew, thanks to spy shows and James Bond movies. But in reality, it still went boom when someone pulled the trigger, silencer or not.

Chaser shoved the nozzle back into the gas pump and closed the tank on the side of the car. Tapping the window, he walked across the pavement toward the garage. A moment later, he disappeared through the automatic doors.

Watching the second car, I narrowed my eyes as two men got out. The one nearest was tall and thin with a pointed nose. The other was more robust—which was a nice way of saying he was a porker—with a mean look about him. Fat and skinny.

Both men were wearing tidy jeans and sports jackets with open collar shirts. Hardly criminal material. Their car was rather nice, which was why I didn’t pay much attention to them at first. Then, as their gaze turned toward me, I remembered what Chaser had told me the night before. They could be anyone.

When they began walking toward the car, I realized I was borderline fucked.

A chill shuddered through my body, and I checked the mirrors. I couldn’t be sure they’d seen me, but if I stayed put…they’d find me for sure.

I had to get the fuck out of here. Now.

I opened the door a crack, just enough for me to slide out, and crouched down on the ground. The sound of approaching footsteps echoed across the gas station, making my stomach roll. I closed the car door softly so the latch caught, then made a break for it.

Crawling across the concrete, I ignored the scraping on my knees and moved between the opposite pair of gas pumps. I rose slowly and glanced between the hoses, getting a good look at the men. The taller one cupped his hands against the window and peered into the car.

“It’s empty,” he said.

The other guy nodded toward the automatic doors, solidifying my fear.

Chaser.

The men followed him into the gas station, and my heart twisted. He was smart, so he’d know something was up, wouldn’t he?

Shit, I didn’t know. Chaser was a fucking enigma. Who knew what game he played behind those iridescent eyes?

I cursed under my breath and darted across the concrete and through the doors.

That’s right, you idiot, I thought to myself. Run headfirst into danger. That’s a smart plan.

Inside, there were several aisles of junk food, magazines, various bits and pieces of hardware and motor oils. A bank of refrigerators sat along the far wall full of brightly colored soda. The dull sounds of some pop song wailed out of speakers set into the ceiling, but no gunshots or sounds of men fighting greeted me on arrival.

At first, I couldn’t see anyone else other than an attendant behind the counter flipping through a magazine. Some kid, about eighteen or so, was reading a porno magazine. He held it up, ogling a page he thought was delightful, and I got an eyeful of a pouty blonde’s snatch on the opposite side. He was so not going to get employee of the month.

Sliding down the aisle in front of me, I padded past a row of motor oil, transmission fluid, and other assorted tools and puncture repair kits.

“Where is she?” a man’s voice hissed.

Peering around the corner, I stifled a gasp as I saw a knife at Chaser’s throat. One of the men had him boxed in, the blade pressed against a very sensitive vein. He was unable to move without causing one hell of a scene with his blood as the main character.

There were two of them. They both came in here together, so where was the other guy?

If Chaser had just given me the fucking gun when I’d asked him…

“There’s my girl.”

I cringed as a slimy male voice purred behind me. Shit, shit, shit.

I only had a split second to react. Grabbing a bottle of transmission fluid off the shelf, I heaved it over my shoulder. The man behind me let out an oomph as the heavy container smacked him right in the face. I spun on my heel, grabbed another bottle of something, and swung it with all the strength I could muster.

A gallon of motor oil collided with the man’s face, and he stumbled to the side, smashing into the shelving. Bottles flew everywhere as I glanced over my shoulder, checking for Chaser.

The commotion had caused the other man to falter, giving Chaser enough time to disarm him. He twisted and grasped the knife, and before I could take a breath, he slammed it home. The blade sank into the man’s chest, and he dropped.

Chaser’s gaze met mine, and he shouted, “Down!”

Like we were in some kind of coordinated stunt in an action movie, I ducked as he reached behind his back and pulled a gun. One shot rang out, echoing loudly in the small space, but one shot was all it took.

Twisting my head, my mouth fell open as I saw the man I’d smashed with the bottle of oil fall onto his back as blood erupted from his chest.

Gasping, I looked up at Chaser, not quite believing what had just happened.

He stared back at me for a moment, then his lip curled. Striding across the store, he moved behind the counter and grasped the attendant’s shirt. I scrambled after him, wanting to get as far away from the dead bodies as possible.

“Mister,” the attendant wailed, the porno magazine falling to the floor. “Take what you want. Take whatever, just don’t hurt me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, you pussy,” Chaser said with a snarl. “Those men were trying to rob my girl and me. You saw it. It was self-defense.”

I emerged from behind the shelf, my hair falling into my face. The attendant glanced at me, and I nodded.

“Where’s the security footage?” Chaser asked.

“O-out back.”

“Take me.” To me, he said, “Stay there.”

He dragged the poor attendant from behind the counter, and a moment later, the sound of breaking glass and plastic echoed through the open door. I cringed, watching as a sliver of blood inched its way underneath the shelving from the opposite aisle.

“Sloane.” Chaser was beside me, his hand curling around mine.

“What did you tell him?” I asked as I practically ran behind Chaser in an attempt to keep up. Damn, his stride was long. “I hope you didn’t hurt the guy. He was just doing his job.”

“That was a really fucking stupid thing to do,” he exclaimed as we stood by the car.

“Saving your ass was stupid?”

“I had it under control.”

“No, you didn’t,” I shot back. “You told me to stay in the car. You know where they checked first?”

I raised my eyebrows as his skin paled.

“I could’ve run, you know,” I continued. “I could’ve hidden like a scared little baby, but I came after you.”

“Get in the car.”

He didn’t have to ask me twice, but I wasn’t done with him. Not by a long shot.

Chaser slammed the door as I clipped my seat belt on.

“A thank you would be nice,” I exclaimed. “Thanks for being smart and getting out of the car, Sloane. Thanks for beating that guy’s face in, Sloane. You were a real help, Sloane. Man, you were right when you said you can take care of yourself, Sloane.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Chaser exclaimed as the car shot out onto the road.

“I guess they call this character development,” I drawled. “I don’t know about you, though.”