Chapter Three
“Excuse me, ma’am.”
Fyra slammed the gas nozzle back in the machine and spun to face the person addressing her. She forced a smile that revealed more fang than she’d intended. “Yes?”
The woman took a step back, her hand on her heart. She wore an ugly orange shirt that had the name of the gas station embroidered on it. “Well, I mean, I’m not a truck driver,” her gaze bounced between the gas pump and the semi, “but this is unleaded gasoline. Don’t semis usually use diesel?”
Fyra stared at the woman? Diesel? Wasn’t that the last name of a yummy movie star?
Bollocks! She’d already filled the tank. The semi had proved to be a gigantic PITA. There was no reason something should be so complicated to drive. And wide right turns, her ass. Fyra had made it her goal to take as many lefts as possible. Not even demons liked to be honked at and given the finger.
Finding the gas tank had been enough of an adventure. Why couldn’t she tap the load she was hauling and avoid gas stations?
A light breeze blew smoke off her.
The woman squawked and jumped away, her eyes wide with fright. “Y-you’re on fire!” She sprinted for the building, yelling, “Call 911!”
Fyra raised her arm. Yep. The turtleneck she’d pilfered from Jim’s storage was smoldering against her red-hot skin.
Time to leave. Still in rural America, she’d stand out too much if she ran. She sucked in deep breaths to calm herself until her clothing quit smoking. The effect was marginal, but enough, and she hopped into the semi.
“Curses,” she muttered as she frantically pushed and punched anything that’d make it go. The truck lurched and groaned but rolled forward.
Yes. She could work with that. Increasing speed as much as possible, she lumbered out of the small town. Only, in the confusion of her flight, she was on a rural highway headed into the middle of nowhere instead of the interstate.
It’d have to work.
When nothing but open road lay in front of her, she increased the pressure on the gas. The engine skipped.
She frowned. Many noises had come from under the hood since she’d woken up and gotten behind the wheel, but that was new.
Another skip. A shudder. The speedometer fell.
Fyra slapped the steering wheel. “Stupid truck.”
She stomped on the gas. More shuddering and the engine cut out. Her emotions, which had been stabilizing during her getaway, spiked once again. The atmosphere in the cab smoldered. Tiny fires broke out on the fabric and upholstery.
She’d need to ditch the truck. Climbing out, she realized her error, not that it could’ve been prevented. All her turmoil, all of her unnatural fire, was now free to lick along the exterior of the semi, even surround the flammable load it carried.
Aww, hellfire.
She jumped the rest of the way and ran. Maybe a nice sprint would calm her, because the dried, crusty fields she sprinted through were nothing but tinder.
An explosion rocked the earth. Stumbling, she pinwheeled her arms to regain her balance. The shockwave reached her with an epic force of heat and debris. Rammed into the ground, she rolled and flipped. Her skin, which was immune to flame, was torn and shredded from the remnants of whatever had been harvested months ago.
Coming to a stop on her back, she saw the cloudy sky already darkening with black smoke from the tanker. It laced the air around her, but like the flames, that didn’t bother her.
Her ears rang and any noise was dulled from the blast. The left side of her face throbbed and she tested all her limbs, only to cry out when she tried to move her left arm.
Broken. She tried her legs. Sore, but intact. The arm would heal, but she needed her legs to run.
With a moan, she got to her knees but took a moment to rise to her feet. She squinted through the smoke. Alarm pierced her gut.
How had the human police arrived so quickly?
The gas station lady. Fyra should’ve left the tanker there to explode. A true demon would’ve. Some of Rancor’s ire might’ve been appeased if she’d taken out ten or twenty decent human beings.
But she wasn’t Rancor. Higher thinking, higher thinking.
Scanning the area, she spotted a row of trees used as a windbreak about two hundred yards away. Could she make it there?
Swaying on her feet, she concentrated on one step in front of the other. Almost there.
“I said stop.” The muffled words reached her injured eardrums just as a hand gripped her left elbow.
She shrieked and dropped to her knees. She had to school her reaction, otherwise she’d bare her fangs. It was just a broken arm.
“Dispatch, we have at least one injured.”
Blinking away her haze of pain, she glanced over her shoulder. An older deputy in a brown uniform cocked his head to listen to the reply coming from his radio.
“Roger,” came the static voice. “Ambulance is en route.”
“Thanks, Gail.” He dropped his stern gaze to Fyra. “Ma’am, were you driving the tanker?”
Well, Jim certainly couldn’t while he was festering in a remote ditch. A giggle burst forth and the deputy scowled.
“Ma’am, you’ll have to come with me. What’s your name?”
Her attempt at holding back another chuckle was in vain. “Kim.”
She sputtered, then guffawed. Each laugh shook her body, sending waves of pain through her.
She lifted her arm to assess the damage. Agony screamed through her body. Ah. No wonder. Both bones in her forearm poked through Jim’s shirt, blood spreading around the injury.
Her laughter died as she prepared to do what was necessary. Concentrating on anything else, like the sulfur-tinged copper flavor in her mouth, she ignored the deputy’s constant questions and wrenched her arm until the bones were back inside her body.
A scream tore from her, but at least she could start healing.
More sirens approached. The ambulance plowed through the field to reach her. Mr. Deputy held his arm out to stall the EMTs that jumped out.
“You’ll need the restraints for this one. Something’s not right.”
They all stared at her. Maybe all the dirt ground into her skin and the debris in her hair camouflaged her alien appearance.
“Go on,” the deputy barked, spurring the two into action.
Nowhere to go and no way to get there. Fyra would have to bide her time until an opportunity for escape showed itself.
***
Bishop’s phone rang.
He ignored it, eyes glued to the road.
His phone buzzed again. Bishop rolled his eyes. Nonstop texts and calls from his team. After he’d left, he’d sent Demetrius a quick text that he had stuff to take care of. D being D, he wanted to know what. Bishop’s partner, Rourke, had jumped in on the action, phoning and texting him, too.
The two were happily mated to females. Why couldn’t they leave Bishop alone?
Because they’d known something was going on with him and given him space to work it out, trusting him to come to them with his issue. He was bound to a demon. The feeling of constant betrayal weighed on him. He wanted to confess what he’d done, what his demon had done to him.
But it was his issue, and not the only one he kept from them.
Bile rose in his throat until the sour taste overrode anything else. He needed real food and blood. Only he couldn’t bring himself to feed from a human. When he thought of feeding, his demon’s stunning eyes flashed in his mind, wiping out the idea of feeding altogether. He cursed.
The phone continued until he contemplated throwing it out the window, but he needed it to follow the reports of random fires.
With resignation, he answered.
“What the fuck, dude?” Demetrius’s angry voice burst over the line.
“I said I got some stuff to take care of.” Bishop winced at his defensive tone, as if he were a child instead of a nine-decade-old male.
“And it’s the ‘stuff’ I need to know about.” His leader’s frustration was palpable, even over the phone. “We’re all worried about you. We can help, you know, but you need to tell us what’s going on.”
“It’s personal.” On so many levels. How could he tell D the depth of it?
Silence weighed heavily between them.
“We all have our shit, Bishop. Yours can’t be any worse than ours.”
Bishop swallowed hard. D was right, on a certain level. The male had kept his oddball sister a secret from the world. His buddy Rourke had been a blood slave and hadn’t told anyone until his long-lost brother had tried to kill him. Yet D, Rourke, Bishop, and the rest of their team had all come together decades ago to undermine their government and protect their species, even from their own kind.
Demons were the current threat, so how could Bishop casually reveal he’d been enslaved, sort of, by one?
So not a conversation he was ready to have.
“I have to do this, D.” He tried to say “trust me” but the words wouldn’t form.
Demetrius took his time responding. “You and me go back a long way. All of us do. Don’t shut us out. I’ll give you time, but wait too long, and we’re coming after you.”
That was enough. “Deal.”
Bishop disconnected and went back to scanning through radio stations.
“A tanker explosion off of county road…”
Straightening, Bishop listened intently. No one hurt, one person injured and arrested on suspicion of stealing the semi.
Hopefully the humans could hold onto his demon until he arrived.