***
“This has to be the stupidest thing I’ve done in a long time,” she raged. “Probably ever.”
The pair of them were crouched near an opening in the floor of the motel. Unsurprisingly, Flint had an escape tunnel built into it. Unfortunately, it led straight to the sewers, and came up directly across the street from the hotel in a parking lot.
“It has to be this way,” Ajax told her.
“I know,” she said sullenly. “But I still like the idea of trying to sneak out, not making more noise than we have to.”
Her bear shifter—she was still getting used to the concept that he was hers—smiled at her. “If we sneak out without them noticing us trying to, then they’ll just keep watching,” he told her with a laugh.
“So?” she asked, not really meaning her insolence, but using it more as a way to calm her nerves.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he promised, leaning closer to give her a kiss.
She accepted the gesture, but still wasn’t happy. “That’s exactly what I’m worried about, you big lovable idiot,” she told him. “I don’t want you going and doing something stupid to try and protect me.”
Ajax shuffled around to be nearer to her, holding her close while she wiped away the tears that were falling from her eyes.
“We’re going to make it through this,” he told her softly. “Then I’m going to take you to where I love, and we’re going to figure out what we want to do with the rest of our lives.”
She looked up at him. “You mean that?”
Brown eyes stared back at her unflinching as he spoke. “Every word of it. I love Arianna Jones.” He paused, before continuing. “Bear shifters mate for life, you know. There is no one I would rather spend that with.”
“Are you proposing?” she asked, holding him tight and resting her head on his chest.
“No,” he said.
Arianna looked up sharply, only to see a smiling face looking down at her.
“I don’t have a ring,” he said with a shrug. “Consider this more of a promise.”
She shivered at the solemnness of his words. Something echoed within them, something that told her he was speaking the truth, and that he would keep his promise to her no matter the obstacle in his way.
Even if that obstacle included a likely high-speed chase out of the city and a fight to the death with an unknown amount of enemies. It had been two days since Flint had outlined his plan, and they could only hope that all the elements of the plan were in place. Ajax had told her he’d make some modifications to it, especially after hearing what the enigmatic man had wanted from them. Flint’s plan had not had an ending to it. It was simply “Lead the bad guys off, and then escape them.”
For some reason, that hadn’t sounded overly appealing to her or Ajax. So now the plan was changed, and though she wasn’t sure what Ajax had done to change it, if they could get out of the city alive and unharmed, they might have a chance.
That’s a big “if” though. There will be a lot of things that could go very, very wrong.
Arianna wouldn’t admit it, but she was petrified. Only Ajax’s solid presence and courage was keeping her going. If he faltered, then she would have nothing left to support her.
Her phone buzzed against her outer thigh. She jumped, but Ajax held her tight.
“Time to go?” he asked.
Arianna checked the message.
“Yeah, the truck is in position and the driver is long gone.”
“Okay,” here we go,” he said, and heaved open the hatch to the tunnel. With a quick kiss for good luck, he dropped out of sight into the darkness below.
“Clear,” came his voice, sounding faint.
With a shiver, Arianna moved forward and fumbled around in the darkness until her hands found the rungs of the steel ladder mounted to the wall. Not all of us can just drop twenty feet without issue. Halfway down, Arianna tugged on a cord that pulled the hatch shut above them.
She had expected the loud noise, and been prepared for that. What she wasn’t ready for was the sudden extreme vibration of the ladder. Her fingers went numb, and with a scream she dropped into the darkness below.
Her feet encountered solid floor, her legs flexing beneath her. Arianna landed in a crouch, shoes splashing the thin coating of water on the floor out around her.
“Nice recovery,” Ajax said from her left.
She whirled in the pitch black, unable to make out her surroundings.
“Can you see in this?” she said, ignoring his comment. Over the past two days, she had begun to notice more and more often that changes were occurring. They never seemed to last, but instead manifesting for a moment as her body needed them. Like now. She had needed a sense of balance and strength to survive that fall without injury, and her body had risen to the occasion. She knew Ajax was still terrified she was going to fall sick and die, but the longer she went, the more Arianna began to suspect that wasn’t the case.
“Not very well,” he admitted in reply.
Something plastic snapped, and a diffuse orange glow began to emanate from him. His hand was outlined as he passed the glowing stick off to her and pulled another one for himself. It was still very faint and dim, just in case anyone happened to look through one of the openings above at just the wrong moment.
But it was more than enough for them to see.
Firmly ignoring the goosebumps spreading across her skin as she stepped through unknowable muck, Arianna set out into the tunnels with Ajax in the lead.
According to Flint it was a short walk, no more than five, perhaps ten minutes, to reach their destination. The pair took all ten of those minutes, moving slowly and cautiously, unfamiliar with the construction of the sewers around them. In the end, their feet encountered far more solid things in the slow-moving water than she wished to remember, but they made it without incident.
“This is the one,” Ajax said, pointing to the mark on the wall near the ladder leading up out of the sewers. The mark was the number four inside of a circle, with two dots above and below the circle. He hadn’t explained the meaning behind the symbol, but Arianna figured something that specific had to have one.
“Ladies first,” she said, dropping her glowstick in the murky waters and shimmying up the ladder before Ajax could object.
She reached the top, and as promised, found the cover already missing. Flint had arranged for some of his men to park a cargo truck over the grate and haul it open before they left.
Ajax slipped from the hole as soon as she was clear, and Arianna didn’t fight him when he went for the driver’s seat. He had much more experience driving in situations like this than she did. Or so it seemed at least. How one actually gained experience like that she wasn’t entirely sure, but he didn’t seem nervous about it.
The pair closed the doors as quietly as they could. There were watchers all over, and one mistake would be all it took for their enemies to catch them before they were ready. Arianna’s nerves were taut, her heart pounding so loud she was sure someone would hear her.
The easy part was over and done with. Things were about to get very hairy, very quickly. As soon as Ajax turned the keys over and brought the truck to life, they would become targets.
I’m not sure I want to know what’s going to happen when he squeals the tires to get us out of here, alerting anyone who wasn’t certain that we’re trying to escape.
As if he heard her, Ajax reached out and took her hand. “Ready?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted honestly. “But we have to go whether I am or not.”
“You never cease to amaze me with your inner strength,” he told her quietly.
“Just keep amazing me with your outer strength, and we’ll get along just fine,” she joked. Then, with a deep breath that didn’t have anywhere near the calming effect she wanted, Arianna gestured for him to do it.
Keys twisted. The engine rumbled and then roared as he gave it some gas.
“Hold on,” Ajax said tightly, shifting into gear and punching the pedal down.
It would have been an exaggeration in her mind to say the truck shot forward, but it certainly moved with a jolt and the tires began to squeal as Ajax wheeled it hard to the left and out of the parking lot. Headlights blazed in the darkness, lighting their way, as well as signaling to all those around that something was going on.
“They’re coming,” she told Ajax, voice tight as headlights appeared rapidly in her side mirror. “Two, no three vehicles. Black. SUV or pickup, I can’t tell,” she said.
“Three, four a piece, that’ll be twelve,” Ajax was mumbling from the driver’s seat, doing the math on their pursuers even as he weaved through what little traffic there was on the streets at that time of night. The motel was thankfully already outside of the core, which meant it was a simple straight shot on their route out of town.
Of course, the three vehicles pursuing them meant it wasn’t simple at all.
“They’re gaining on us,” she said.
“That is the plan,” Ajax replied, taking a moment to reach out with one hand and rub her leg.
“Shut up,” she laughed, letting the exhilaration flow through her now, instead of keeping it bottled up within. There was little she could do besides hang on and keep track of their pursuers.
The truck shook violently without warning, and Arianna looked frantically in the mirror to see what had happened while Ajax fought with the wheel to keep it under control.
“These guys are getting frisky early,” he muttered, more to himself than her.
Sure enough, she managed to pick out the damaged front of one of the SUVs, headlight cracked and one smashed completely out of commission from where it had rammed them.
“Here comes another!” she shouted moments before the cab bounced horrifically. The truck wobbled and she slammed her head into the glass hard enough to open a cut in her head and a crack in the glass.
“Are you okay?” Ajax asked as he kept the truck going straight.
“Ow,” she growled, the sound originating deep in her chest. Now she was angry. Arianna blinked rapidly as red filled her vision. She wanted to hit something. Or someone.
Ajax repeated his question.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice still deep, but not quite as rage-filled as it had been. “Keep driving,” she told him, blinking her eyes rapidly as she looked in the mirror. “One of them is coming up on my side.”
“Let me know when its nose is past our rear,” Ajax commanded.
“That would be now,” she replied, then held on for dear life as he wrenched the wheel to the right.
The SUV—she could make out the type of vehicle now—immediately slammed on the brakes and dropped back.
“They won’t try that again,” Ajax said. “They should know better. Not until we’re outside of the city at least.”
Sure enough, nothing happened until they neared the freeway entrance.
“Ajax,” she said, worried.
“Yes?”
“They’re falling back,” she replied. “Why are they falling back?” Then, “What the fuck is that?”
“What the fuck is what?” Ajax asked with a worried look over at her. “Oh,” he said as he looked in her mirror. “Umm.”
Coming up hard behind them on the freeway on-ramp was a huge set of lights, much larger and brighter than any of those from their other pursuers.
Over the air rushing across their truck, they began to hear a deep throaty rumble.
“Not good, that’s what it is,” Ajax said, mashing the pedal as far down as it would. The cargo truck roared and began to pick up speed again.
The freeway was more brightly lit than many of the streets they had just been rushing through, and it became readily apparent what was following them. The three SUVs had dropped back, each occupying a lane so that no one could overtake them.
Between the line of vehicles and the truck that she and Ajax were in was a nightmare monstrosity. It was a big rig, but one that had clearly been modified. It was completely black, with no color or chrome on it anywhere. Blindingly bright headlights and an overhead rack speared their truck with color, and it wasn’t until a moment later that she realized the top-mounted spotlights were actually being pointed by people on the roof of the cab.
If that weren’t scary enough, the flatbed being pulled by it threatened to stop her heart from beating. Banks of lighting lit the trailer, showing her the activity going on.
“It’s a fucking boarding party,” she said aloud as it pulled alongside them.
“Definitely not good,” Ajax said, swerving back and forth to make them a harder target to hit as the big rig tried to pull up alongside them.
On the flatbed men were preparing what looked like cannons. As Arianna focused hard on those men, she felt her senses flare and strengthen. She suddenly had an extreme case of tunnel vision, which instantly made her nauseous.
But it also showed her what the men on the flatbed were preparing. Retching between her legs, she forced herself to relax, trying to ensure the dry-heaving didn’t become something else. With a snarl she forced her enhanced senses down, making them obey her.
To her complete surprise, they did.
Better. Now if I could just learn to control it without the blinding headache and extreme sickness.
Arianna shook her head. That was a battle for another day.
“They’re loading harpoon cannon things,” she told him. “I think they intend to shoot them at us and use them to cross over.”
“Yep, boarding party all right,” he agreed, then fell silent.
Arianna continued to watch in the mirror as the truck inched up on their left side.
“Ari,” Ajax said with a tone that turned her blood to ice.
She looked at him.
“Remember when I said I’d try not to do anything stupid unless it could be avoided?”
She continued to look at him evenly.
“I need to do something stupid,” he said at last.
“How stupid?”
“Fairly,” he admitted, wincing at her continued level look.
Arianna sighed. “You don’t see a way around it?”
He shook his head. “No.”
She sighed, glancing back into the mirror at the oncoming mass of metal. “What do you need me to do?”
“We need to switch places,” he told her.
“Swell,” she muttered, but she pushed herself back against the seats as Ajax leaned forward and toward her side, maintaining his grip on the wheel and his foot on the pedal.
It was cramped in the small confines of the truck, but eventually she slid into the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel and her foot pushing down on top of his.
“Ari?”
“Yes?” she asked sweetly.
“I’m going to need my foot back,” he told her.
Arianna sighed and adjusted her foot so that he could remove his, without them letting up on the accelerator. Ajax moved completely into the passenger’s seat, before leaning back over and kissing her on the cheek.
“I wish I could say more, but they’re about to pull alongside us,” he told her as they flew down the highway at close to one hundred miles per hour. “I love you,” he said, then began to winch down his window.
“Ajax? Ajax what the hell is the plan?” she asked frantically.
“Drive straight, and when I bang three times, let them come up alongside us. Once it happens, hit the gas again.”
“Once what happens?” she all but shrieked, reaching out for him.
“You’ll know,” he promised, and with that he was gone, pulling himself through the window and onto the roof of the truck.
“You big dummy,” she said, tears streaming down her face, but she kept the truck running straight down the middle of the freeway. “You come back to me!” she shouted through the open window.
Ajax banged on the roof once. She wasn’t sure if that was because he heard her, or something had happened. She chose to take it as the former. Then came the moment she had been dreading. Three quick bangs on the roof.
Closing her eyes for a second and uttering a prayer, Arianna lifted up on the gas slightly. On her left the big rig crept closer. Its front end passed the rear of their truck, and still it kept coming. She glanced over as the cab went by, and saw the driver leering down at her with a smile of victory on his face.
Her truck shook suddenly, and she saw the driver’s face go slack with shock.
Arianna’s eyes were drawn to the mirror once more, but even though she had known Ajax was going to do something, even she hadn’t expected that!