Keeping Secret

Under normal circumstances, the trip to Lucas’s mansion in Upstate New York should have taken over an hour. Google Maps would tell you so, anyway. The narrow two-lane highway wound like an asphalt snake through a towering hall of pine and bare-branched oak. Every time you passed another car you took your life into your own hands, risking oncoming traffic around the next tight curve in the road.



Whenever I drove from the city to Lucas’s sprawling country estate, the looming darkness of the trees made me nervous. The dark can hide so many evils, I was hesitant to let my eyes linger on the tree line because my overactive imagination could formulate any number of potential attacks from within.



I never expected the road itself would be the thing I should fear.



The first blow was so sudden I thought I’d run something over. But as my gaze darted to the rearview mirror to see what poor fox or badger I might have killed, the previously unseen car behind me turned on its brights. The glare of the lights flashed in my eyes, rendering me momentarily blind. As the fist-sized spots of light swam in my vision, the car struck us again. This time the BMW bucked and I lost control of the wheel, swerving into the oncoming lane, which remained empty by some miracle.



Kellen let out a startled shriek and held on to my headrest. I got myself together, blinking away the blind spots, and swung the car into the proper lane, overshooting by a hair and sending a wave of gravel arcing backwards when I hit the shoulder.



I jerked the wheel back from the edge of the road and jammed my foot down on the brake, forcing the car into a sudden spin and making my tires scream as they burned a trail of hot rubber across the cool spring blacktop. When the car came to a halt, steam was rising off the cement and my BMW was headlight to headlight with a black Corolla. Possibly the least distinctive car imaginable.



Kellen squeezed my shoulder, reminding me I was not alone in this hellish game of bumper cars.



When I looked to my right at Brigit—just a quick shift of my gaze since I didn’t want to take my eyes off the car in front of me—the young vampire was wide-eyed but wore a vaguely excited expression. Kellen, on the other hand, was threatening to break my collarbone with her death grip.



“What do they want?” she asked, her voice high and trembling. “What do they want, Secret?”



I shrugged off her hand, trying not to be cruel about it. My future sister-in-law was terrified, and my being flippant wasn’t going to help anyone.



“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Do you want me to get out and ask?”



Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a nice response, but in perilous situations I have a bad habit of overindulging in sass, so all things considered it was politer than I would have been normally.



Kellen didn’t seem to be fazed—she was too busy being scared out of her mind. “No,” she said. “No, please don’t.”



The Corolla revved its engine. My stupid brain was reminded of the scene in Footloose where the two boys decide to play chicken using tractors. It was all I could picture as the black car edged forward.



“Ladies,” I whispered, shifting the car into reverse and letting up on the brake a fraction of an inch. “Hold the fuck on.”



I did my best to press the gas pedal right into the floor, and the car responded by growling and shooting backwards at a breakneck speed. The Corolla was left in our dust as I sped around a curve, but our reprieve was short-lived when the familiar lights slid past the bend like a luminous worm.



There was a secondary flash, quick and bright as lightning, and then my windshield gave a wheeze and a bullet tore through the interior, past all three of us, and out the rear window. I expected the safety glass to crack and shatter into a million tiny squares, but instead it seemed to move out of the way of the projectile, leaving a puckered hole in both windows and trailing spider-web cracks around the entry and exit points.



Kellen screamed loud and long. Brigit, who no longer needed breath to live, let out a gasp and braced her hand against the dash.



I rolled down my window, and a howl of cool April air blasted the interior of the car as we continued our frenzied pace along the highway with only the dim red lights of rear bulbs to guide us. I could see in the dark, but with headlights shining in my eyes and a car going backwards at almost sixty miles an hour, I was tempting fate on a scary level.



“Bri, my gun.”



“Where?”



“There’s one in the glove box.”



She didn’t need to be told twice. The glove box was open and the gun loaded and in my waiting palm before I had a chance to say please.



“I need your foot.” This time I had to take my gaze off the road to look at her because I wasn’t sure she’d understand what I was asking for. She was shaking her head emphatically even as she shifted in her seat, moving her legs from under the dash.



“You can’t.”



“What are you talking about?” Kellen piped in, her voice barely above a whisper.



“Don’t worry,” I told them both. “I know what I’m doing.”



It never ceased to amaze me, but whenever I used those words, people were stupid enough to believe me. And I think every time I said it, I hadn’t the faintest idea in hell what was going to happen next.



Brigit stopped shaking her head and Kellen sat back in her seat, muttering what sounded like the Lord’s Prayer. Good. If God was listening, we could use a little divine intervention for what I was about to do.



“On the count of three,” I instructed Brigit. She nodded her mute acceptance.



The window was rolled all the way down, and my hair whipped across my face. The whole left side of my body was alive with goose bumps, but my rage was so focused I couldn’t feel the cold.



“One.”



I undid my seat belt and let it wind itself up with a loud whir. “What are you doing?” Kellen asked. When I didn’t answer, she turned to Brigit. “What is she doing?”



“You really don’t want to know. Like really, really.”



I ignored them both. “Two.”



Letting up on the gas, I slowed the car just enough I figured we might not die in a horrible fiery wreck in the next second. Then I met Brigit’s gaze and smiled with forced hopefulness. She looked as grim as I felt.



“Three.”



Chapter Six



With the gun still in my hand, I shifted the stick back into drive. Using my left hand, I spun the wheel a full rotation before dragging myself out the open window. Brigit, true to her word, had managed to place her foot on the gas pedal, and we started to gain speed the second I was in my new position.



I hooked one heel on the upper curve of the steering wheel and wedged the arch of my foot on the lower portion, giving me an anchor within the car and also the ability to keep steering. Brigit could keep the gas going, but she couldn’t read my mind.



Now that the car was facing forwards again, I had to turn backwards to see our would-be assailants, and I had no intention of letting them follow through with whatever they had planned. Another burst of light and a loud crack preceded the arrival of the next bullet, but I kicked my foot slightly and the car veered to the right. A lock of my hair, newly severed, flew off and into the dark. I righted the car and then returned fire.



The first bullet was a direct hit, and the other car had a properly designed windshield because it shattered the instant the bullet struck, raining small pellets of glass all over the interior of the cab. The shards glistened in the light of the moon and my taillights, making them look like polished bits of bloody ice.



The car swerved, but I must not have hit the driver because soon enough they were back in the right lane and two more bullets zinged past me.



“Son of a—” Another bullet was fired, only this one didn’t miss.



Pain seared through my shoulder, and I lost control of the car when my legs twitched in response to the itchy burn between my collarbone and neck. Now I was really mad. I lifted the gun, but my arm responded by going limp and crumpling under the minor weight of the weapon. I was so startled by the uselessness of my own limb I almost dropped my gun.



Only one thing would turn my entire arm to dead weight so quickly.



Silver.



Whoever was driving the Corolla was using silver bullets, which sent a cool fear slithering down my back. I’d been through more than my fair share of kidnapping attempts and, stupidly, that’s what I’d believed this was. Or an incredibly motivated carjacker who really, really wanted a yellow BMW.



The silver bullets meant something more sinister. It meant this person was, without a doubt, here to kill me.



It’s not like people wanting to kill me was something new to me. I mean, I’d spent my formative years hunting down and assassinating rogue vampires. It isn’t the kind of job with a long-term life expectancy prospect attached to it. I’d been shot before. I’d been stabbed and bitten and a whole assortment of other bone-crushing, lung-rupturing, life-flashing-before-my-eyes type experiences. You’d think finding out someone was out to get me would be old hat by now.



But it never stopped sucking.



Especially because enough people hated me and wanted me dead I didn’t even have a short list for who might be behind the wheel of the car trailing us. The bullets meant they knew I was supernatural and not human, but it didn’t narrow the field much. Silver was used against both vampires and werewolves, and since I was both, I didn’t know which of my monsters they thought they were poisoning with the bullets.



I braced my feet against the wheel, making sure the BMW wasn’t weaving all over the highway, then transferred my gun to the left hand. It wasn’t my dominant weapon hand, but I could kill with it just as effectively.



My wounded arm drooped, swinging like a rag doll’s in the wind. The edge of the window dug into my ribs as I steadied myself for the next shot. I was lucky the bullet had torn right through me. The silver poisoning acted fast, but since the bullet wasn’t lodged in my shoulder, I would also heal faster. It would be more than a week before I was up to full health, but if I’d had to wait for the bullet to be removed, I might be waiting a month or more before I healed. Happy wedding day, Secret. Here’s a bullet hole to show off in your white dress.