Dark Lies: Chapter 9

Savannah

Heart hammering in my chest, I pulled Tony off the wheel. He looked up, and a trail of blood dripped down his forehead. “Run!” he ordered. “They’re here for you!”

Screw that.

As he went for his seatbelt, I unlatched mine and shoved open the door.

A bastard in a leather jacket lunged for me, but I kicked him back and rammed my boot into his face.

I leapt from the passenger seat and kneed him in the nuts as another one of the bastards took a swing. I wasn’t quite fast enough to avoid the blow, which glanced off my cheek and sent me staggering back against the open door.

There was no mistaking the asshole who’d accosted me at the bar. The cocky bastards hadn’t even bothered wearing masks.

The man grinned as he lashed out. “You’re coming with us!”

I ducked and jammed my fist up into his jaw, wiping the smile off his face. His head kicked back with a sharp snap and ricocheted off the side of the vehicle.

I took one quick look into the Jeep. Tony was out on the other side, laying into two more guys.

They were everywhere.

As a third guy in a leather cut leapt in, I summoned my magic and released a cold burst of uncontrolled power into him. His body jerked, and he flew backward onto the street.

Then I was running.

Too many.

As I started to draw the shadows like a cloak around me, a red-eyed shifter soared over my head, rebounded off the building, and dropped into the alley. I tried to skid to a stop, but his arm clotheslined my neck.

I landed on my back hard, my throat aching. Another shape landed beside me from the roof, and the three thugs circled me. I kicked one of them in the shin, and he stumbled back, but the two others descended on me.

I screamed and clawed at their arms, but one of them pulled something out of his pocket, and then unimaginable pain coursed through my body, like bees crawling under my skin.

My muscles spasmed, and I lost all control.

Fear and dread settled over me as I lay there paralyzed, unable to speak or breathe. One of the men slipped a cloth bag over my head, then zip-tied my ankles and cuffed my wrists behind me. I was jerked over someone’s shoulder, and seconds later, tossed into the back of what I assumed was the white van.

“Bastards,” I tried to yell, though it came out more like an unintelligible moan.

Zap.

That horrifying pain returned, radiating from my thigh this time. My body convulsed, and I gritted my teeth as it went on for what seemed like forever. Then it stopped, and two doors slammed shut.

Though the pain was gone, my body was in shock. Literally, because I’d just been tased. I couldn’t move, but I heard their voices outside: “Bring her to the drop point, and don’t mess around.”

The van started, and I gasped as I finally managed to suck in air, though the bag over my face was causing me to hyperventilate. I rolled onto my knees and shook my head until the cloth slipped off. Just as I did, the van made a sharp turn and accelerated, and I flew across the cargo area, landing hard on my side.

I groaned as pain exploded in my shoulder.

Abducted?

No fucking way. I’d been here before, and I wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Racking my brain, I struggled against my restraints. I probably only had minutes before they took me somewhere else. Luckily, the idiot who’d zip-tied my feet had secured the tie over my boots.

I shimmied my ankles until I could slip one of my feet out of my shoes, then the other. Once my ankles were free, I sat up and glanced around the van. The restraints on my wrists were going to be trickier.

The van swerved, and I rolled and crashed into the wall. Blood stung my eye.

Got to get out of here before these psychos crash, my wolf said anxiously.

“Yeah, I’m trying.” I crouched on my knees and gritted my teeth as I began shimmying my wrists back and forth. The cuffs wouldn’t budge, and the metal dug into my skin. Dammit.

I slipped my boots back on and scooted down to the double doors. There was no handle, so I kicked them. Pain surged through my ankles.

Shift, my wolf said.

“First, I need to get these open.” I positioned my feet in the middle of the doors, where I imagined the handles to be, and then I kicked. The doors rattled, and I heard the muffled voices of the men in the front.

“A little help, sister?” I asked my wolf, bracing for another kick.

With a silent prayer, I kicked again and heard a metallic crack in the door. Adrenaline flooded me, and I started kicking the doors like a madwoman.

Finally, something snapped, and they flew open. Shit, it worked!

A pair of headlights blinded me, but I managed to brace the doors with my feet when they bounced back. They kept swinging, and I must have busted the mechanism that closed them because they would no longer stay shut, which was both a mercy and a pain in the ass.

I squinted my eyes at the vehicle that was following close behind. It sped up, and its lights switched to running lights. It was then that I recognized Jaxson’s truck. They’d followed me. Sam was in the passenger seat, and Jaxson was driving, his expression homicidal.

The van accelerated, and I glanced at the blur of asphalt between the swinging doors. Shit.

We had to be going sixty. What would happen to me if I hit the road at that speed? Sure, I technically had healing powers, but only if I didn’t snap my neck.

The van took a turn a little too sharply. My shoulder and head slammed into the wall again, and I groaned. The fact that I wasn’t healing indicated that my restraints were magicuffs. So much for shifting.

Still, I had to get out of the cuffs so I could hold on to something. Potentially, I could summon the Soul Knife, but trying to use it in the swerving van seemed like a great way to slit my wrist or accidently slice out a chunk of my soul.

I rolled to my side and twisted my arms. With a cry of pain and a pop of my shoulder, I brought my bound wrists under my ass. Then I rocked back in a ball so I could bring them around the ends of my feet.

My shoulder throbbed, and the cuffs dug into my wrists, but at least my hands were in front of me. It would have to do.

I stood and hurried to the open door, where I crouched and motioned for Jaxson to speed up. “I’m going to jump!”

I saw his lips move, and I assumed he was saying, “Are you insane?”

“Do it!” I screamed, though I doubted he could hear.

The truck accelerated, but the van swerved again, and I had to cling to the side rail with my bound hands for dear life.

As we straightened out, Jaxson punched the accelerator and roared ahead. The swinging doors of the van clanged off his hood, and I leapt.

I landed on the hood with a loud thump, fear clawing at my chest as my hands grasped for a hold in the gap below the windshield.

Jaxson began to deaccelerate, but the van slammed on its brakes, and we had to swerve around it.

I dug in my fingers, but my grip slipped, and I flew off the hood.

Everything went in slow motion.

Pain ripped through my body as I hit the pavement and tumbled to the curb.

Jaxson braked hard, and Tony’s Jeep flew around the other side of him and ricocheted off the driver’s door of the white van. The van screeched to the right, then accelerated to top speed as the Jeep pursued in a hail of gunfire.

I climbed to my knees. My shoulder was out of place, my arm ached, and my head was ringing, but at least we’d slowed to half speed by the time I’d been thrown off the hood.

Standing up, I winced as my shoulder wound began to burn.

Suddenly, a woman’s voice gurgled behind me. “You think you’re free? Dragan is coming for you. You won’t escape.”

I spun.

It was the backwoods woman who’d first attacked me in Belmont. Blood poured from the laceration in her neck where she’d torn her own throat out in Jaxson’s jaws—several weeks ago.

I screamed.

Then Jaxson was there, hauling me to my feet. “It’s okay. You’re safe, Savannah. Are you hurt?”

The ghost was gone.

Either I was being haunted, or my brain had finally stepped off the deep end. I trembled in his arms. “I think I’m probably concussed, but I’m alive.”

He regarded the magicuffs on my wrists, anger hardening his features. “We need to get those things off you.”

Turning, he retrieved something from inside the truck—a pick. He jammed it into the side of the left magicuff, causing it to open.

I winced as my shoulder popped back into place, and the fracture in my forearm began to heal. “I’m going to cut out their fucking souls for this.”

Jaxson shook with rage, and his claws ripped out of his hands. “Not if I get to them first.”

“Hot tip: it was the jerks from the bar.”

He growled, and I could hear the deep anger and self-reproach in his voice. “I should have sent more wolves with you.”

Sam stepped up and slapped me on the back. “Damn, that was badass, Fury.”

“What? The part where I got abducted again?” I muttered bitterly.

“The part where you nearly fought off an ambush of four wolves, tore your way out of the back of a steel van, and then jumped onto a moving truck during a high-speed chase.”

“Oh. That.”

Jaxson gave me an approving nod, which sent butterflies spinning in my stomach. As much as Sam had come to mean to me, that small motion set me on fire.

“Is Tony okay?” I asked.

“They left him the moment they had you. He’s after them now and looking to redeem himself,” Jaxson said.

I put my hand on his arm. “Tony did what he could. This wasn’t his fault.”

He was a bit of a spook, but he’d fought for me.

“I know. This is my fault. I hold myself accountable,” Jaxson growled. His expression turned savage as he glanced up the deserted road, and then back at Sam and me. “Let’s get you home and cleaned up.”

Having just skidded across the pavement at high speed, I was scraped, bruised, and coated with blood, dust, and grime. I couldn’t imagine how bad I looked.

“Casey is going to lose his mind,” I said.

Jaxson shook his head. “Not the LaSalles’. My place.”

I tensed. “But—”

His eyes flashed gold. “You’re a wolf. Until this blows over, I’m not letting you out of my sight. Period.”

I sucked in a sharp breath as Jaxson’s alpha presence hit me like a sledgehammer. It wasn’t a gentle push, but rather an iron-hard directive, fueled by his rage.

Normally, I would have fought back, but I was so battered and bruised and drained that I just melted into it. For a moment, it was good to have someone else make decisions. And in all honesty, I didn’t know what to say to Casey. Or my aunt and uncle, when they got home.

There’d be so many questions I wasn’t ready to face. So many that I needed to ask—but that required a clear head, one thing I didn’t have.