Page 145 of Black to Light

No one in our car spoke except Alisha, who sat in the row behind me and Black, next to Cowboy, Nick, and Angel. Behind them sat Jax, Kiko, Ace, and Mika.

Alisha only broke the silence to give updates on where she could see Jem and Aura.

“They’ve just left the main road now, near the port…” she said once.

“They’ve just crossed the road,” she continued a handful of seconds later. “It looks like they’re headed for the residential road…

“Wait, no, there’s something else there, some kind of national park. They must be going there. I don’t see anyone else following, or anywhere near them…”

“What’s the park?” Nick asked, quiet.

“Grotto du…”Alisha trailed, sounding bewildered. “I can’t say the name in French. It’s… I think it’s a cave. Some kind of archeological site.” She touched clicked over something on her tablet. “A.J. looked it up. He says it’s a national park, but not open to the public because of some structural damage. There’s a visitor center that’s normally open, but that’s not open today, either. He says scientists were digging in there, but they hadsome kind of cave-in a few years ago, so you have to have a special permit to even get inside…”

Alisha fell silent for a few minutes.

Black only asked one question.

“Did they go inside?” he said.

“Yes,” she said, sounding doubtful. “I think so. I can’t be certain. They walked up a kind of zig-zagging walkway thingy leading up to the site, but there’s a lot of tree cover, and right after that, they just disappeared. So I can’t know for certain if they went in… the whole area after that has a roof over it, so obviously the satellite’s useless… but Ithinkthey did. They could be in the visitor center right now, or even in the cave.”

Somehow, I didn’t think they were in the visitor center.

Like Alisha, though, I had nothing to base that on. Unfortunately, we’d never gotten that drone. Alisha had to work from only limited access to a satellite feed.

“Keep looking in the area,” Black said. His voice shifted to a lower growl, almost a mutter. “And check with Manny and Yarli, in case they have a better vantage point and can confirm if Jem and Aura went inside.”

I’d heard Black talking to Manny on a burner phone as our train pulled into Nice.

I knew they’d already arrived in the coastal city ahead of us, and had been following Jem and the girl ahead of us, too, as soon as they started coordinating with our team around the satellite images. It hadn’t occurred to me until just now that they might have actually watched Jem and Aura walk from the street up to the entrance of the cave.

I knew if there was a single person among us who could pull off following Dalejem without being seen, it would be Yarli. I also knew she would be extremely cautious as she did it, and not take unnecessary chances, or do anything else to spook him.

I also heard Black warn both of them about not using their organic headsets.

Even so, anxiety wanted to crawl over me as we drew closer to the port.

Whatever was causing it, it made my chest and lungs tight, my mind difficult to control, my mouth and throat thick with saliva. I couldn’t make sense of my own reactions, or what it was I was even reacting to exactly.

Was I afraid we’d end up having to kill Jem?

Was I afraid he’d kill one of us, or kill the girl?

Or was I more afraid Brick would wait until we caught up with all of them, then kill both of them? Because as much as what I’d said to Black the night before was true, that I didn’t fully believe the vampire king was pulling the strings on all the events of the past weeks, there was no doubt Brick had an interest, and was likely to be around.

I also knew it wasn’t above the vampire king to do something like that, if he decided he had a good reason to make a statement.

Whatever it was that was making me anxious, I couldn’t shake it.

I clasped my hands in my lap, and barely saw the traffic, or the little shops or newer hotels, or the older, more stately buildings, the churches and statues, parks and flowers, or the glimpses of startling blue when we got high enough to overlook the sea.

Eventually, we made it far enough south that the ocean was everywhere on my side of the car, and we were winding down a smaller road that headed around a mountain and to a beautiful, sparkling harbor sandwiched in a small canyon between a park and hillside homes. Some of those houses were colorful and huge, like something on a postcard, but I barely saw those, either.

I sat there, heart thudding painfully in my chest, while we crawled through traffic to reach the other side of the port, and wondered what the hell was wrong with me.

“Five minutes,” Black muttered, glancing at me.

The light had changed; the white SUV moved smoothly forward with the rest.

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