Page 24 of Knox

“Regroup,” Caroline said quietly, almost to herself. Then she nodded. “Fine. For one night. Then I can figure out my next steps. By myself,” she added fiercely.

Like Gabriel, I raised my hands in surrender. “No argument there.”

After a beat of hesitation, Caroline returned to the backyard. She snatched the beer bottle that she had tossed on the ground, chugged the rest of it, and pressed it to her bruised forehead. It must have been cold still because she sighed in relief.

I walked over to the guys with one eye on her. I assumed she wasn’t going to bolt, but I couldn’t be too sure. Her survival instincts were cranked up to eleven, and one more surprise might send her scampering into the night like a jack rabbit.

“One night is one too many,” Grant said. He was watching Caroline with a detached wariness. He probably felt like he had let a stray cat with rabies into his house. After what Bates did to Sam’s pub, what if his daughter torched his shop next?

“But if she hits the road tomorrow,” Gabriel reasoned, thankfully serious now, “we can keep our hands clean of this. If Jackson finds out, we’ll all have the devil himself to answer to.” Gabriel clapped a hand on my shoulder, tone lightening. “For now, brother, we’ll cover Caroline’s tracks.”

Caroline was eavesdropping—of course she was—and didn’t like the sound of that. “Why?” she demanded. “Why not hand me over to your president?”

“Because you’ve had enough trouble for one day.” Gabriel turned to her. “And the Devils aren’t like the Wolverines.”

Caroline blinked, dumbstruck. She met my eyes. I gave her the smallest quirk of a smile, then turned back to Grant. “Still got an extra helmet in there?”

“Yeah. Take the first-aid shit with you, too.” He shot her a look, fully aware she could hear him. “Sorry I don’t have anything for her shitty attitude. But at least you can disinfect those cuts.”

We went into the garage. I strapped the kit to my bike bag, Caroline close behind. She hesitated to let me put the helmet on her but then gave in. She watched my every move, clipping the chin strap and ensuring the visor worked. If it were a less tense moment, I would have slapped it shut to annoy her, but she might literally break my fingers for it right then.

As it was, she swatted my hand away when I tried to help her on the bike. I shook my head in exasperation and got on in front of her. I revved the metal beast to life, and with a short wave to the guys, I backed out of the shop and headed onto the road.

From there, we left the city limits behind.

It was a long ride to the safe house. I should have been focused on stop signs and intersections. But my attention whittled down to the way she wrapped her arms around my torso and the pressure of her thighs against mine.

God fuck, man, I thought savagely, you interact with one emotionally unavailable woman, and now you’re whipped as a high school jock? Where are your balls?

It kept me on edge the entire half-hour it took to reach Galena Forest. The parking lot was empty, but Caroline tensed as if she had expected a Wolverine to be camped out waiting for her. But like I promised: no people, no cameras.

I pulled the bike onto the walking path, rumbling down a ways until I veered off through the mostly flat stretch of forest. It wasn’t the terrain a motorcycle was meant for, but I knew how to maneuver through it to the spot where I could hide the bike. Caroline muttered something about refusing to die in the middle of the forest.

“I won’t let Big Foot get you, sw—” I refrained from calling her sweetheart lest I die in a ditch at her hand. “Secret camp. Nice and illegal.”

We rumbled to a small clearing tucked far into the park where no one could stumble upon it accidentally. Just enough space to house the branch-littered trailer hooked up to my old man’s Ford pickup truck. If he knew I would park it illegally in the middle of the forest, he never would have left it to me in his will. He was probably rolling in his grave, which was more exercise than he ever got in life.

I parked the bike next to the picnic table I had set up, then got off. I offered a hand to Caroline. Instead of taking it, she pulled off her helmet and thunked it into my palm.

“Right.” I sighed under my breath. Then, louder, “Home sweet temporary home.”

CHAPTER 10

CAROLINE

When I agreed to let Knox take me to a safe place, I expected it to be off the grid, expected it to be illegal, but I did not expect to have to ride a motorcycle through a goddamn national park.

Once I saw the trailer and pickup truck in a dirt clearing with nothing but miles of forest and half an hour’s drive away from the city, I almost let my guard down. There was certainly the possibility that I could be murdered and no one would ever find my body, but I was too exhausted to play out the scenario in my head. As long as Vane couldn’t find me, the forest would make a great hideout.

Besides, I doubted Knox was a threat. With how beat to shit the Devil was from fighting Vane, the last thing he wanted to do was chase after me through a forest at night.

He was already moving around the campsite (if you could even call it that). I loitered near the bike while he began stacking logs in a small brick fire pit that he retrieved from a stack under the trailer. He tossed some strewn pine needles in, then lit them up with a lighter he pulled from his pocket. I blinked at the sudden light after so long in the dark of the night.

I watched Knox pull out two folding chairs from the truck bed, dusting them off to pop them open in front of the fire pit. They were metal and slightly rusted from being out in the open. But that wasn’t what made me want to get nowhere near them.

They looked far too similar to the one I was bound to in the warehouse. So I just stared Knox down until he shrugged and moved on.

He unlocked the trailer door with a key and went inside. I glimpsed a light flick on and heard rummaging until he returned with an oversized coat in one arm. Lumped in his other arm, he carried a medical kit, two bottles of water, and one glass of tequila, all of which he set on the picnic table.

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