Page 12 of Awry
“Presh?”Rath asks.
“Yeah …” She glances at me, squaring her shoulders again.“We’re on our way.”
“I have to hang up now,” Rath says.“There are some calls I have to be the one to make.”
“I know.”
“I love you, sis.I’m coming for you.”
“Okay,” she breathes.
There’s a moment of quiet.Then Rath says, “I’m trusting you, Zaya Gage.”
“You don’t have much choice.”
“No, I don’t.”His teeth snap around that admittance grimly.“But I will hunt you to the ends of the earth.”
“I won’t run,” I say, not all that angry now.Just resigned and focused.Still, I can’t have him threaten me and also get in the last word.“You aren’t my end, Rath.It’s not you who will snip my thread.”
The silence that falls in the car is heavier after that pronouncement.But I’ve never been one to take stupid threats lightly.
“I’m coming for you,” Rath growls.
The line goes dead.
The thrill once again triggered by his rough tone, shivering through my system, lingers.
“Show me,” I say, ignoring the sensation instead of dissecting it.There is no point, there is never any point, in thinking beyond theNow.
Presh angles the phone into my line of sight, displaying the map.I absorb it in a glance.Apparently, Rath is sending us out to the coast.
Theknowingrises, grabbing hold of me instead of just lingering on the edges.
I hit the accelerator hard.The BMW shoots forward, weaving dangerously through traffic toward the next exit.
Dangerously for anyone not capable of riding aknowing, that is.
We seemingly loseBreaker and Chains for all of forty minutes as I speed toward the coast, following the directions Presh has pulled up on my phone.Long enough that it starts to rain in earnest, and some of the tension leaks out of Presh’s stiff shoulders.
Theknowingdoesn’t fade, though — the price hasn’t been paid yet — so I can’t relax.
The route is unfamiliar to me.Definitely back roads, which I presume is why we lose the bikers on our tail for so long.Rath’s route kept us on Highway 30 for ten minutes.Then, in a slight weaving pattern, we’ve been cutting on an angle toward Highway 26 since.The map shows us meeting up with the coastal 101, then cutting down toward Cannon Beach.The route has obviously been carefully designed to keep us off the main thoroughfares, but I completely understand Rath’s caution about us stopping or getting out of the car.
We’re deep in the wilds of Cascadia.Neutral territory doesn’t necessarily mean unclaimed territory, and more often than not, somepower— possibly a shifter or mage exile, or even an awry with purple eyes like mine— controls these little fiefdoms.Not necessarily nefariously, though.Given the fact that the roads are properly paved, though not all that recently, and the homes we pass are still mostly standing, this cluster of residences and the surrounding territory has someone overseeing it.And rules that are enforced as that overseer decrees.
The bikers finally come at us from the side, as if they’ve got a tracker on us— or on Presh specifically.Alternatively, they simply had to take a farther exit off the highway, then cut up from there.But that’s something to worry about after this moment passes.
Because an instant after I register the ear-numbing roar of their motorcycles, they blow through a stop sign, forcing me to swerve right.
Presh screams.
At the speed I’ve been pushing on the rain-slick roads, I’m not an experienced enough driver to regain control of the car.
With Breaker and Chains right up our ass, the vehicle careens wildly.Then, tires skidding and slipping, we swing around in a half spin, and the passenger side slams into something solid.
Metal crunches.
Presh hits the side of her head against the window, losing hold of my phone.
