Page 8 of Awry
“I don’t know where we are.”
Right.And there’s that hot, sticky anger brewing in my chest again, churning my stomach.“The cafe was on the edge of Castle Rock, about two hours south of the city of Seattle.”
“But still in Washington, then?”
“Yes.”
“Near Portland,” she whispers.“I was trying to get to my … my brother.”
Fuck.That’s at least another hour away, even at highway speeds.And the bikers aren’t going to let us get anywhere near a city.“South,” I say, speeding up, even though there’s no tricky way of getting onto the highway that the bikers won’t notice.
We’re going to need a haven before Portland.And my contacts are … capricious in this part of the world.Anywhere near Vancouver, where I reside when I’m not traveling, and I would have just called in a favor from the local police.In California, I have multiple crime bosses and politicians owing me favors.
“I could … my brother … just about any of my brothers would come for me.”
“You should call one of them,” I say, loosening my grip on the steering wheel just long enough to hand her my phone.
Presh hums quietly to herself, her gaze on the phone now cradled in her hand.A quiet attempt to calm herself a little, perhaps.“They, um, they aren’t going to be happy about …”
“You being kidnapped?”
“Well, they might not know.I was supposed to wait.But I …” Her breathing tightens, becoming ragged around the edges.“I thought … I saw the cage … he had it delivered and … then there was a …” I barely catch the next words.“A dire mage.You know … with the black-rimmed eyes.And hers were so pale that … that … she looked … like …” Presh swallows harshly, shaking her head.
Yeah, I’ve looked a dire mage in their black-edged eyes before.Thankfully, though, they were usually more scared of the color of my own orbs.But the more pale-skinned and pale-haired a dire mage is?That loss of pigmentation seems to directly equate to the amount of life force they’ve stolen, leeched— consumed— for their own nefarious purposes.
And though I have no idea who the ‘he’ in Presh’s recounting is, I do know exactly what purpose a dire mage would have for keeping an awakening awry in a cage.As a long-term power source.Assuming the mage has enough control to not just drain someone like Presh down in a single sickening slurp.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I say, urging a little more speed out of the car as I merge onto the highway.Thankfully, though the traffic is dense, it’s still moving.One road trip, I crawled from Seattle to Portland, taking five hours for a three-hour trip, all the while going out of my mind to ‘stay in the moment’ and vowing to fly the next time I needed to make the journey.
Except this time, Portland isn’t my final destination.Though it is the nearest commercial airport to that destination.Not that I flew commercial if I could help it.
“Okay …”
“You can if you want, but you don’t have to.”
“Breaker and Chains didn’t rape me,” she blurts.“I’m … like you said, I’m … well, my father is their boss.”
“He’s the president of their motorcycle club?”
“The Cataclysm.”
Oh, that is cheerful.The Cataclysm Motorcycle Club — mostly composed of Bear Clan shifters, if I remember correctly — are infamous enough that I’ve heard of them even though I’ve very deliberately never set foot within the Federation.The country that occupies the most southern strip of what was once the so-called United States.I would have thought that bears wouldn’t enjoy the south, but territories are created for many complex reasons, including ideological beliefs.
The cage and the presence of a dire mage in a biker club now make perfect sense, corresponding neatly with the purple hue slowly overtaking the blue of Presh’s eyes.If she were a shapeshifter, her beast would have asserted itself around the time that her body decided it was mature enough.The power she manifests instead— the power I can feel from her— might still be practically unscentable by most.But shifters didn’t become presidents of infamous motorcycle clubs without being especially powerful, even among their own kind.
Her father likely took a whiff of Presh one day and suddenly discovered that she is unique.Invaluable.Even within his world of guns, drugs, prostitution, and most likely some aspect of the even-more-lucrative shifter trafficking or flesh markets.
Presh is still staring at the phone.
The bikers move through the highway traffic far more smoothly than I can.Weaving almost playfully around cars and running along the shoulder of the highway, they’re suddenly right behind us, hemming us in.I’ve never tried to manipulate strands of fate while driving.I’m not certain I can do so without also risking a four-lane pileup.
Presh glances behind us.Then, staring straight at our pursuers, her shoulders roll back, and she lifts her chin defiantly.
I grin.
She swivels back.“I don’t know the number.Any number.I had it all programmed in my phone.”
“I’ll help,” I say.
