Page 10 of Awry
“Nearing the Oregon border now,” I add cheerfully, raising my voice a little to be heard.“Being chased by two of the Cataclysm.”
“Who the fuck is that?!”
“Zaya Gage,” I say.“And you?”
Silence answers me.
A long beat of it.
Then, “Zaya … Gage.”
Another heavy pause.
Then, “Fuck you.”
This abrupt rage-filled ‘fuck’ isn’t as nice as his first.
Presh squeaks in surprise.Her eyes round and her shoulders hunch, instantly shifting back into a wariness that the rapid consumption of food and conversation had eased.
“Why, Rath …” I purr.“We don’t even know each other yet.How could you possibly know you’d even be interested in fucking me?”
My protective instincts are all riled up, sharpening my tone until I’m promising him all the death and destruction I can call forth.Which I’m guessing is a lot, because no one adopts the name ‘Rath’ without being into a lot of shit that I could twist to my own intent.
The destruction — or conversely, the luck — I can wield always extends from another’s fate.
A weighted silence hangs at the other end of the line.
Presh whimpers.
“It’s okay, Precious,” I say, keeping my eyes glued to the highway and my foot as heavy on the accelerator as I can safely manage.“I’ll find us somewhere safe.You can have a nap, get cleaned up.Then hopefully one of your other siblings isn’t such a vicious asshole.”
I get I’m not helping by tagging on that last bit.But though I still have only an inkling of what this girl has gone through in the last few days, I’m not handing her over to some raging alpha.And yeah, I can tell his shifter proclivity just based on the few words that have tumbled out of his mouth.
“Okay …” Presh murmurs.
“Presh!What the fuck?!”Rath snarls over the phone.
“I meant, it’s okay,” Presh says in a rush.“That you … Rath is okay, Zaya.I promise.I ran.I should have called … but then I got off the train in the wrong place.They weren’t on the train, I don’t think … like, not following me … but I didn’t know where I was, just a train yard or like a port, or I don’t know what that’s called when there isn’t any water.I should have dumped my phone.I know I should have.I just … I didn’t know where I was.”Her voice breaks.
“Keep going,” Rath says.He’s calmer now, moving around.It’s subtle, but I can hear it in the background.
“I’ve never been very good at school,” Presh says, speaking to me.“Geography, I mean.But I’m really good with —”
“Presh …” Rath is back to snarling now.
I wonder if he’s a wolf shifter.Or maybe a canine of some other sort.
“Breaker and Chains,” I say promptingly, with my eye on both bikers in my rearview.
A series of blistering curses emanate from the speaker, not all of them in English.I don’t take the time to work out the other languages involved, but I have to ignore another delicious spine-tingling reaction.Because apparently, Breaker and Chains have a reputation, and I need to stay focused on them.
“How did they find you?”Rath says, then immediately interrupts his own question.“Where are you now?”
Yep, that’s the pertinent info.“Open the map app,” I say to Presh.“Take a screenshot and —”
“Make sure it’s zoomed in enough,” Rath interrupts.
Presh pokes around on the phone.I can still hear Rath moving around in the background, bits of conversation — hushed like he has his hand over the phone mic instead of muting it.Like he doesn’t want to risk breaking the connection.
