Page 50 of The Vigilante's Lover
The dress is cloying, cold and clammy. My face feels flushed. “I want to change,” I say.
“We’re not in any imminent danger,” Jax says. “You can climb in the back.”
I crawl awkwardly between the seats. My head is pounding. Something in my neck tingles again. I press my hand to the spot, but it feels normal.
My butt lands awkwardly on the seat, squashing the bag with my other outfits. I try to sort through them and pull out the navy pants, but my vision seems to be failing. Everything is going black and white.
I manage to pull the dress up and over my head. The red bra and matching thong are also damp, but I’m not going to take those off. I glance up at Jax and catch his eyes on me in the rearview mirror. He doesn’t break his stare just because I see him looking. His riveting attention is unnerving.
I flush with heat again. I’m tempted to take the bra off after all, just to taunt him. My belly flutters at the thought of being so forward, so bold.
Then the sick feeling comes back full force. I manage to cry out, “Jax!” before everything goes totally dark.
2: Jax
Shit.
I’m watching Mia get undressed, that glorious body revealed again, when she suddenly passes clean out.
They got her. I suspected it.
I glance at the display on the dash. The majority of the Vigilantes are still clustered around the Crybaby, but several have strayed away. Two are following my path, out of luck or awareness of my position, I don’t know.
Anything in this car could be tipping them off, and now I have a poisoned woman to deal with.
I saw the dart hit her neck when she was on my lap. I knew it was meant for me. I pulled it from her instantly, but apparently the injection system has improved during my time in Ridley Prison. There was no delay at all.
I have about seven minutes until it kills her.
I check the distance of the blips again, and scan the landscape for a safe location to pull off the road. It will do me no good to stop for the antidote if I immediately get stalled by Vigilantes. By the time I can fight or talk my way back to Mia, it will be too late.
I jerk the wheel to cut down a narrow driveway that looks like it might lead to a single residence. The density of the trees on either side of the path obscures whatever might be at the end of it.
Based on the condition of the fencing, the place is either abandoned or inhabited by elderly people who can no longer keep it up. All good things.
As soon as I’m out of sight of the road, I slam on the brakes and jump out the door and into the backseat.
Which poison is it? I press my fingers to Mia’s neck. Her breaths are slow and shallow, her pulse fluttery. Has to be respiratory, as the neurological one causes spasms.
I’m torn on what to do next. Dismantle anything Vigilante to avoid detection, or go straight for the vials of antidotes and try to figure out which one to try?
I check the display. The blips still show the Vigilantes’ approach. Until they pass the drive I turned down, I won’t know if they are on to me. I can’t risk them coming. I still have five solid minutes for Mia.
I race to the front seat of the car, powering down all the transmitters, jerking open the glove compartment and pulling out the wires powering all the systems that were custom-fitted by Sam. I assume that even though I jettisoned the Crybaby and our identity chips, the Vigilantes scanned all the tech in the car when it was abandoned and can follow it.
That done, I race to the trunk and tear through everything in it. I power off every detector, all the security features, and then take apart anything with a power source.
Now we should be black, emitting nothing but body heat signatures that aren’t easily tracked by their moving vehicles. At the same time, without any tech, I won’t know they’re coming if they do. The entire system is down.
But never mind that. I have to go for the vials. I open the side compartment to the black valise Sam left for me. Inside are five syringes. Ican’t just use them all. The antidotes are as bad as the poisons themselves if I use the wrong one.
I think through them carefully, glad now that I took the time on the original drive to Mia’s house to listen to Sam’s rundown of the contents of the car. The blue vial is for the neurological dart, which I ruled out. The red one is a digestive one, a painful torture poison that would have made her sick before she passed out. Yellow is a snuff dart, which is rarely used. This vial isn’t an antidote. It chemically alters the poison in their system to hide what you did. Mia would already be dead if they’d used this one.
The last two are powerful drugs meant to incapacitate prior to the kill. I don’t believe for a minute they just sedated her. Vigilantes stationed on the perimeters of silos don’t even carry anything that isn’t lethal. The seven-minute time span means they can save you if they want to.
But which one? Green or white?
I snatch them both and head to the backseat. Dilated pupils. That will tell me. One of the poisons will affect your eyes. The other won’t.
