Forsaken (The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #3)(36)

“You don’t want me to see how to get back here,” she says as I start the engine.

“That’s right,” I confirm.

“You think I had something to do with what happened at the car dealer.”

I back out of the driveway. “I told you, Gia. I can’t afford to trust you.”

“So I’m right. I didn’t have a phone. And even if I did, if I really was working for Sheridan and this was all one big ploy to earn your trust, why would I call him to tell him where you were?”

I hit the brakes and put the vehicle in drive. I cut her a condemning look. “I guess you figured out that I won’t be manipulated.”

“And what? I wanted to go ahead and let him kill me for failing and get it over with?”

“Or you’re naive enough to think helping him capture me again will save you. It won’t.” I hit the accelerator.

“I had no phone, Chad,” she hisses.

“You were in that bathroom a long damn time, Gia.”

“I told you—”

“You were feeling sick. You seem just fine now.”

“I’m not you, *, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be fine again.” I watch her turn to rest her back on the seat, curling her knees to her chest. “Maybe you should stop blaming what happened on me in time to stop it from happening to us again.”

“There is no ‘us’ and you’d be smart to remember that,” I reply sharply. But as I find my way back onto the highway, on edge, I replay her warning in my head. My mind retraces every second at that car dealership. I’ve lingered on Gia as the guilty party because those goons were on us too soon after the salesman exited for it to have been his doing. But even if Gia somehow had a phone, I’m not sure she had time to call Sheridan and have those men arrive that quickly, either. Over and over I replay the events, with something hard and sharp biting at the back of my mind. I shove it away. I deny it.

Two hours into the drive, we’re continuing our way to Denver, crossing through New Mexico’s high desert country, and my mind hasn’t slowed down yet. Gia, however, is breathing deeply, somehow sleeping on the floorboard she never even tried to get up from. That sharp, biting possibility I’ve been fighting is making me crazy, making me want to crawl out of my own skin. Finally, after what seems like miles and miles of nothing, a secluded rest stop appears. I quickly pull off the road down a tree-lined path to find a deserted parking area that is nothing more than a dirt road with a wooden, cabin-like structure next to it.

Parking, I sit there behind the wheel, my nerves jumping, as Gia stretches. “Are we ‘here,’ wherever it is we’re supposed to be going?”

I exit the Escalade without answering, slamming the door shut. By the time I round the hood, Gia is exiting as well. “Oh, good,” she murmurs. “I really need a bathroom.”

She’s adorable, pretty, so damn innocent—which could all be a fa?ade, only it doesn’t f*cking feel like one at all. I start walking toward the deserted building and she quickly catches up with me, taking the wooden steps to a porch that divides the men’s and women’s bathrooms.

Gia stops at the door to the women’s restroom and faces me. “I guess we’re double-teaming this again?”

I grab her and pull her to me. “Why were you in that bathroom?”

“I was weak. It all hit me and I started to cry. I’m not a crier. But I just—”

I kiss her, my fingers slicing into her hair, my tongue licking into her mouth. I need her. I need an escape, and I want nothing more than to yank her jeans down and f*ck her right here, right now. She moans and wraps her arms around my neck, and I mold her close, trying to suppress what my mind is telling me. I lift her, my hands around her backside, carrying her into the bathroom.

As I shove her against the wall, our lips part and she whispers, “I hate that you hate me.”

It’s a jolt of reality that I need, and I set her down, turning away and leaning on the sink, my head dipped low, my breathing heavy. I do hate, but not Gia. I hate Sheridan, and Amy is going to hate me. Amy. I repeat her name in my head, willing her to be alive, and forcing myself to face what I’ve been avoiding. If Gia didn’t call Sheridan and the salesman didn’t either, that leaves only one option—and it’s trouble.

Shoving off the sink, I remove the back of the cell phone, removing the SIM card and breaking it in half. Next I do the same with the phone, before walking into one of the stalls and flushing both down the toilet. Exiting I find Gia standing there, looking stunned. “What just happened?”

“I stopped blaming you. We need to go, and now.” Her eyes go wide, and I close in on her, urging her out of the bathroom and down the steps. “Now,” I say again, and she takes off running, with me on her heels. Inside the Escalade, I start the engine and back us the hell out of what could easily become a trap.

Pulling onto the highway, I am not pleased to see just how few vehicles are on the road, leaving us standing out like a sore thumb. “You think we were tracked through your phone,” Gia states.

“Yes,” I confirm. “I called from that number over and over, and didn’t block my number.”

“You think that means the person you’ve been calling betrayed you?”

My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “No. I don’t think he betrayed me.”