Race the Darkness (Fatal Dreams, #1)(83)

Isleen. Isleen. Isleen. Her name was an incantation, a spell, begging her to hear him, to respond, to help him find her. Isleen. Isleen. Isleen. He thought back to his best memories of her. Being inside her and knowing she was his. Watching her stand up to Camille. That ornery smile she so rarely showed. Isleen. Isleen. Isleen. He called to her, pleaded with her to answer…

Nothing happened. Not one goddamned thing. Tears burned in his sinuses and threatened to leak from his closed eyes. His breathing went shaky—hell, his whole body trembled. He wrapped his arms around himself to keep from rattling apart. He rocked in his seat like a nutjob. Okay, now he was going over the edge.

Everything went blessedly quiet.

No more engine humming, no more tires on the pavement. No more heartbeats from the men in the car. No more whoosh and suck of lungs working. His ears just stopped working. His muscles unclenched, and he melted against the seat. His mind went blessedly blank. He bobbed on a wave of nothingness. It fucking felt wonderful.

And then he remembered: The day he’d found Isleen, there’d been a blast of perfect silence too.

“Stop the car!” The absolute quiet vanished. In its place was control. Control of his hearing.

Kent slammed the brakes. Tires screeched against the pavement. Momentum pushed Xander against his seat belt. He braced his hand against the dashboard until the car stopped moving, then was out the door searching the landscape.

Cornfields on all sides except one. On his right was a bean field, and a mile beyond that, a snaking line of trees. A fencerow? A creek? Didn’t matter what it was. His body hummed, pulled him in that direction like a magnet seeking its mate. “There.” He pointed straight across the field at the trees. “She’s there.”

Only a minute ago, Xander’s head had felt on the verge of exploding, his body spent, but all that had vanished. What remained was anticipation and worry and restrained rage that she’d been taken from him.

The guys all stood by their open car doors staring at him.

“That worked?” Kent didn’t bother to hide his skepticism. “As in, really worked? Like she’s really across the field? How could you know that?”

“It’s their connection,” Dad answered for him. “There is a bond between them that defies definition.”

“Jesus.” Matt’s tone wasn’t merely doubting; it was downright pissy sounding. “Here we go again—you and your mystical connection shit.”

Kent ducked inside the car and got a pair of binoculars from the glove box. He looked down the road in front of them, then down the road behind them. “I don’t see a way to get over to those trees. The closest road was a few miles back, meaning we’d end up backtracking, and even then I’m not sure we’d be able to get to that specific chunk of trees. I don’t see any road turning off in front of us either.”

“I saw a shortcut. Everyone get in.” Xander rounded the hood of the car, heading for the driver’s seat. Kent wasn’t going to like his shortcut, but the guy could go fuck himself.

“You saw a road back there?” Kent got in the passenger seat. “I don’t see anything, and I don’t remember—”

Xander pedal-to-the-metaled it before they’d even closed their car doors. The engine roared and they shot forward. He cranked the wheel to the right. They slid, bounced, and plowed into the bean field.

“What are you doing?” Kent shouted.

“The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.”

The car fishtailed in the soft dirt, and he wrangled with the wheel until the tires found traction. And then they were sailing through a field of beans.

Kent had more to say, but his voice was drowned underneath the leafy green stalks slapping the car, sounding like a hundred pairs of shoes tumbling around a dryer. The noise sent Xander back to the day he’d found Isleen and that bitch driving his truck through the field. Here he was, about to find Isleen again.

He’d learned a lesson. Isleen wasn’t going any farther than arm’s length away from him. If he had to cuff her to him, he fucking would.

Dead ahead, the line of trees meandered through the landscape, the trees’ heights contrasting sharply with the fields surrounding them. A quaint gravel road ran alongside the wood line. He hadn’t seen that little lane until just now.

“You see that road?” he asked Kent.

In dawn’s bittersweet light, it all appeared to be a picturesque scene. Something he’d expect to see on a calendar or a postcard. But there was something intangible—maybe the way the trees clawed toward the sky, maybe simple bad juju—that made the place bizarrely unappealing. A shiver ripped through Xander’s entire body.

“There are cars parked among the trees.” Kent pointed. “I count…five. Shit. Best-case scenario, five men. Worst case, if every car was full, twenty-five.” Kent pulled his cell off the clip on his pants and hit a button. “This is Kent Knight with the BCI, badge number 5487, requesting backup and a bus to my current location.” He ended the call without giving them any more information. “This is one of those better-to-ask-forgiveness-than-permission situations.”

“Yep. I know the feeling.” Xander was actually starting to like the guy.

“We don’t want to go in asses flapping in the wind, outnumbered and outgunned. So I need you all to listen to me. When I tell you to do something, do it. Don’t fucking question me. We’re going to pray like monks no one hears us coming. Pull out of the field over there.” Kent pointed to an area just past the last parked car. “And then we’re going to hang back, evaluate the situation, and proceed accordingly. Everyone down with the plan?”