War of Hearts(39)

During breakfast Conall had filled her in about the Blackwood Coven. “How did Ashforth know about the coven? Contacts, right? So maybe he let something slip to the wrong person.”

“Aye, maybe.” He bared his teeth as he stared into the rearview mirror. “And our license plate would have been tagged at the border point. They’re gaining us. We need to get off this motorway and dump this car.”

“Keep driving.” Thea touched the sat nav screen Conall was using to drive them to Calais and widened out the map.

“Fuck!” Conall swerved hard and Thea fell against the passenger door. “Sorry, lass. Fucking lorry.”

Making the decision that ignoring the road and Conall’s driving was better for her heart, Thea concentrated on the map. Just because she couldn’t die in a car crash didn’t mean she wanted to experience one. “Okay, we’re coming up to a slip road. You come off it, go around a traffic circle, and back under the freeway. There’s a town about ten minutes behind us where we can hide,” she said, urgently. “Now!”

Conall swerved off the freeway, the car skidding down the slope that led to the traffic circle. Thea held onto the dashboard and door as he swung them around, kicking up dust. “Dinnae tell me you’re afraid!” He threw her a smug look as he thrust the vehicle forward under the freeway.

She grimaced. “A car crash won’t kill me, but it might kill someone else.”

He frowned but kept pushing forward at high speed. “They’re still on us.”

Thea glanced in the wing mirror, seeing the black sedan gaining on them. Her heart pounded. “Conall …”

“I see them. I’m going as fast as this fucking shithole of a car will let me.”

Thea braced as the black sedan flew up beside them. The blacked-out driver’s side window rolled down and a woman wearing dark sunglasses appeared. She smirked, lifting her hand. “Conall, gun!”

He let go a flurry of curse words mixed in with thick Scots she couldn’t understand as he swerved into their pursuers, trying to shake them off the road. But they were determined.

When a red car appeared out of nowhere on the oncoming side of the road, everything changed. The new arrivals beeped their horn at Thea’s pursuers and dread filled her as she realized the black sedan had no intention of getting out of the way.

Thea watched the couple’s faces in the oncoming car as they realized too. Pure horror. The driver swerved too late, surprising their pursuers. The black sedan veered to miss them; it flew past the trees and bounced with such force into the field beyond, it flipped over. Good fucking riddance.

Behind her Thea heard the sickening sound of metal crunching. It was a sound she knew all too well. Looking back, she saw the red car had driven with full force into one of the many trees that edged the freeway. The passenger door opened, and a body tumbled out just as the front of the car went up in flames.

A small, terrified face appeared in the back window.

Shit.

“Conall, turn back.”

“We cannae.”

“There’s a kid in that car!”

Cursing, he wrenched the steering wheel and the vehicle almost skidded off the road into the field. “That car will explode at any moment, Thea.”

Ignoring his warning, she threw open her door before he’d come to a complete halt and was a shadowy blur across the roadway. A woman lay unconscious on the ground by the passenger door, but Thea’s priority was the little girl crying in the back of the car.

She wrenched open the back-passenger door, feeling the heat from the flames that had consumed the crumpled hood. She reached for the terrified girl. “Come on, I got you.” She tried to sound encouraging, not even sure if the girl spoke English.

“Rette meinen Papa. Du musst meinen Papa retten!” The kid fought against her as one word made itself clear amongst the German.

Papa.

Looking into the front, she saw the man’s body. He was either dead or unconscious. Oh shit.

“Okay. I’ll get your papa,” she promised. Done letting the kid struggle, she wrenched her out of the car against her will and turned to watch as Conall pulled the mother to safety. She shot across the roadway to him and held out the girl.

“Where are you going?” She heard him yell as she returned to the crash.

Flames lashed out at Thea and her heart raced. The car was ready to blow. Rounding the driver’s side, she held up an arm against the heat and saw the dad was alive. His eyes were shut, blood trickled down his temple, and his legs were mangled where the front of the car had crushed into him, but he was groaning in his unconscious state.

The metal handle was hot to the touch, but Thea would heal quickly from any burns. She wrenched open the buckled door, and it fell off the hinges with the strength of her yank. Flames licked at the cracked windshield, warning her of imminent explosion.

Unbuckling the guy’s belt, she eyed his legs. They were trapped.

“Jesus Christ.”

Pressing her hand against the melting dashboard, Thea winced against the burns that would have agonized a normal person and pushed with all her might. The mangled car slowly began to give under the force of her will.

A popping sound made her heart stop. Pushing the crumpled machinery could cause it to explode even faster.

“Oh, come on, come on,” she muttered frantically, begging the car to budge just a little more.