A Chase of Prey (A Shade of Vampire #11)(18)

“I have no choice. We need to catch up on the time we lost.” He raced back to the truck and grabbed the spare clothes from the roof. He began layering them over himself.

“You’re mad. We don’t even have your suit any more. You’ll burn alive.”

He was so angry with himself, it was clear that rational thought was escaping him. It was almost like he wanted to torture himself as a punishment for falling asleep.

I gripped his hands, trying to calm his temper. “We’ll just have to make extra headway tonight. But we simply can’t travel in the blazing heat. We’ll get lost, you’ll be running at half your normal pace, and what’s more—even if you do survive—you’ll be too wrecked to travel properly tonight. We’ll take the truck and hit the road now, make as much headway as we can during the day and tonight we’ll just have to make up for lost time.”

Of course, we wouldn’t make up for a whole night’s loss no matter how fast Caleb traveled, but we just had to do our best and work with the situation we found ourselves in.

From the look in his eyes, he knew I was right. He just didn’t want to admit it. He exhaled in frustration. Walking up to a tree and ripping off a branch, he leaned against it, his shoulders heaving.

“All right,” he growled. “Get in the truck.”

He raced back to the truck and hurled himself into the driver’s seat. I hurried into the passenger seat next to him. Reaching into the back of the truck, he grabbed Luis’ sunglasses and put them on again. Starting the ignition, he pressed down hard on the accelerator as he reversed at the speed of a madman all the way up the track until we reached the main road.

We’re going to crash if he’s not careful.

Since Caleb had removed the clothes from the roof, we now had a gaping hole in the center of the roof. Fortunately, the sun’s rays didn’t reach the front seats through it. Caleb pulled down the sun screen and adjusted his glasses as we sped forward along the highway.

I looked at the fuel meter. We still had more than half a tank left, thanks to the stop we’d made at the gas pump yesterday. But I wasn’t sure that it would last us until this evening. I really didn’t want to have to hitchhike today. Or witness more deaths and blood. Although the morning after tomorrow, we’d have no choice but to find another van to keep traveling toward the coast, I didn’t want to have to do it any sooner.

Other early-morning drivers scowled in our direction at the way Caleb had joined the highway, barging onto it as if no other cars existed.

“Caleb,” I said, reaching for his forearm, “we’ll still make it back in time. It will be tight, but I know we’ll make it back.”

I couldn’t even think about what would happen if we got delayed and seven days passed, so I tried to find conviction in my own words.

“We can’t afford more delays,” he said.

That much, at least, we agreed on.

We didn’t talk much for the next few hours as we sped forward. Caleb looked over at the map occasionally, but otherwise his eyes were fixed ahead.

My thoughts drifted to Rhys. It was ironic to realize that he’d been the least of our worries so far. We’d had enough trouble just dealing with humans. Caleb had said that he would come after us. I wondered how he’d even go about tracking us down. We could be anywhere in South America by now.

I shuddered again, wondering why he’d taken me. Caleb had said he didn’t know.

I thought about my parents. I hoped that neither they nor my brother would try to come after me. I hoped they’d all stay safe within The Shade and wait for my return. I wished I’d brought one of The Shade’s phones with me. But it wasn’t like I could have predicted Micah would suddenly morph into an evil warlock. Besides, he’d have confiscated the phone anyway.

Caleb’s voice broke through my thoughts.

“Duck down.”

He was looking into his side mirror. I caught a glimpse of my own before obeying him. A tall, black vehicle was following us. It looked like an armored truck.

“Could they be cops?” I whispered.

Caleb shook his head as he pressed down harder on the accelerator. “Not cops.” He swerved left sharply, my head bashing against the side of the truck.

“What’s—?”

“Stay down!” he bellowed.

I dropped down on the floor as low as I could. There was a crack and then the shattering of glass. Caleb was still glancing in the rear mirror.

There was a sudden bump against the back of the vehicle. My head went crashing against the wall again, this time splitting my forehead and drawing blood.

Bullets continued to shatter the back screen. I was frightened one would hit Caleb again. I didn’t think I could bear to see him endure more wounds than he had already.

“I knew I should have killed that bastard,” Caleb muttered.

“Who?”

“Luis’ man. The one who got away.”

There was another crash as the heavy truck rammed right into our bumper.

As Caleb swerved right, I clutched the door handle to stop myself from getting injured again.

“Listen to me, Rose,” Caleb said, his breathing uneven. “I need to stop the vehicle so I can deal with them. I need you to stay exactly where you are. No matter what you hear, don’t step out of this vehicle. Do you understand me?”