Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance #3)(64)

"What the hell is… oh my God," she looks at me. "Is that blood?"

I look at my hand and my dress. "It's not mine."

May blinks. Hawk grabs her arm and pulls her into the car. May pulls the door shut with a loud slam and takes off.

"What happened?"

"We're leaving," Hawk says. "Right now."

"Can I get my bag?"

"No, we have to go right this minute."

"Alex?"

"I'm okay," I sigh, and sit up.

May sits sideways in the seat and stares at me.

"Hawk, let's go to the safehouse."

"We could be hundreds of miles from here by dark," he says. "You have almost a full tank of gas. We'll take turns driving. The further we get, the better."

I pull out my phone and call Jennifer.

She picks up on the third ring.

"Alexis?" she says. "People have noticed your absence. You-"

"Listen,” I say, and tell her what happened.

"Go to the safehouse."

"Hawk's driving. He thinks we should just run."

"Let me talk to him."

"Hawk?"

He sighs and takes the phone, presses it to his ear.

"Yeah. Yeah I know, but the further we… I know he won't stop looking for us. Yes, he'll file a police report on May…. I know, we can't… that doesn't matter, I have some cash…" He trails off. "He can? Freeze my accounts? Christ. Damn it. Fine, we'll go to your place."

He hands back the phone.

"Where are you now?" Jennifer asks when I press the phone to my ear.

I tell her roughly where we are, and she starts giving me directions. I feed them to Hawk.





Hawk





Now





I drum my fingers on the wheel as I drive.

I was expecting another gas station, but the safehouse turns out to be… a house. A quaint farmhouse, actually.

"It's green?" I say.

Alexis nods. "Yeah, she says it's the green one. We're in the right place."

We've been driving for maybe forty-five minutes. It's still daylight.

The house is low and broad, two floors, a farmhouse maybe fifty or sixty years old, big and airy with a wraparound porch and a peaked roof. Behind it there's a barn, and I drive around the back through tall grass, get out, and grunt as I haul the big doors open. Alexis and May emerge from the car and stand outside as I roll it in, close the doors, and join them in the backyard.

This was a working farm at some point, but now it's just tall grass as far as they eye can see, rolling and rolling up to a wall of corn so far away it's just a straight line of green from an artist's brush, dragged across the horizon.

"We're here," Alexis says into her phone. "Yeah, I'll call back. Yes. Thank you." She sighs. "She says there's clothes and supplies inside."

"Good."

There'd better be. We have nothing but the clothes on our backs and the contents of our pockets, so that'd be my wallet, a couple of phones, whatever Alexis is carrying, and I don't think May bothered to take her purse.

"Key's under a fake rock," Alexis sighs.

I walk beside her to look for it. I spot it immediately, draw out the key and walk up to the back door.

The kitchen is a little dated, and it's dark and smells faintly of mothballs and dust. I flick on the lights, though, and they work, and a ceiling fan starts turning. The place has air conditioning and it's blessedly cool inside. May walks through the kitchen while Alexis bolts the back door and leans on it, shaking.

I gather her up in my arms and she presses against me, shaking like a leaf.

Very, very softly, she begins to cry.

"It's okay," I murmur.

"Are we going to make it?" she whispers. "Is this it? Are we free?"

"I don't know."

Alexis wriggles in my arms and I loosen my grip. She turns around in my embrace, slides her arms around me and rests her head on my chest. She still has dried blood under her nails and there's a stain on her dress. Lance bled all over my arm. Just the thought of him and I want to choke the life out of him again. Alexis was right. I was going to kill him. I'd kill anyone who laid a hand on her like that. I'd kill them all.

"Why did you stop me?"

She knows instantly what I mean.

"He's your brother, Hawk. No matter what else he is, he’s your brother first."

"Yeah, he is."

She starts unbuttoning my shirt.

"What are you doing?"

"I can't stand seeing you walking around with his blood all over you."

She peels it back and tugs it loose from my waistband and I shrug it off. Alexis moves her hands to my chest, and traces the outline of the hawk tattoo spreading its wings across my body, smiling softly to herself.

"Have I told you I like this?"

"No," I murmur, "You didn't mention it."

"The tattoos are hot." She traces her nail over my shoulder, playing along the outline of feathers. "You're going to have to tell me what they all mean."