"How far is this place?" I asked.
"An hour, maybe," Riggs said. His voice was stiff. I could see how tense he was. Alert.
Seeing him so on edge made it sink in for me. I really was in danger. Not just germs or the potential of getting sick, which felt real, but different. It was a slow kind of danger. A creeping, inevitable kind.
This was more visceral. Somebody out there wanted to hurt me and my sister, or worse. And they could come at any moment.
It felt like I couldn't completely fill my lungs—like my chest was too tight to let them expand. I jerked my head toward any hint of movement, which kept turning out to be cars passing. Shocker.
I spent the next half hour or so in a nauseating state of hyper-awareness. I watched the dark trees swish by and the roads grow more empty as we got farther and farther from the city. Each mile seemed to heighten the sense of danger that was already thick in the air.
Just when I was telling myself we might make it without incident, a large black SUV pulled up beside us. The windows were heavily tinted. I looked around and saw there were no other cars on the road. I looked at Riggs, who was staring toward the SUV with concentration.
“Is that bad?” I asked.
Riggs seemed to consider for about half a second, then cranked the wheel to the side and rammed the truck into them.
I braced for impact, but it wasn't as violent as I expected. I felt myself jostle to the side and forward slightly as the tires skidded, but that was all. The SUV swerved away from us briefly and both back windows started rolling down. A man and woman looked out either window, and stuck guns out toward us.
Riggs swerved toward them again. A dark shape flew from the bed of our truck and into one of the windows of the SUV. One hand wielding a gun vanished. An instant later, the truck slammed into the side of their SUV again.
This time it was a harder hit.
My seatbelt held me in place hard enough I thought I'd have a bruise, and Riggs' thick arm shot out to keep me in place. Our truck swerved and jumped slightly, but Riggs managed to keep it upright. The SUV wasn't so lucky.
Its front end swerved as the drive over-corrected, then the back lost traction and the whole vehicle went flipping and careening down the road. I saw a body fly out the window like a ragdoll while it spun and landed somewhere in the median. After about twenty spins, the SUV skidded to a crunching halt.
Riggs slowed down, turning the truck to the side. He let out a whistle. A moment later, one of the doors flew open, and Fang emerged. His hands were bloody to the wrist and there was blood around his mouth. He loped toward us, and I saw his legs and arms were unnaturally long and covered in dark fur.
I stared dumbly, not quite connecting what had happened, even as Fang jumped in the back of the truck and gave the side of it a bloody-handed slap to let Riggs know he was ready. He already looked normal again, as if he’d transformed back in the blink of an eye.
Riggs started driving without another word.
When I looked back at Fang, he was jotting something down on a blood-stained notepad with a huge grin on his face. Weird.
"Good news," Riggs said casually. "Looks like Lazarus was otherwise occupied. He sent the lackies to slow us down and they failed. We live to irritate him another day."
"That's it?" I asked.
"For now. But we're getting close to the rebels. If Lazarus tries to come at us again, he'll risk doing it on their territory."
"Why would he care about that?" I asked.
"Our world is all about fragile balances. The rebels threw it all to shit a few years back. There was open war, but no side wants to lose large numbers. It's better for everyone if we find ways to make truces. To skirmish, but not devolve into all-out war. Nobody has the bodies to spare for that," Felix said.
"So they want to fight, but they don't?"
"The truth is everybody thinks they'll be in position to win the war if they have more time," Riggs said. "Werewolves stall because we think we can leverage the rebels to take down the Coven. The Coven stalls because they think relations will fray between us and the Rebels. And the Rebels think they'll convince us to join their war on their terms. It's a bunch of bullshit, but it's how it is."
"So we're safe once we get to this Blackridge place? Couldn't we just wait out the month there and Lazarus would have to leave us alone?"