“Crap,” Apollo says once he notices the same thing. He meets my eyes. “We’ll keep you safe. Don’t doubt that, mate.”
I nod to him as the others come around the car to meet us at the sidewalk. Donatello takes my hand in his and points at the forest at the end of the street. “We’ll run to the woods. No matter what you hear, you keep running. No matter which one of us falls, you keep running. Did you hear me?”
My eyes go round, and my heart jumps to my throat. Things are getting real. Donatello’s been cool about the cops and about Apollo’s supernatural police, but something is different now. I squeeze his fingers back. “I promise I’ll run, but I can’t say I’ll leave you behind.”
He tugs the sheet down his chin to reveal his face. “You have to.” He cradles my face between his hands, his intense eyes drilling on me. There’s something written on them, something he wants to tell me but doesn’t. That truth that’s been hanging between us ever since we met, the one thing he never told me. “The guy who’s coming after you won’t take it easy. I don’t know why he wants you, but he’s mad, Cassandra. He’s mad in the sickest sense of the word.”
I open my mouth to ask him who is this person, but Donatello whirls around and sets off in a run, dragging me with him. I have no option but to follow, my hair whipping behind me, my eyes wide with fear.
Rain pours down just as we cross the threshold into the woods. Donatello rips the sheet from his face, letting it fly back behind him until it sticks to a tree. We run, stumbling and slipping, into the woods, under the rain.
And I don’t even know who’s after me.
CHAPTER28
CASSANDRA
Wheezing like I have only half a lung, I try to keep up with them, but we’re past the hard line, nearing the impossible one. A vampire and two shifters? I’m only a poker player. The most exercise I manage is running after scammers on my heels, and that’s always pretty impressive. Piercing pain takes my side, and I grind my teeth together, trying to ignore it as I keep my eyes on the ground, scared to shit of slipping and falling.
Whoever is after us started as an idea, a threat, but it looms closer now as I hear gentle footfalls on the underbrush. I gaze over my shoulder, but my hair sticks to my sweat-covered face, and I can’t see a thing. Maybe there’s no one following us. It’s a forest, after all. There are animals and that kind of thing. I’m being paranoid. Whoever called Donatello’s phone can’t be this close, and the witches weren’t chasing us when we left.
I turn back to Donatello, his blond hair swaying behind him so flawlessly he looks like a Ghibli character, but a very hot one. “Don,” I breathe out in the most pathetic, wheezy way. “Are you sure they’re behind us? I can’t hear anything.” That’s a half-truth, but whatever I’m hearing is too soft to be people.
Donatello shoots me an odd glance like I just sprouted a second head, and it has two horns and a dick on my forehead. His glower relaxes, and he slows down. And by slow down, I mean he stops running and starts jogging fast.
“I’m sorry,bella.” He has the audacity to not even be out of breath. “I may have overlooked that.”
My sweaty hand slips from his, and I stop for a moment, gulping air. It burns on the way in and on the way out. Holy shit, I’m out of shape. Bracing my weight on my knees, I take a deep breath. “You overlooked I’m not a shifter or a vampire?”
Donatello swallows hard, then looks at the way we came with sharp eyes. “They’ll be here any moment now. I know it.”
Apollo tips his chin up and sniffs the air. Ren mimics him, then lowers his head and sniffs around us. The two look at one another, then shake their heads.
“You don’t smell anything?” I ask the two, arching an eyebrow. “Have we been running like crazy for nothing?”
Ren keeps searching, and the rain grows heavier. Fat drops of water hit the top of my head as I stare at Donatello. His white shirt soaks through, gluing to his skin, going transparent. I admire his defined abdomen for a moment, the body that felt so good against mine just yesterday, just hours ago. His blond hair sticks to his face, to his high cheekbones as he parts his lips and watches me.
“Don,” I start again, chest still heaving. “What’s going on?”
“The vampire who called my number.” His eyes are deep, hot swirls of warmth fastened on me. “He wants you. He’s hunting you, and he knows you’re with me. I didn’t think he would, but he might have tracked my GPS.”
“Wait,” Apollo interrupts, stepping closer to me and facing Donatello. “How do you know he’s hunting her?”
This smells like a fight about to happen. I grip Apollo’s arm, the water glistening down his dark skin. “You might be over-worrying, Don. There might be no one after us. Apollo and Ren didn’t catch any smells.”
“But it’s raining,” Ren offers, and I look up to see his beautiful silky hair covering his shoulders and chest like a dark curtain. His full lips beg to be kissed, but I focus on his eyes, on how they shift as he watches the exchange. “It’s raining, and smells are harder to catch like this. Besides, we’re running against the wind.”
“So let me check the facts,” Apollo starts, stepping closer to Donatello. The shifter pulls his shoulders back, raising his hands in that manner I know he’s ready to fight. “Some fucker who’s hunting Cassandra not only has your number but access to your GPS tracking.”
“I didn’t know that,” Donatello tries to cut in, but Apollo ignores him.
“You make us run into the woods, away from civilization, the car, and our things, and we don’t even know if there’s someone behind us. And, if there is, this person is somehow connected to you.” Apollo scoffs. “Something tells me he might be the one who sent the vampire after her house. Also, the ones to your apartment.”
Donatello’s tall, but Apollo’s taller. The two face one another, baring their teeth. My heart skitters inside my chest. I thought we were over this. I thought we trusted each other. What’s happening?
I step between the two, taking a hand in each of mine. The two turn to gape at me, raindrops falling off the tips of their noses. “This is not the time for a fight,” I tell them. “We have to stick together.”
“He might work for the enemy,” Apollo hisses under his breath. As if Donatello couldn’t hear him.