Andreas is grabbing my arm to steady me a second later. “Dom, you’ve got to heal her. The poison was getting to her even before the fight.”
Dominic’s gaze darts from me to Jacob—who remains totally motionless other than a brief blink of his staring eyes—and back again. He must decide my situation is more critical, because he reaches over the arm of the seat to press his hand against my sternum. “Try to stay still.”
“Easier said than done,” I mumble, but I let myself lean against the door, hoping the manufacturers didn’t cut any corners with the lock mechanism on this thing.
Between that and Andreas’s supportive grasp, I manage to only jostle a little while Dominic’s warmly soothing power flows through me. My strength solidifies in my muscles; my stomach and my thoughts settle.
When I feel like I’m stable enough that I won’t be causing more problems than I’m fixing, I pat Dominic’s arm to indicate that he can stop. As he draws back, I hold on to the back of his seat and peer at Jacob.
From this angle, I can see that Jacob’s fingers are flexing where his hands are braced rigidly against his thighs. A tendon tics in his jaw, every plane of his chiseled face pulled taut.
An uneasy shiver ripples through me. “Ishegoing to be all right?”
Andreas frowns. “He pushes himself too hard sometimes—just keeps going and going until he bottoms out.”
Dominic’s forehead furrows as he studies his seatmate. “He isn’t normally quite like this. It’s nothing physical—nothing I can tackle. It’s like his mind is stuck in one place.”
He touches Jacob’s arm again, trying to jostle him out of it, but at the same moment, Jacob’s hand outright clenches. And the front passenger seat starts to crumple over.
The steel frame inside the padding groans as the fabric frays. Zian flinches, the SUV jerking to the side before he recovers his grip on the wheel. “What the fuck?”
“Jake!” Dominic says, pitching his voice loud even though he’s right next to the other guy’s ear. “The fight’s over. Snap out of it!”
His yank of Jacob’s arm and the wave of his hand in front of Jacob’s face don’t interrupt whatever the other guy is caught up in. With a creaking sound, the headrest pops right off the seat back and smacks into the glove compartment hard enough to dent it.
What’s Jacob going to aim his powers at next—the doors? The engine?
He could have shattered the windshield just now if the headrest had shot off sooner.
The urgency of the situation propels me forward. I scramble past Dominic and plant myself right in front of Jacob, sitting on his knees and gripping his face between my palms.
“Wake up, Jacob! We’re getting away. You don’t want to hurt—” Well, maybe he does want to hurt me, but not the others. “You’re making it harder for Zian to drive. You’re freaking out Dominic and Andreas. And me. Stop it!”
The twisting metal shifts from groaning to shrieking. Jake’s eyes don’t even flicker.
Wincing, I extend my claws from my fingers and take a quick swipe across his jaw.
Four thin lines of blood spring up in his pale skin, and Jacob’s muscles jump. The metallic screeching halts. His eyes sharpen into focus—and fix right on me.
In that first second while I’m poised over him, our gazes locked and our faces just a couple of feet from each other, my emotions scramble like someone’s taken a beater to them.
The last time I was this close to someone who looked like him, it ended with a kiss and then catastrophe. My body is caught between the conflicting urges to lean closer and wrench myself away.
But only for a second, because then Jacob moves—slamming his hand into my throat to heave me against the back of the driver’s seat. He pins me there, his eyes flaring with icy rage. “You fucking traitor!”
Some distant part of my mind asks,Haven’t we already been through this?I smack at his arm and squirm against his hold, not wanting to do any more physical damage than I already have.
Dominic and Andreas dive in, and between the two of them they dislodge Jacob’s arm enough that I can flounder to the side and push myself away.
“She was helping you—helping us,” Andreas is snapping. “For fuck’s sake, dude, you almost wrecked the goddamned car.”
“I—” Jacob’s gaze shoots to the deformed passenger seat, and the harshness of his expression falters with a rush of bewilderment. He looks at his hands and then at me again.
“How do you think they found us?” he demands. “She must have alerted them somehow.”
“What?” I burst out. “You’rethe ones who’ve been putting us out there, interrogating people and stealing stuff. I’ve spent this entire time trying to convince you to lay low!”
“She didn’t exactly have much of a chance to send any messages either,” Dominic reminds him in a steadier, quieter voice. “She hasn’t been alone except in that one room, and Zian checked her carefully for any kind of devices.”