When the engine started, it was a smooth purr, and it did nothing to drown out the excited chatter between Wes and Charmaine.
“You know, this almost beats out going home as my wolf,” Wes said.
“That’s probably the highest compliment you can pay, right?” I grinned as I spoke. He loved running as his wolf.
“Damnright,” he replied, and turned back to Charmaine to discuss Patrick again.
Girard caught my eye in the rearview. “You need the privacy screen?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Don’t leave me back here with them.”
He chuckled. “Okay. I’m taking them home first, then I’ll take you and stick around until shift change.”
“We’re all going to the same place, actually, but we might need to loop around a bit to collect some clothes and whatever else we need.” It felt kind of stupid to say we were having an adult sleepover, but Girard just nodded.
“Let me know where we need to go first, then, and I’ll take you where you need to be.”
When we crossed the river, I could ask him to go to Wes’s first. Being under guard was definitely going to be weird. It wasn’t really clear if I was being cared for or being watched. But despite myself, I trusted Patrick.
Outwardly, he’d done little to earn it, but my trust in him was innate. It just existed.
Maybe, slowly, he was proving himself.
I watched out of the window as we took the road along the river back into town. There was a small service road running between us and the water, and a truck parked down there was starting its engine. It was a big truck, tricked out for hunting, with spotlights above the cab and a brush guard at the front.
I turned in my seat and watched as it pulled onto the road behind us. When I faced the front again, I caught Girard’s eye once more.
“I got it,” he murmured, and my anxiety ramped up another level.
It was one thing for me to feel a little paranoid, but another for Girard to share in that. Still, paranoia was probably part of his job description, even though that didn’t help put me at ease. The attack and the phone calls had made me nervous, even though that feeling wasn’t my usual mode.
Our speed increased, but Girard looked just the same — as cool as before and still completely in control. He hadn’t leaned forward in the way that all drivers seemed to do when they wanted their cars to go that bit faster, and there were no lines of tension on his face. I relaxed a little. If he had it all under control, I didn’t need to worry.
But a revving noise sounded as the truck sped up behind us, and Patrick’s car lurched forward as contact was made. Fear ricocheted through me, and my wolf tensed. Metal ground against metal. We were rammed a second time, and Charmaine yelped. I squeezed my hands into fists and pressed my lips together, determined not to make a noise.
If I had nothing else at all, I had my self-control.
“Hold on, everyone.” Girard checked on us in the mirror again. “I’m going to try and shake them off.”
He swerved to the left, using both lanes, trying to stay ahead of them and prevent them moving forward. But there was nowhere to truly lose them. We were traveling on a two-lane road and not far from hitting city traffic again.
An approaching car from the other direction forced Girard to pull back into the correct lane, and as soon as it had passed, the truck squealed up alongside us. It had tinted windows and there was no way to see inside the cab.
My stomach tightened, clenching around the remains of food I couldn’t even remember eating, and I swallowed against the nausea.
It was too big a coincidence that I’d been attacked the night before, I’d received those threatening calls today, and now we were being chased by a big-as-fuck truck. It had to be the same people. Fear overrode the anger I wanted to feel.
I’d been in danger the night before, and I was in danger again now. But so were the other people in the car with me. I’d endangered all of us by accepting Patrick’s offer.
But I couldn’t help but be grateful to him that he’d somehow foreseen this and tried to pre-empt it, like he could have saved me from this sort of trouble somehow. He’d tried, at least.
The truck nudged closer, forcing the car to the outer edge of our lane, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
Girard pressed harder on the gas and Patrick’s car leapt away, distance opening between us and the truck.
I held onto my sigh of relief as it bubbled in my chest. Girard knew what he was doing. He swerved down a side road, a back one into town, but it led onto an overpass back over the river, with nowhere to escape to.
“Shit.” He ground out the swear word. “Hold on, I’m going to push her.” We sped up again, but when I twisted to glance out of the rear windshield, the truck was gaining on us.