Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Storm stepped back, and Dovie’s gaze swung to his before the door slowly opened.
“It’s okay,” I lied to her. I didn’t know if it was okay or not. I just hated for her to be so scared.
She gave Storm one more glance, then broke into a run until her arms were wrapped around me. She was trembling. Fuck him! I glared at him with all the fury boiling in my chest.
He studied us, then nodded his head toward the Jeep. “Let’s go.”
Not wanting to make any more of a scene than we already had, I held on to Dovie as we walked toward his Jeep. He opened up the back door.
“It’s fine, I promise,” I whispered in her ear before helping her climb inside.
Before following her, I turned back to him. “I will kill you if you do anything that puts her in harm’s way. I don’t give a fuck who you are.”
His eyes flared with something I wasn’t sure I read correctly, but I no longer cared. I wanted this over and to be free from Storm. Climbing inside behind Dovie, I reached over and took her hand in both of mine, holding on to it tightly.
Storm climbed in front and glanced back at us in the rearview mirror.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
She looked at me, and I signed for her to let me handle him.
“She doesn’t speak.”
He frowned, clearly seeing me doing sign language with her. “Is she deaf?”
“No,” I replied.
Neither was she mute. Not exactly. She hadn’t been born that way. It was trauma-induced.
“Why do you have her? Who is she? Where are her parents?” He shot questions at me fast.
I started to respond when a gunshot hit the side mirror on the driver’s side. My side of the Jeep. Shoving Dovie down, I looked up at Storm, who was starting the Jeep and pulling out a gun from his waist at the same time.
“Get down!” he shouted at me, and I covered Dovie with my body.
The Jeep slung us to the side as he backed up fast, then spun out of the spot we’d been parked in. Dovie’s entire body was shaking violently. I tried to hold on to her tighter for reassurance, but I knew she could hear my heart slamming against my chest that was pressed to her ear.
I didn’t want to distract Storm since he was driving the Jeep like a maniac, not that I was complaining. Whoever had shot at us, I wanted to get as far away from them as possible. Even if it was in Storm’s Jeep. That couldn’t have been meant for us. They had to be shooting at Storm. Who would want Dovie and me hurt?
“We’re going to be okay,” I told Dovie. “I swear, I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Stay down,” Storm ordered as if I planned on sitting up with someone firing a gun at us.
There was a phone ringing over the speakers in the car.
A deep voice said, “Hello?”
“We were just shot at,” Storm informed whoever was on the other line.
“We as in you and Briar Landry?” the man asked.
There was a pause, and I held my breath.
“Yeah,” Storm replied, not saying anything about Dovie.
I let out the breath I had been holding, closing my eyes in relief.
“Where are you?” the man asked.
“We were at an exit in Port St. Lucie, at a McDonald’s. Headed north now on 95. Her Buick was left there.”
“I’ll send some of The Judgment. They’re closer. Description of the car?”
“Blue Buick Encore, I believe. Briar?”
“Yeah, Buick Encore, 2019. Full of boxes in the back seat.”
“Got it,” the guy replied. “Are you headed here?”
Another pause.
“No. We are headed to Madison.”
He let out a sigh. “Okay, if you think that’s, uh, safe.”
“It is,” Storm said with a hardness in his tone that hadn’t been there before.
“I’ll handle this. You get her north.”
“Thanks,” Storm replied and ended the call.
The only sound in the car was our breathing for several minutes. I stayed over Dovie as I racked my brain for who could have been shooting at us. Who would have tracked my car? Wired it? I didn’t want to think this was about me, but all the clues pointed to me. Not Storm.
“We are in the clear. No one is following us. You can sit up.”
I straightened, then patted Dovie’s back, but she only scooted over to bury her face in my arm.
“Who is she, Briar?”
I glanced down at her as she lifted her eyes to look at me. “It’s okay,” I assured her. Then looked up at Storm in the rearview mirror. “She was me. Except she was younger. She wasn’t old enough to run, and I couldn’t leave her there to live the hell I had until she was old enough to get away.”
Storm’s eyes hardened as he stared back out at the road. “Roger?”