Free Death and the Girl Next Door by Darynda Jones Page B

didn’t shove you,” he said, reaching for the lid of the camper shell. “I dragged you.”
    The lid’s hinge stuck on one side. When he reached to release it, I scrambled over the tailgate and back into the bed.
    “Damn it, Lorelei.” He glared at me, but I scooted to the farthest corner from him. If he wanted me, he was going to have to work for it.
    “What are you going to do with him?” I asked.
    He eyed me for a long time before finally answering. “Whatever it takes.”
    Just then Jared moaned. Cameron stilled, watched him as though he were a cobra about to strike. He held out a hand without taking his wary gaze off Jared.
    “Take my hand.”
    “No,” I said defiantly. “What are you going to do?”
    The sirens were getting closer.
    “Lorelei, you don’t know what it is, what it’s capable of.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    He closed his eyes in frustration and sucked in a lungful of air. Without looking at me, he asked one more time.
    “Lorelei, please.”
    “No.” My voice was soft, more unsure than I’d wanted. But I refused to move. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I wouldn’t leave him.”
    Without warning, Cameron slammed his fist into the tailgate. The pickup lunged forward as the tailgate crunched inward, yielding to his strength, reminding me of his potential.
    He reached up and slammed the camper lid shut with the same angry force. I was surprised the glass didn’t shatter.
    I heard him retrieve the rifle from across the street before climbing into the driver’s seat. He started the pickup then backed onto a side street to avoid the approaching police cars. With tires squealing, he turned and headed toward the highway.

 
    PARADOX
    Jared lay unconscious on his back, his face turned toward me, his thick lashes forming half circles across his cheeks. He swayed with the motion of the truck, like a child sleeping, oblivious of the world around him. His breathing, deep and steady, helped me relax, even if just barely. Blood streaked over his jaw and mouth. I took a dirty T-shirt from the corner to wipe it off, but only managed to smear it. He looked darker. His skin wasn’t as light as it had been, like something had changed.
    He was a paradox, I thought, a self-contradiction. He looked so young, so new to the world, but when he touched me, he seemed centuries old. I saw knowledge in his eyes of things no one could know. And my vision. Had it been real? Had that really happened? Maybe he was from another dimension, another time.
    The glass between the camper and cab slid open. I looked up. Cameron was trying to keep an eye on the road and me at the same time.
    “Climb up here,” he said.
    Eyeing the minuscule opening, I gave him my best look of incredulity.
    “If it wakes up,” he continued, “we’ll both be in a world of trouble.”
    “I can’t fit through there.”
    “Give me a break. You weigh, like, two pounds.”
    I rolled onto my knees and glanced through the window at the road. We were headed down into Abo Canyon. “We have to get him to a hospital,” I said, panic threading through my words. “Where are we going?”
    “Lorelei, please. If you’ll just get up here, I’ll explain what I can.”
    “No. Where are we going first?”
    “I don’t know yet,” he said with an irritated sigh. His hands, stained with the dark reds of human blood, tightened on the wheel.
    “Cameron, just turn around. He could die.”
    He frowned into the rearview mirror at me. “It’ll take a lot more than that to kill it.” He looked back at the road, his brows kneading in thought. “I may have to use a chain saw.”
    I sucked in a sharp breath. “That wasn’t funny.”
    “Good thing I wasn’t kidding, then.” He checked his side-view mirror. “Damn it.”
    “What?” I looked out the back glass as an eighteen-wheeler bore down on us, so close that all I could see was its chrome grille. The steep grade of the canyon made it difficult for trucks to maneuver through its