Free Rogue Descendant (Nikki Glass) by Jenna Black Page A

could have locked the gun in the trunk, unloaded, but that would defeat the purpose of having it with me.
    In the end, as I had so many times in recent weeks, I decided to risk carrying it. I was probably in no danger just driving by Olympian properties, but I had too many enemies to feel comfortable going anywhere near them unarmed. I would have to be doubly careful to obey all traffic laws while I was out.
    I got into my Mini and started the long and tedious journey. There were scattered clouds in the sky, and the moon was only a crescent when it was visible. I didn’t know how much moonlight my powers needed to be juiced up to the max—hell, I wasn’t even certain moonlight had any effect. If the moon was covered by clouds when I neared one of the properties of interest, I tried to find a way to hang around inconspicuously until it broke through. I spent a lot of time by the side of the road with my map unfurled as camouflage, but whether the moon was peeking through or not, I didn’t feel any special interest in anyplace I passed.
    I didn’t have a huge amount of time until the moon set at a little before ten, but I was determined to use every glimmer of moonlight I could, methodically going through my itinerary. I was using the Beltway to carry me between locations, and the traffic was for once cooperating without any snarls or major slowdowns. The steady movement, and the sound of my tires on the asphalt, lulled me, and I went intoautopilot—that state of mind where you arrive at point B and realize you have no memory of the turns and exits you took on your way from point A.
    I came back to myself as I was hanging a right off the exit ramp, and I honestly had no idea what exit I had taken. I glanced at the dashboard clock and knew for sure that wherever I was, it wasn’t the exit I’d been aiming for, or I would have been there ten minutes ago. A bolt of adrenaline shot through me, banishing the cobwebs in my brain and making me feel awake and alert again. If I’d just been driving on normal autopilot, I would have gotten off at a familiar exit, but I had to consult my map to figure out where I was, which likely meant that my supernatural hunting sense had taken over.
    There were no known Olympian properties anywhere close, and now that I was alert again, I felt no particular pull to go one way or the other. I tried to send myself into autopilot again, but that’s hard to do when you’re driving unfamiliar streets. I also tried pulling over and closing my eyes, attempting to tuck my conscious mind away so my subconscious could feed me some clues, but it’s almost impossible to get your mind to drift on command.
    Frustration beat at me. I knew I’d been going in the right direction to get to Konstantin when I’d pulled off the Beltway, but now I had nothing. I slapped the steering wheel and uttered a few choice words as I reluctantly turned back toward the Beltway. Whatever had led me here was now refusing to cooperate, and the moon had set for the night.
    Playing a long shot, I stopped by the FedEx store Konstantin had used when sending his nasty email. I luckily found an employee who’d been at work at the time Konstantin had been there. When I described Konstantin to her, she shrugged and said she didn’t remember seeing anyone meeting that description. However, she also said she could barely remember her own name when she worked the graveyard shift, so I had no way of being sure whether Konstantin had been there or not.
    Disappointed but unsurprised by the dead end, I headed back to the mansion.
    I slept in on Sunday morning, though I was still up earlier than anyone else in the house—with the exception of Leo. I had developed a morning ritual very similar to the one I had had when I’d been living blissfully alone in my condo. I still missed the place, and I tried to stop by on a regular basis to have some time to myself and to remind myself that I had a home to go back to if and when I could ever