Free Love & War Book 1 in the Arcadia Falls Chronicles by Jennifer Malone Wright Page A

pulled away from the curb. I
dug in, channeling all my power into my run. I got close enough I
thought I could probably make the jump and launched myself into the
air, tucking my feet and hoping to make it because it was sure
going to hurt if I didn’t.
    I stuck it.
    I landed in a crouch in the bed of the
truck. He swerved and tried to knock me over, but I crawled quickly
to the back window, hoping it was unlocked, because I sure as hell
didn’t want to climb over the side and try to get in the door.
    I wedged my fingers into the crack and
pulled. Yes! It was open. He glanced back over his shoulder
and saw me trying to slip through the tiny window. Then, suddenly,
my face was wet and scalding. “Ow! Son of a bi—”
    “Get out!” he yelled at me. “What do you
want?”
    That bastard had thrown his coffee in my
face. I fell down inside, plopping into the back seat head first. I
felt the truck swerve back and forth while he tried to keep an eye
on me in the back. After I quickly righted myself, I lunged for his
neck and wrapped my arm around him in a head lock.
    “Pull over,” I growled.
    “Who are you?” he managed to ask again.
    “It doesn’t matter who I am. Pull over!”
    I squeezed my arm even more tightly around
his neck until he did as I asked. Safely off to the side of the
street, I felt relief wash over me. At least we weren’t going to
die in a car accident.
    “Now, who are you?” I asked, not even close
to letting him go.
    Drew arrived at the driver’s side door and
flung it open, his gun held out in front of him.
    He demanded what I had been asking the guy
already. “We know it was no accident you were waiting there. Now
tell us,” Drew pushed his gun up against the dude’s thigh. At least
he didn’t have it pointed at his head or anything.
    “My name is Zander. Now let go of my neck!”
He yanked himself forward just as I let him go and so he bashed his
head on the wheel. “Wonderful, just wonderful,” he muttered,
rubbing his forehead.
    Drew dug the barrel of his gun into Zander’s
thigh even more. “It was no accident that you were here.
Explain.”
    I kept my hands behind his head, ready to
fry him if he so much as made a move at Drew.
    “I don’t have to explain jack to you. Now
get the hell away from me.”
    Drew smiled slyly. “Actually you do have to
explain yourself. Are you the man from the newspapers, the one
saving women from animals ?”
    “Like I said, man, leave me alone. From what
I saw out there with that woman, you know as well as I do what kind
of animals those are.”
    After catching my eye and seeing my nod,
Drew raised his gun up and away from Zander in a sort of
conciliatory move.
    “Can we just talk, man? We have to get back
there and take care of that girl.”
    Zander shook his head and looked from Drew
to the street. “I don’t know about that. I should probably just
go.”
    “Don’t you want to help that girl? Isn’t
that what you’ve been doing is saving people?” Drew raised his
eyebrows. “Well, now we have to go save her and figure out what the
hell we are going to tell her about what just happened."
    I think Zander finally realized he wasn’t
going to get out of this one. “Fine. Get in, and let’s go check it
out.” He gestured to the passenger seat.
    Drew hurried around and hopped up into the
truck while I stayed in the back.
    He turned the truck around and headed back
toward the others.
    “So who are you guys?” he finally asked. “I
saw what you did, and I know this isn’t something that surprised
you.”
    I watched Drew contemplate his answer before
he responded. He flexed his hand on the grip of his gun. “We are
vampire hunters.”
    Zander nodded. “I figured.”
    “We can talk more about this later,” Drew
said when we approached the scene.
    Oscar, Alice and Christina had pulled the
woman into the shadows to reduce the risk of being seen. I looked
around and saw that even though from a distance nothing appeared to
be happening,