His jaw tensed. “I don’t know.”

  “Was it vampires? Werewolves? Were they looking for me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I glared at him but he never took his eyes off the highway. Maybe he didn’t know…or maybe he was good at lying.

  I snorted and sat back in the passenger seat. “She sacrificed everything for me, and they killed her before I was old enough to transform…though she never knew I wouldn’t. It was all for nothing. We could have disappeared. She could be alive right now.”

  The silence was painful this time. Restlessness threatened to overwhelm me, and I tensed in an attempt to stay still.

  Finally, I felt Chaser’s hand on my thigh, his touch icy cold. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  My head fell against the window, the fire in my soul dampening. Which way was up? Should I listen to my heart or my head? Besieged on all sides.

  We crossed the border without issue. The only thing that was in our way was a biosecurity check. Any fruits, vegetables, and honey had to be tossed, but since we had none, we were waved through with barely a cursory glance.

  We stopped at yet another roadside motel that night, this time firmly in South Australia.

  I watched Chaser as he roamed around the room, checking the locks on the windows and looking in all the cupboards. He opened the bathroom door, turned on the light, and scanned that, too.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “Are you?” I made a face. “I’ve noticed you get hangry when you’re running low on blood.”

  “Sloane.”

  “Why don’t we keep driving?” I asked, sitting on the end of the bed. “If we’re in that much trouble, wouldn’t it be easier to, you know…go all the way?”

  Chaser grunted, doing his best tall, dark, and silent treatment impersonation. It seemed the warm and caring vampire I’d met out on the Nullarbor Plain had disappeared again, and the cold, calculating predator was back.

  “Tell me the truth, Chaser,” I demanded, my heart still raw from our deep and un-meaningful conversation in the car.

  “We’ve had enough truth talking already.”

  I scowled, watching as he stood before me and glared back just as hard. Talking to this man was like flicking a light switch on and off. One second, he was calm and caring, and he was a ball of rage the next. What war was he fighting inside?

  Then I remembered what he told me about vampires and their humanity. They could turn it off so they didn’t have to deal with the pain of what they’d become. Chaser had turned off his humanity…but it was coming back. That was it, wasn’t it?

  If I got him to feel again, maybe he’d see that taking me to Fortitude was a bad idea…for the both of us.

  “For once in your miserable life, say what you feel,” I declared.

  Chaser snarled, and his hand shot out so fast I wasn’t able to dodge him. His fingers dug into my skin as he yanked me up off the bed.

  “You want to know what I feel?” he asked as I trembled. “I feel this uncontrollable rage when I look at you, Sloane. You drive me insane.”

  My heart pounded in my chest as his words washed over me. I should be afraid of him; I knew it was logical to want to run right now, but I couldn’t.

  “You won’t hurt me,” I told him.

  “Stop lying to yourself.”

  “I don’t need to lie, Chaser. I know what I am now. I know who I want to be…but can you say the same for yourself?”

  His grip loosened. “I’ve started something…” he murmured, “something I don’t think I can stop.”

  “Your humanity.”

  He stared at me, his iridescent eyes sparkling.

  I doubted everything about him. I was looking for flaws in his perfect exterior that would come out and break my heart when I wasn’t looking. I wanted to believe this was going to end well, but it wasn’t. That was the problem.

  At the end of this road was nothing. Nothing at all. Unless… No, there was no unless. There was nothing.

  Call it stubborn pride, call it a death wish, call it whatever you want, but I wanted to win.

  “You want to know what I feel when I look at you?” I asked.

  “I don’t need to know.”

  “I see a troubled man who’s trapped in a web of violence and lies. A man who believes he can’t escape.”

  His eyes turned dark, the whites fading as his vampire side rose. “Shut the hell up.”

  “What does my father have on you, Chaser?”

  “I’m warning you, Sloane,” he rasped. “Just because I allowed you to transform out there, doesn’t mean you’re entitled to know things about me. I never asked you to share your sob story.”

  “My sob story?” I scoffed. “I never once asked for sympathy, Chaser. A little understanding, yeah, but never sympathy.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do.”

  “Good.”

  “It won’t work. I don’t want it.”

  We didn’t touch. We didn’t speak. He was an inch away from bearing his fangs, and I was on the breaking point of testing out my newfound strength.

  It was clear I’d lost the battle, but at least I’d gotten a glimpse of the man Chaser used to be before he lost his humanity. It was a stark reminder of all the things that would be taken away from me once I was shoved over the threshold of the Fortitude compound.

  I lay on the bed, the events of the last few days finally catching up with me.

  Staring up at the popcorn ceiling, I studied the shadows with a sense of exhausted melancholy. “I really think this is Stockholm syndrome.”

  Chaser grunted, though I wasn’t expecting an answer at all.

  I rolled away from him, curling up on my side. He wanted to control me, but I was uncontrollable. I was a whirlwind of fury. I’d show them all.

  Who was Chaser? I didn’t really know anything about him, especially when he said things like that. How could I feel anything for a shadow?

  Definitely Stockholm syndrome, I thought. For sure.

  Chapter 18

  Chaser

  I sat on the edge of the bath, scowling at my reflection in the mirror above the basin.

  Running my finger over the scar on my jaw, I shoved away the memory it conjured. I had my fair share of scars from before, though the ones I’d gotten after I’d turned had healed before they left a permanent mark. Those I could forget.

  Pain wasn’t something that usually bothered me. I’d learned how to manage it a long time ago while out on a job. I’d been shot, knifed, concussed, bruised, and beaten. People did stupid things when they were desperate and on the edge of losing everything. They attacked, sometimes in the worst possible way.

  It wasn’t only supernaturals I hunted. Humans had their fair share of run-ins with Fortitude, but it didn’t mean their bite stung any less. I couldn’t go inside their homes for one—I had to be invited in.

  Rubbing my jaw, I glanced through the crack in the bathroom door.

  Sloane was moving around in the other room, fussing with the doona on the creaky bed. It was hot outside and the room had little ventilation, but she was a full werewolf now—and her senses needed time to adjust.

  When she sensed me staring, she turned and padded the three steps from the bed and nudged the bathroom door open.

  She was mad at me, but it was nothing new. She was always enraged about something, though her transformation had mellowed her out some.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you need something to eat?”

  “Not yet.”

  She looked me over and pursed her lips like she was desperate to ask me something.

  “Out with it,” I told her, narrowing my eyes.

  “Were you shot before?” she asked. “I noticed a scar on your side…and another one under your jaw. Was that a knife?”

  “Something like that.”

  She scowled when I offered no more commentary.

  “I’m not like them,” I said, tensing as she moved to leave.

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  I glanced at her, but her eyes were downcast, her hair shielding most of her expression from me. She’d let out a lot of heavy emotional baggage so I couldn’t blame her. Still, some long-dead part of me was beginning to wake up and give a damn.

  “Sloane—”

  “There,” she said, forcing a smile as she wrenched the doona off the bed. “All better. That thing was scratchy as hell.”

  I didn’t know what I was going to say. Was I going to comfort her? Tell her everything was going to be fine? I couldn’t do that. Even if I said it aloud, she would see right through me. Sloane was more switched on than she realised. She was cool, calculating, stubborn, intelligent… Hated to say it, but she reminded me of her father.

  “You should try to get some sleep,” I told her. “You went through a lot last night.”

  I couldn’t promise her a happy ending. I couldn’t promise her anything at all.

  She sighed and climbed into the bed, flicking the bedside lamp off as she went. Pulling the sheet over herself, she turned and buried into the pillow.

  I glanced at my reflection once more before turning off the bathroom light.

  Sleep was the furthest thing from my mind, so I moved like a shadow to the window and peered through the gap in the disgusting mustard-coloured curtains.

  The motel parking lot was quiet.

  A few cars were parked outside their respective rooms, all of them towards the front of the complex. We were the only occupants at the rear, but I still heard the muffled sounds of people moving around inside, the odd conversation, and the mumbling of a television or two. A semi-trailer roared past on the highway, rumbling off into the distance, followed by a car.

  Sensing no danger, the tension in my shoulders relaxed a little.

  We had a choice of which way to go now. There was more than one road through to Victoria, and multiple forms of transportation—bus, train, rental cars… Maybe we could get a train in Adelaide. It would be the last thing they’d expect.

  It would add another day to an already overdue job, but it was for Sloane’s safety. I didn’t know how close they were, and I couldn’t risk losing her before getting her back to Marini.

  That was all it was, wasn’t it?

  “Chaser?”

  Sloane’s sleepy voice echoed behind me, and I leaned my head against the window.

  The sound of rustling blankets signalled she’d climbed out of bed, and then she was behind me, moving as silently as a panther in the darkness. Her hands were warm to the touch as she rubbed her palm over my arm.

  I didn’t have the heart to push her away.

  “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I’m too wound up.”

  I grunted.

  “Is it a wolf thing?”

  “Probably.”

  She let her hand slip away. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Depends on the question.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it, her brow creasing. Sitting on the edge of the bed, her fingers worried the threadbare sheet.

  I waited, hoping she’d give up, even though I knew I wouldn’t be that lucky.

  “I’m trying to understand,” she managed to get out, “how things work. How I’m supposed to feel, what I’m supposed to be able to do. I’m trying to understand the vampires that’re after us… Know thy enemy, right?”

  She was hedging around what she really wanted to ask, and I sighed. “What do you really want to ask me, Sloane?”

  She worried her bottom lip, then asked, “How long have you been a vampire?”

  There was no harm in telling her. “Since 1891.”

  “One hundred and thirty years?” The shock was clear on her face, even though she tried to hide it.

  “It all starts to feel the same after a while,” I told her. “Don’t get hung up on it.”

  “How long have you been working for Fortitude?”

  “Almost as long as I’ve been a vampire.” After a century, it was the only life I remembered. The shreds of what I left behind were just that, broken pieces that didn’t fit together.

  “They’ve been around that long?”

  “There’s a reason they’re the most powerful pack on the East Coast.”

  “Is that why can’t you leave?”

  Of all the questions she could’ve asked at that moment, it was the last I wanted to hear.

  “I just can’t,” I replied, looking back out the window. The stars were disappearing.

  “Explain it to me.”

  “I’m indebted to them,” I said, my jaw tensing.

  “Why?”

  I felt her hand wrap around mine and I hated her for it. It was as if she knew how to get to my humanity and was doing everything in her power to manipulate it out of me.

  “They did something for me that I couldn’t do myself.” My voice was strained. Thin.

  “And in return, they branded you into slavery,” she whispered, caressing the tattoo on my thumb.

  I wrenched my hand away. She didn’t understand how true her statement was.

  Sloane turned her head and glanced up at me, her big eyes glittering in the silver light of dawn.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  It was a loaded question, and I knew her mind hadn’t changed about our destination. She was still trying to convince me, hoping our changed dynamic had swayed me.

  “For now, we head towards Adelaide,” I replied.

  “For now? After everything you’ve told me?”

  “Sloane, please.” I clenched my fists, my conviction wavering. “If you keep trying to manipulate me, you’ll regret it.”

  “Fine, we’ll got to Adelaide.” She jerked backwards and crawled into the bed. “For now.”

  Chapter 19

  Sloane

  It was the second day after I’d turned.

  We were on a highway to hell, literally, and it wasn’t at all like the song.

  I hadn’t spoken to Chaser since we left the motel. There was nothing to say that had any hope attached to it, so why bother? My spirit was shrivelling up and dying the closer we got to Melbourne…and so were my hopes that he’d change his mind and help me escape.

  I dozed, the heat inside the car sending me into a restless sleep.

  It was midmorning when I realised we’d left the main road and were speeding down a dirt track. We went over a bump, and I knocked my head against the window. I scowled as I rubbed my temple.

  Chaser turned off the engine.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, images of being murdered and thrown into the water flashing through my mind.

  “Get out of the car, Sloane.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve been sulking all morning.”

  “Have not.” I totally had, but I wasn’t going to admit it to him.

  “Get out of the car.”

  I rolled my eyes and unclipped my seat belt. Always with the biting commands.

  Opening the door, I was slapped in the face with a wall of heat, and I felt sweat pool in my pores, ready to erupt and soak me through.

  Standing, I slammed the car door closed behind me and walked over to the side of the dirt road. The sky stretched on and on, blue like the colour of my mood. Stepping up onto a boulder, I looked down at what I’d thought was a valley and sighed.

  A lake stretched out before me, bordered by rocks, orange-tinged dirt, and scrappy bushes that looked half-dead. The water was pretty enough with its turquoise hue and promise of washing off the sweat that was already running down my spine.

  “It’s not very appealing,” I said, shielding my eyes from the sun. “What are we doing here?”

  “We need a break.”

  I raised my eyebrows and snorted. “Aren’t you afraid of our murderous friends catching us out in the open?”

  “I’m not afraid,” he said, not even twitching. “They’ll anticipate our route, but they won’t know we’ve stopped here.”

  “Not unless they stuck a GPS tracker on the car,” I drawled. “Or a witchy thingamabob.”

  Chaser gave me a look, and my mouth fell open.

  “There’s no such thing!” I hesitated and my eyes widened. “Isn’t there?”

  “We’ll know soon enough,” he replied with a smirk.

  Turning my gaze back onto the water, I wiped my forearm across my brow.

  “C’mon,” Chaser said before climbing over the rocks.

  Following him, we made our way down to the lake, clambering over the scrappy shoreline until our boots hit the sandy bank. I perched on a rock and listened to the water lapping on the shore, allowing my mind to wander in the calmness. Nothing stirred apart from us and the current coursing through the lake.

  “Do you think there’s fish in there?” I asked, my voice sounding loud in the silence.

  “I think the sun is getting to you.” Chaser glanced at me, perplexed at where my thoughts had taken me.

  “There are lots of things getting to me…” I mused. “I need to write a list to remember them all.”

  Staring into the lake was like staring into a void, and I felt a surge of adrenaline hit me square in the chest.

  “Give me the car keys,” I demanded, holding out my hand.

  Chaser narrowed his eyes and didn’t move.

  “I’m not going to drive away or anything. I just want something out of my bag.” I wiggled my fingers.

  He sighed and leaned forwards so he could take the keys from his pocket. Handing them to me, he gave me a pointed look. “If you try anything, just remember that I can move faster than you can blink.”

  “Whatever.” I snatched them from him and sauntered back up the rocks.

  Something had definitely changed between us if he was giving me access to a bonafide escape route and trusting I would come back. I didn’t believe him when he said he cared—I just thought he was telling me what I wanted to hear to get me to shut up—but what if he was telling the truth? What if Chaser actually cared? As in, feelings kind of cared.

  Shivering as I opened the boot, I kept a tight grip on my heart.