Strangers of the Night Read online

  “And Collins Creek?” Kane asked as Samantha maneuvered the car along the winding backcountry roads with impressive skill that still had his heart jumping into his throat. “That’s all real?”

  “It’s totally real. Those kids are real, but they’re not kids anymore,” she added, shifting.

  Faster.

  Darkness whipped past the windows. The road curved and dipped; they didn’t slow down and caught some air on a small hill, the car landing with a thud that rattled his teeth, but Samantha didn’t waver, and the car handled as smoothly as if they were puttering along going thirty on a highway as wide and flat as paper.

  “I was trying to get some information from Phoenix about a... About someone I care about. He was one of the Collins Creek kids. They took him during the raid and kept him in Wyrmwood for years. Testing him. Using him. They almost broke him,” she spat, voice cracking. “I was assigned to get him out of there.”

  “Who assigned you?” Kane thought he already knew.

  “Guy named Vadim. He runs an organization called the Crew.”

  “Bald guy? Older? Speaks with an accent?” Kane asked.

  “Yes. That’s him. They help people like Persephone and Phoenix. Like Jed.”

  “Your friend.”

  “Yes.” She shot him another glance and took a turn, tires squealing. The road here was gravel, and rocks flew up hard enough that Kane was sure the glass was going to break.

  “But you didn’t get him out?”

  “I did,” she said. “But I lost track of him. I thought Phoenix would be able to help me because—”

  Before she could answer, Kane caught sight of headlights in the distance. Three vehicles, what looked like two unmarked black vans and a third car, also nondescript. Running parallel with them, trees between them, all he could glimpse was the flash of the lights. Samantha stomped on the gas pedal, gaining on them. The road they were on curved again. No longer parallel, they were on a direct course to collide with the first van.

  Samantha didn’t slow down.

  * * *

  One minute Persephone was bouncing around in the back of the van. The next, the entire world shrieked and clattered, and Persephone went flying upside down to land in a sprawl of arms and legs. The van rolled. Glass shattered, though none of it fell inside. Safety glass. The metal walls shuddered but didn’t bend or break. She ended up on her side, the bench above her head, a swinging metal cuff narrowly missing her face.

  Another crash jolted her. The van skidded, no longer on its tires. It slid with a squeal of metal on asphalt. Another crash—something else hit them. She tumbled, ending up on her hands and knees with a ringing in her ears so loud she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to hear again.

  The door opened. Light spilled in, hurting her eyes. She managed to put a hand up to block it, seeing only a silhouette. A man stood over her, and she swatted at him knowing it wasn’t going to be enough.

  “It’s me, Persephone. I’m here.”

  “Kane?”

  “Can you get up?” Big, strong hands shifted under her elbow to help her.

  She was already pushing upward. “Yeah.”

  “How bad are you hurt?”

  “Bumps, bruises. Nothing’s broken.” She let him help her toward the door. Outside, the long, low bleat of a car horn droned. “How can nothing be broken?”

  “Those vans are so armored nothing much could bust them up. The only thing I could do was knock them into each other.” A female voice turned Persephone’s face toward the sound. “I took a chance that you’d be okay.”

  There seemed like there should be a smart-ass answer to that, but Persephone couldn’t quite manage it at the moment. She let herself sag in Kane’s grasp as he helped her out of the van. She didn’t think she meant to kiss him, but that was what happened. Hard, almost an assault rather than an embrace, but on the mouth.

  “Can you run?” he asked when he pulled away. “We have to run.”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  The three of them took off across the rural highway, but when they reached the edge of the woods, Persephone hung back. “Phoenix!”

  “He’s not in there,” the woman said. “We checked. He wasn’t in the car, either. And the gas I used on them won’t last much longer. We have to run. I’ve already called for a pickup.”

  This had to be something out of a sci-fi movie, right? One of the cheesy ones about killer octopuses in hurricanes or something like that. The woman had just said she wrecked vans full of solider guys with guns and then gassed them, and someone was coming to pick them up?

  “In a spaceship?” Persephone’s words were suddenly slurred. She must’ve knocked her head harder than she thought.

  “I got you” was the last thing she heard before it all went dark.

  * * *

  Kane caught Persephone before she could fall. Behind them, the noises of the wreckage were getting fainter, but there was no way they could keep up running this fast for much longer, especially when he had to carry Persephone. Samantha pointed to a small dirt trail in the woods ahead of them.

  “There.”

  “You have to be kidding me.” Kane shifted Persephone’s slight weight, certain he was causing her some kind of permanent damage. No way had she come out of that crash without some serious injuries, maybe internal bleeding. Something.

  Two black cars were waiting for them. Samantha got behind the wheel of the second one, waving him toward the backseat. He laid Persephone gently inside then followed, closing the door as Samantha pulled away. A man sat in the front seat, and he twisted to look behind them.

  “Vadim,” Kane said as he buckled Persephone into her seat, then focused on his own belt. “The Crew. Right? This is all insane.”

  “It is a methodical madness, I can assure you. Samantha, are you sure you can drive? You didn’t get hurt in the crash?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing too bad. That car was like a tank, and we hit that first van like a freight train. Thanks, Vadim. Everything worked like we’d planned.”

  “Wait, wait, what the hell? You planned this?” Kane was ready to reach across the front seat and throttle someone, but that would’ve meant one more wreck, and he wasn’t so sure he’d make it through another.

  “Not this whole thing, but the possibility of it. The eventuality of what might happen. We didn’t plan for Persephone to be taken, nor her brother. So you can rethink threatening me.” Vadim glanced into the backseat. “It’s always been a possibility that Phoenix and his sister might be found. They both knew it. They’re fortunate he’d already arranged a meeting with Samantha tonight, or else there would’ve been nobody to go after them.”

  “She had me,” Kane said. He couldn’t see if Persephone was bleeding anywhere, he didn’t have enough light, but he had to hope that they were taking them somewhere to get medical help.

  “Ah yes. She had you.” Vadim’s voice held a smile. “Lucky girl.”

  Kane leaned back into the seat. “I still don’t know what the hell is going on. All of this.”

  “And you don’t trust me. Nor should you, I suppose. I wouldn’t if I were you. All I can tell you is the same thing I said the first time we met. I intend no harm to Persephone. You and I are on the same side. In fact, based on how you reacted during this entire situation, I think it might benefit us to offer you a position on our team.”

  “The Crew.” Kane didn’t want to close his eyes, but the pain was making him see double. Samantha had been right about the car she’d been driving; it had been enough like a tank that they were hardly affected by running straight into the side of a van. Still, it had been a long damned night and everything hurt, including his brain from trying to process all of this. “Whatever the hell that is.”

  “We’ll tell you all about it when we get to a