Releasing its arm, he jerked it up and behind the Savage’s back as he spun it and pushed it into the pavement. Pressing his palm against its cheek, he smashed the Savage’s face into the asphalt as it kicked and squirmed like a worm rising from the earth after the rain.
Lucien pushed down until something popped, the head gave way, and his knee hit the pavement. The creature’s arms and legs continued to kick, but little remained of its head. Unable to stand the sight of it anymore, Lucien tore its heart free and tossed it aside.
He turned to find Callie watching with her mouth open, her palm against the glass, and her other hand on the guard’s shoulder. Then her hand fell from the glass, and she grasped the door handle to pull it open.
She burst free of the shed and ran toward him, only to skid to a stop a couple of inches away. She took a tentative step toward him before pulling her foot away from the carnage surrounding him.
Callie had been about to jump on Lucien and hug him, but when she saw the damage he’d inflicted, reality returned. She couldn’t throw herself into a vampire’s arms, especially not one covered in the blood of the Savages he’d just slaughtered.
That was complete insanity. But oh, how she longed to go a little insane and reassure herself he was okay by hugging him close.
After thinking that, she wondered if she might already be a little insane. But how could anyone remain completely sane after everything she’d seen and endured? They couldn’t, but she still wasn’t about to hug him when blood, and other things she preferred not to think about, covered him.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine. I’m filthy again, but I’m fine.” Normally, being dirty didn’t bother him. It was part of the job, after all. However, after a month of being covered in filth and his blood, he was tired of it. “I have to take care of the guard, dispose of these bodies, and clean up before we leave.”
“I’ll help you.”
“No, don’t touch any of these things.” He didn’t want the filth of the Savages tainting her. “There’s no point in both of us getting dirty again. Stay close to me. There could be more of them out there.”
Callie wasn’t going to argue with him.
It took him longer to deal with everything than he’d hoped. The new guard arrived before he finished cleaning up the mess. Lucien took control of the new guard’s mind and settled her into the booth with the old man. The woman was near seventy with smooth black skin and graying hair she wore in a bun. She didn’t have a cell phone either.
“How do you not have cell phones?” he muttered as he made sure they were both seated comfortably in the booth.
“We’re not allowed to have them while we’re working,” the woman replied. “Besides, the reception here is crap.”
“And I guess you took the bus to get here too?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “It’s easier than dealing with traffic.”
Lucien sighed and finished giving them their instructions. If someone arrived, they were to keep them out with an excuse about a possible gas leak. The guards turned their attention to the closed gate as he slipped from the booth.
Lucien dragged the bodies deeper into the storage units and spread them out in a pool of sunshine to let them burn. Because they weren’t as far gone as other Savages, it took a while for their bodies to start smoldering before catching fire. Callie stood beside him as the bodies created a bonfire in the middle of the units.
After taking care of that, he used a hose to wash away the blood staining the asphalt around the guard’s booth. Then they returned to the storage unit where they found his clothes. He pulled out a new pair of jeans and another black T-shirt before returning to the bathroom to clean up and change.
When he finished and the bodies were nothing more than ash that he washed away with the hose, he gave new instructions to the guards to delete all video footage, forget everything that happened, and continue with their lives. He told him the phone broke in a freak accident, but didn’t go into specific details; sometimes, it was best to leave things unexplained.
When he finished, he clasped Callie’s hand, and they returned to the streets of Camden. It was almost three o’clock by the time he confiscated a battered Toyota from a young teen who’d probably just bought the car or received it from his parents when he got his license.
“It’s probably his first car,” Callie said as she settled onto the front seat. “The poor kid’s entire life probably revolves around this thing. He might have had a paper route so he could buy it.”
Lucien glanced at her as he adjusted the rearview mirror. He didn’t care what the kid had to do to get the vehicle, but he saw the regret in her eyes as she stared at the slack-faced, pimply teen standing on the sidewalk while he watched them steal his vehicle.
“After we get out of here, I’ll ditch this thing where the cops will be sure to find it for him,” Lucien assured her because now she had him almost feeling bad for the kid.
“Good.”
Callie slid her seat belt on and sank back in the seat. A spring poked her in the ass, but when she looked at the ceiling and discovered the low-hanging, gray fabric, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling as she recalled her first car.
It was an old Dodge she’d driven into the ground, but she loved every second of abuse she committed to that gas-guzzling vehicle. The fabric on the roof had sagged like this one.
It hadn’t helped that she and her friends had made it a game to find funny pins to stick into the fabric. In the end, there were over a hundred of them, and they all had cute sayings like, “Blondes have more fun, but brunettes get it done,” or “Bad decisions make good stories.”
When the car finally died, she’d pulled all those pins down and stuck them in a box. It was sitting on a shelf in her closet.
“Where are we going?” she asked as he started the car.
“I’m not sure. I can’t head home. There are cameras everywhere, and if the Savages somehow get a hold of footage of us, they’ll know what car we took and what direction we’re heading. We have to stay off the radar as much as possible.”
“Good luck with that. It’s New Jersey; we’re going to hit a hundred tollbooths between here and wherever we go.”
“I don’t have any money for them.” He could convince the toll operators he’d paid for them, but it would only slow them down and sap him of his strength.
Callie leaned over and tapped the E-Z Pass box stuck to the windshield. “It’s probably his first car, but it’s necessary around here.”
“The Savages will be able to track us through that too.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll have to get a different car soon.”
“You should wait until we’re out of New Jersey first. We’re going to need that pass.”
She was right, he decided as he pulled the car away from the sidewalk. The teen remained standing were Lucien left him. He turned to watch his car drive away, but he didn’t react.
Lucien hadn’t bothered to ask the kid for a cell phone; he almost certainly had one, but he didn’t have the time to talk to Ronan now, and he wasn’t going to steal the kid’s phone. He’d need it to call someone for a ride home.