“You don’t sound sure.”
“That would be your mother’s influence.”
August barked out a laugh.
I tapped my thumb against the steering wheel, the back of my neck tingling, every sense on high alert. “August, what are the odds we lose two cameras within an hour of each other?”
Lightning lit up the sky, causing the call to drop.
“Effing great,” I muttered, punching redial.
“I don’t like this. None of it adds up. Too many coincidences. But then if the vamps were planning to hit us tonight, why sound the alarm and tell us they’re coming?”
“Unless this was never the way they planned to come at all.”
“You’re thinking a diversion?”
“Maybe,” I said. “August, what’s your read?”
Keys clacked in the background. “I’m here. Looks like we might have just lost a third camera, but with the weather, they’ve been blinking on and off all night.”
Lacey cursed.
“Okay.” I rubbed my forehead. “Where is it?”
“Five miles west of your current position. I’ll send you the coordinates. But, Dally, I want to call this in, get Brody’s read.”
“Do it. We’ll start heading out that way. May be a while before we can get to it, now that the lightning’s started back up.”
I pulled out onto the highway. Rain lashed the windshield, heavy gusts rocking the SUV from side to side as I carefully wove us around curves back towards town.
“You want to tell me what you’re thinking?”
“We talk about the vampires as if they’re stupid. Subhuman. Wasted. Meth-heads. They’re not. They’re as good at this as we are.” Lightning flashed, causing Lacey’s silver eyes to reflect eerily in the dark. “Only two possibilities. Either this is a random equipment malfunction because of the storm, or they’ve coordinated this. What are we missing?”
“That’s the question.”
Suddenly, Lacey gripped my arm. “Stop the car.”
Cursing, I practically swerved off the road. The wipers slapped against the windshield, sluicing away silver sheets of rain. Lightning branched across the sky, illuminating a massive tree two hundred yards ahead in the distance. Ancient and gnarled, its thick black branches twisted up towards an angry sky. Inside the Escalade, the roar of the heater suddenly felt deafening, the headlights illuminating miles of desolate road.
“You think that’s it?”
“Has to be. Coordinates match up.”
“So why did you want me to—”
“I don’t know. I swear I saw something.”
I pulled out my phone. “Okay. I’m calling it in.”
Which of course, was when she jumped out of my SUV. I cursed. By then she was making her way along the side of the highway, Glock drawn. Growling, I stalked after her.
Lightning streaked down, igniting the sky off to the west. “Okay, Agent Danger, and we’re chasing, what exactly?”
“Because, talking. Totally helpful in every stakeout?”
“Nice deflection.”
She shot me death eyes. “Like I said, it was dark, but I thought I saw something scuttle off into the weeds.”
“You think it could have been—”
“Maybe. Whatever it was, we need to check it out.” Suddenly, Lacey froze. “Do you smell that?”
And then it hit me. Accelerant. C4. My blood ran cold.
“Dallas?” she whispered, the question poised on the edge of a knife.
The breath froze in my lungs. I lifted my phone. Lacey made a sound in the back of her throat.
“Don’t. If it’s a bomb—”
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Cursing this fanged clusterfuck of a night, I lowered my phone. We were probably thirty miles out from town. Too far.
I thought of the day my dad’s cruiser had been found out along this same stretch of road, the scream we’d all felt through the pack bond. Except—not all of us. That summer, River and August had been enrolled in classes down at the University of Texas, August for mechanical engineering, River for computer science. When August’s autoimmune condition had flared, River had driven him home so Naomi could give him a series of infusions. River had been back in Austin the following day taking an exam when the rest of us felt our dad’s scream through the bond, the only one not home when it happened.
Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference, had he been there, too. Maybe sometimes we can’t understand all the reasons things happen the way they do until we look back on them with the wisdom of time and space. What I knew was that something changed in my youngest brother that day. He grew colder, slowly withdrawing from the rest of us. And a month later, dropped out of school to become a Tracer.
“It’s a risk either way, but we’re out of time. The vamps could have this whole stretch of road rigged to blow. We could be looking at dozens of casualties. We have to get word to Brody, have him shut down the highway until we can clear it.”
Lacey cursed. “I’ll call August.”
I tossed her my phone and keys. She couldn’t shift. And if we didn’t act now, before someone came down the highway, lives could be lost. With a roar, I let the change rip me from my human skin. The darkness seemed to explode around me, my night vision instantly sharpening as the wolf’s eyes took over. I sniffed, picking up the acrid scent of asphalt, sweet, sickly diesel, the clean wet smell of rain falling on cedar, and the sharp chemical markers of an incendiary device.
The car door slammed behind me. And then Lacey appeared at my side, phone tucked in the crook of her shoulder, gun drawn. Ears cocked, I backtracked the way we’d come. Rain drummed on the icy pavement, the howl of the wind whistling in my ears. I let my wolf senses guide me, honing in on the faint traces of scent that didn’t belong. Twenty yards. Thirty. The air cleared. I stopped. Behind me, Lacey froze, scanning the empty fields around us.
I turned back towards town. Over the sound of Lacey’s footfalls, I heard her dialing. The call dropped. She cursed. The scent of accelerant grew stronger. I growled. We both stopped, scanning the dark, empty highway. Lightning split the sky, reflecting off the rain-soaked road. The next fifty feet, at least, were clear of trip wires.
Why sound the alarm and tell us they’re coming?
“Something’s wrong. The call’s going through, but August isn’t picking up.”
I was just pushing the image of Brody into her mind when another wicked branch of lightning tore across the sky, silhouetting the massive tree standing one hundred yards off the road. The sharp scent of ozone permeated the air. My hackles rose.
Why sound the alarm and tell us they’re coming?
Why… unless they’d wanted to draw us here in the first place.
The phone exploded in Lacey’s hand. Kashmir by Led Zeppelin. Thunder slammed into us, a massive concussive wave that made my fangs rattle in my skull like a bomb had gone off. And beneath it, a high-pitched whine—
I slammed into Lacey, her phone skittering across the asphalt. We crashed into the pavement together, limbs tangled, her head cradled in my hands. She tried to rise. I held her down, human body curled protectively over hers. A second later, the night sky went supernova.