Shattered Secrets (Book of Red #1) (14 page)

“
Things
invisible? I thought it was just you?”

“Nope.” He hooked his thumb toward the back seat again. “Got this stuff out of the house without anyone seeing me.”

“You planned all this? To get away?”

“I was merely waiting for the right moment.”

“And I thought you hated me.”

Derick reached over, taking his eyes off the road for a moment, then rubbed his thumb across my cheek. “I could never hate you. I knew you would come around, Abby. I’ve seen you upset before; you always calm down.”

“You make me sound like a pushover.”

“Not by any means. You may always calm down, but you never forget. And trust? God, through all of this I’ve worried you’d never trust me again. I hid from you out of fear.”

“If you’d told me any of this, after you kissed me, it would have been worse.”

“I know.”

I closed my eyes, soaking in the warmth of his touch, reveling in how alive he made me feel. “So, we’re runaways?”

He shrugged. “More or less.”

“Won’t people call in your car when they see it? It’s not exactly easy to hide this flat-black Mustang! And where will we get money? Where are we going? What about school?” Aside from a few camping trips with our friends, we’d never survived without our parents. We were treading on new territory. Territory that meant we weren’t even human, other angry non-humans were after me, and now we had no help from our families who loved us. Even if that love was a little misguided.

No matter how I looked at it, running away seemed stupid.

“They won’t see my car if I don’t want them to.”

“You can hardly hide this thing while we’re driving. That would be insane!”

Derick sighed, weaving in between two slow-moving hybrids. “Do you want to go back?”

I thought about his question, about the fact my parents weren’t mine and how they lied to me, about how his parents lied to him. Everyone knew about our truths and wanted something from us. “No.”

“You turn next week. I’m already eighteen. We can get jobs.”

“Jobs? Jobs doing what? And high school dropout doesn’t exactly sit well with me—or any employer.”

“I have enough money to last us at least two years. We can get GEDs—”

“
Two years
? What did you do, rob your parent’s bank accounts?”

“Robbed
my
bank accounts. Months ago. So what do you say?” He offered his hand, glancing at me.

GEDs, robbing bank accounts, running away, hiding me, hiding our car…

My breath hitched in my throat.
Our
car.
We’re
running away.
He’s
hiding me. Protecting me. Together. We’re doing this
together
.

“Abby?”

I took his hand and slid each finger between his, allowing everything to sink in. We were together. Just the two of us. Alone. “Derick?”

Now an idiotic smile deformed his beautiful face, and I loved every second of it. “Yes?”

“Do you love me?”

He drew little circles along my skin with his thumb. “Without a doubt.”

Forming thoughts was impossible. My heart stuttered way too fast for me to concentrate, but I wanted to hear him say it, to speak the words I knew he meant. “T-tell me, then?”

Two huge, green road signs loomed before us. Derick took the left exit toward Rocky Mt North Carolina, drove onto the shoulder, then pulled the emergency brake, bringing the car to an abrupt halt. He flung off his seat belt, took my face in both his hands and leaned over the shifter. “I love you, Abigail Nichols. I’ve wanted to say this for at least a year but never knew how you felt until I saw you staring at me at The Griffin. The fact you weren’t reading your favorite book for the millionth time, and you were watching me, biting that cute little lip of yours, I knew I wasn’t alone. The only thing left here to ask is: Do you love me back?”

I stared into his blue eyes, mesmerized by his intensity, by the amount of passion in his words. My heart pounded out a techno beat, celebrating the greatest emotion it had ever felt. “I do. I love you, too.”

Then he kissed me, and whatever breath I’d managed to fill my lungs with escaped. He was mine. And I was his. Together.

We were in love.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

We jumped and looked out the window. A state trooper with his tall, wide-brimmed hat and skeptically curious eyes stood beside the car, peering in at us.

Our plans for escape were ruined.

Derick returned to his side of the car, hands to himself, then he rolled down the window.

“Good afternoon.” The trooper rested his arms on the door. Samson, according to his nametag, he was Trooper Samson. “I thought you might be having car troubles, but I can see everything is just fine.”

He winked at me, and I felt a heat like no other flash into my cheeks.

“Sorry, sir. We were just… talking,” Derick said without a hint of the fear I felt.

“Right. Well, you should talk elsewhere. Stopping on the side of the road is dangerous. Cars are hit on the shoulder all the time.” Standing straight, he mumbled something into the little square radio on his shoulder. “May I see your license and registration, please?”

Crap
.
Crap
.
Crap
.

“Yes, sir.” Derick reached in front of me and opened the glove box. “It’s okay,” he whispered, pulling out the owner’s manual.

How? Good Lord, we hadn’t even made it a hundred miles and we were already in trouble.

“Let’s see. Warranty, insurance… here it is, sir.” Derick handed over the piece of paper.

Trooper Samson took the registration, then Derick reached in his wallet and pulled out his license.

“Here’s my ID, sir.” So calm. So collected.

Not me.

“The car belongs to you, Mr. Crawford?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And your girlfriend here, how old is she?”

I caught the faintest hint of a smile on Derick’s face, but he quickly smoothed out his expression and cleared his throat. “Seventeen, sir.”

“My birthday is next week,” I blurted.

“Well, happy birthday.”

I felt stupid. My mouth needed to stay shut!

Trooper Samson handed back Derick’s paperwork. “Where you guys headed? You’re pretty far from home on a school night. I assume you both go to school?”

We didn’t have an excuse. What possible thing could we say to make the State Trooper leave? I bounced my knees, and Trooper Samson looked. He noticed. He knew I was nervous. He knew something was wrong. He knew we were running away. Hell, he may have known we were magical.

“We do go to school, sir, but we’re on our way to the beach. Family vacation.”

Dumbest lie ever. I put my hands over my face, sure we were about to be carted back to Fredericksburg.

“I remember visiting colleges when I was your age.”

Huh
?
Colleges
? What just happened?

I peeked through my fingers, and he tipped his hat.

“Have a safe trip. And remember, the next time you want to kiss that pretty little girlfriend of yours, exit the highway.”

“Thank you, sir.” Derick raised the window, an expression as if he just won the lottery on his face. “Did you hear that? Girlfriend.”

He laughed.

I was afraid to ask if he used his Romancing ability, or whatever the heck it was called. What if I imagined what Derick said to the trooper? What if I misunderstood him or didn’t hear the rest of his excuse because I was too nervous?

What if he had no idea what he did?

We got back on the road, and I couldn’t help but think I needed to read more from the
Powers of Kalóans
chapter or call home and ask questions.

“Did you hear me?” Derick asked.

I shook my head.

“I said how about the beach? We can go to Florida. Live the salt life. Sun. Sand. Ocean. Sound good?”

When he spoke, my concerns washed away. When he smiled, my heart melted. I’d figure out what happened later, but right now, I wanted to focus on us. “Gulf Coast?”

“Of course.”

“Megan and Will say it’s the best coast in the world. They should know; they’ve been everywhere together with their families.”

“My parents and I vacationed in Longboat Key once.”

“I remember. You were gone too long, and then you came back and wouldn’t stop talking about all the fun you had. I thought I was going to kill you. My parents refused to go on vacation that year.” I propped my foot on the dash. “Stuck in Virginia with nothing to do and no one to do it with. Even the dance studio closed for summer sessions. Worst summer ever.”

“I missed you that summer, too.” Derick grabbed my hand and held it over the shifter. “It’s a quiet key. We can live there.”

“Didn’t you say it’s ridiculously expensive?”

He shrugged. “Bad economy means cheap rentals.”

And apparently we had two years’ worth of money. Whatever that amounted to. “Sounds great.”

The car accelerated, and Derick turned on some music. I let go of his hand, then snatched the book out of the backseat. Longboat was a good seventeen-hour drive, and I doubted we’d stop often. That was a good thing. I needed as much time as possible to figure out what we were getting ourselves into.

Derick

he Interstate stretched on forever, one straight road laid out for more miles than I cared to count. Abby fell asleep hours ago, the book propped on her chest, her head against the window.

She looked so peaceful, a slight smile gracing her soft lips.

For the first time since October, I felt like I’d accomplished something. A small victory in a world full of screwed up things. Abby sat next to me. No one tagged along and cramped up the car—or followed us. Our lives were in our hands.

The way life should be.

I’d pulled over at a small 7-11 to refill the tank, grab some more junk food, and buy a cheapo cell phone. I’m not sure how she slept through all that, but given the amount of disturbing information her
bodyguards
dumped on her today, heavy sleep wasn’t uncalled for.

At least she’d be surprised later.

Digging through the center console, I found the real estate listing I’d printed at the library, then dialed the agent’s number.

“Molly Anderson. How may I help you?”

I cleared my throat. “Hi, Ms. Anderson. My name is Derick Crawford. I’m interested in purchasing the unit for sale in the Silver Sands building.”

“Oh.” I heard papers fall in the background. “When would you like to see the property?”

“My wife and I will be down there in a few hours. Any chance you could leave the keys for us? We would love to rent it while the sales transaction is in process. I plan to pay cash.”

“O-of course. Let me see…” she paused, giving me time to take a bite of a white-powdered donut and wait to see how easy my abilities make life. “Yes, sir. That unit is on our rental list. I can leave the keys inside on the table for you; all you have to do is drop by the office with your rental payment shortly after arrival. I’ll contact the owners and let them know they have papers to sign. Do you have an estimated time of arrival, Mr. Crawford?”

So easy. “Assuming we don’t hit any construction traffic, we should make it in around 7:00 a.m.”