Whiteout (Aurora Sky (30 page)

“She's not going any
where. She might have information.”

We were now the only ones on the highway. I was getting used to living in the dark, a life in the shadows.

“Pull over,” Dante said.

I eased onto the highway's shoulder and put the car in park. Did Dante want to trade pla
ces? I wasn't keen on holding Alice down in the backseat.

“Check the glove compartment,” Dante instructed.

I reached over the seat and popped it open. There were papers on top.

“Vehicle manual and registration,” I said, unfolding the paper and holding it c
loser to my face. “Registered to Ashley Scott.”

“I knew your name wasn't really Alice,” Dante said
,
triumphant.

Ashley. Alice. They sounded a lot alike. I set the
papers
on the seat beside me. Beneath the manual there was a knife. “Switchblade
.” I tossed
that on top of the papers
.

Dante snorted. “You ever actually use that thing?”

“Hand it over and I'll use it now
,” Ashley jeered
.

Couldn't blame her there. I would have said the same thing.

I caught Dante's scowl in the rearview mirror. “Is there a phone in
there?” he asked.

“It's up here on the console,” I said.

“Good. We can find out who she called. But before we do…” Dante's words trailed off. A second later, I heard a tearing sound. “I'm going to need you to keep quiet,” he finished, slapping a piece of
tape over Ashley's lips.

Her nostrils flared as the tape muffled her outcry.

“Let's see her phone,” Dante said.

Once I handed it over, I took the car out of park and accelerated onto the highway. I didn'
t fancy idling along the side of the road
, especially
now that we'd abducted an informant and were driving her car.

“Number ending in 5698,
” Dante said. “
That's Melcher's
direct line, isn't it?
Let's find out.”

My heart sped up as Dante lifted the phone to his ear, cradling it with his neck.

“Sorry, Agent Sc
ott can't come to the phone right now,” Dante said.

I slowed the car and held my breath
,
waiting to hear what Dante said next.

“Hello, Melcher,” he said, after listening for a moment.

Just hearing the name made my gut twist.

“I don't have to do anything.
I don't take orders from deceivers,” Dante informed him brazenly. “That's right. I know what you are and how you lied to us all. You should be the one running after everything you've done.” Dante was silent for several seconds before raising his voice. “I'
m done listening to you.”

He lowered the backseat window. Bitter cold air raced up to the driver's seat, and I shivered. Dante tossed the phone out the window and raised it back up. With the phone now gone, Dante pulled the tape from Ashley's mouth.
She ga
sped in her first breath.

I waited for Dante
to say something, to share what Melcher had said to him. From what I'd heard, Dante had done most of the talking
...
and threatening. But I still wanted to hear every word of the exchange.

Before I could ask, Ash
ley spoke.
“How could you betray the agency? They gave you a chance to make a difference in the world—to protect humanity from the undead.”

“I hate to break it to you, Ashley, but the agency is run by vampires. We found out and now
they're after us,” Dant
e answered.

“You're lying.”

“It's true,” I said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Melcher's a vampire. He killed Agent Crist.”

“Who's Agent Crist?”

Dante sniffed in disgust. “How new are you?”

“That's none of your business,” she snapped.

“Have you ever ev
en killed a vampire?” Dante demanded.

“She would have during i
nitiation,” I said.

“That was when they thought AB positive blood could be poisoned,” Dante said. “After they determined it was useless, there'd be no reason to put informants through an initiat
ion destined to fail.”

“Maybe they skip the feeding part,” I said, biting on my lower lip in thought. “I thought all recruits had to kill a vampire before they were sent out into the field.”

“There's no way Agent Scott here has ever killed a vampire
before,” Dante said, disgust lacing his words. “She's vamp bait. A suck toy. A pincushion. Isn't that right, Ashley?”

Ashley
—
or Agent Scott
,
rather
—
didn't answer. I felt almost sorry for her. She had nothing to do with agency corruption or our present situ
ation. If anything, she was a victim of their abuse as much as us. Yet Dante seemed to be baiting her, taking out his frustrations on a newbie recruit. Poor girl had no clue an undercover assignment would lead to capture by renegade agents.

If we could con
vince her to join our side, she might prove useful in our fight against the agency, but judging by her reactions, that wasn't happening. She probably wouldn't have done us much good anyway. She was feisty, but Dante had overpowered her way too easily.

Fema
le informants, unfortunately, were more l
ike glorified call girls. D
uring our brief exchange in the club, I'd witnessed no affection in her tone toward Robert. I remembered the way she'd slipped out from under his arm. As much as I'd hated being a hunter,
I was grateful I hadn't been pimped out to a vampire.

“What did Melcher say?” I asked.

“He tried to order us to a safe house. Said our lives were in danger.” Dante snorted. “Like he isn't the reason every vampire in the state is after us.”

“What are you ta
lking about?” Ashley asked. “Why would vampires be after you?”

“Because the agency handed out
flyer
s to them with our photos,” I said.

“I didn't hear anything about
flyer
s. I received a classified email, along with all the other informants in the state, to
keep an eye out for you, but Agent Melcher was clear that he wanted you unharmed.”

“Only so he could torture us and turn us on new recruits to be killed during initiation,” Dante snapped.

“They only use vampires for initiation,” Ashley said.

Oh heavens, h
ow far down the rabbit hole was Dante going to push this woman in one night?

Dante sounded annoyed when he said, “You have no clue what's going on.”

Something wasn't sitting right with me. Ashley said Melcher had sent out word that he wanted us unharmed. H
e'd told Dante our lives were in danger. What if he really was trying to bring us in safely? What if the wanted
flyer
s had nothing to do with the agency? It
wasn't
like Dante and I hadn't been seen together before. We'd gone into Diederick's tasting togeth
er. Someone from a prior evening could have put two and two together and started spreading the word.

Or Valerie.

The vindictive redhead knew I'd escaped the music room and gotten away from the agency. Maybe she went into a jealous rage and decided to thro
w Dante and me under the bus. I wouldn't put anything past her anymore.

M
aybe we were the ones who had no clue what was going on.

 

 

 17

Bombshell

 

Dante didn't speak for the remainder of the drive. He didn't even ask me to turn on the radio, and he didn't hum.

I wasn't too happy about our new passenger either. Tommy was safe for the time being and we were finally headed in the right direction… until Ashley went and threw a wrench in our plans. What now?

“How soon till the turn?” I asked Dante. Eve
rything looked the same in the dark.

Dante's head appeared in the rearview mirror, filling the tiny rectangle with his reflection when he leaned against my seatback. His eyes followed the road.

“We're still a ways out,” Dante said, sitting back.

I
continued driving another twenty minutes before Dante leaned forward again.

“Getting closer,” he said.

This time he stayed in position, watching over my shoulder.

“Slow down,” Dante said.

I slowed.

“Okay, it should be coming up somewhere along this stretch
of road.”

Our speed dropped as I eased my foot from the gas pedal. The entire area had been blanketed in snow. I felt like I was driving through a film shot in black and white
,
an old Alfred Hitchcock movie. Way to spook myself out. Thank goodness I hadn'
t been thinking that way in the motel shower. Somehow I doubt
ed
I would have enjoyed it for very long.

“It's the turn up ahead,” Dante said.

Good thing Dante could navigate
,
because none of this looked familiar to me.

Once I turned off the highway onto a w
ooded road, I had no trouble following it to the unplowed portion where we'd pulled off and unloaded the snowmachines. Easing along the snowbank, I brought the car to a stop and put it in park. I let the engine run several seconds longer, soaking in the la
st of the heat before we began the cold journey to the lodge. That presented another problem. Only two people would fit on the snowmachine
,
and there were three of us.

Dante leaned up to my ear. “I need to talk to you outside. Privately.”

I turned the igni
tion off and pocketed the keys.

“Wait here,” Dante said to Ashley as he opened his door to exit the car.

“Where else would I go?” Ashley asked begrudgingly.

Dante handed his backpack to me over the seat.

“Put her switchblade inside and anything else she c
ould use as a weapon,” he said.

I tossed in the contents of Ashley's
glove box
, even the
unsharp
items. The moment I opened the car door, my lungs filled with the cold night air. Dante and I shut the doors in unison and walked a good thirty feet down the r
oad, stopping a fair distance from the vehicle, but still keeping it in sight.

Cold or not, if I were Ashley, and I had an opportunity, I'd try to break through the restraints and make a run for it—no matter how bad my odds.

Dante took his pack from me, sl
ipping it over one shoulder. He stopped and faced the car, feet shoulder's width apart, and arms folded, clearly not trusting Ashley to stay put any more than I
did
.

“Well, this sucks,” I said.

“I disagree,” Dante answered. “We've been given a unique oppor
tunity.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean a chance to turn Ashley into a double agent.”

Oh, sure
,
like that would ever happen. It took me a moment to respond to such a bullheaded idea.

I put my hands on my hips. “And how the hell would we do that?”

“Co
nvince her. Make her see reason. I don't know. We need someone who can get to Sergeant Holmes undetected. Who better than an informant in dire need of training?”

I took a steadying breath. “First of all, that's never going to happen. She's as stubborn as y
ou.”

When Dante opened his mouth to protest, I lifted a finger to shush him.

“Even if we could persuade her, it would take time—time we don't have. And even if, by some miracle, we could super accelerate the process, it wouldn't matter. You gave our
position away when you contacted Melcher on her phone. He knows we kidnapped her.”

Dante jumped in to say, “That's why we arrange for her to get away. It gives us an even greater advantage. What better reason for Ashley to request a trip to boot camp than
after being abducted and barely getting away? She'd want training so she'd be ready next time.” Dante stroked his chin. “Noel was never a plausible bet. Melcher would never trust her. She's too close to us. But Ashley is perfect. She tailed us like an obed
ient informant before we captured her.”

“She won't go for it,” I said with finality.

“We have to at least try.”

“We have to get out of here,” I countered.

“Agreed, but Anchorage is no longer a viable option.”

“Why?” I demanded. I didn't like where this wa
s headed.

“They could have agents searching for us all up and down the highway. We spend another night at the lodge, two tops, and explain everything to Ashley. We need her to take our side in order to execute the rest of the plan. Once she's convinced, we
'll let her go. After that, we need to head into the mountains and hole up for the winter while Ashley does her part.”

“And if she can't be convinced?” I asked.

“Same plan,” Dante answered. “We let her go, get on the snowmachines
,
and find a remote area to
take shelter until it's safe to try a new approach. We may have to live off the land for a while, but we can get by.”

The scream burning up my throat prevented me from responding right away. If anger could melt snow, there'd be a crater-sized circle penet
rating the terrain around me.

I'd done my part at Chillers so that we could get back to Anchorage and get additional help from Noel and Fane. I hadn't put my neck on the line only to head for the hills. Backcountry cabins with no electricity or water were
roughing it enough already. What Dante was suggesting sounded way too primitive… not to mention utterly hellacious. He'd probably have us holed up in some snow cave in one of the wildlife refuges, hundreds of miles from the nearest town.

My fingers balled
up. “Easy for you to say,” I ground out. “You never really wanted to get back to Anchorage, did you? This is just another mission to you. That's all you care about.”

“That's not true,” Dante said. “We have a moral responsibility to report Melcher to a high
er authority.”

Oh, a moral reasonability was it? Listen to Dante, Mr. High and Mighty all of a sudden. Why couldn't he admit he lived for this shit?

At the moment, I
couldn't
care less about the future of the agency, rogue vampires, justice, or even reveng
e. I wanted to find Fane, get my family out of the country, and
disappear
for good.

“Look,” Dante
said, “we're
wasting time standing around talking about it. Let's get the informant to the lodge and start assessing the likelihood of bringing her on board.”
To show he meant business, Dante headed back to the car without waiting for a response.

Shit! Of all the no
-
good, rotten ideas. I hated this plan.

Cold air gripped my face. It chilled my teeth and made my gums sting.

I couldn't move. I had no desire to
return to the lodge. I didn't want to subsist in the wild. I couldn't. I just couldn't.

Dante looked over his shoulder and called out, “We need to hustle.”

Bite me
, you bullheaded snow
-
cowboy
, I thought.

Like Ashley, I had nowhere else to go and that
pissed me off even more. I walked slowly toward the car. The chill from the frozen ground worked its way up my legs and surrounded me on all sides.

When I caught up to him, Dante rested one booted foot on the vehicle's bumper.

“They'll be looking for her c
ar,” he said. “We need to ditch it
on
a private road
farther
down the highway. I'll take Ashley to the lodge then come right back. Once I return, you'll need to drive her car
down the
road—look for a pull
-
off or someplace where we can conceal it a bit long
er. I'll follow behind you on the
snowmachine
and zip us back to the lodge once we ditch the car. Are you okay waiting in the car until I get back?”

“Sure,” I said, because more than ever I wanted to be alone. I wanted to scream. I wanted to sob. Just when
I didn't think my spirits could sink lower, they'd slipped down an icy abyss.

Dante pulled his backpack off his shoulder. From inside, he pulled out a walkie-talkie. “Take this,” he said, coming around to hand it over. “I'll radio you once I've dropped As
hley off and am headed back.”

“Okay,” I said. I wasn't in the mood for anything more than a
one-
word response.

“Can I have the flashlight?” Dante asked next.

Once I handed it to him, he clicked it on and headed through the snow, following the tracks he'd made earlier.

“Be back in a flash,” Dante called out, a thin beam of light following him into the darkness.

I slipped into the driver's seat and started the c
ar,
and
more importantly, started the heat.