Chapter 52
Lirael
I slowed deliberately, letting Sebastian close the gap. My mind raced through options. The car was dying. I could hear it in the engine's death rattle. But I still had weapons. Still had tricks.
And I knew this area. Had scouted it months ago as a potential escape route.
Sebastian's car pulled alongside mine. We were driving parallel now, two predators circling. I could see him clearly through his passenger window—blood-soaked, beautiful, smiling like a devil.
He gestured at me: Pull over.
I flipped him off.
His laugh carried even over the engines. Then he cut his wheel sharp right.
His car slammed into mine. The impact threw me against the door, airbag deploying with a bang that left my ears ringing. The sedan spun out, tires losing grip on the wet pavement, and suddenly I was hydroplaning toward a wall of stacked shipping containers.
I yanked the emergency brake. The car slewed sideways, momentum carrying me into a spin. For one horrible moment I thought I'd flip, but the tires caught and I slid to a stop facing the wrong direction, engine dead, airbag deflating in my lap.
Sebastian's car sat ten meters away, engine still running, headlights pinning me like a spotlight.
He got out slowly, favoring his left side. Blood had soaked through his bandages, dark and wet. He should be unconscious. Should be dead from blood loss.
Instead, he walked toward me with the unhurried confidence of a predator that knew its prey was cornered.
"That was fun," he called. His voice was rough, strained with pain and something else. "You're even better than I imagined, little moon. The way you threaded that gap between the trucks—" He shook his head admiringly. "Beautiful."
I kicked my door open and rolled out, grabbing my backpack. My whole body ached from the impact, but nothing felt broken. I backed away from the car, eyes scanning the area.
There—a cargo truck rumbling past on the nearby access road, loaded with what looked like gravel or sand. Moving slowly but steadily toward the highway on-ramp.
"You're done running," Sebastian said. He was closer now, close enough that I could see the gold bleeding into his irises, the way his pupils had narrowed to slits. "Come here. Come back to me. I'll forgive everything if you just—"
I ran.
Not away from him—toward the truck.
My boots pounded against broken asphalt. Behind me, I heard Sebastian curse and give chase, but his injuries slowed him. I reached the truck as it rumbled past, grabbed the tailgate with both hands, and vaulted up.
My whip—I'd dropped it in the car. Shit. But I didn't need it. I had other tools.
The truck bed was full of wet sand, shifting under my weight as the vehicle bounced over potholes. I scrambled toward the front, putting distance between myself and the tailgate.
A hand slammed down on the metal edge.
Sebastian hauled himself up with his good arm, moving with the fluid grace of something not entirely human anymore. His eyes were fully gold now, pupils vertical slits. Blood dripped from his reopened wounds.
"Impressive," he panted, pulling himself into the truck bed. "But you're trapped now, little moon. Nowhere left to run."
We faced each other across six feet of shifting sand, the truck bouncing beneath us. The driver was oblivious, radio blaring, focused on the road.
"You should be in a hospital," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt.
"I should be dead." His smile was sharp. "You saved me, remember? And now I'm going to return the favor by taking you home."
"That's not my home."
"It will be." He took a step forward, and I retreated a step. We moved like that, a deadly dance on unsteady ground. "I'll make it your home. I'll give you everything. Just stop running."
"Fuck you."
"If you insist." Another step. "Though I'd prefer to wait until I'm not bleeding out."
Despite everything—the fear, the exhaustion, the desperate situation—I almost laughed. "You're insane."
"Yes." He lunged.
I spun away, but the sand betrayed me. My foot sank and I stumbled. Sebastian's hand caught my ankle, yanked hard. I went down face-first into wet sand, coughing and spitting.
He was on me in an instant, flipping me over, pinning my wrists above my head. His weight pressed me into the sand, his blood dripping onto my face.
"Got you," he breathed.
We were both panting, faces inches apart. His eyes were more gold than amber now, inhuman and hypnotic. I could feel his heart hammering against my chest, matching the frantic rhythm of my own.
"Let me go," I said, but it came out weak.
"Never." He shifted his grip, holding both my wrists in one hand. The other came up to cup my face, thumb brushing sand from my cheek with unexpected gentleness.
His voice broke. Actually broke.
I stared up at him, seeing the pain in his face, the exhaustion, the desperate need. And something in my chest twisted.
"Sebastian—"
He bent down and bit my earlobe.
The sensation shot through me like lightning—pleasure and pain mixed so intensely I gasped. My body arched involuntarily, pressing against his. I felt him shudder, felt the growl rumble through his chest.
"You have no idea," he murmured against my ear, "how much I want to keep you right here. Chain you to me so you can never leave again."
His breath was hot against my skin. My mind was screaming at me to fight, to escape, but my body had gone soft and pliant under his weight, responding to his touch in ways I hated.
No. Not like this. Not—
I bit his earlobe back.
Sebastian went rigid. His whole body locked up, a strangled sound escaping his throat. I felt his grip on my wrists loosen, felt the shudder that ran through him from head to toe.
Now.
I brought my knee up hard into his injured side. He gasped and his weight shifted. I twisted, using the sand's instability to throw him off-balance, and kicked the side panel of the truck bed.
The rusted latch gave way. The panel swung open.
Sand began pouring out, taking Sebastian with it. His hand caught mine, trying to drag me with him, but I grabbed the truck's frame with my other hand and held on.
We slid together toward the edge, sand cascading around us. The truck was still moving, maybe thirty miles an hour. The asphalt rushed past below.
"Let go!" I shouted.
"No!" His grip tightened. "If I'm falling, you're—"
I let go of the frame.
We tumbled out together in an avalanche of sand and limbs, hitting the ground in a tangle. I rolled with the impact, using momentum to break free of his grip, and came up running.
Behind me, I heard him coughing, struggling to rise from the pile of sand. The truck was pulling away, its driver finally noticing something was wrong, brake lights flaring.
I didn't look back.
I ran into the maze of shipping containers, using the shadows and my night vision to disappear. My lungs burned. My whole body ached. But I was free.
I was—
"You can't hide from me!"
Sebastian's voice echoed through the container yard, rough with pain and something wild. "I can smell you, little moon! I can hear your heartbeat! You can run to the ends of the earth and I'll find you!"
I pressed myself against a container's side, breathing hard. He was right. He'd always be able to track me as long as I stayed in the city, as long as—
No. I had resources. Safe houses. Contacts. Damian would help me disappear properly this time.
I just had to survive the night.
I slipped deeper into the shadows, moving silent as smoke, and left Sebastian Blackwood kneeling in the sand behind me, one hand pressed to his bleeding side, watching me vanish with eyes that gleamed like coins in the darkness.
His voice followed me into the night: "You can't escape me, little moon. You never could."
But I was already gone.