Wrath

“I would like to see him,” I said firmly.

His white brows jumped. “You know Pastor Richard McCorkle?”

“Yes, and I don’t think he’ll be very happy to see me in here.” Of course, I’d never met the guy, but what did Rev. Stephens know?

His eyes squinted again as he seemed to consider me.

“Make sure you tell him Alexis Katerina Ames needs him,” I said, hoping the name would be enough to bring this McCorkle guy to our rescue.

The older man finally nodded and strode back out to the police station. More hours passed and although no windows broke up the smooth expanse of gray concrete wall surrounding the cellblock, I sensed we were well into the next day. Damn. It.

All right. We’re not risking it any longer, I told Vanessa. Her mind perked up.

“You’re finally ready to get out of this godforsaken piss pot?”

Any ideas on the best way out? If we flash, they could catch us again.

Before she could answer, the door swung open and a forty-something guy with a smooth face and salt- and-pepper hair strode in, a new guard following after him.

“Ms. Alexis,” he said, “I am so sorry about—”

He stopped in front of my cell, and his jaw literally fell open. I stared at him with a lifted brow.

“Um . . . pardon me. I just, uh . . .” He stammered as his eyes seemed to drink me in. “I, uh, never met any of ya’ll in person. You’re, uh . . .”

His throat worked although no more words came out of his mouth, but I heard the rest of his thought: real. Again I wanted to roll my eyes. Seemingly speechless, he waved his hand at the guard, who unlocked my jail cell.

“Thank you,” I said, holding my hand out for a handshake, assuming he was McCorkle. He gawked at it. “I’ll, uh, make sure Rina knows about your helpfulness.”

He grabbed my hand and pumped it nonstop. “Oh, thank you, yes, thank you very much, anything I can ever do for ya’ll, I’m at your service, just call, use my name like you did, whatever you need, I’m here to help . . .”

Before, he didn’t know what to say, and now he apparently couldn’t shut up.

The police had our few belongings ready for us, and Vanessa and I finally sauntered out of the jail, after wasting nine hours of precious time. I sure hoped it was worth it for Rina and the Amadis. As soon as we were out of earshot of the police station, I turned on my phone to call Tristan. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a text from him, which meant he was okay. “Rendezvous at Rincon, GA.” He sent an address, but I barely saw the whole thing before the screen went blank. The battery was dead.

Crap. What the hell now? We were in the middle of BFE South Carolina with no idea where everyone was and no way to get a hold of them. A string of profanities raced through my mind, but then I had an idea. Probably a stupid one, but what did I have to lose? With a trace of hope, I let electricity rise into my hand, out of my palm, and into the cell phone. A small squeak of excitement popped out of my mouth when the screen flashed an icon, but then it darkened again. Feeling encouraged, I pushed a little more power into the device, and the screen lit up . . . then the next thing I knew, the phone hissed and crackled and smoke rose from it, the acrid smell of burning electronics wafting in the air.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit.” I threw the phone on the ground and stomped on it until only a pile of broken plastic and glass remained. I turned to Vanessa with my hand out. She stared at me with a look of bewilderment. “I need to get a hold of Tristan. Can I use your phone?”

She gave me a pointed look. “I was locked up at the safe house for months, and we’ve been on all kinds of exciting adventures since the day I got out, but none of them have included a stop at the AT&T store. Remember?”

“So Rina gave you fighting leathers and weapons, but no phone?”

The vampire shrugged. “Smart phones don’t seem to be at the top of her list of necessities.”

She had a point. But what the hell were we supposed to do now?

Chapter 11

I glanced over my shoulder at the police station.

“I’m not going back in there,” Vanessa declared, and I couldn’t blame her. Not quite what I wanted to do, either.

So we stood in the middle of the sidewalk in some tiny South Carolina town near the Georgia border and probably near the ocean, but other than that, I didn’t know where exactly. I pushed my hand through my hair as I turned in a circle, hoping to find an answer. Also hoping to see Sasha patiently waiting for us. I didn’t see the lykora, though, and the police station’s sign gave me a county name, but it meant little since I wasn’t exactly an expert on South Carolina’s counties.

“Well, I guess we find our way to Rincon, Georgia,” I said.

“Where?”

“Rincon? Tristan sent a text with an address where we’re supposed to meet him.”

“So everyone survived in one piece?”

I frowned. “I don’t know. Tristan did, apparently, but I didn’t catch the time or who we’d be meeting, so I don’t know about the rest. We may have even missed them by now, since they don’t know we couldn’t exactly get there.” I glanced around our surroundings again, still hoping to catch a glimpse of Sasha. I hated leaving the area without her, but I didn’t sense her nearby. The last time I saw her, we were half a mile above the ocean. She could have been anywhere now, but since she wasn’t here, I could only hope she was with Tristan and the others. “We need to find a map and get directions, then figure out how we’re going to get there. We’ll probably have to run.”

“You shouldn’t say such things too loudly,” a warm male voice said from behind me. Pastor McCorkle had just stepped off the last stair to the police station. He seemed to have completely recovered from his earlier shyness. “Rincon’s a good ways from here—not running distance for normal people. It’s on my way to Atlanta, though, so I could give ya’ll a ride if you need it.”

Vanessa and I exchanged a look.

“Ditch the slime ball,” she silently said, then she took off in a run, leaving me there with the pastor.

What the hell? Sure the dude was a little on the smarmy side—a little too much like a politician, and after what Rina and Mom had told us, the less contact we had with politicians, the better. But his thoughts seemed harmless enough, although as a pastor, he probably shouldn’t have been thinking about Vanessa and me in that way, even if it was a private fantasy he didn’t plan to act on. Besides, he’d bailed us out of jail and offered us a ride when probably everyone else in this town would have nothing to do with us. So why did she tell me to ditch him and then went and ditched me? I had half a mind to take the ride, ditching her ass because she didn’t have the address. Although, Rincon probably wasn’t too big for her to find us.

I opened my mouth to accept the ride, hoping it would piss Vanessa off because I didn’t follow her, when she came around the corner on a motorcycle.

“Hop on, little sis,” she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Relieved that I wouldn’t have to be cooped up in a car with this guy, I gave the pastor the best smile I could conjure. “Looks like we have a ride, Pastor McCorkle.”

“Rick,” he corrected. “Please, call me Rick.”

I didn’t know if we’d ever see him again to call him anything, but I went along with it. “Right, Rick. If you could just tell us which road to take to Rincon, we’ll be fine.”

His brows pushed together as his gaze swept over Vanessa on the bike. “Where did you get that?”

“Oh, it’s an Amadis thing,” she said with a winning smile. “We keep transportation in odd places so none of us ever get stranded.”

He stared at her for a moment longer and then seemed to buy the lie because he gladly gave us directions