“Get in the car.”
Rubbing her shoulder through her fishnet overshirt, Cheyenne scowled and climbed into the minivan.
Rhynehart shut the door and strode around the front of the van to get behind the wheel. The engine turned when he pressed the keyless start, then he strapped himself in and waited for the halfling to do the same. He turned in his seat and stared at her.
The second Cheyenne clicked her seatbelt into the buckle, she felt sick. A wave of dizziness and warmth washed over her. He did it. The asshole drugged me.
She lifted her head and cast him a sideways glance beneath heavy eyelids. “That was…”
“Protocol. Mostly.” Rhynehart shrugged. “Wasn’t quite sure how much it takes for a drow, even a halfling, so it’s a little bit heavier than normal. But it’s quick. Long enough to make sure you can’t track your way back here before we’re ready to have you back.”
“And you still want…” Cheyenne’s tongue was thick and heavy in her mouth. She gritted her teeth against the next onslaught of warmth, except she couldn’t feel her teeth.
“I’d tell you not to fight it,” the man gave her a sympathetic shrug, “but I can wait.”
He didn’t have to wait long. Cheyenne couldn’t do anything about the darkness overwhelming her. Her head slumped against the passenger seat’s headrest, and she began to lean sideways toward the window.
* * *
Cheyenne woke up with a snarl and slammed her fist into the passenger-side door. Crackling purple sparks raced across the interior, and Rhynehart lost control of the power steering for a moment.
“Hey, put that shit away!” He swerved to the right side of the road, which was fortunately straight and empty of other cars.
“Or what? You’ll drug me?”
The steering wheel creaked under Rhynehart’s tightening grip. Cheyenne took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and thought of the woods. The flare of heat overwhelming her body disappeared, and she was simply a pissed-off Goth girl who’d woken up from a super-sized sleeping cocktail.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said through clenched teeth.
“We do it to everyone, halfling. You’re no exception.”
“What happened to blindfolds or a black bag over my face?”
Rhynehart shot her a glance before returning his attention to the road. “Yeah, and let you map out an auditory route back to a FRoE base of operations? Nice try.”
“You people have some seriously misplaced self-importance.” Cheyenne swiped her black hair out of her face and reached up to feel the tip of her ear. Completely round and human. “I spent almost five days sleeping in your base of operations. Why the hell would I want to find my way back there?”
“Same reason you showed up at that event center on Thursday.” Rhynehart cocked his head, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “Because you could.”
She didn’t have anything to say to that, so she focused on where they were. Definitely in Richmond, and close to her drop-off point. They pulled up at the corner of Plazaview and Berkley two minutes later, and Cheyenne had her seatbelt off and the passenger door open before the man had shifted into park.
“Thanks for the ride,” she muttered. “I had a blast.”
“Yeah, me too.” Rhynehart looked at her with raised eyebrows. “My favorite kinda drive. Nice and quiet. Don’t forget about that phone—”
Cheyenne shut the door and didn’t care that she still heard him finish his sentence. She shoved her hands into her pockets and stormed down the sidewalk. Rhynehart drove away, beeping the horn as he passed her, and headed off to who knew where. Cute.
When she was sure the minivan was out of sight and out of range, the halfling turned and walked in the opposite direction toward her car. She’d left the thing by the landfill Thursday night before she’d gone to the event center and the meeting of high-level magical thugs.
I’ll be some kinda lucky if my car’s still there.
She could have slipped into drow form and covered the distance quickly, but it was the middle of the afternoon in broad daylight. She wasn’t in any particular hurry to get there to find her car stolen or towed or something else extra inconvenient over the last five days.
But it wasn’t.
Her Ford Focus with its peeling, matte-gray paint was where she’d parked it that night. No broken windows. No graffiti or massive scratches. No boot or tickets. At least something’s going my way today.
She opened the driver-side door and scowled. “Guess somebody had a good time camping out in here, though.”
A wave of stale cigarette smoke blasted her in the face, and when she sat behind the wheel, she found the seat slid all the way back and lowered almost to the backseat behind it.
Cheyenne adjusted the seat to its regular position. She got inside and started it. All the windows rolled down without a problem, and she hoped a good drive with a blast of fresh air would get rid of the smoke. As she pulled away from her somewhat undetected parking spot beside the landfill, she caught a whiff of something like rotting fruit. Reaching between the passenger seat and the center console, she pulled out a blackened banana peel and an empty bag of Cheetos.
“Gross.” She tossed the banana peel out. She’d have to stop to clean the rest of the car before she did anything else. The old burner flip phone Sir had given her came out of her pocket and bounced a little when she tossed it onto the passenger seat.
I’ll take care of the stupid phone while I’m at it.
Chapter Forty-One
The Walmart parking lot was as good a place as any to make a quick trash stop. “Everybody goes to Walmart. Doesn’t make me stand out one way or another.”
Cheyenne
