Haunted by Secrets (Shadowed Souls #3)

Chapter One

Breathe. Don’t forget to breathe. Ignore the heartbeat hammering in your ears. Foot on the accelerator. Grip the steering wheel tighter. Forget the circumstances that led you to this point. Leave behind the person you were supposed to be.

Maybe this is what Axel experiences every time he has a nightmare. Except I can’t wake up from this. I can’t take my eyes off the road, nor can I turn around and go back. I’ve sealed my fate, and now I have to live with it.

A soft groan sounds from the backseat, followed by a high-pitched whimper. I keep staring straight ahead, focusing on the miles of tarmac propelling us further into the night. I’ve been dreading this since I drugged her, quickly packed our belongings into a duffle bag, and stuffed her into Huxley’s SUV. The keys to my Nissan are in my pocket, stalling the guys from following us. It’s better this way, safer for everyone involved.

“Mmmm! Mmph mmm-” the muffled outrage continues. Exhaling sharply through my nose, I answer the questions I imagine she’s asking.

“This car is not stopping until I’ve convinced you not to do something stupid or I’ve run out of gas,” I state clearly. The muted cries pick up a notch, feet slamming into the back of my seat, and when I finally glance over my shoulder, I can see why.

“Oh, Baxter! Come up front,” I pat the passenger seat beside me. A bundle of molting gray fur, which has not stopped shedding all over Huxley’s SUV, leaps through the center column. He instantly flops into the seat and drops his head onto my lap, whimpering again for me to stroke his head. In the rearview mirror, Avery forces herself upright, her hair a sticky mess of dog saliva around the bandana moonlighting as a makeshift gag. She glares at me, raging blue eyes amongst the imprints across her face from being passed out across the back seats for so long. I glare right back. “What? I couldn’t leave him at the shelter. His days were numbered.”

Another round of subdued screeching fills the car, this time much more animated. With her hands zip-tied behind her back, Avery jerks herself around, her shoulders rolling towards the rear window. I sigh, focusing back on the road and forcing my jaw to unclench.

“I know I left the Souls behind, but you didn’t really give me any other option.”

“Mmmm!?”

“Yes, you,” I grit out, trying and failing to keep a lid on my anger. “If you’d had the courtesy to simply knock on my door instead of barging in, you wouldn’t have seen the letters. And if you hadn’t seen those, I would have been thinking more clearly before I needed to act.”

A single thud of feet slams into the back of my chair. I inhale, allowing my chest to expand, slipping back into character. This is the version of me Avery knows—the one she needs to hate. It’s how I’ve prevented shit like this from happening for so long. As soon as I let myself slip, as soon as my heart started doing the thinking instead of my head, I’ve condemned an innocent girl to a madman and kidnapped another who I haven’t stopped fantasizing about for eleven years. Whoever said emotions don’t make us weak had never met Avery Hughes.

Baxter shifts, letting out a sigh and curling himself into a tight ball on the passenger seat. I run a hand over his back absentmindedly, fingers tracing the rough patches of his fur, feeling the weight of the past few hours pressing down on me. I didn’t plan for things to go this way; I certainly didn’t plan for Avery to be dragged into it.

The thumping against the back of my seat may have stalled, but the heavy thrumming of my heartbeat is like I’m being kicked from inside my own chest. I grip the wheel tighter, feeling the leather bite into my palms as I force myself to stay calm. But as I glance back in the mirror, meeting her furious gaze again; I know there’s no use apologizing. Words are empty, but her scowl isn’t. Her voice rings around my skull as if she were screaming in my ear.

Meg is in danger, and everything that happens to her is on your conscience.

I wish I could say the guilt I feel has something to do with Meg and not everything to do with slamming the final nail in the coffin between me and Avery. She can’t let herself get close to me now; the stone wall between us has been solidified.

“It really doesn’t pain me to say this, but I told you so,” I mutter, just loud enough for her to hear. Avery’s glare hardens, her mouth working against the bandana. The fiery spark in her blue eyes promises to maim me as soon as she is able, but for now, I’m doing the talking for the both of us. “I told you that nothing good would come from you getting close to me. But you did it anyway.”

Maybe it’s pathetic of me to blame her for our current situation, but man, no one can say I didn’t try to prevent this. To resist Avery’s advances for as long as I did took the patience of a saint, and my right hand felt the burn of punishing my cock after each and every instance.

I’m met with silence from the back seat. However, Avery’s silence is louder than when she’s fighting and screaming at me. This way, there’s nothing to distract me from the churning of my thoughts. I fight the urge to look at her again. The orange hoodie I paused to drag onto her body was a mistake. It’s my favorite, and it looks so much better on her. A bitter laugh escapes my throat at the stupid sentiment, my shoulders easing.

“I mean, what did you actually think would happen? You’d seduce me, and I would magically fall into line like the others? Run you a bath after a hard day and massage your aching feet?” My voice quickly turns mocking. I roll my eyes and set my sights back on the road, an irritated smirk hitching up the corner of my mouth. If I wasn’t so screwed, so far up shit’s creek, I’d be laughing.

The moon slips through a coating of clouds, illuminating the road that never seems to end. It’s been hours since I saw another car, given that it’s nearing four in the morning. Only adrenaline is keeping me going at this point .

“Actually,” Avery states calmly, and I hate the way that I flinch. I blame Baxter for shooting bolt upright in the passenger seat. My eyes flick up to the rearview mirror. That sneaky little devil has managed to shift her gag, the bandana hanging uselessly around her slender neck. “For some foolish reason, I thought you were as innocent in all of this as me. I thought you were,” she pauses, looking for the right word, “redeemable.”

“That was your first mistake,” I grumble, gripping the steering wheel tightly once more. All of the tension I had previously shed hits me in an instant, and with it, the lingering shadow I’ve been keeping at bay creeps into my peripheral vision. The darkness is a cloak across the right side of the car, pale eyes glaring out from within. I shake my head, not needing any more distraction from the road ahead. I can’t afford to be anything except on high alert.

“Speaking of mistakes,” Avery sighs and draws her hands in front of her, rolling her wrists.

“How the hell did you get out?!” I toss a brief look over my shoulder, as if the mirror’s reflection is lying to me. It’s her turn to smirk.

“You are many things, Wyatt, but a criminal mastermind isn’t one of them. I was taught self-defense for ten years. Zip-tying me with my wrists crossed leaves room for rotating and slipping my hands free.”

“I suppose your self-defense tutor didn’t tell you it’s stupid to reveal your tips and tricks to the man who did it to you.” I twist back in my seat, forcing air into my lungs. This is fine; I can handle this.

“He did, but you won’t be restraining me again,” Avery laughs softly.

“Oh?” I quirk a brow. Baxter stays sitting upright, his head ping-ponging back and forth between us. When she pauses, I forget how it’s in my best interest to ignore her and look up at the mirror again. Her teeth are nibbling her bottom lip, a smile fighting against the movement. She’s too calm, her shoulders too relaxed.

“Lesson number one was all about not fighting back, allowing your captor to become overconfident and careless. That’s the best way to catch them off guard.”

“What-” A flash of movement cuts across my peripheral vision, fast enough to snap my full attention back. Before I can process what’s happening, Avery lunges forward, the zip tie I used on her aimed for my throat.

My foot slams on the gas reflexively, but it only makes the car jolt forward, the engine roaring as I grapple for the tie. Her hold is relentless, the plastic cutting into my skin and pressing down on my windpipe. In the mirror, her eyes are blazing with a fury I’ve never seen before.

“Take me back,” she grits out. I writhe, causing Baxter to whine and howl.

“No,” I choke out, gasping for air.

"Take. Me. Back," she growls again, her voice dark and unforgiving, each word punctuated by another squeeze. "You don’t get to decide for me. You don’t get to take me away from my Souls."

"Avery!" I gasp, but the words come out garbled, barely audible. Her grip tightens, and I lose any semblance of control over the vehicle. My vision blurs, the road becoming a jagged blur of black asphalt and oncoming shadows.

The car swerves violently to the left as I try to wrestle her away from my throat with one hand, my other hand struggling to control the wheel. We barely manage to stay on the road, but there’s no chance of staying in a straight line anymore. Baxter lets out a panicked yelp beside me, but Avery doesn't shift, her body pressed against the back of my seat as she digs the tie into my neck.

The car skids, tires screeching as we veer too close to the shoulder. I can’t breathe, each second draining what’s left of my strength. The only thought in my mind is the faint, stubborn urge to stay alive. My free hand scrambles back to grip her hair, fingers prying and clawing, but she only presses harder, her face a mask of cold, determined rage.

"Let... go…" I manage to rasp, but my words dissolve into a pained groan. My foot slips off the accelerator, and the car jerks, screeching as it races dangerously close to the ditch on the side of the road. I can feel the wheels slipping as they hit the gravel.

The next moment is a chaotic blur. The car slams hard to the side, and suddenly, the world tilts. We careen down the ditch, metal crunching and glass shattering as the car flips, a violent cascade of jolts and crashes that throw me against the steering wheel and Avery against the ceiling. Baxter howls in terror as we roll, and then, as quickly as it started, everything stops .

Silence .

The taste of blood fills my mouth, coppery and sharp. The smell of gasoline and burnt rubber clouds the air, thick and suffocating. My chest heaves as I try to suck in a full breath, a strangled gasp escaping my bruised throat. A low whine sounds as I realize the weight on my chest isn’t imaginary. I wrap my arms around Baxter on instinct, checking him over as best I can. He seems intact, aside from a case of shivers.

I twist where I can, barely able to see Avery through the shattered glass, her face scraped and hair tangled, but her eyes are still wide open, and they're locked onto mine. Where I expect to see fear, I find a sense of crazed victory. Her lip is split, a dark patch blossoming against her bright hair. It’s the only evidence of an oncoming concussion as her blue eyes falter.

"I…win," she pants, her voice hoarse. “Call Dax. He’ll take me home.” She loses the fight against the arms holding her upright, crumbling into a heap before I get the chance to tell her I left our phones behind.