Chapter Eighteen
George
“What the ever-loving fuck?” George slapped at his neck, the hand from his passenger in the back touching him, giving him an ick feeling. George thought he felt the prick of a fingernail as well, asshole. “No distracting the driver.”
George was already distracted enough. Scenes from the night before scrolled through his mind on an endless loop. George was seeking clues, moments, opportunities he might have missed to make things better for his unhappy mate. So maybe he wasn’t being conversationalist of the year for his paying customers, but they paid him to drive, not listen to their life story.
“Just being friendly. You seem like a fun guy to get to know.”
“I’ve got my driver’s license. You don’t need to know anything else.”
“Oh, I don’t know. With those brawny arms and that sexy beard, I reckon there’s a lot of things we could learn about each other.”
Yeah, the guy was a complete creep. Not that George was paying any attention to him. It was just an assumption he’d made from the moment the guy had gotten into the car—one of those gut feelings that George got at times, where he couldn’t be assed to talk to his passengers. His only job was to get them to where they needed to go. If he only transported passengers he could actually stand to have a conversation with, he’d spend his day driving around alone.
Checking the time on his dashboard, George carefully increased the speed just a little. He should make it. The creep wanted to go to an address George knew was out by the airport, so half an hour with afternoon traffic, and another thirty minutes back into town. He should be pulling into the parking lot with five minutes to spare.
“Take this turnoff, coming up on the left.” The passenger was leaning in the gap between the seats, and George scowled at him in the rear vision mirror.
“The turnoff for the address you wanted is another two miles down the road.”
“This way’s a shortcut. You can drop me off at the back of the property because this road goes around that way.”
Another tight ass. George flicked on his indicator. If he had a dollar for every time someone tried to convince him to take a shortcut—well, he had enough money as it was, it would buy a nice holiday for him and Scott.
The more he thought about it, the more George wanted to take his mate on holiday. He wanted Scott to be okay. It was so hard making out that everything was all hunky dory, as they got ready for work that morning. Did he even like the sandwich I made him? Did he take the time off needed to eat it? He hoped Scott would see that for what it was—a way of George trying to show he was supportive of his mate in all things.
I’ll kiss him when I pick him up this afternoon, he decided. To hell with appearances and worrying if that sort of behavior would be considered respectful to the people Scott worked with. His mate needed to know he was cared about, even if Scott did get a bit crazy every now and then. It wasn’t like George was perfect.
The road they were traveling down definitely wasn’t on any map George had seen before. It was barely a road at all. He cursed as the bottom of his new cab scraped on the gravel after his wheel hit one of the many potholes and he slowed down. The road was more pothole than anything else. “Are you sure you want to go down this way?” he asked, glancing at the man in his mirror.
The man’s smirk sent a shiver down George’s spine. “It might not have been this turnoff, after all. But it’s okay. There’s a small space where you can turn around just up ahead. Sorry, about that.”
Idiot. Fucking wasting my time. George glanced at the clock again. He could still make it, but he’d have to push it heading back to town.
The turnaround appeared out of nowhere, causing George to brake and lurch forward. Damn it. This is going to be tight. He spun the wheel hard to the left, barely applying any pressure on the accelerator at all. He heard the brush of bushes against his paintwork and cursed again under his breath. His new car was not what one could consider an off-road vehicle.
But no, the turn was too tight. Backing up just a smidge, George turned his wheel hard again, shaking his head as a sudden attack of wooziness made him lose focus for a moment.
Bear! Struggling with the wheel and the tight turn, George screamed out at his animal side… but there was nothing there.
“Having a bit of trouble… bear ?”
“You?” Slamming on the brakes, George turned in his seat. “You did something to me when you fondled my neck. Get out of my fucking car.”
Fuck, he could barely stay upright, clinging to the steering wheel one-handed as the passenger, still smirking, opened his door and got out. “I think you might need some help there, bear.” The man wrenched open George’s door before he’d even had a chance to turn around, and then those same hands were on George’s arm, pulling him out of the vehicle.
He was powerless to stop the asshole, but George wasn’t going to go down quietly. He lashed out with his fists and feet, kicking and punching the man anytime he got close. All he could think was that Scott would be waiting for him, and he was not going to let his mate down.
There was a crunch of bone as George got in at least one good hit, but the man was a fucking maniac and kept coming back. Whatever George had been injected with was taking him over, making his limbs heavier, his coordination was shot to hell, and he was getting spots in front of his eyes. He pushed out his energy with everything he had. He couldn’t let Scott down. But the man kept coming, and then George felt another prick in his neck and went down like a fallen tree.
All he could hear as he passed out was the man’s laughter.