Chapter 16
Sixteen
Neil
Phil stares at me for a beat, his brows drawing together, then he heads over to the speaker on the wall and presses the button. “Yeah?”
“Hello, am I speaking with Phil Sullivan?”
“Yeah.” The alpha’s voice is flat, disinterested.
“Mr. Sullivan, I’m Officer Walsh with LVPD. My partner and I have tracked a dangerous fugitive to this location, and we’d like your permission to enter and search the premises.” The voice isn’t familiar, but he’s clearly talking about Wolfie. Or maybe me.
But how the hell did they know to come here? My mom’s association with Phil, and therefore mine, isn’t common knowledge, so there’s way for anyone to track us here unless…
My gaze strays to the discarded collar, and I want to smack myself in the forehead.
There must be a tracker in it. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before.
It makes sense, though. On the off chance his “champion” escaped, Doyle would want a way to track him down.
I’m not sure why these guys didn’t show up at the trailer, but I guess that doesn’t really matter now.
When Phil doesn’t immediately buzz the officer in, Walsh continues, “We’re also here under the authority of the Las Vegas Alpha.”
Great. I guess that answers the question of whether or not Doyle has people on the police force. This situation just gets better and better. I wouldn’t be surprised if Doyle’s deep pockets mean some representatives from the triumvirate will show up next.
The muscle in the corner of Phil’s jaw ticks and he all but sneers into the speaker. “Doyle’s not my Alpha. He has no authority here.” He releases the intercom button and turns to me, shaking his head and walking to my side. “What kind of trouble are you in, kid?”
“Not the fun kind,” I reply.
He lets out a huff of laughter and claps me on the shoulder.
“Well, I can only keep them out for so long. Part of the agreement allowing me to maintain an independent territory here is that I cooperate with Doyle if he makes an official request, so they’ll be coming in one way or another.
It might be best to pretend cooperation now so I can throw them off and possibly buy you some time. ”
I blink at him, opening and closing my mouth a few times. “But you don’t owe us anything, least of all your help if it will get you in trouble with Doyle. Why would you…?”
“Because your mom was my friend and this is my way of looking out for her kid.” He chuckles. “And because Doyle’s an asshole.”
I glance at Wolfie. As much as I want him to have the chance to shift, under the current circumstances it’s probably best he stays as a wolf. There’s no telling how he’s going to react to being human again, and adding more unpredictability into the current situation would not be a wise choice.
“Thank you,” I say softly.
“Don’t mention it.” Phil shoots me a wry smile, then presses the intercom button. “The gate mechanism isn’t working correctly, so I’ll have to come down and open it up manually. It’ll be a few minutes.”
“That’s fine,” says Walsh, a hint of smug satisfaction in his tone. “We’ll wait.”
Phil jerks his chin toward the door and leads us back to the office where the truck is parked. He disappears inside and returns with a stack of cash, holding the money out to me.
“For the car,” he says gruffly.
My gaze darts down to the stack of bills. Even without counting it, I can tell that it’s way more than we agreed on. “But…”
Phil presses the money against my chest. “Just take it. Maggie was…” He trails off, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do all I could to help.”
There’s not really any way to argue with that, so I don’t. I take the money. “Thanks.”
He gives me a sharp nod of approval, then gestures toward where the narrow track veers away from the office.
“You obviously can’t go out the front, but if go that way you’ll eventually reach the back gate.
Just stay to the left whenever you hit a fork and you’ll reach the exit in a few minutes.
It’ll take me a while to walk down to the front gate, so that’ll give you a bit of a head start.
” He claps me on the shoulder. Again. “Take care of yourself, kid.”
Then he ambles off in the direction of the front entrance.
I blink after him, unsure what to think. Phil’s a near stranger to me, but he’s willing to risk Doyle’s wrath to help me get away. That’s way more than I’ve ever expected from anyone, especially someone I don’t know all that well.
Maybe he and my mom were closer than I thought? There has to be a reason why he’s so amenable to helping me—us—when the police are literally at his door.
But I guess that doesn’t matter right now. I’m wasting time.
Wolfie, Raquel, and I get into the truck, me in the driver’s seat, Wolfie back in position with his head in my lap and Raquel squished into one of the small jump seats in the extended cab.
I start the engine, back out, and maneuver the truck down the path Phil indicated.
He shoots me a wave as we approach the first bend, then he continues strolling down the long drive to the front gate.
I follow Phil’s instructions, staying to the left when the narrow path branches.
As we get deeper into the junkyard, the piles of crushed vehicles grow taller, casting long shadows over the ground and looming over the truck.
The track between the cars becomes narrower and narrower until the truck is barley crawling along as I try to avoid taking out the side mirrors on any of the junked cars.
This area obviously isn’t meant to be driven through—at least not with a full-sized vehicle—and Phil’s estimate of “a few minutes” seems more and more optimistic.
I carefully guide the truck to the left as the path branches yet again and finally catch sight of the fence that surrounds the junkyard. That means we must be close to the back gate. I let out a small sigh of relief and loosen my white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.
We’re almost out of here. We're going to make it.
Except… I can just make out the sound of an approaching engine.
It seems the time Phil bought us has finally run out.
I punch the gas and the truck jerks forward, the front end clipping the bumper of one of the stacked cars.
The tower of metal wobbles a little, enough to concern me, so I press the gas pedal all the way to the floor.
And immediately let up again when I have to take a sharp turn.
Even if I knew how, these aren’t the kind of corners I could “drift” around.
I’ve seen plenty of movies where people are chased through a junkyard, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen a car chase in a junkyard, and now I understand why.
Mainly because the limited space doesn’t lend itself to any real speed.
The smaller and more maneuverable sedan I’ve caught glimpses of is quickly gaining on us, the distance that took me twenty minutes to carefully navigate in the truck taking the smaller vehicle much less time.
There’s no way we’re going to outrun our pursuers, not like this, but what else can I do?
I eyeball the towers of twisted metal on either side of the truck, an idea taking shape in my head. I press my foot down on the gas a little more, and as the sedan turns into sight behind us, I twist the wheel so the backend of the truck hits one of the stacks of crushed cars. Hard.
The tower wobbles, leans, then topples over like a downed tree. There’s a screech of metal as the falling pile collides with the one across from it, but the fallen section ends up leaning against the still standing one instead of crashing all the way down.
The whole thing feels like a weird real-life version of Jenga with squashed metal instead of wooden blocks. But in this case, having the tower falls means I’m winning. Or at least not losing.
The sedan’s driver tries to shoot under the leaning pile at the exact wrong moment.
One of the cars near the bottom shifts just enough to destabilize the rest of them, and the tower falls to pieces right on top of the sedan, burying it under a pile of twisted metal.
A twinge of guilt runs through me, but I can’t afford to waste time worrying about the fate of Doyle’s goons.
I spare the mess one last glance, send a mental apology to Phil who will probably have to clean it up, then continue driving forward at the same speed.
A minute later, the narrow passage widens, the towers of cars ending, and what must be the back gate looming ahead.
But unlike the one at the front, this gate is secured with a thick length of chain and a padlock.
Um… what the hell am I supposed to do about that? Ram it?
There’s no time to waste debating options.
I slam on the gas again, gaining as much speed as I can before the front grill of the truck slams into the gate.
A shudder goes through the truck, but it keeps moving forward.
The chain strains against the force, but eventually breaks, allowing us to escape onto a road that’s barely more than two rutted tire tracks weaving through the sand and rocks.
Thankfully, the poorly maintained track isn’t hard to follow and we eventually find our way back to an actual road after weaving through the desert for a while. I pause at the intersection where our escape route meets pavement and meet Raquel’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“East? West? Any preference?” I ask.
She shrugs. “West will get us to California, plenty of space to get lost in.” She flashes me a tight smile. “That would be good, right?”
At this point anywhere there’s a door we can lock, a bed, and a shower would be good, so I’m not going to argue. Where we go doesn’t matter so much as finding a safe place to regroup.
“West it is then,” I say, putting my turn signal on by pure reflex.
Wolfie suddenly gets to his feet. He nudges my shoulder with his nose and lets out a soft whine.
I glance at him, brows raised. “You don’t think we should go west?”
He lets out a sharp bark and tilts his head in the opposite direction.
Okay then. I meet Raquel’s gaze again. “Any objections to going east?”
She shakes her head and shrugs one shoulder. “I’m more than happy to go along with that if he has a preference.”
“East it is then,” I say, chuckling a little as I turn the truck in that direction. “Navigation by wolf, that’s definitely a new one.”
Wolfie barks again, nuzzles my cheek, then settles down with his head in my lap.
I’m not sure where he’s leading us, but as long as we’re headed away from Vegas, I don’t think it matters.
I’m sure there are plenty of problems still ahead of us, but Doyle and his goons hopefully won’t be one of them.