Chapter 18
Whiplash
Tara
Fear and shock pounded a rhythm in my ears, blocking out even the sound of my own breathing. Isaac was standing in front of me, his shirt hanging in tattered ribbons around his chest. His jeans weren’t much better.
Blood dripped off his torso, leaving a small circle of droplets on the concrete around him.
That wasn’t the worst of it. It was everywhere, red slashes painted across the walls where claws tore through the air.
Claws.
That one word stalled everything, spiraling me back into shock. I kept waiting to wake up and realize this was all a dream.
A nightmare.
The rasp of Isaac’s voice jerked me back from the edge. “Tara? Are you alright?”
Am I alright?
My knees were skinned, my neck was aching, and I was pretty sure I had a concussion.
That wasn’t really what he was asking, though.
I stared at him, feeling a bead of blood swell on my bottom lip as it cracked. I tried to speak. Nothing came out.
Jay sent men after me.
They weren’t men.
Jay was one. I saw him.
God, how many were there?
I couldn’t get my legs to move, despite the adrenaline coursing through my veins. There was an iron weight in my chest, holding me in place.
“Tara?”
My chin jerked up, and there was no running. No looking away. Our eyes locked and it was like stepping off a ledge. Into another world.
The Isaac I knew had green eyes with flecks of gold. This Isaac had gold eyes with swirls of green.
So different.
And somehow the same.
“You’ve got a pretty bad cut on your head,” he said, his careful words failing to hide the grit in his tone. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
He shifted on his feet, the slightest movement, and I flinched. He flinched too, stepping back and putting his hands up in surrender.
His bloody hands.
I squeezed my eyes shut, allowing myself three slow, deep breaths. It didn’t calm my pulse or erase the throbbing in my head, but it did give me a moment of clarity.
Whatever just happened, Isaac didn’t hurt me.
He was my only way out.
“My knees,” I whispered, my voice coming out as small as I felt. “I think I have whiplash.”
“Can you walk?”
He waited, carefully still. Unnaturally still.
How had I missed that?
“You know him, don’t you?” I pushed to my feet, one hand on the concrete wall beside me.
“Who?”
“Jay!” The words were hard to speak around the lump in my throat. “You knew who he was when you answered the phone.”
“Jacques Barbeaux. That’s his real name.”
Barbeaux?
Isaac and Jay were family.
“Is he your brother?” I didn’t know why that felt so wrong. Like I’d been tricked and betrayed, while somehow also being the betrayer.
“My cousin.” The tendons in his neck went taut as he glanced behind him. “I can explain everything, but not here. We aren’t safe. We need to leave before they come back with more.”
More. There were more.
I choked back a laugh.
Jay was a—werewolf?
What was next? Vampires? Witches?
I forced myself to straighten, to take another full breath.
Just get out of here. Get far away, and then you can think straight.
“Where should we go? He knows where I am.”
“That’s my fault.” Isaac clutched his chest. “But I know somewhere he can’t find us. At least for now.”
“Can anyone find us?”
His eyes fell closed and he turned away from me. “I know what I’m asking for, Tara. You don’t have to trust me, not after this, but if you can believe one thing, it’s that you’ll be safer with me.”
I considered him long and hard before murmuring, “Tell me where. I want to see it on the map—" I reached into my pocket, forgetting my phone was floating in the bay with my car. “My phone! My car. What am I—"
“It’s okay. Me and Saul will take care of your stuff. Let’s just get you out of here.”
Saul. The older brother. I catalogued the name.
“Fine.” I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling colder with every second. I did want to get out of here, even if it was with him.
Right now, Isaac was the lesser enemy.
He beckoned me toward the road. As soon as we started moving his eyes lit up, head swiveling back and forth. When we neared a corner of a building, he held up his palm and stopped to listen.
This place felt like a maze, sending us in circles. I could hear the bay, feel whispers of the breeze off the water, but every time I thought we would be free, there was more concrete.
I felt it closing in on me, my skin pebbling with anxiety as the sensation of being trapped grew. Then suddenly the road appeared, and I exhaled a shaky breath.
A fresh wave of emotion crashed over me just as a real wave lapped against my car. It was nearly underwater, along with all of my things. My phone, my suitcase—even my wallet.
Fingertips pressed into the small of my back, and I startled. Isaac removed them quickly, taking two big steps away from me and pointing toward an old blue truck. It wasn’t the small, clean black one he’d swapped for his motorcycle last week.
I didn’t ask who it belonged to. I couldn’t find my voice.
The door groaned when I yanked it open. The leather seat was cold under me.
Isaac looked ragged and pale when he climbed into the driver’s seat. What was left of his clothing was caked with drying blood. If anyone saw him, they would think he was attacked by a wild animal.
Because he was.
I followed his movement in my peripheral, noticing the way he winced as he tightened his seatbelt.
“You’re bleeding.”
He shrugged. It had none of the easy confidence he usually carried. “It’ll heal.”
It was a lot of blood.
Something stirred in me at the sight of claw marks deep in his skin. I grasped for it, trying to hold onto it, to identify this familiar tug, but it was swallowed up by a blanket of cold.
The adrenaline was ebbing, and all that was left underneath was a tired, numb sensation. Isaac looped the truck around on the road, turning it back toward Port O’Henry.
I saw it from above, like I was floating ten feet off the ground.
My body was anchored there in that leather seat. I could feel the cold saltwater still clinging to the fabric of my pants. A seatbelt dug into my collarbone as I twisted as far from Isaac in the cab as I could get.
But those sensations felt distant.
The questions in my head sank, too heavy for me to lift from beneath this exhausted haze. “Where are you taking me?”
“My brother’s house. His—" Isaac cleared his throat. “His girlfriend can help you until you get your stuff back.”
“And where is that?”
“On the bayou.”
I remembered the long gravel roads leading into the bayou. Bald cypress curling toward each other, branches adorned with Spanish moss reaching down as if they were trying to hide the road. To bar the way.
It looked out of place surrounded by colorful houses and soft, sandy shores. A dark shadow hovering at the edge of town.
During my time in Port O’Henry, I never drove down those roads. I didn’t belong there. I wasn’t supposed to.
Gravel crunched under the tires of the truck, and I jumped. Fresh pain radiated down my neck when I whipped around, realizing we were already here.
Goosebumps raced up my arms. My heart pounded faster. The final rays of sunlight slipped between tree branches before disappearing, leaving us alone in the dark cab.
A house appeared in the distance. Stilted, weathered, with a single light shining ominously over the second story porch.
The truck lurched to a stop.
I had a sinking feeling that things were about to get worse.