24. Conrad
TWENTY-FOUR
CONRAD
Madd and I walked to the laundromat holding hands as usual.
Being close to him comforted me, and with his hand nestled in mine, I could almost forget about my twin and the dragons looking for us. My heart and body ached when he was in another room.
Last night we’d watched a cooking show on TV, and we’d argued whether it was educational or a competition designed to create anxiety.
We'd disagreed for twenty minutes, and I learned to love this kind of argument because it ended with him throwing a cushion at my head and me catching it and neither of us being angry.
As we waited outside the laundromat, the guy inside looked at us hopefully, but he’d get no money from us to take off for an hour.
The payphone rang at eleven, and I answered immediately.
“We have a problem.” Flint didn't waste time on greetings. His voice had the fierceness I'd heard in the warehouse, so even if he’d just spoken my name, I’d have understood this wasn’t a casual update.
My hand tightened on the receiver because even though we’d been lying pretty low—apart from Arnie’s arrival, the movies, and grocery shopping—I’d been loving this quiet time so early in our relationship.
Madd was leaning on the wall beside me, watching my expression, and he tensed, probably because of what he witnessed on my face.
“Vasik was spotted yesterday off Route 9, forty miles south of your position.”
Forty miles. My dragon urged me to let him fly, but that was a no and I held him back.
Wait until I have more information.
If we wanted to escape, we had to do it as humans because I refused to leave Madd by himself. The last time he was in his wolf form, he took a bullet, one that was probably meant for me.
Route 9 ran north to south through three counties. If Vasik was on it, he was working a grid. I’d trained him to be thorough but couldn’t say I was proud of him for searching for me.
“Was he alone?” I asked.
“We don't know. He was in a store buying food, and we only had one confirmed sighting.” Flint rattled off more details. “We didn’t get a vehicle ID. He paid cash and the security footage was poor.”
“He wasn't alone.” I knew how Vasik operated. He worked in pairs with one person visible and the other trailing. He'd been spotted, but his partner hadn't been. “He'll have at least one other with him. Possibly two.”
Madd's posture had changed. He stood up straight, and I could see his wolf in his gaze.
“How long before he reaches your location?” Flint asked.
Vasik was doing his searches in human form during the day because unless it was an emergency, dragons preferred to stay out of sight doing daylight. He’d take his scales after sunset and search us by our scent.
I focused on what I knew about his movements today. Vasik wouldn't be driving straight here because he didn't know where here was. He was checking towns, motels, gas stations, and anywhere two men might be lying low. He had forty miles of grid to cover with limited information.
The last thing I’d be doing was letting my beast out because at night, Vasik’s ability to scent would be heightened, and that would leave us, and in particular Madd, vulnerable.
“Conrad, are you still there?” Flint’s voice broke my concentration.
“Yes, sorry. I’m just thinking. Ummm, two days if he's lucky. Four or five if he's thorough and doesn’t catch a break.”
“Have you left a trail?”
“No.” The apartment was rented under a name that didn't connect to me. We'd paid cash for everything. Flint knew we had no phones or credit cards. We hadn’t been online at the local library, so we’d left no digital footprint.
But Vasik didn't need anything digital. He needed a scent, and once he was close enough, he’d scent me, and that would lead him to the apartment building. No cash transactions wouldn’t help us once he was in town.
“The juniper.” Madd shook my arm. He'd heard enough to follow the conversation. “We've been masking our scent with it whenever we go out.”
“That covers the street, laundromat, and grocery store but not the apartment.” I looked at him. “If he gets within a block, the juniper won't matter. Three weeks of our scent is in those walls.”
Madd gasped and peered up at the cloudless sky.
“Options.” I liked how Flint used few words to get his meaning across.
We could run again to a different town and use more fake names. But Vasik would find us again, and every time we moved, it would increase our exposure.
Flint listened to my reasoning and responded with, “Or?”
“We come back to La Luna Noir. Your security is better than what I can provide in a rented apartment, but if Vasik comes, he's coming into your place, not neutral ground.”
Flint didn’t speak straight away because he was probably weighing the cost to his pack of bringing the dragon threat closer to his families.
“There's a third option. You come back and we stop hiding. We let Evander know exactly where you are, and we prepare for what comes.”
I hadn't expected that. “You want to draw him out.”
“I want to end this. My kids can't leave the compound, and my pack is on double shifts. Every family in La Luna Noir is living like there's a target on their backs.”
There was a tiredness to his voice. He was a leader who’d been managing a threat with no easy resolution.
“I’m done waiting for your brother to make the first move.”
My brother. It was odd thinking of the man who’d exhibited such cruelty as my kin. Evander was my twin, but he was also the man who killed our father.
I looked at my mate. He'd heard everything because he’d had his ear close to the receiver. He was staring into the distance, and I hoped he wasn’t imagining Vasik swooping down and taking him back to the compound.
I put a hand over the phone, not that it would prevent Flint from listening in. “What do you think?”
“I'm tired of hiding too.” He put an arm around me. “And Flint's right. Running again just delays the inevitable. Vasik will keep looking, and Evander won't stop.”
“Coming back puts your family at risk.”
“They’re already jeopardized, and they have been since the day your father grabbed me out of that bar.” He held my gaze. “At least if we're there, we can fight together instead of sitting in an apartment waiting for someone to find us.”
My dragon created a fire in my belly. He wanted to burn Vasik and Evander’s beasts as my twin had done to Father. He could take on one and it’d be a fair fight, but not both.
“You heard that, I assume,” I told Flint. “But I have conditions.”
“Name them.”
“I run the security operation. Not as a guest or as Madd's mate offering suggestions. If we're drawing Evander out, I need authority over the defenses. I know how he thinks and how Vasik operates, and your current set-up has gaps. I've been making notes on them since before I met Madd.”
He gasped. “What gaps?”
I rattled off that one side of his private estate relied on a single camera with a blind spot of approximately fifteen degrees.
The guard rotation at the south entrance of the La Luna Noir compound had a four-minute window during shift change.
The apartment building where we stayed had a service entrance that wasn’t monitored at all.
“Shall I continue?”
“Be here by tomorrow night. I'll tell Ranger to expect you and to behave himself.”
“Tell him I'll be going through his set-up within an hour of arrival.”
“I’m sure he'll be thrilled.” Flint hung up.
We were in a place where nobody knew us or cared, and we'd been happy here. But we had to leave, and I hoped we’d rediscover that happiness elsewhere.
Madd took my hand. “For the record, I'm glad we had this time together. We’ve learned to love one another and muddle along while we discover one another’s quirks.”
“I don’t have quirks.” I grinned before resting my brow on his.
This feels like home, my dragon told me. I’m not sure I want to be surrounded by wolves.
It’ll be fine.
“We'll come back.” I kissed Madd’s brow. I didn't know if it was true, but I wanted it to be.
“Yeah.” He squeezed my hand. “After.”
There was so much we weren’t saying. After Evander had been reckoned with and whatever came later. After meant a future, and we hadn't had that when we'd arrived here three weeks ago.
We walked back to the apartment and packed what little we had. I locked the door behind us and left the key under the mat because my bolthole had done its job, and maybe, after all of this, it would do it again.