Page 125 of Hounded
All I knew about my plan was that I needed a betterone. Driving through to Nevada was no longer a viable option. The hounds could track me until I got my own ward from Sully, and it struck me that protecting Indy might mean distancing myself from him. We could park the trailer somewhere in Ohio, and I could take the truck to New York alone. I could lead the hounds away from my treasure and hope I could get back to him.
Or I could strand him, alone and unguarded, and risk never seeing him again.
That fear was the only thing more powerful than the staggering pain, and it made me cling tightly to Indy as we made our journey back to the Airstream.
44
Loren
The confrontation with thehellhounds left us both out of sorts. My head was light, and my heart beat sluggishly. Indy alternated between swaying on his feet, almost dazed, and vibrating with energy. His pupils were dilated, and he was chattier than usual, talking about anything and everything as we climbed into the trailer.
“I havewings.” He glanced over each shoulder as though expecting them to be visible. “Does that mean I can fly?”
“You could,” I replied.
“Can?”
“Could.”
He shimmied past into the kitchen and filled a cup from the sink. After guzzling the water, he set the glass aside.
“And fire… fingers?” He waggled his hands as though entranced. “I don’t know where it came from. It just came.”
I nodded, maneuvering carefully to sit on the couch. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest.
“And I killed those people.” Indy turned a circle in the galley area of the kitchen. “Have I killed people before?”
He seemed oddly unfazed by the murders, and I worried the gravity of his actions would catch up to him as soon as the adrenaline wore off.
“They weren’t people,” I corrected.
Indy spun again like a pirouetting ballerino. When he faced me, his expression pinched. “They looked like people.”
“They used to be people.”
Indy may have had a point about me not driving, at least until we mitigated the amount of blood leaking from my body. It was seeping into the sofa cushions, staining the fabric with splotches of ebony.
“You look like a horror movie survivor,” Indy quipped. “And by survivor, I mean barely.”
I shot him a narrow look. Whatever sympathy he’d had for my condition in the automotive shop must have worn off. He whirled round once more, letting his head loll back so his curls fanned around his face.
He was excited. Rather, elated, which didn’t seem an appropriate mood for a man on the run for his life and who just used his previously unknown powers to incinerate four people.
We needed to talk about that, but we could discuss it on the road, and I couldn’t get behind the wheel looking like a spook house monster. People would notice and call the police, and getting pulled over so a cop could ask intrusive questions would only slow us down.
Indy came to a stop, snickering from having no doubt dizzied himself. His golden eyes were wide, dilated, whenthey fixed on me, then his expression went somber again.
“Your blood is black?” he asked.
I looked at the oozing gash that split my jeans down the length of my thigh and sighed.
“Why’s it black?” Indy leaned closer, almost off-kilter, and his head rocked from side to side.
“I’m not human, either,” I replied gruffly. “Not people.”
The trailer was stuffy without the air flowing, and the sun beamed around the drawn curtains. I felt both warm and chilled, and clammy with sweat while my head grew so light I thought it might lift off my shoulders.
“We need Band-Aids.” Indy propped his hands on his hips and regarded me with a frown. “Really big Band-Aids. Do we have a first aid kit?”
