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The woman… who was now crossing the road in front of them, her dead eyes fixed on their tram. Robb watched in dismay as she stood in front of the tram for a moment, peering through the front window… and the traffic lights changed back to red.
Shit.
Robb bustled his way back down towards the middle section of the crowded tram, dragging Tahnee with him. Reaching out a hand, he grabbed the handle on one of the doors, ready to rip the whole thing off its hinges if necessary and make a break for it.
The woman knocked loudly on the front door, calling out for the driver to let her in.
Robb tensed, preparing to act… but the driver continued staring blankly ahead at the traffic lights.
The woman banged her fist against the door, sending it rattling.
“Hey!” she yelled. “I’m stuck in the rain! Let me in!”
The loudspeaker on the outside of the tram burst to crackling life.
“PLEASE STAND BACK FROM THE TRAM DOORS,” the driver’s voice blared. “STAND BACK. THIS TRAM HAS ALREADY BEEN DELAYED, AND WE’D ALL APPRECIATE IT IF YOU DIDN’T DELAY US ANY FURTHER.”
The dingo voiced its approval for the driver’s respect for punctuality, rules and courtesy, apparently choosing to forget about the way that they themselves had jaywalked and then barged onto the tram.
Robb’s breath caught in his throat as he waited to see what the woman would do next. She was clearly agitated, her head jerking this way and that as she looked around.
At that moment, the tram finally, finally lurched into slow, painful motion, rumbling away from the traffic lights at a speed only a little better than a crawl. Robb quickly turned away from the door, pulling Tahnee against his chest for a couple of long, glorious seconds in order to keep her face hidden from view.
It was a cliché of the highest order – but apparently it worked, because a furtive glimpse over his shoulder revealed the woman still standing at the tram stop, frustration stamped across her face, before she stalked across the tram lines and started peering into the windows of another tram heading in the opposite direction.
She didn’t know we were on this tram. She couldn’t sense us.
Robb didn’t know why she’d been unable to detect them, but he could only guess that becoming undetectable to other shifters was a side effect of the poison gas that had stripped him and Tahnee of their ability to shift or use their shifter senses… not to mention the fact that the wound on his shoulder where the crocodile’s claws had got him wasn’t healing as quickly as it usually would, either.
And he was going to worry about his missing shifter powers. It was right near the top of his priority list. But right now, he was mostly just processing the fact that they had escaped, and that Tahnee was safe.
Speaking of Tahnee…
He didn’t push her away, precisely… but he did extricate himself from her arms in what he could admit wasn’t a particularly romantic fashion. But it didn’t seem right to keep up this ruse, now that they’d made their escape.
The faintest hint of what felt like disappointment drifted through the mate bond, and Robb reminded himself sternly not to read too much into it.
The hot adrenaline surge started to ebb, and Robb let out a slow, calming breath, only iron will keeping him from sagging against the door in relief – which probably would’ve earned him a telling-off from the driver, anyway.
Glancing at Tahnee, though, he got the feeling she hadn’t been fooled. Whether it was the mate bond or just her general nature, she’d been able to tell that he’d been scared. Not for himself, but for her.
And that wasn’t good. Robb didn’t get scared. He hadn’t been scared for a very, very long time.
Searching for a distraction, Robb took his bearings, looking at the route map above the door and searching for something familiar. He hadn’t spent much time in Melbourne, but he did know the location of every Agency safehouse.
“This tram is going to St Kilda,” he murmured into Tahnee’s ear – he was pretty sure he couldn’t be heard over the ambient noise of the tram, but better to be safe than sorry. And since he didn’t have his shifter senses at the moment apparently, he couldn’t really be sure who might be listening. “There’s an Agency safehouse there. I know where we can go.”
Tahnee might have been reckless, but she obviously understood the need to keep this under wraps. She nodded slightly, but that was the only response.
Robb relaxed, feeling a little better. The situation was still pretty bad, but now he had a plan for… well, the next hour, at least. He could work out a better plan once they got there.
Maybe what had felt like an internal sigh of relief hadn’t been quite so internal as he’d thought, because Tahnee raised a playful eyebrow at him, her amusement clear on her face, and Robb had to refrain from letting out a frustrated groan.
Out of the frying pan, and into the fire. I might’ve been better off facing the shark woman.
The tram trundled into the evening, heading off to the relative safety of St Kilda, and Robb tried to enjoy the last few minutes of peace and quiet before his mate inevitably turned his life on its head.
Chapter 4
