Holidays Are Hell Esther Egg Hunt (2 page)

Esther sat on the worn, red velvet couch in her living room and looked around at the boxes. Some of them were battered and torn, with hastily applied tape someone had placed the first year, when she’d suddenly disappeared and nobody knew where she’d gone.

The assembly judges hadn’t let her return to her previous home so somebody had slapped her stuff into boxes and sent them to her in her new place. Once she figured out they would never let her live in the same place twice, she stopped unpacking most of her stuff every year. It was no way to live. She always felt temporary, and she was sick of it.

She would kill for a place to call home.

But she was done with all that. This time Esther had decided to leave most of her stuff for the assembly to deal with. She’d put the few things she cared about into a backpack and strapped it on her back. The “go bag” would be her lifeline for the next few weeks. While she ran from her fate. And her future hopefully pursued her.

Esther glanced at the clock again. Sixty seconds had passed since the last time she’d looked. Only three minutes until her past ended and her future began. Again.

She stood up and started to pace, her stomach twisting with nerves.

Any minute now.

Someone shrieked outside and she jumped, realizing too late they were just laughing. Esther tried to remember the last time she’d laughed like that. It had been at least three years. She started to pace again.

The clock ticked down another minute. Only one more min --

Esther opened her eyes, blinking as a big, black truck roared past. Two drunk guys screamed propositions out the window. She felt muzzy, her limbs heavy. Something niggled.

The smell of blood had her turning her head. She made a small sound of despair. It was the deer she’d hit with her car. Poor thing. She’d stopped to see if she could save it.

A low rumble sounded in the distance. A storm must be coming. No. That wasn’t right. Esther realized she was supposed to do something. But she couldn’t quite… A horn blared and she jumped. Adrenaline surged and her mind cleared. She remembered. A small blue car was going to fly past.

There it was. The driver scowling at her.

Run
!

Another rumble in the distance; this time the ground shook.

Run
!

Praying she wasn’t too late, Esther dug in and started running toward her car.

Another rumble, followed by the crash and crackle of falling rock. Esther tripped on a fracture in the asphalt and started to fall. Hard hands grabbed her and she screamed, trying to shake off Luc’s grip. “No!” She sobbed as he dragged her sideways. But he didn’t take her through the portal. Instead he opened the passenger side door of her car and tried to push her inside.

“Get in!”

Esther sniffled. “What?”

He ran around to the driver’s side. “Hurry, Esther. Get in the car.”

A large rock pinged off the hood, and she was startled into moving. As soon as her feet left the pavement, Luc had the car moving forward, tires screeching against the asphalt as rocks rained from the sky around them. Esther almost fell out of the car, but Luc reached over and grabbed her arm. “Close the door.”

She dragged at it, but the heavy door didn’t want to close. The car swerved as a huge boulder slammed into the asphalt ahead and Esther screamed, falling sideways. She grabbed for the seatbelt and managed to keep from tumbling all the way out, but her head and shoulders were hanging out the door, and the road spun past at a dizzying rate. Luc’s grip on her arm tightened.

A huge rock hit the windshield. The glass shattered, spraying her.

Esther screamed, and Luc yanked her backward as the door hit a guardrail and was torn away.

“Hold on, Esther!” He slammed his foot to the floorboards and the engine of the battered car roared, the tires skidded for a second on the buckling asphalt, and the car shot forward, leaving the falling rocks behind.

She leaned back against the seat, panting. Tears slipped down her face. Luc had saved her. Luc had saved her. Luc had… She turned to look at him. “Why’d you do that?”

His perfect profile seemed set in the same substance that had almost buried them back there. The knuckles on the big hand holding the wheel were white. His forearm bulged from gripping so hard. His other hand still had her arm in a merciless grip. Esther carefully pried his fingers off. She’d have finger-shaped bruises on her arm.

Luc finally glanced over. “Sorry. I’d hoped to get you out of there before the rocks started coming, but you weren’t where you were supposed to be.”

She frowned, her mind having trouble wrapping around the idea that Luc had saved her. “I’m running, Luc. I have no intention of going back there so the assembly can jerk me around again.”

Luc fixed his dark green gaze on her face, his lips compressed with emotion. “Huh. Interesting.”

She blinked. That wasn’t exactly the reaction she’d expected. “Thank you for saving me, but you need to stop the car now and let me out. I’m not going back with you.”

Luc turned away, suddenly very interested in watching the road ahead. “Sorry. I can’t do that. You need to stay with me.”

* * *

They drove in silence for a while. Luc resisted her attempts to argue. He had a lot to think about. Why had she been going to run away from him? Surely she knew he’d help her if she just asked. But a quick glance in her direction seemed to disprove what he’d thought was obvious. She sat stiffly in the seat, her fingers twining and twisting in her lap and her pretty face folded into a frown. She looked scared. Or worried. Maybe he could ease her worry. “Look, Esther. I know you don’t want to go back --”

“I’m
not
going back. You’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming.”

“I didn’t say --”

“Do you have any idea how lonely it is, Luc? Nobody wants to be my friend because I’m this aberration that disappears every year. They all fear me because the assembly has gone out of its way to make sure they do. Why do they treat me like I’m beyond evil? Why can’t they let me stay in one place? Why won’t they let me form friendships… grow some roots? People think they send me all over because I’m dangerous. Or odd. Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to be considered the worst of the worst in flippin’ Hell?”

Luc frowned. He’d known her situation was difficult but he’d had no idea how difficult. “I’m sorry, Esther. I’ve tried to talk them out of this strategy. They’re just fuckin’ with you. It doesn’t mean anything except that they’re assholes.”

“It means something to me. Besides…” Her expression softened. “I don’t blame you for the situation. I appreciate what you’ve done for me. I do.”

“Then can you trust me now?”

There was that frown again.

“I don’t know. I’d decided to go it alone. I learned a long time ago that the only person I can really trust is me.”

Luc turned to look at her. He filled his gaze with as much of what he was feeling as he could, hoping that would convince her. “You can trust
me
, Esther. I give you my word.”

She hesitated, looked for a moment as if she might be relenting, but then her expression changed to one of horror, her gaze sliding past him. “Look out!”

Luc turned just in time to see the massive grill of a tractor-trailer rig bearing down on them, a second away from T-boning Esther’s big, old car. He reached for her, grabbing her hand just as metal touched metal. The concussive force of the crash jerked her loose, and Luc just managed to grab her hand again as metal gave way with a screech, slicing into his side.

He let his mind loosen, yanking them into a shift as agony ripped through his torso. His scream was cut off as they dissolved, the car jerking violently out from under them. They landed on top of the high embankment on the opposite side of the four-lane highway.

Esther covered her mouth as the rig bent her sturdy old Buick into a U-shaped wreck and shoved it into the rocky embankment on the other side of the highway. “Crap!”

The hand covering her mouth was shaking, and tears ran down her creamy brown cheeks. Luc put an arm around her and drew her in, shielding her from the view of her car bursting into flames. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

A wave of agony made his vision go gray, and Luc staggered to his knees. Blood flowed from a wound on his side, staining his shirt.

“Oh, my God, Luc! Are you all right?” Esther dropped to her knees beside him, her hands hovering helplessly over his wounds.

“I’m okay. It’ll pass.”

“Luc…”

“Shhh. I’ll be fine. We need to keep moving. Okay?” He shoved to his feet. “It’s already healing.” What he didn’t tell her was that the assembly would be aware of his pain. The healing process drew heavily on his magic, and they monitored each PD’s magic use carefully.

She sucked in a shaky breath and, to her credit, nodded and stepped away without hysterics. “Which direction?”

“We need to follow the highway for a while.”

With a final look back, Esther turned and started walking, leaving the remains of her car smoking and flaring into mini-explosions behind them.

* * *

They walked for a while before Esther looked up and asked the question she should have asked right away. “Where are we going?”

Luc looked down at her. The sun shone behind him, casting him in a golden aura that made his hair glow with reddish highlights. His face looked stern but she thought that was due to the spiky eyebrows. “You have judgmental eyebrows. Did you know that?”

That startled a laugh out of him. His wide, sexy mouth curved upward, framed by a neatly clipped beard that made his jaw look even more masculine. Esther had thought he was yummy before, but his smile just about melted the ligaments in her knees. “No one has ever told me that. But I assure you they’re more unruly than judgmental.”

She smiled. “I like them.”

Heat flooded the dark green gaze and his smile slipped away. “Thanks. I like yours too.”

Despite the fact she knew he was just making conversation, Esther’s stomach flipped a little at his words. “So… you didn’t answer my question. Where are we going?”

“I’m not sure now. I’d planned to take you to a cabin in the mountains. It’s in an area that’s hard for Worm to search. And I’ve warded it for privacy.”

Her smile dropped away at the mention of the assembly clerk. “That puny little bastard. You think he’s searching for us?”

“I know he is. And if we don’t keep moving he’ll find us. Then I’ll have no choice but to take you back.”

“They’ll torture you?” She nodded toward the tattoo of flames on his left forearm.

“Yeah, but I can handle that. It’s just…” He hesitated, seemingly reluctant to continue.

“Tell me, Luc. If you won’t tell me, I can’t prepare, and I won’t be inclined to trust you.”

He sighed, nodding. “Once they know where you are they can send someone, or some
thing
else to grab you, and you won’t be sent to a nice, comfortable outer circle if they do.”

Her heart pounded with alarm. “They’ll send me to the pits?”

“Or someplace close. They’ll have to make an example of you.”

She sighed. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“So you said you were going to take me to this cabin. Why can’t you still take me there?”

“Every time I shift they know. They can track me through those shifts. If I shift you there now, they’ll be able to get pretty close, despite the warding. Then it will only be a matter of time before they find us.”

“That’s why you were driving my car instead of shifting us away.”

“Yeah.”

They walked in silence for a while before she asked, “Isn’t there any way we can mask our travel?”

“Circles.”

She frowned. “Huh?”

“They can’t see inside circles. In demonology, circles represent eternal life. Evil has no dominion over eternal life -- it’s a concept of the light.”

“Hmm. Interesting. So, I’m guessing we have to walk in circles the whole way?” She grinned.

“Not quite. The circle has to be solid.” He stopped to wait for a rig to thunder by on the highway below. A smile eased across his face. “Like that.”

Esther followed his line of sight. A truck pulling a long flatbed roared past. The cargo on its bed looked like massive pipes of some kind. “What are those?”

“Culvert pipes. They’re perfect.” He jerked his head toward a billboard that rose above their heads. It was for a truck stop. “Now, if we’re lucky, that truck will stop there.”

The sign said the stop was only a mile away. “Let’s go.” Luc grabbed her hand and started running.

The truck they’d scoped out wasn’t at the truck stop when they got there. Luc wasn’t discouraged; he figured another one would come along. They’d just lay low until it did. But first he had a problem. “I can’t walk around in a shirt covered with blood.”

Esther tugged the shirt up and gasped. Other than a wide, pink line, the wound had completely healed. “Wow. I wish I could do that.”

“If you were in Hell, you could.” He frowned as her expression darkened. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

She shrugged, jerking her head toward the truck stop. “There’s probably a gift shop in there, and I wouldn’t mind getting something to eat.”

He frowned. “I don’t have any money. My go bag was in the back seat of your car.”

She grinned, her golden-brown eyes lighting with humor. “I have a go bag too. Fortunately, I’m wearing mine.” She turned to show him the backpack she’d been wearing since he’d grabbed her. Luc hadn’t given the bag much thought at the time. But he suddenly realized she hadn’t been wearing it either of the two times he’d picked her up before. “You were planning on running all along, weren’t you?”

“Yeah. I told you that.”

“I know. I just… you surprise me. I wouldn’t have thought you’d risk it.”

She snorted as they started toward the truck stop. “You have no idea how much I’d risk to get out of that place.”

Luc frowned. He knew she’d have to go back. There was no way to permanently escape death. The big rig that had almost killed her a second time proved that. She was fated to die, and that was what she would do. He wasn’t trying to change that. He was only trying to gain some leverage to get her out of the ping-pong existence the assembly had designated for her.