Moon Dance (28 page)

Cole reached down and
fiddled with the controls on the car. He wanted to turn on the
heat. “I don’t… I don’t believe you.”

She reached over and helped
him. “You don’t?”

Hot air rushed through the vents in the
car.

“
No.”

“
Cole, she looks like
you.”

He tried to swallow, and he
couldn’t. He felt like the car was collapsing on him.

Dana was still talking.
“Avery knew it too. We only talked about it once, right before I
was leaving with you, but he knew that she wasn’t his. I think it
was just easier… You were gone, and I was mated to Avery, and…” She
rested her head against the window.

Cole sucked in a breath. Somehow, he
was able to fill his lungs.

The heat was too hot. He switched it
off.

“
Say something,” said
Dana.

There was nothing
to
say. It couldn’t be
true. He wouldn’t believe it. She had to be confused. There was no
way in hell—

He pulled the car over. He put it in
park. He let go of the steering wheel, and then he turned to look
at Dana.

She was chewing on her lip.

“
Just take it back,” he
said.

Her face fell.

“
Why would you tell me this
now?” he said.

“
I don’t know. I just said
it.”

“
Because I came inside you?
Because you were afraid it would happen again?”

She furrowed her brow. “No,
I didn’t even think of that. It’s only that… well, you should know.
You deserve to know.”

He stared through the
windshield. The rain was starting to slow down now. In the
distance, he could see a patch of clear sky. “Is that why you hate
her?”

“
What?” She was shocked. “I
don’t hate her, Cole. I love her. She’s the most important thing in
my life.”

He put the car in gear
again. “You never talk about her. You left her alone to run off
with me. And you keep talking about how much you hate
me
, so it only stands to
reason.”

“
Cole, that’s not… You know
things between us are complicated. But we just made love, and it
felt like something changed.”

“
Is that what we did? ‘Hurt
me, Cole.’ Is that love?” He refused to look at her as he pulled
back onto the road.

She sighed. “No, I didn’t
mean… I’m not saying we’re in love or something. I don’t think you
even know how to love.”

“
Oh.” He chuckled. “Right.
I’m incapable of emotion. I forgot.”

“
You’re
are
emotionally
challenged. You were just saying how it doesn’t bother you to kill
people.”

“
You know, Dana, when we
were in that trailer, you said you couldn’t stand the idea of me
getting you pregnant. What did you call it? Oh, I remember.
‘Monster spawn.’” He was pressing down on the gas pedal, and the
car was going faster and faster. He couldn’t help it.

“
Cole.” She let out an
audible breath. “I was angry and afraid, and you do…
coerce
me into having sex
with you. I mean, you just
did
.”

“
Fuck that.” He glowered at
the road, the speedometer still easing upwards. “You started that.
I didn’t start it.”

“
How do you
figure?”

“
You got me turned on,” he
said. She had, hadn’t she? She’d said something or done something.
Oh. That was right. He winced. She’d started talking about what
he’d done to her back in Enoch’s camp. He guessed that was a
fucked-up thing to turn him on. “I had to touch you. I couldn’t
stop myself. And once I was doing it, you were fine with
it.”

She made a flabbergasted
sound. “Oh, so I was just asking for it, then.”

“
Yes. Maybe.” He pounded the
steering wheel with one hand. “I don’t fucking know.” They were
racing down the road now, and he was struggling to make it around
the curves.

“
You’re an
asshole.”

A sharp turn loomed ahead of
them. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to take it at this speed.
He slammed on the brakes, and they careened around it.

Dana clutched the door
handle. “Cole?” She sounded afraid.

He slowed the car as they
came out of the curve, returning to a sensible speed. He glanced
sidelong at her, and he realized he was afraid too. “I… I don’t
even know how to be a father.”

“
You don’t know how to be
anything, Cole,” she muttered.

He flinched.

“
I mean, what the hell? How
dare you say I was asking for it? You’re a fucking rapist. That’s
what you are. And it’s like you’re not even human.”

“
You’re not human either.
We’re both goddamned werewolves.”

“
That doesn’t mean
we
aren’t
human,”
she said. “Well, maybe it does for you, but not for
me.”

He didn’t feel angry
anymore, just terrified.

She kept talking, though.
“And I never thought of her as ‘monster spawn.’ I love her more
than my life, and I would die for her. She is the best, most
amazing thing that happened to me. I’ve never hated her, not for
one second. You’re the one I hate, Cole. You.”

“
Fine. You hate me.” He
sagged into the seat, staring at the gradually clearing sky, and he
felt defeated.

Next to him, she let out a
heavy sigh. “Look…”

He waited, but she didn’t
say anything else. He turned to look at her. She was rubbing her
temples.

He gripped and released the
steering wheel. “I’m going to help you get her back. I was always
going to do that. I heard you when you asked about her during the
interrogation with Patton. I know you need to find her.”

Her voice was soft.
“What?”

“
We’ll find her. I’m sure
that Enoch wouldn’t have hurt a kid. So, she’s got to be somewhere.
We won’t stop until we know where.”

She was quiet. And then she
put her hand on his thigh. “Thank you.”

“
Yeah, not a big
deal.”

“
Listen, I don’t…” She
sighed again. “I mean, maybe
sometimes
I do, but overall,
I…”

“
What are you talking
about?”

“
This thing with us?
It’s not love, but it’s not hate. I
don’t
hate you.”

“
Good.” He smiled a little.
“Because I don’t hate you either.”

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

They drove into a small town
that night. Dana was sleeping, and Cole woke her up to tell her
that they were going to need supplies. They didn
’t have any money, and they were still wearing their
jumpsuits, which made them look like escaped prisoners.

Which they essentially were,
of course.

Cole said they were going to
have to steal. Dana resisted a little bit at first, but then she
figured it didn’t matter. They’d both murdered before. What was a
little theft compared to that?

There weren’t many stores in
the town proper, but they found a big box store in a strip mall on
the outskirts. It was one of those places open twenty-four hours,
with everything from stereos to groceries. Dana felt a little
apprehensive that the place was open. After all, she’d envisioned
her theft happening in a darkened store with no one
around.

But it was after midnight, and the
store was barely staffed.

They strode in through the
doors, and the one person working the registers looked up at them
for two seconds before going back to his magazine.

Dana followed Cole’s lead,
and he seemed utterly nonplussed about the entire endeavor. He
wandered through aisles, grabbing clothes and shoving them in a
backpack that he’d also taken off a shelf. They went into the
dressing rooms and changed into their newly stolen clothes, tossing
the tags on the floor. No one was manning the dressing rooms at
this time of night. The whole place had a sort of ghostly feel.
Even the overhead fluorescent lights seemed eerie.

After getting clothes, they
went to the electronics section of the store, where Cole looked at
prepaid cell phones. Unfortunately, the phones were locked up
behind glass. There was one worker back there, but she wasn’t at
the cash register. Instead, she seemed to be covering the entire
back end of the store, wandering from the shoes to the electronics
to the fabrics.

Cole grabbed her on one of
her passes. He smiled at her. “I need to look at the
phones.”

“
Sure,” she said and went to
get her keys.

Once she’d unlocked it, Cole
grabbed her from behind. He pinned her against his body with one
arm, and the other arm went to her neck.

Dana hadn’t been expecting
that, and she backed up—backed all the way into a DVD display. She
nearly knocked it over, but caught it before it toppled.

Cole was talking to the
woman in a soft voice. “All I need to do is tighten my grip on your
neck, move just one inch to the right, and you’ll be dead in
seconds.”

The woman’s eyes bulged. She
was a portly woman in her mid thirties. She had dark hair that hung
to her shoulders in tight curls.

“
But I’m not going to do
that,” said Cole. “Not as long as you cooperate. Do you want to
cooperate?”

The woman nodded furiously.

“
Very good,” said Cole in a
tone that sounded disturbingly like the one he used during sex.
“Let’s go over and open the cash register, then.” He turned to
Dana. “Grab at least ten of those phones, beautiful.”

Dana wasn’t sure she liked
this. She thought they were just stealing things, not hurting
people. But she couldn’t back out now, so she went over and began
stuffing phones into her backpack.

While she was doing that,
Cole and the woman were opening the cash register. He never let go
of the woman. He made her take all the money out of the register
and put it into his backpack.

“
Got the phones?” Cole asked
Dana.

She nodded.

“
Good,” he said. “Go on out,
then. I’ll meet you at the car.”

Dana bit down on her lip.
What the hell was Cole going to do to that woman? “I don’t know if
you should—”

“
Go
,” said Cole.

She went.

She was worried, since she was carrying
a backpack full of stolen clothing and phones, and she struggled
not to look at the worker at the front of the store as she hurried
out.

But nothing happened. No
alarm sounded. The worker didn’t come after her.

So, she went to the car, and
she waited for Cole.

In a moment, she saw him
loping out of the store, taking his sweet time, as if he didn’t
have a care in the world.

He grinned at her.

She got into the car.

He joined her.

“
What did you do to that
woman?” she said. “Did you kill her?”

“
Nah,” he said. “I made her
go into the employee storeroom and count to two hundred. She was
too scared to do anything, anyway.”

“
But you said that if you
moved one inch to the right—”

“
That was bullshit, Dana.”
He backed the car out. “I made it up.”

“
Oh,” she said. The thought
hadn’t even occurred to her. He was very convincing.

They drove out of town,
putting about an hour between the store and themselves. Dana was
glad to be out of the jumpsuit. She was more comfortable. She
watched the dark scenery outside of the window.

After an hour, Cole pulled
the car over. “Give me a phone,” he said.

She got one out of her
backpack. “What do you need a phone for?”

He took the phone from her
and began opening the package. “Well, we can’t just drive around
aimlessly. We need a destination. For all the hell I know, I’m
simply taking us further and further away from wherever they’ve got
Piper. So, I need to get some idea where she is.”

“
And you can do that with a
phone?”

“
Maybe.” He peered into the
backseat. “Hey, can you reach the backpack I took? There should be
some prepaid cards in there. I got our little friend the cashier to
activate them for us. Learned the hard way that those things don’t
work if they don’t get rung up.”

Dana reached back and fished out the
prepaid cards.

“
Thanks.” Cole took one and
finished assembling the phone. “Damn it.”

“
What?” she said.

He made a face. “I’m
realizing that I need another phone to activate this
phone.”

“
Why do you need to activate
the phone?”