Whiteout (Aurora Sky (6 page)

It was time for the agency to meet my family. Not just any family. An Italian family. The Donado
family
.

 

 

 5

Wanted

 

{Aurora}

 

The lantern's flame went out sometime before dawn. No more oil. No more fire. Daylight took her sweet time chasing away the cabin's somber shadows. One of the bunk beds creaked as someone stepped out. I sat up straight and folded my arms, thinking it was Dante, but it was Giselle who walked into the main cabin with her backpack.

She didn't say good morning or
even look at me. She moved to the cabin's square window, pulled out a brush, and set her backpack on the floor by her feet. She brushed through her long
blond
hair while staring outside as though in a trance.

Every movement looked mechanical.

It made me w
onder if a vampire like her was capable of falling in love. She seemed to lack emotions of any kind other than displeasure.

She hated Jared—that much was clear. And she wanted to take down the man who'd freed him and given him the resources to kill her fam
ily. Melcher.

While Giselle got started on her fifty brush strokes, I got up and grabbed a bag of granola out of the duffel bag.

Fifty strokes, that's how bored I'd become in the backcountry. I'd actually counted the times Giselle brushed through her lock
s each morning.

I didn't care about the hair on my head or legs at the moment. Life on the lam sucked. I was sick of it. I wanted to get back to civilization, but how in the world would that ever happen? A sense of false bravado propelled me the day we le
ft Girdwood. Since then, hope had dwindled into desperation. Who was I kidding? What chance did two agency defects have in taking down a government organization? If anything, we were the ones who would be taken down.

My throat tightened.

These thoughts nev
er did anything except make me want to break down and weep.

I glanced at Giselle with her steady brushstrokes and swallowed down my despair. Giselle was a sort of satiric talisman in my life. Tears dried up instantly in her presence. She was the last pers
on I'd allow myself to lose it in front of.

My resolve tightened.

I plopped back down on the couch and shoved a handful of granola in my mouth, munching it down hungrily.

My hair could wait. Hell, maybe I should get dreads or a bandana and not worry about
it at all. Go au
naturel
. Granola
-
munching
hippie
/
hunter. I snorted.

I munched
.
Giselle brushed.

Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty.

She set the brush back inside her pack. Next she headed for the front door. Nature called.

Tommy stood up and fol
lowed her. Giselle didn't bother putting on a hat or coat when she headed to the outhouse. She and Tommy stepped outside, and the door closed gently behind her.

I tossed another handful of granola in my mouth.

The floorboards creaked inside the bunkroom.

My teeth crunched over the hard bits of granola. It wasn't a particularly pleasant thing to eat. Not soft or chewy. I didn't mind crunchy. I loved pretzel sticks. But granola was like chewing on a mouthful of gravel.

More floorboards groaned as Dante moved around the bunkroom. He emerged wearing a fresh
T
-shirt, his hair brushed. Guess I was the only slacker. Man repellent. Good. I didn't want to attract Dante in any shape or form.

He stretched, his muscled torso sprea
ding taut against his shirt.

I chewed more vigorously.

His arms arched, spreading wide as he lowered them to his sides. Our eyes met. I chewed louder.

“Good morning,” he said, cheeks dimpling when he smiled.

I nodded and kept chewing, annoyance nibbling a
way at my brain. Leave it to Dante to be cheerful following a vamp attack.

He walked to the duffel and set a can of Spam and a fork on the table. While his back was turned, I ran my fingers through my hair. They got caught in tangles almost immediately. Ma
ybe I should hack it all off.

Dante plopped into a chair, pulled back the can's lid, and picked up his fork.

“Three down,” he said. “We're on a roll. Who needs the agency?”

I
swallowed the last bit of granola and
frowned. “I don't want to spend my whole li
fe running and hiding. I don't want to have to worry about the safety of my family and friends every second of every day.”

“Don't worry, we'll stop them. Melcher wouldn't dare hurt your mother.”

“Why not?” I demanded. “What's stopping him?”

“She's human.”

“So was Crist.”

Dante stabbed the Spam with his fork
. “Unfortunately, Agent Crist was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I gave an angry
shake of my
h
e
ad. “There is no wrong place or wrong time with the agency. There is only risk by association.”

“We'll stop them.”

“How?”
Before he could answer, the cabin door opened. Dante and I stood up, but it was only Giselle returning, a canvas backpack held in one hand. She set it on the table.

“I found this inside the outhouse.”

“Gross.” My nose wrinkled.

Da
nte unbuckled the pack and stuck both arms inside. He pulled out a baggie with dried green herbs. Dante sniffed it and tossed it on the table before resuming his search.

Giselle encroached on his space, staring into the pack as Dante rummaged through it.

“
Jackpot!” he cried, lifting a phone. He moved it from side to side in his hand, making the device dance.

My spirits lifted.

A phone.

Communication.

Finally.

“Now we can find out who this vamp was
,
along with his contacts,” he announced triumphantly.

I look
ed at him, slack-
j
awed. Dante's priorities and mine were definitely out of
sync
. Eyes locked on the phone, I straightened my spine. “We can use that to call your roommate and make sure he got a message to Noel. I'm worried about her.”

The phone stilled in
Dante's hand. “Are you sure it's Noel you're worried about, or is it someone else?”

Dante didn't need to say who he meant. Fane's name was right there, towering between us like
the
ice
Wall in
Game of Thrones
.

The accusation in his tone made my blood boil
and heat rise over my skin. My anger, like fire, felt strong enough to suck oxygen from the room.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Giselle pull a folded sheet of paper from the pack and open it slowly.

“This isn't good,” she said.

No shit. I was about re
ady to throw Dante's Spam at him.

It took me a moment to realize Giselle wasn't talking about the storm brewing between us. She handed the paper to Dante.

I looked over his shoulder, catching the bold headline first.

 

WANTED

 

Below the imposing letters
wer
e
black
-
and
-
white photo
s
of both Dante and me.

My heart lurched.

The text beneath our pictures said:
Call this number if you have any information regarding the location of
either of
these two individuals.

REWARD
stood
out in capital letters. Fifty thousand
dollars for any information that led to our capture.

My knees nearly buckled. There was a price on our heads. We were doomed. Done for.

I shook my head. No. Don't freak out. The whole world knew what Osama bin Laden looked like too. I'd just have to avoid
public places for a while. Stick to remote locations.

“Do you recognize the phone number?” Giselle asked.

“No,” Dante said.

Giselle pulled a thin stack from the backpack. “He
had
more copies,” she said.

“Maybe he's been handing them out or wanted to share
them with his buddies,” Dante said. “Throw them in the stove.” He stretched his arm toward Giselle then quickly retracted it. “I'll hold
on
to this one… for my scrapbook,” he
mocked
.

Giselle leaned beside the stove, pulling one
flyer
from the stack before
opening the iron door and feeding the rest to the fire. The hinges on the small stove door squealed when she
closed
it.

“Are you starting a scrapbook too?” I asked sarcastically, dropping my gaze to the
flyer
between Giselle's slim fingers.
When the Vulca
n didn't answer
,
I added, “
Thinking about turning us in now that there's a reward?”

Giselle gave the slightest scowl
;
a brief flicker of annoyance
passed
over her face. I watched her reaction carefully.