“Where?” Ash cut in. “Where are you bringing them?”
“There’s a place in southwest Colorado that everyone is heading to, and it’s a safe place,” he explained.
Ash and I exchanged looks, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing: Sanctuary. Could it possibly be real? Could they have found us before we found them?”
“How far away is it?” I asked, feeling a sense of relief.
“We’re not too far out of Deer Trail, so maybe six or seven hours. You two should grab your stuff, and we can take you there. What are your names?” he asked.
I hesitated. “Zoey. This is Ash.”
“Zoey and Ash,” he said, a smile on his face. “It’s great to meet you. I’m glad you two are safe. Grab your stuff, and we can head out.” He started walking backward to the car, and I felt a sense of unease return. This was too easy. He expected us to come with him, readily, no questions asked. And it still didn’t explain why they felt the need to ram their car into ours.
“Well, we do have our car,” I said, trying to sound breezy and free of panic. “We could follow you down there.” He met my eyes, frowning, and I continued. “We have a lot packed in the car, things maybe you could use at this…at this place, and I would hate for a working vehicle to go to waste.”
The frown remained on his features. “I don’t know if that would be wise, Miss…”
“It’s just Zoey,” Ash said, tugging my arm to pull me closer to him. “And I don’t understand. What’s the harm in us driving our own car?”
“There’s no harm…Ash, was it?” Rich said with a small smile on his face. I shivered. The smile was wide, charming, but it didn’t match the darkness in his eyes. “I just think it would be safer for you to travel in our vehicle. Don’t you think I’m right, Crosby?”
Rich’s counterpart, a large, muscled man who looked massively bored, grunted in response. He sighed, looking around.
“Well, perhaps we might just continue on our own,” Ash said, pleasantly. I could see the strain in his eyes, the tightness of his mouth. “We appreciate your help, but we’ve been surviving well so far, and I’d feel better if it were just the two of us.” I nodded in agreement.
Rich sighed, looking disappointed. “I thought you were going to make this easy, kids. I so hoped you would make this easy.”
“Make what easy?” I asked, suddenly terrified. Both Rich and Crosby reached for something in their pockets, and I reached for my gun before remembering. They were in the car. They were in the car.
They didn’t pull out weapons. Instead, they both reached for…a needle? It was a syringe of some sort, and I remembered the men coming to get Madison after the concert that night. I stepped closer to Ash and his arms went around me.
“We could do this the easy way or the hard way,” Rich said, holding up the syringe. He sighed again. “God, I hate sounding like a cliché.”
“Can we just do this already? I’m bored,” Crosby said, tearing open the package and looking at the needle carefully.
Rich waved his hand lazily, and Crosby came toward us, right to Ash. Of course he would. Ash was tall, over six feet, and muscular from playing baseball and football, and he was looming over me protectively. Of course he would be seen as the threat.
Crosby reached for Ash, and I went ducking under his arm, and right to Rich. Rich looked surprised as I threw a punch straight at his nose, and he went down to the ground. He cried out in pain, his hands coming up to cover his face. I turned around and saw Ash taking Crosby down. “Ash, Ash, let’s…”
He looked up from Crosby’s body, and his eyes grew wide. “Zoey!”
An arm wrapped tightly around me, yanking me backward into something solid. I felt the slight pinprick of the needle against the skin of my neck, and I froze. Ash had frozen too, his hand still in a tight fist above Crosby’s stirring head.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Rich said, his voice a breath on my ear.
“What is that?” Ash asked. “What’s in the needle?”
“It’ll just knock her out, but I don’t want to have to do that. I’d rather have you awake when we get to Sekhmet.”
“Sec-met?” Ash sounded it out, the word unfamiliar on his lips. It felt…familiar to me, like I had heard it before but couldn’t quite place where. “What’s that?”
“It’s where we are taking you, young Ash,” Rich explained. “It’s a place…it’s a place of dreams.” He pulled me closer up against him, and I flinched. “Would you like to dream, Zoey?”
“Leave her alone!” Ash dropped his grip on Crosby. He stepped over Crosby’s body and came running at the two of us, and the last thing I remembered was the needle piercing my skin, and then the darkness hit quicker than I could have ever anticipated.