In a blur he yanked Tate clear from his seat. For a moment his mouth pressed against his neck, and then he tossed him fifty feet in the air. Tate landed in the grass by the shoulder of the road. Pete attempted to crawl away, but Bones grasped him and gave him the same flight with similar onboard beverage service.
“Get out of the car, luv,” Bones directed, and I sprang from the ruined remains of the vehicle. He still had my mother by the arm. She was crying and cursing him at the same time.
“They’re going to kill you, they know what you are! Catherine’s—”
My mother’s words were cut off when I punched her right in the jaw. She collapsed without another word. In her railing threats, she would have revealed too much, and if Bones knew about the deal I’d made, he would talk me out of it. I’d believe whatever impossible assurances he gave me, because my heart had no common sense.
A bullet whizzed by. I dropped to the ground, not wanting to get shot again. Bones gave an irritated glance in its direction and then grasped the floorboards of the car. My eyes widened in growing comprehension. God, he couldn’t do that, could he?
The agents from the cars in front of us had taken cover behind one of their overturned vehicles, and they were firing at us. Apparently they’d been told to ensure my safe arrival or, failing that, guarantee I didn’t escape. Plan A had failed, so they were going with Plan B. Bones gave a wolfish grin as he lifted the car off the ground. He spun in a semicircle for maximum velocity, and then the twisted hunk of machinery went sailing through the air, landing point-blank on the makeshift barricade of the agents’ vehicle.
There was a thunderous boom as the car exploded on contact. Thick acrid smoke billowed into the air. In the midst of this maelstrom, with his legs apart and eyes flashing green, Bones looked absolutely, terrifyingly magnificent.
Pandemonium seized the highway. Traffic on the opposite side of the road piled up as disbelieving onlookers stopped driving and gaped at the carnage to their left. Every second brought a fresh squealing of brakes and new accidents. Bones didn’t pause to admire his work. He took my hand and threw my mother over his shoulder as we raced into the trees out of sight.
He had a car waiting about five miles ahead where the lanes were free of the wreckage behind us. Bones deposited my mother in the back, pausing only to clap a piece of duct tape over her mouth before we sped off.
“Glad you were the one that socked her, luv. It saved me the trouble. You don’t get your meanness from your father—you get it from her. She bit me.”
For someone who had just been hit by a car going sixty, he looked remarkably chipper.
“How did you do that? How did you stop the car? If a vampire can do that, why didn’t Switch prevent me from bashing into the house last night?”
Bones snorted derisively. “That pup? He couldn’t stop a toddler on a tricycle. He was only ’round sixty, luv, in undead years. You have to be an old Master vamp like me to pull such a trick without regretting it dearly afterwards. Believe me, it hurt like blazes. That’s why I took a nip from your two blokes before chucking them off. Who were they, anyhow? They weren’t police.”
This had to be handled very carefully. “Um, they were from some branch of government, they didn’t say which. Weren’t real chatty, you know? I think they were taking me to a special jail or something because of Oliver.”
He gave me a look. “You should have waited for me. You could have gotten killed.”
“I couldn’t wait! One of Oliver’s dirty cops tried to shoot me, and he was supposed to plant a bomb in the hospital where they were taking my mother! Oliver was the one, Bones. He admitted it, practically bragged about how Hennessey was ‘cleaning up’ his state for him. Like all those people were nothing but garbage. God, if I’d killed him ten times, it still wouldn’t be enough.”
“What makes you think those blokes who were taking you away weren’t more of his men?”
“They weren’t. Besides, you hardly treated them like you were giving them the benefit of the doubt. You dropped a car on four of them.”
“Oh, don’t fret.” Unconcernedly. “They jumped free before the explosion. And if they were too thick not to, then they deserved to die for their stupidity.”
“Whose car is this?” We were riding in a black Volvo SUV, fully loaded with that new car smell.
Bones cast a sideways glance at me. “Yours. Do you like it?”
I shook my head. “Not whose it is now, but won’t it be reported stolen soon?”
“No,” he replied. “This was your Christmas present. It’s registered under the name on your false license, so there’s no way for them to track it. Hope you don’t mind missing out on the surprise, but under the circumstances, it was our best option.”
My mouth hung open, because he was clearly serious. “I can’t accept this. It’s way too expensive!” In the midst of everything, here I was arguing over the lavishness of a Christmas gift. Normal and I would never meet.
He gave an exasperated sigh. “Kitten, for once could you just say thank you? Really, luv, aren’t we past this?”