I revved the engine and pulled out onto the street, heading south….
And then I slewed to a stop right in the middle of the street.
The guy behind me angrily honked his horn. I twisted around in the saddle and growled at him and he meekly held his hands up in apology.
I was thinking about Annabelle and how well I knew her. Everybody loves sunshine. Except Annabelle. She loved Haywood Falls, with its warm breezes and shady spots. But the further south you went, the hotter it got. In LA or even San Francisco, her gorgeous pale skin would fry.
I swung the bike around and roared north. And prayed I had it right.
37
Annabelle
I’d taken my sneakers off and was sitting with my feet up on the seat, hugging my knees and trying to thaw my soaked, numb toes with my hands.
“I hate rain. Don’t you hate rain?” asked the woman sitting next to me. She was painting her nails a violent shade of pink.
“Mmm,” I murmured noncommittally, staring out of the bus’s window. The rain matched my mood. But there was so much water streaming down the glass, it was difficult to see anything.
It didn’t matter. One road looked much like another. I figured one city would look much like another, too. And one cheap diner certainly looked much like another. That was the sort of place I’d need to waitress at: somewhere that was happy to pay me in cash, off the books. I wasn’t sure how far Volos’s reach extended but I wasn’t taking any chances. I’d try to stay completely off the radar. I’d even deliberately left my phone at Carrick’s house, in case Volos could somehow track it.
That wasn’t the only reason, though. Walking out on him had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. This way, he couldn’t call me and try to talk me round. I had to do this. It was the only way to put things right. I’d already put too many people in danger. I had to get the hell away.#p#分页标题#e#
“When we get to LA,” said the woman sitting next to me, “I’m gonna lie on the beach all day.”
“Mmm,” I muttered, not really listening. I rested my chin on my knees. It felt as if my heart was made of paper and someone was slowly, agonizingly, tearing it in two. Goodbye, Carrick.
38
Carrick
The rain was pounding down so hard that the road was actually running with it, the tires surrounded by a halo of spray as they cut through. A few times, I felt the steering go light. But I had to catch that bus. If I get her back, I swear I’ll tell her everything. Every last detail. She’d know me, poison and all.
Finally, I saw the bus’s lights up ahead. I powered past it and checked my mirror. Yep: Portland.
I slowed until the bus was dangerously close behind me. The driver honked his horn. “Pull over!” I yelled, gesturing wildly. “Stop the bus!”
The driver shook his head. He looked terrified.
That’s when I thought about what I looked like. A Hell’s Princes biker, riding up out of the near-darkness, yelling at him. No sane person would stop. Hell, he’d probably call the cops. Just for once, I wished I didn’t look so scary.
I dropped back so that I was alongside the driver’s window. “Please,” I yelled, as diplomatically as I could. “Emergency!”
I don’t know what did it. I don’t know if it was something in my voice, or if he just figured that no one would be dumb enough to be out there on a bike in those conditions, chasing down a bus without a damn good reason. But after several seconds, he slowed and pulled over. I pulled in behind him and then ran, bursting through the doors as soon as they scissored open. “Annabelle!” I yelled as I bounded up the steps. “Annabelle!”
I scanned the sea of curious faces. She wasn’t there.
She was on the bus to LA.
I felt my whole world disintegrate. I’d been frantic, desperate...but until that second, until that moment of actually losing her forever, I hadn’t realized just how deep she’d gotten. I hadn’t let myself admit that I had completely fallen for her.
And then I saw a cloud of copper hair rise from what I’d thought was an empty seat. She’d been hunched down low, out of sight. She stood, her eyes locked on me, but she didn’t speak. She waited for me to.
I swallowed. She was near the back of the bus and I was right at the front, so I had to speak up. “I’m sorry,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like my own. Deep, sure. Irish, of course. But it had lost some of the gruffness. I was open, now. Exposed. “I didn’t think...I’m not good at this fucking stuff.”
She just looked at me with those big, moss-green eyes, blinking back tears.