“She’ll secure me a city.”
“Not if I strangle her first.” I clamped my mouth shut, then said, “I didn’t mean that. I wouldn’t strangle someone.”
“I think you would,” he whispered. “And that’s how I know you were made to be mine.”
“Reagan.” Mayhem’s lips brushed my cheek.
“Mmmm,” I mumbled.
“Wake up, baby, we’re here.”
I snapped my eyes open and sat up, fixing my hair. “All right. All right. I’m up. Here where?”
He kissed my cheek and moved to the front. I followed.
“Seat belt.”
Right. I buckled in and looked below me but couldn’t see anything. “I can’t see shit,” I said.
“It’s on my side.” Mayhem circled, and a dim light appeared in the middle of pitch-black. It looked tiny. “This is the circus?” It didn’t look like our camp. Where was the big tent? Maybe they’d folded it. I glanced at Mayhem for confirmation but got nothing before he spun around and headed in the opposite direction. “We’ll land away from here,” he said.
Right. Okay, that was smart. I leaned back and gripped the handrests. Landing anything didn’t sound good to me. My stomach lurched. I swallowed it down. We were descending awfully fast. “Is this normal?”
“What?”
“We’re flying fast.”
“Don’t know. Never landed anything in my life.”
“You lie,” I said in complete disbelief. “How about a spaceship?”
“I tell the truth. Nothing.”
Panic tightened around my throat, and I began to hyperventilate. Someone had to make those wheels unfold so we could roll onto the ground and not crash into the sand. I covered my mouth and breathed into my cupped hands to try to calm down. It didn’t work. My eyes searched the black abyss around us. “We are going to die,” I told him.
“Not tonight.”
“One thousand feet,” the car said, then another voice drifted from the speakers.
“Vice, here,” a man said.
Wait, what? Who was that?
Mayhem pressed a finger over his mouth to tell me to be quiet. “Vice,” he answered. “I wondered when you’d hail. You’ve tailed me from New City. Is Dewlyn with you?”
A pause and then a curt, “She’s with me.”
Mayhem smirked, then whispered to me, “He can’t do shit but hover above ’cuz his mate is with him.” To Vice, he said, “I don’t wanna see you, because if I see you, Men of Earth will see you. Back off.”
“Where’s the girl?” Vice asked.
“With me. Back off.”
“You didn’t send the images. Want to confirm she’s the girl from my mate’s shelter.”
“She isn’t.”
“That’s what you say.”
“She is mine!”
“Easy, I figured that.”
“How?”
“The last time I saw you, you were a complete asshole. The time before, you were only half the asshole you could’ve become. Congratulations, you’ve grown.” Mayhem chuckled, and Vice continued. “Your people depend on you. Jamie won’t give you the city without those men or Dewlyn’s sister, or maybe both by now since I told him you went AWOL.”
“I got my mate.”
“Dewlyn wants to talk to her. Give her to us. You know I’d never harm her.”
“No.”
“May,” a girl interrupted, “you’re going down too fast.”
“Thank you!” I squeaked out.
“We’re fine.”
“We’re not fine,” I said. “Do something.”
“Have you told me the truth?” Mayhem asked me.
“What?” Seven hundred feet, six hundred. Oh my Gooood.
“The truth about the old man, about how many Men of Earth are there, what you’ve heard while they drank and played cards. Everything you told me tonight. Is it the truth?”
“Yes!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! Do something!”
He lifted a finger. “Stop yelling at me.”
“Yes, oh yes, Master Mayhem. I am telling you the truth. Please, I don’t want to die.” Was he insane? We were crashing.
“Master Mayhem?” the girl over the com asked.
“It’s just Master for her.”
“Master,” I said. “Got it.”
“No more lies.”
“Nope, none.” I covered my head and put it between my knees.
“How do I land?” Mayhem asked.
“Are you fucking serious?” the girl said.
“Tell him and be fast about it,” Vice answered her.