Chapter Seventeen

Michael

Lopez was right. Mother fuck. He was right. Fuck. We"ve altered our course three times and we"re still running into rogues. I know they"re fucking rogues, too. I remember seeing them at fights and in passing on the docks. Why are so many of them in the Midlands?

They"re all empty-handed. They"re not carting caravans of stolen omegas and they"re not on their way to pick up stolen omegas. They"re just… here. Kind of like they"re waiting. They probably are waiting.

For us.

The only reason they haven"t stopped our truck is because when we filled out the inter-territory paperwork we lied and said we"d be in two vans. The fact that we"ve crammed ourselves and our suitcases into one truck is probably the only reason they haven"t engaged us.

It"s so bad that Seth"s wearing a ball cap to hide his hair and he traded his eye patch for one of the prosthetics he has. Every place we"ve stopped has been a nightmare and we have to keep stopping because Desie is very pregnant, which means she"s very uncomfortable and has to pee every other minute. And now I"m sitting here wishing we had fucking Lopez with us after all.

"What do you think?" Seth asks, his gaze traveling from the gas pumps to the convenience store.

"I think it"s bullshit," I answer bluntly. "We"ve been lucky so far, but we"re not even at the mid-way point and there have been so many who are probably part of the rogues. But we need gas. There"s no way around it."

"I"m sorry," Desie says quietly from the back seat. "I don"t mean to need so many stops. I haven"t even had any water for the past couple hours."

I narrow my eyes at her in the rear view mirror. "Don"t do that. If you need to drink, drink. We"ll be okay." I don"t mention that I"ve been considering getting her a bucket for the past hundred miles or so. It really would be better to make fewer stops. I glance back at Seth. "What do you think?"

He sighs. "The same thing I thought at the last place. Let"s just fucking hurry."

"Okay," Ben says, scrubbing his hands over his face and looking hard at Desie. "Fuck it. This is what we"re doing. Do you have to go? Like really go?"

She shakes her head.

"Are you sure? Positive?"

"I don"t. I"m okay right now."

"Okay. Good. Alright. I"m going in. I"ll keep my head down and fill up the tank. Michael, you and Seth figure out a new course. It"ll add miles, but we can"t go straight through. Desie, I know frequent stops come with being pregnant, and that"s fine, but we can"t be stopping at so many gas stations and rest areas. I don"t like taking you inside places. Anything could happen. We"re just going to have to find you a bush to squat behind along the way. Can you handle that?"

"Someone might have to help me back up, but yeah," she says. "I can handle it."

"Good. Everybody stay in the truck. Nobody gets out but me. I"ll be right back."

He opens the door and gets out as quickly as he can, and I watch him stalk into the store. I don"t know for sure that the SUV at the far pump is full of rogues, but that SUV looks just like the other eight SUVs that were, so it"s safe to assume that it"s full of them, too. And who knows how many are inside the store. It"s also a probability that the clerk running the place is in with them. Everything is so fucked up out here and even if it isn"t as bad as I think it is, it would be stupid to act like it wasn"t.

A guy gets out of the SUV and is followed right after by another guy, each one briefly looking over the truck. Thank fuck for tinted windows. All they might see are our outlines. Another vehicle pulls up, a minivan, and my shoulders get tense. Ben has forty-five seconds to drag his ass back out here before I go in after him.

One minute. The place isn"t crowded, he should have been out by now. "I"m going in after him."

"Give him another minute," Seth says, his eyes not straying from the SUV at the pump. "It doesn"t feel like anything"s wrong."

He gets fifty-nine seconds and then I"m going in. One of the guys that went in after Ben comes out, his mouth drawn in a line. A few seconds later Ben comes out, followed by the other guy that got out of the SUV. Ben doesn"t look at our truck, he looks at the minivan.

The guy behind him speeds up to walk beside him and I put my hand on the door handle. I watch them exchange a few words and Ben shrugs, shaking his head and walks back to the truck to pump the gas. The other guy squints his eyes at the truck for a moment, but he walks to the minivan instead of the SUV and starts pointing down the road like he"s giving directions.

"Desie. When he opens the door to get back in the truck, you face away from him." Yeah, we"re paranoid, but we"ve got a good reason to be. We"ve seen and experienced what the rogues are capable of.

Ben pumps the gas and gets back in the truck, shutting the door quickly. "Let"s go. We"ll find a side road. That guy recognized me from The Backhouse. I tried to play it off, but I don"t think he bought it."

"No, we"ll stay on the main road for a while and then take the scenic route once we know we"re not being followed. We won"t have to stop to fill the tank again for about three hundred miles, give or take. If we can minimize the stops we won"t lose much time taking side roads." It"s going to take a lot longer, though. No matter how few times we stop.

I pull out of the parking lot and adjust the rear view mirror. Nobody follows us out onto the main roadway and I allow my shoulders to loosen a little. Seth is still a tight ball of anxiety beside me, and Desie"s worry is filling up the cab of the truck.

"We can drive straight through if we take turns driving," Ben says. "I know we"re already doing that, but we had planned to stop and sleep for the night a couple times. But if we all take a turn we can just go straight through and we"ll get there sooner."

Seth nods. "That"s a better plan than stopping. We"ve only got about two days of travel left if we do it that way." He turns back to look at Desie. "Can you stand not stopping for the night? I know you"re cramped and I hate to ask."

"Let"s just go," Desie says, offering a smile. "I can take a turn driving, too."

"And we might even survive it since we"re not in the city," Ben teases. "Lots of open space out here. Nothing to run into."

Desie makes a face at him. "I"m a better driver than you are, Benjamin. I just don"t like it when people cut me off or drive twenty miles under the speed limit."

"Road rage is what it"s called," Ben continues. "But I think we"ll be safe so long as traffic doesn"t get heavy."

We fall quiet. Seth even closes his eyes for a while, which is good because it'll be his turn to drive next. It"s going to be dark soon. We"ve lost a quarter tank of gas. We"ll have to stop at night to fill up again and I"m already dreading it. I haven"t left the major highway for the side roads yet. I didn"t want to alarm anyone unnecessarily, but I noticed a few vehicles keeping pace with us in the distance about thirty minutes ago. I think keeping to the main roads might be safer than the side roads after all. When we were talking about it earlier, it seemed like a great idea. Keep off the main roads, keep out of sight; but now I"m seeing more of the dangers. It"s a lot easier to find trouble on side roads than it is on main ones. We"re going to have to re-evaluate again and soon.

After a while, Desie interrupts the silence. "Why aren"t the Midlands regulated? There should be some kind of authority here, shouldn"t there? There are homes here. Businesses. Hospitals. Who runs those? I"ve never thought about it before now."

Seth sits up in his seat and rubs his face. "The hospitals are independently owned and run. The East Coast Council runs one, the Northern Council has one, and the Southern Council has two smaller ones. All the businesses are individually owned by packs or whoever. None of the councils have been able to agree about what fair terms are out here. It"s supposed to be a neutral zone, mostly for travel purposes I guess, but it has to change. It"s too dangerous to remain unregulated. That"s why it"s so easy for the rogue organization. All they"ve got to do is run through here and they"re free. Marcus and Alpha Johnson have been in talks with Minos about it. They"ve reached out to the Northern and Southern Councils. It has to change. As immediately as possible."

"What about Jasper?" Desie asks. "His family is supposed to be some kind of Southern territory super power. Couldn"t Jasper, I don"t know, throw his weight around? To get it done faster?"

Seth turns all the way around in his seat and looks at her for a long moment. "I didn"t consider that. I"ve been too concerned about keeping him protected from all this. We all have."

"He"d do it, Seth," she says. "He"d do whatever he could to make things safe."

Seth nods. "I"ll ask him about it when we get back."

We fall back into silence, with the radio playing quietly and Ben letting out an occasional snore. He"s been resting with his head in Desie"s lap for a while now. If it wasn"t for the potential danger, I would very much be enjoying this. I have always wanted to go on a road trip with Ben and Desie. I wanted us to travel. Then too much life happened and we got pulled into the endless spiral of being adults and trying to survive and I kind of lost hope of having that with them. For a while, I didn"t think we"d even end up with each other, much less go on trips or vacations.

The sun sinks below the horizon and the stars start to come out. We"ve got a little less than half a tank of gas when Desie interrupts the silence again.

"I"ve got bad news."

I nod. It"s been several hours. I"m surprised she"s lasted this long.

"I"ll find a spot. We don"t need gas yet, but we could fill back up so we can get a little farther."

"Will it be safe?"

I look into the rear view mirror again. The vehicles I"ve been watching since we left the last gas station haven"t passed us. Other vehicles have gone past with normal traffic, but there are at least two in the distance who have been keeping pace. We eventually get to an exit with several fuel stations and some kind of outlet strip mall and I pull onto the ramp with dread creeping up from my stomach. I pick a gas station on the other side of the road and swing into one of the pumps nearest the door.

"I thought we were going to find her a bush?" Ben asks, his voice rough with sleep.

"It"s dark. I"m going in with her. You pump the gas, Seth can scoot over behind the wheel."

Desie pulls the hoodie she "borrowed" from Mateo over her head, keeping the hood up. I know she thinks the bagginess of the hoodie will hide her belly, but she"s too far along for that. I won"t be the one to tell her that her efforts at being incognito are useless, though.

"Ready?" she asks.

"Yep." I get out of the truck, ignoring the deep protests of my legs and back and go around to help her out. She actually does need help. The truck is huge and she has to sort of slide out and hang onto me to reach the ground. I suggested a step stool and she let me know exactly what she thought of that real quick.

I hold her hand and lead her into the store, going directly to the women"s bathroom. She and four other women squawk when I walk in with her but I don"t give a fuck. "I"m not looking at anything, ladies. I"m just here to help her if she needs it." I make a big show of averting my gaze from anything that might be considered seeing something and follow Desie into the large stall at the back of the bathroom.

"I cannot believe you came in here with me, Michael. I don"t know if I can go with you standing there."

I turn away from her, facing the door of the stall. "You have to. You"re not leaving our sight until we"re home."

I"m trying not to rush her, but when Seth sends a text asking if everything is alright I know it"s time to give a gentle push. "What do you need?"

"To be in here alone."

I sigh. "I"m sorry, but I can"t let you out of my sight. Anything could happen. Think about waterfalls. Rain. The sink running. The damn leaky faucet in Mateo"s kitchen that he won"t fix. Water slides. The ocean." I keep naming off bodies of water and anything that might spray or pour and eventually she goes.

She nudges my shoulder. "Okay. I"m done. Do you have to go?"

Actually, I do. And I"m not about to take her into the men"s room.

We wash our hands and leave the store, with me leading the way and trying to make it look like I"m not anxious and we aren"t rushing. A too-familiar SUV is parked in one of the spaces in the back corner of the lot and Ben gives me a tight look when I open the door to help Desie back into the truck.

"Same ones?" he asks quietly.

I nod and get in the truck.

"Have they been following us the whole time?" Seth asks after I shut the door.

"I think so. I wasn"t completely sure, but I am now."

He sighs. "I"m texting Lopez. He can"t do anything, but he"ll know where we are and that might count for something. I"ll send Nathan some coordinates, too. Fuck."

"I"m sorry," Desie says softly.

"Don"t, Desie. We"re going to have to make stops."

"But--"

"No buts," I tell her, reaching over to tug on the string that cinches her hood. "We"ll take care of you."

She nods and gives me a small smile.

Ben gets into the passenger seat and shuts the door. "We ready? They"re going to follow."

"We"re ready," Seth says. "Nathan is watching our course, and Lopez knows where we are. I"m going to stay on the main road for a while longer."

Seth pulls out of the parking lot and gets back on the highway, watching the rear view mirror closely. "Maybe..." he trails off, but then clicks his tongue. "Fuck. I can speed up, but we won"t lose them. This thing isn"t made for speed."

"Just go the limit," Ben says. "We shouldn"t have to stop until morning."

Seth nods and we travel on in semi-tense silence. Desie curls up against my side and falls asleep after a while as I absently run my hand over the parts of her I can reach. The people following us definitely know that we"ve got a pregnant female with us now. It"s more than possible that they know which pack we are, considering the one guy recognized Ben before. With any luck they"ll get bored when we just keep driving through the night.

They don"t, though. We have to stop again mid-morning and the same SUV and the minivan pull into a gas pump diagonal from us. The guy who gets out to pump the gas smiles at Seth as he finishes filling up our tank. Seth"s expression is dark when he gets into the passenger seat.

"Ben," he says, buckling his seat belt. "Go."

"Go?"

"Don"t peel out, but get us the fuck out of here."

Ben throws the truck into drive and doesn"t spin a single wheel when he pulls back onto the highway.

"Go. Pull off the next exit. It shouldn"t be far. Then just go. We"ll adjust our route as we go and keep Nathan and Lopez updated."

Desie pulls my hand into her lap, squeezing tightly. "Is this a good idea?"

I squeeze back. "As good as letting them follow us the whole way."

It seems to have worked. We haven"t noticed anyone following us since we switched to the side roads. Desie packed plenty of food for the trip so we haven"t had to stop to eat this whole time and we"re doing pretty well, all things considered. I"m just about to let my guard down a little and take a short nap when Ben growls. "Fuck."

"What fuck?" I ask. "What is it?" Then I see it. A big white van parked sideways across the road a little ways ahead of us. I pull up the map app on my phone to look for a way around but there isn"t one. There are no houses or stores on this stretch of road, there hasn"t been for a while. The thing that was supposed to give us a little bit of safety has turned against us. At least there"s only one vehicle, we"d be able to see if there were others.

"What if you try to play it off like you"ve kidnapped me and you"re taking me somewhere?" Desie asks. "If that guy recognized Ben yesterday, maybe he thinks you"re part of the organization."

I catch Ben"s eye in the mirror. He shrugs, raising his brows. "We could give it a shot. We have enough names to throw around." He glances at Seth. "Yeah?"

Seth rolls his head from side to side, popping his neck. "Why not."

Ben stops well away from the van and takes the gun Seth hands him when he gets out to meet the man walking from the van. Seth slides behind the wheel, watching Ben the whole way. We watch as they exchange words and then the man points at the truck and then gestures at the van. Ben shakes his head. Then the man motions Ben to follow him to the van. No, that"s not happening. I pull out my phone and call him.

"Get back to the truck," I say when he answers.

"Matthews says he has a package from Owens that he needs help with. He says Lopez ordered it."

"I haven"t ordered anything," Lopez"s voice suddenly and unexpectedly comes out of nowhere. I glance around to to see that Seth has him on a video call.

"Do you recognize him?" Seth asks.

"No," Lopez answers. "But I can"t see well from this distance. Get Benjamin back to the truck."

"Get back to the truck, Ben," I hiss. "Now."

"I"ll be right there," Ben says, still following the man to the van, and puts his phone into his pocket without ending the call. I"m going to kill him if whatever"s waiting in that van doesn"t.

Desie grips my forearm, fear and anxiety racing into me through her bond. "I"m going to punch him in the nose when he gets back."

Ben follows the guy to the back of the van, knocking on the side as he passes, and every alarm bell I have starts blaring. "Ben. Don"t. Come back."

A lot of things happen very quickly. A second man appears from the other side of the van just as the first guy opens the back doors. The first guy turns back to Ben just in time for Ben to shoot him right in the face. Several sets of arms reach from the back doors and grab the second guy and pull him into the van. Then there is a lot of screaming.

Ben aims his gun into the van but he doesn"t fire, then he lowers it and looks back at the truck. Seth doesn"t wait for him to wave us closer before slowly driving forward.

Ben pulls his phone back out of his pocket. "Just let Desie out when you get up here. It"s okay."

"No," Seth says flatly.

"Seth, listen. Trust me. It has to be her. If you and Michael get out it will scare them. It has to be Desie. And she"s a nurse. They need a nurse."

Oh my god. It"s a van full of omegas.