Heart's Desire

Chapter 24 - Monty

Montana isn't known for its restrictive speed limits, but I break them anyway as I push my old Nav to the limit, passing other cars on the double line and triggering rage in my fellow motorists.

My phone pings with an incoming text, but I keep my eyes on the road. Town is twenty-minutes away, Jake's address probably more. I don't know it, but I'm guessing Freya does. And if not, I trust she can find anything.

Hence the text.

I toss my phone to Kit. "What's she say?"

He struggles to interpret the message. He's learned to read pretty well already, but nerves and the unfamiliar format trip him up.

"Jake st... still at... st... station," he reads. "I will try to keep him dis... dist..."

"Distracted," I supply.

"Distracted. Ad... address is... one-six-four-three Ald... Alder Creek Lane."

"Shit. Where is that?" I used to know this area, but it's grown over the years, and 'Alder Creek Lane' doesn't ring a bell.

Kit continues to stare at the phone, as if this information will reveal itself if he just looks hard enough. I take it back from him and ask the A.I. for directions, then swear again as the map orients itself and I see it's on the other side of town, in an outlying neighborhood—a thirty-minute drive. Jake could get there from the sheriff's station in less than ten.

"Monty!"

Kit's warning narrowly saves me from rear-ending a slow-moving truck, and I thank the gods my behemoth of a car has decent brakes. Setting my phone aside, I grip the wheel with both hands and take a breath. Kit sits wide-eyed and stiff with fear in the passenger seat, but I sense his courage, too. Reaching over, I take his hand. 

"Good thing I got you," I say. "You saved our butts." 

He blushes bronze, but squeezes my hand in return, and doesn't let go.

On the next straight stretch of road, I pass the truck, earning a string of angry honks from the driver, and I remind myself not to be mad at the next person I see driving like a jerk. Who knows: maybe they really do got somewhere important to be.

I drive fast but careful the rest of the way, the silence only broken by the artificial voice on my phone, telling me which roads to take and where to turn.

My heartbeat quickens and my breath whistles in my nose and throat as we approach our destination. Against my will, I recall the last time I raced against the clock like this, and press down on the gas a little more.

I can't live through that again.

"There it is!"

Kit points, and I see it, too: at the end of the street, on the cul-de-sac, a simple two-story house with peeling paint and a half-tiled roof. A large dumpster full of old wood and other junk sits on the faded lawn out front, and half the windows are boarded up.

Jake wasn't lying about the renovations, at least.

Thankfully, there's no sign of his ranger's truck.

I pull up to the curb and kill the engine, then pause and take a breath. Whatever awaits us within, knowing for certain must be better than not knowing at all.

Glancing at Kit, I see his dark eyes shining with barely contained fright, but with a fierce determination, too, and it surprises me. It's a look I've never seen directed at myself before, but which I've seen on the faces of my mated siblings plenty of times.