Exported [Book 3 in the Expiring Series]

24 This Feels Familiar

Colton, Erik, and Bently are immortal for all intents and purposes. Me, no, but that hasn't stopped people from firing at me. If I crawl in the back—and what? Break a window?—and shoot, I could kill someone and start a war. If the French fire first, I could be killed or we could be taken into custody, but the Society wouldn't declare war mainly because the first-in-command is on a different planet and the second-in-command knows the situation could more or less be considered our fault.

"I'm not firing at them."

Erik huffs. "Fine then." He whips the car into a roundabout, racing out of it at the first exit. The houses blur into a smear of color and then we're on a backroad, trees lining one side of the street, the backs of houses the other.

Despite Erik's maniacal driving, the French gain on us.

"If she's not going to defend us," Erik says, "will one of you two do something?"

Neither of them responds.

"If it's war you're worried about, I hate to tell you that we've probably already started it."

The leading vehicle, a black SUV, is about to approach tailgating territory.

His jaw set, Erik's knuckles are white, and I feel us gaining speed. Up ahead the road curves.

I become acutely aware of each beat of my heart. Erik has never been one to be sensible around curves. When we fled from rebels in the mountains surrounding the Estate, the curves were sharp and numerous. I still don't know how we didn't plummet off a cliff.

The SUV rams our bumper, shoving us forward and swerving us left and right. Erik swears, steadying us out and decreasing our speed in time to make it around the curve.

Colton grips the back of my seat, his knuckles digging into my shoulders. "Think you can call off your girlfriend, Bently?"

Bently shoots back a remark I can't make out, but it sounds scathing.

"Girlfriend?" Erik manages to ask as he swerves around a little yellow car.

"Abella." Colton's grip tightens on the seat.

Erik's eyebrows draw together, and he glances up in the rearview mirror, but I don't know if it's to see Bently or the French. There are four cars in their pack, and I have no idea if Abella or Alix are in any of them.

I wipe my hand across my thigh. "Can you please save all romantic inquires until after the ride is over?"

The line of trees morphs into a wheat field.

"You know, Iris, I was trying to take our minds off our impending doom." He cuts me a glare and whips the steering wheel right, breaking through a wooden fence and plunging into the wheat stalks.

The rest of us swear. The windshield is covered in yellow stalks flying up as we trample their friends below our wheels.

The back windshield is still clear, giving a perfect view of the French following us into the field.

"How far is it?" Bently asks over the sound of shearing.

"Usually an hour but I wasn't expecting to take the scenic route."

I ask what's at the end of the field, and he replies with a wildlook in his eye and a grin. "No idea."

It turns out to be a field of white flowers.

Erik doesn't hesitate to break through the fence again, and splintered pieces fly up, hitting the windshield. Erik tears through the flowers. The flowers don't soar up around us creating a cascade of snowy white. They just get trampled.