The Tales of Flesh and Blood

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

I had been sitting there for a whopping ten minutes when I decided that sitting alone in a car in the dark wasn't the best idea in the entirety of the universe. The parking lot was dimly lit, and there were two other cars - even though it had to be past midnight by now. Jaxon had gone to get a girl who had connections to the people who kidnapped Hadi. If Fayette knew people who were a part of that strange cult, then I was certain that she had to be a part of the entire thing in some way or another. She might already know what happened to Hadi, and might be expecting Jaxon to confront her if he had indeed seen her the night prior.

Jaxon could be very well walking into a trap while I sat on my ass.

Unable to sit still much longer, I took one last cautious glance around myself before cracking open the door, sliding Jaxon's phone in my back pocket. I made it one step out of the vehicle before I remembered the gun, and I pursed my lips in thought. How normal was it for lone teenage girls to be running around the streets at night with a gun? I glanced up at the large stretch of park before me, where the trees casted a shadowy silhouette in the cloudy night. The hair alongside my arms and neck rose on end at the thought of running for the small woods, but one glance at the street made me equally nervous. Angrily, I tapped my foot against the pavement. I didn't want to just sit here for anyone to see should they approach the car . . .

I glared down at my foot when an idea struck me. If Jaxon had indeed walked into a trap and they decided to check his car, what were the chances of them looking underneath it? That way, if I faced the street, I would be able to see someone coming this way. Hiding in the trees would put too much of a distance for me to be able to properly tell who walked this way, and there was nowhere else, really, to hide on the street.

Encouraged by my recent reasoning, I grabbed the gun and eased my way out of the car, locking it using the side buttons on the door as an afterthought. Jaxon had grabbed his keys when he left. I guess he didn't trust me enough to remain put instead of heading for the apartments.

Grumbling under my breath - it was just as cold outside as it was earlier - I eased myself down on my belly and none-too-gracefully shimmied my way underneath Jaxon's car, which was difficult enough with the pitiful lack of ground clearance without adding my thick coat on top of it.

I'm going to smell like Jaxon if I keep this jacket on, I thought as I finally submerged myself beneath a few tons of metal.

"He's just damn lucky," I muttered, sliding Jaxon's gun in front of me as I struggled to ignore how uncomfortably tight my chest was getting. I could feel the bottom of the car pressed securely against my back, and I barely had enough room to raise my head enough to look out at the street. Maybe I should find a better hiding spot-

I moved to climb back out from beneath the car when the main road suddenly lit up with lights, suggesting a couple of approaching cars. I would have continued to move had three large black vans hadn't pulled into the parking lot. I froze, my breath catching in my throat as the vans cut straight across the lot and none-too-gently pulled in around the other three vehicles already here, Jaxon's car included.

All three of them left their high beams on when the drivers exited the vehicles, almost reaching me from underneath the car.

Shit like this shouldn't happen in real life, I thought numbly, counting the pairs of feet that entered my vision. Six men, at the least. Six freaking men surrounding Jaxon's car.

"He's not in here," one voice called out.

"Not in the other two, either," came a reply.

"Doesn't make sense," someone else muttered. "Tracker says his phone is in this one." Voice Number Three.