In Plain Sight (A Hunted Rose)

Chapter Twenty

When I had gotten free from the school, with Liam right behind me, I stopped and turned to face him. 

“Why were you making up obviously fake excuses to get me to leave with you?”

“I asked around,” Liam said, “like you asked, and someone knows something.”

I instantly perked up.  Grabbing onto his arm, I asked, “Who?”  My smile was huge.  “What do they know?”

“Her name is Ella,” he said.  “I met her a few years back and she owed me a favor that I finally called in.  She seems to know things that no one else would think of trying to figure out.  She told me she had some information.”

“Cool,” I said.  “So can we go meet her?”

“I was planning on it,” Liam said.  “That’s why I made up the lame excuse.”

“Awesome,” I gave a big smile, “but you should probably work on your excuses.”

“I got you out of there, didn’t I?”

I surrendered the battle that wasn’t worth fighting – not that it was much of a battle, more like poking fun, and said, “I guess you’re right.”

“You know it.”  Liam glanced around the parking lot full of battered cars; save for a special few that didn’t have many dings or scratches.  “Where’s your car?”

“Over here.”

I opened the driver’s side door, but before I could get in, there was a rush of wind and I blinked to see that Liam was smirking at me from behind the wheel.  I sighed and gave up on the idea of trying to get him out of the seat.  He could really be a stubborn ass when he decided to.  He only did it sometimes, and normally it was just in fun.  I went to the passenger side and plopped down into the cushioned seat, curling up on the chair and preparing for some crazy reckless driving. 

“Fine,” I said.  “Go ahead and drive us there.  I’ll put my non-living life in your hands while you drive like you’re on the Autobahn, there aren’t any cars around, and you go over two hundred miles per hour.”

“You’re exaggerating,” he said. 

“No,” I commented, “I’m really not.”

He wrinkled his nose at me and put the car into reverse.  After getting out of the parking lot – at a normal speed, thank god, he took off like a bullet down the highway.

“You’re going to get pulled over,” I pointed out to him.

“No I won’t.”

 “Your confidence is astounding,” I said.

“No,” he started, “my ability to compel anyone who tries to give me a ticket is miraculous.”

“That’s unfair.”

“Hey,” he took his eyes off the road for a second to give me a stern look.  “You’ve done the same thing before, although not exactly the same way.  Yours was worse.”

“I know.  I killed somebody.”

We had a moment of silence before we both burst out laughing.  It had happened a lot before when I was living with him; we would have random moments of seriousness followed by lots of fun and laughter.  I might have been worried at his presence, but the truth was that I missed him a lot, and I was really happy he was there with me. 

“At least it wasn’t a big mess,” I said.  “Fairly easy to clean up.”

Liam gave a very ungentlemanly snort and said, “You’ve got to be joking.  It took me hours and at least six showers to get all the blood out of my hair.”