Jess Haines - Enslaved By the Others

Flashes of light from the headlights of the sedan behind us as it bounced over the uneven terrain occasionally lit up the interior. I had the surreal sensation that I was in some kind of strange nightclub, complete with strobe and exotic electronica music.

During a drum solo, Kumiho shouted conversationally at me over the music. “That fucker better not hit my car. Bad enough I’ll probably need a new paint job after this.”

I just gaped at her.

We burst out of the trees and into a small clearing. There must have been a frozen pond or something under the snow, because Kumiho had to wrestle with the steering wheel and my heart crept up into my throat as we started drifting into a sideways slide. Just as I thought we were going to slam into a looming oak, the tires got traction and hurtled us through a gap in the trees, back into the forest.

Behind us, the car fishtailed, sailed into a spin, and careened into a huge snowdrift. Even over the music, I heard a sickening crunch and the shriek of twisting metal.

Kumiho smiled, her eyes narrowing to thin slivers, but she didn’t let up on the gas. We rocketed through the woods at alarming speed, putting more distance between us and our pursuers.

In the span of two more songs, we were beyond the wooded barely-there path and back on a paved road. I don’t know how she found it, or how we managed to get through that mess without hitting any trees, but I was grateful for it nonetheless.

My fingers hurt with strain from clinging to the handle as I flexed them open and let go. Under the gloves, I was sure my knuckles must have gone white.

Once through the shortcut, she took a lot of back roads and winding streets until we reached a dirt road that ran through an empty field blanketed in snow. Visibility behind us was good, so we could see if anyone else had followed us, with plenty of time to get back in the car and take off.

She was a lot more solicitous now that we didn’t have Max or any of his men within spitting distance. Of course it hurt like hell to move around. On the bright side, she said the chip was on the back of my right hand, so I didn’t have to get out of the car while she removed it.

After handing me a wad of tissues from the dash and giving me a purse strap to bite down on—the best she could do under the circumstances—she came around to my side of the car. Standing on the step on my side, she felt around the back of my hand and then between the webbing of my thumb while I huddled in the cab, shivering. She found what she was looking for and used a razor-sharp nail to make an incision. It didn’t hurt nearly as badly as I was braced for, probably because everything else hurt much worse already.

As she squeezed around the cut, a small object about the size of a grain of rice popped out. Like a splinter I didn’t know I had. I caught it in my other hand before it could slip away and disappear in the snow. Rubbing the blood off, it looked like a tiny red-and-black computer chip encased in glass. Not very ominous on its own, but the implications of having it inside me chilled me to the core. I wondered if Max had put the chip in me back when I first met him in New York, or if he had waited until I was in his clutches here in Illinois.

As a P.I., I had done quite a lot of investigation into the technology of tracking missing persons. A GPS chip that could broadcast a signal through human skin wasn’t supposed to be possible. Yet, here I was, looking at what amounted to a human LoJack system. I supposed money really could buy anything when you were as rich as Max Carlyle. That, or, when you had as much time on your hands as a vampire, you could spend decades or centuries studying a technology to twist and perfect it for your own uses.

Kumiho extended her hand for it. Once I gave it to her, she snapped the tiny device between her fingers and then tossed it to the ground. “Good riddance. You ready to rock and roll?”

At my nod, she got back behind the wheel and started driving again. Though I had no clue where she was taking us, she must have been familiar with the area since she turned off the plowed trails to angle into what seemed to me like a minor depression in the woods. These always turned out to be side roads, some of which led onto other private properties, others into villages or towns.

Unable to do much else, I stared out the window, trying not to think too hard about what Max must have done to Dustin and what he would do to the people left behind who still needed to be saved. A cold, empty place in my heart filled with dread at the thought of how he might take out his frustrations on Sara since I had escaped his clutches.

As we ate up the miles, the towns and other traffic on the road became more frequent. The one- and two-story buildings we were encountering were soon scattered with a few taller ones. There were modern office buildings and fast-food chains I recognized. There was a muted glow on the horizon that Kumiho told me was Chicago proper, though she was headed somewhere else.

It was very late by the time she pulled into a gated community somewhere out in the wilderness beyond the greater city limits. After she punched a code into the monitor beside a darkened security guard station, the gates swung open on silent hinges to grant us entrance into the walled estate.

We passed a huge clubhouse overlooking a pond that had not frozen over except at the edges, water spraying from a fountain in its center, and a couple of tennis courts. I studied the houses. Most were single-story, sprawling over decently sized lawns. They weren’t built right on top of each other like most communities of this type that I had seen. A few of the homes had swing sets in their front yards. I guessed the majority of the homes were two and three bedrooms, and it looked like this was a community for upper-middle-class families with children.

Kumiho navigated the well-lit streets with familiarity, pulling into the driveway of one of the bigger houses. I caught a glimpse of a lake in the backyard, and the Tudor-style home was tucked into the end of a dead-end street, giving the place a vibe of security and privacy.

The place was designed like a miniature castle, complete with a rounded turret on one side. A weathervane topped the cone-like slate roof, which tapered to a point higher than the rest of the house.

It looked warm and inviting and mostly I was grateful that we were stopped so I could finally lie down and sleep. Now that the worst of the danger was behind me and no one had followed us to the gates, I didn’t feel too awful tucking away my worries about Sara so I could get some rest. Despite my concern for her, we wouldn’t accomplish anything else today, and I would be pretty useless to make plans or describe anything about Max’s hideout until I was better rested.

I hadn’t been given any opportunity to sleep off my shock or my hurts. As badly as I wanted to help Sara, Iana, Dustin, and everyone else I had left behind, I could barely string two thoughts together, let alone figure out how I was going to get them to safety.

Kumiho killed the engine, then turned to look at me. Though I could feel her gaze on me, sensed her scrutiny like a physical touch, I just stared ahead. Reacting was a bit too beyond me just then.

“Are you going to be able to walk? Or do you need help?”

It took me longer than it probably should have to process her question. Even then, my answer was hoarse and wavering. “Help, I think.”

Getting from the car to the house was a bit of a blur. Mostly I remember cold, seeping right through my shoes and pants and gloves, more than it should have over such a short distance. Pain ate at my vision, darkening the edges a little more with every step. Her strength was all that kept me on my feet. Not normal. Not human. I still had enough cognizance to be able to tell.