In the Blood

EPILOGUE THE NEVER-ENDING ROAD

Outside Portland, OR

March 25

THE TRANS AM’S ENGINE thrummed with power as Von slammed it into sixth gear. They burned up the road, burned up the night, a flaming arrow. Cortini sat in the passenger seat, her attention fixed on the dying night ahead.

Heather sat in the back seat, Annie beside her, Dante stretched across them both, doped and unconscious. His rain-damp hoodie was torn, ruined with spear gashes and bullet holes. His physical injuries would heal. What scared her was the damage done to his mind. His heart. She was afraid he’d been hurt beyond what she could help him heal.

Her name was Chloe. She was my princess. And I killed her.

Heather stroked his wet, black hair. She curled one lock behind his ear. Saw the dried blood. He’d given himself without hesitation for her and Annie. Had never asked the cost. Had risked his sanity, his life, his freedom.

I won’t lose you, she promised him.

She was exhausted, all out of energy, drained of adrenaline. She was so tired her body vibrated like a downed power line. But her mind plotted and planned and refused to shut up.

She’d arrange to have a moving service pick up the boxes in her house, including the Portland PD and Bureau files on her mother’s murder and on the Claw-Hammer Killer. One day, she hoped to be a voice for her mother. For Annie.

For Dante.

Especially for him. So he could be free, his life his own.

His future shaped within his own heart—not by Bad Seed, or the Shadow Branch or the Fallen. Her future had already taken shape and she raced toward it, eyes open.

A red neon sign flashed to the left: MOTEL VACANCY, and a neon beaver with a twig in its nibbling mouth winked. Von aimed the bulleting Trans Am for the motel.

Relief curled through Heather, and for a moment, her mind shut up. Sleep, for all of them. And when twilight shimmered across the horizon once more, they’d tear up the highway once again.

She looked at Dante and traced the edge of his beautiful face. Smelled autumn leaves and blood. Von’s words glimmered like gold in her mind: He is the never-ending Road.

She would follow the road home to New Orleans. Her and Annie and Eerie.

“I’m right here beside you, Baptiste,” Heather whispered.

Ahead, the road unwound.