Page 27 of Sweet Revenge

I wasn’t sure if it was or not, but I did know they weren’t as powerful, and I could get to them. “It’ll be fine,” I assured her. “And after this, those bastards won’t ever be able to hurt you or anyone else anymore.”

Again, she gave me a wide-eyed stare, clearly not sure what I was capable of. Knowing Elisa, she wanted to save her brothers like she’d wanted to save the deer. But she also wanted to consume them both. It was a fine line we were walking, at least for her.

“I see a shitty hotel up here,” I announced. “I’m tired. Let’s pull over in Wherever-the-Fuck-We-Are, Ohio, and get some rest.”

“Sounds good to me,” she murmured, back to her deep thoughts.

I got a room in the back where the van wouldn’t be obvious from the road, and she helped me grab the few bags we’d packed. A few minutes later, we curled up in a rancid mattress in a roach-infested hotel room to grab a couple of hours of rest.

We were going to need it.

CHAPTER17

ELISA

The musty odor of the bedding hit my nose before I even opened my eyes, and I remembered where I was. Some sucky little hotel in Ohio. Moaning a little, I rolled over, hoping my fingers would land on Daemon who would assure me all was well, despite the lingering scent of old cigarettes burning my nostrils.

My hand met empty sheets, and immediately I sat up. Something was wrong. The shades were drawn, so the room was fairly dark, only a sliver of sunlight pouring through the cracks along the edges of the window, but I could see the room was empty.

“Daemon?” Thinking maybe he’d decided to give the nasty shower a try, I padded across the carpet, ignoring the fact that my feet were going to be black after this, and headed toward the door. I didn’t hear the water running, and I figured no one would bother to use a shower that gross anyway. They’d end up dirtier than they were when they went in.

Sighing, I went back to the bed and sank down on the edge of it. What could I do? Glancing around, I saw that his phone was gone. I couldn’t call him from the room phone because that would be dangerous, and I had no idea what his phone number was anyway. At this point, I was kind of shit out of luck. I’d just have to wait there and hope he came back for me.

Pulling my knees up to my chest, I wrapped my arm around my legs and wondered if he would come back for me. What would I do if he decided I was a liability? He seemed to have believed me when I said I didn’t tell anyone about our last hideout, but he could’ve just been placating me. There was a real chance he’d just left me behind and went to handle this all on his own.

If that was the case, I’d have no choice but to call Drake again. He was the only one who could help me. Of course, there was Sarah. I could tell her I’d been hanging out with some weird-ass creepy guy who left me in a hotel, but my father could trace me back to her, so maybe not. I wondered how she’d been doing. Knowing my father, he’d fed her some lie so she wouldn’t come looking for me. He had to have taken care of my asshole boss, too.

Still going over all of this in my head, I checked the time. It had been about twenty minutes since I’d first woken up. Where the fuck was Daemon? What if the worst had happened to him? What if some of his enemies had gotten to him, and they were coming back for me?

Looking around the room, I didn’t see any of the weapons we’d brought with us. We’d stashed most of them in the van, which had been parked right outside. Getting up, I went to the window and peeked out. The van was gone.

“Motherfucker,” I muttered. Either someone had stolen it and Daemon, or he’d left me.

I couldn’t help the sigh that came out of my lungs. What next?

Before I had the chance to think all the way through the answer to that question, the hotel room door swung open. Panicked, I grabbed the lamp off the nightstand and swung at the intruder, thinking he had to be a thug who’d come in off the street.

Daemon’s hand came up to block the blow. “What the fuck, Elisa? It’s just me.” He chuckled under his breath, probably at my lame attempt to protect myself.

My breathing was still labored as I set the lamp back down. “Where the fuck were you?” I demanded. “I woke up alone and had no idea where you’d gone!”

“Sorry, baby.” He turned to me, taking my arms in his as he dropped a few bags on the bed. “You were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Have you ever heard of leaving a note?” I looked into his eyes and already felt calmer.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t gone that long.” He shrugged like it was no big deal.

“I’ve been awake for twenty minutes.” I shook loose from his grip and folded my arms.

“Fine, I’m sorry. Next time, I’ll leave a note. Actually, we need to get you a phone so that I can text you. But anyway, I felt bad that our date night got ruined, so I went to get us some breakfast.” He turned to the paper bag he’d dropped on the bed, and suddenly my nose came to life with the scents of bacon, eggs, and other breakfast foods.

Daemon pulled out some breakfast burritos, bottles of orange juice, and some cinnamon rolls. All was forgiven. “You hungry?”

“Starving.” I took the food he offered and sank down on the bed, devouring it. We’d had fast food for dinner the night before, but it seemed like an eternity ago now. I bit into the burrito, which was a little soggy, but the bacon was crispy, salty, and delicious, so overall, it was a win.

Daemon pulled a chair over next to the bed and bit into his burrito as well. I noticed he had two burritos and no cinnamon roll. He never really seemed to care for sweets. Maybe it had something to do with never getting a birthday cake.

We ate in near silence, both of us hungrier than we would’ve liked to admit. I ate every bite and then washed it down with the orange juice, which didn’t quite go with the sweet roll, but I made it work. When we were done, Daemon hopped out of the chair. “I got you something else, too.”