Mated to Alphas (Series Collection) Chapter 121: 30. Eva: Running

Shivers racked my body.

No matter what I did or how much I tried, I just couldn’t get warm. I knew the chances of that happened were slim because of my wet clothes.

“Eva.”

My eyes snapped up.

“Can you search the back?” Lucas asked softly.

“W-what am I l-looking for?” I swallowed and turned in the seat but paused to hear his answer.

“Anything. Weapons or something to get the two of you warm but don’t drink any water or eat the food if you find any.”

O-okay.”

I scrambled over the back seat into the back of the car and stared at the bags.

We’d—Ariana, Lucas and me—escaped but they were still back there. My Dad was back their fighting trained Hunters with two men who could be in on it all. Ethan could’ve called them—he was a stranger after all. Four men were no match for twenty Hunters, well sixteen since Lucas killed four when we escaped through one of the bedroom windows.

“Found anything?” Lucas’s question snapped me back to earth.

“N-not yet.”

I grabbed the bag near my knee and carefully unzipped it. My stomach churned as I stared down at the guns. There were more than a dozen and it looked like something you’d see in war movies. Zipping the bag closed again, I reached for another.

We’d only encountered four Hunters on our way to the garage but Lucas had killed them before they could sound an alarm. After he killed them he’d led us to one of their cars and even managed to hotwire it.

I had no idea what Grayson had done as a distraction but it had worked. I just hoped that none of them got hurt in the process.

Blowing out a breath, I forced myself to focus on the task at hand.

“There are three bags with weapons,” I told Lucas a few minutes later. “Two with ropes, tape, cable ties and bottles of white liquid. One has water bottles.”

“What kind of weapons are there?”

“Mostly guns,” I said as I climbed back over the seat.

“Any knives?”

I shook my head and then realized that he couldn’t see me. “No.”

Lucas muttered a curse.

“W-where are we g-going?” Ariana asked from the seat next to him.

“I don’t know,” he answered after a few minutes of silence.

“Lucas—”

“Just let me think, doll,” he interrupted.

I hesitated a moment and then slid forward to lean in-between the seats. My eyes instantly locked on Lucas’s clenched hands around the steering wheel before they darted over to my sister.

“Were you hurt?” I asked her.

A silent shake of her head was the only answer I got. She didn’t even ask if I was hurt or not! Bitch.

“We can’t leave town,” I told Lucas. “It would be the first thing they’d expect us to do.”

“We don’t have much of a choice,” he muttered. “The town. . .” He trailed off with a slight shake of his head.

Unwilling to give up so easily, I leaned forward a bit more. “We can make them believe that we left town and then circle back for Dad and—”

“Your mate?” he sneered.

“I—” I broke off. “We’re not leaving them behind.”

Lucas remained silent.

Growling, I sat back in the seat and stared out the window. I crossed my arms over my chest and shivered as my skin brushed the cold clothing. No matter what he was planning, I wasn’t going to leave them behind.

I just had to make sure that I paid extra attention to where we were going.

***

“Keep it running,” Lucas ordered as we switched places. “Don’t let it die.”

“I heard you the first time,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

He threw a glare my way before he leaned over the back seat and unzipped the bags. Lucas searched through the bags until he found what he was looking for.

Ariana’s soft gasp had my head snapping around. My eyes locked onto the gun Lucas was busy loading.

Not only could he fight but he knew how to use guns too. Lucas also knew about our kind. Where had he learned it all?

“Stay in the car,” he ordered as he looked up. “I won’t be gone long.”

“Where are you going?” I questioned.

“To grab us some things.”

“You’re going to steal?” Ariana gasped.

“We do what we have to in order to survive.” He slipped the gun into the back of his pants. “Just stay in the fucking car and don’t draw attention to yourselves.”

His eyes darted over to Ariana for a heartbeat and then he slid out of the car and hurried across the street.

I gripped the steering wheel as my eyes darted around. The rain had stopped again but despite that there weren’t a lot of people around.

Turning my head, I looked at Ariana. “Did you tell him about us? About what we are?”

She swallowed loudly. “No, he knew already.”

“Before Oliver...?” I trailed off.

Ariana gave me a stiff nod.

My frown deepened.

“He said his mother taught him about us.” She shifted in the seat. “Lucas gave me injections to heal me.”

That answered Dad’s question but not the million I still had. Only pack doctors could give Lycans something to make them heal faster. If Lucas had met with a pack doctor then Dad would’ve been informed about it.

“You allowed it?” I growled. “You need to get tested as soon as possible.”

“Tested?” Ariana turned to face me more. “For what?”

“We don’t know him, Ariana!”

“He’s our mate!” she yelled.

“He’s a stranger.” I reached out to grab her hand but she jerked it away. “Mate or not, we don’t know him. He’s a stranger, a human, Ari! He’s—”

“He’s our mate,” she interrupted. “I believe that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt us.”

Ariana was he only one who believed that.

I wasn’t going to lie and say that I didn’t feel the mate-pull. It was and would always be there no matter what happened between us. But I was thinking with my brain instead of my heart like Ariana.

Mate or not, there was something about Lucas that set me on edge. He jumped into our lives too fast for my liking.

“He’s coming.”

I blinked and reached down to shift gears. There was no time to look out the window because in the next second the back door opened and Lucas jumped in.

“Go!” he ordered.

I pulled out of the parking and sped off down the street. Nobody followed us but that didn’t mean that nobody saw him.

“Where am I going?” I asked him.

“Just drive until I tell you to stop,” he ordered.

“Okay then.”

My eyes dropped to the dashboard to check the fuel. We couldn’t drive around all night and I told him that.

“Eva,” he hissed. “I know that! Just do as I tell you and stop second-guessing me.”

***

*Are you sure it’s going to work?*

The words hovered on the tip of my tongue. I’d come close to asking him twice already but I managed to stop myself just in time.

Ariana shuffled closer to my side until our shoulders brushed.

Lucas had managed to grab both of us jackets and a change of clothes along with baseball caps to shield as much of our faces as we could. There were also some bottled water and snacks.

My sister and I stood side by side a few feet away and watched Lucas as he messed with the SUV. After a few minutes, he walked to the back of the car where he pulled one of the bags out. Walking over to us, he dropped it at our feet and then walked back to the car.

Surprisingly, Lucas had agreed with my plan to make the Hunters think that we left town. Leaving was exactly what they’d expect us to do. Lucas was going to blow up the car and then we’d have to go on foot to wherever he was planning on taking us.

According to him, the first thing we needed to do was find a place to lay low. We needed to stay out of public as much as possible until we could figure out what to do next.

I blinked and watched him as he walked back to the driver’s side. Whatever he did made the SUV start moving. It slowly rolled forward as Lucas slammed the door closed and jogged over to us.

He picked up the bag and took hold of Ariana’s hand. “Let’s go.”

“What about the SUV?” I asked him as I hurried to catch up with them.

“It’ll explode on impact,” he called over his shoulder.

I stared at it for a few more seconds before I caught up with them. Moving to the other side of Ariana, I slid my hand into hers and held on tight. We were a few miles out of town at a place that was deserted this time of night. Nobody would’ve seen anything which was great but it meant that it was going to be a long walk back to town, not that I minded.

As long as it didn’t start raining again.

My stomach growled loudly. Colour flooded my cheeks when Lucas glanced over at me.

“You can eat as soon as we reach our destination.”

“Is it far?” Ariana asked him.

He gave her a small smile. “Only a few minute’s walk.”