“Where to?” the guy asked.
I eyed him, taking in the thick muscles in his arms and chest. He wasn’t a dwarf or a giant, but he obviously did regular, hard, physical labor. You didn’t get muscles like that working out in the gym. At best, he was much stronger than I was. At worst, he had magic to augment his physical abilities. I didn’t sense any elemental power radiating off him, though. Either way, I’d just have to take my chances.
“Just like that?” I asked. “You pick up some strange chick on a deserted road late at night, and you offer to drive her wherever she wants? What are you, some sort of Prince Charming?”
The guy shrugged, making the muscles in his chest roll with the motion. “Just trying to be nice, ma’am.”
I let out a crazy, bitter laugh. He kept staring at me. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, only that they were light, almost like marbles set into the rough, rugged planes of his face.
“All right, then,” I said, rattling off the address of Finn’s apartment building. “Take me there.”
“You got it.”
He threw the car into gear and steered down the street. I studied my would-be rescuer out of the corner of my eye. He was wearing dark blue coveralls, although the front was partially unzipped, letting his pale blue T-shirt underneath peek through. His clothes were wrinkled and rumpled, as though he’d been wearing them all day long, and small black holes marred the sleeves of his coveralls, as though some sort of hot sparks had landed on his arms and burned through the heavy material. Maybe he was a mechanic or welder.
The guy didn’t speak for two miles. “You sure you want me to take you to that address?” he asked. “Instead of the police station?”
I tensed. A trip to the po-po was the last thing I needed. What the hell would I tell them, anyway? I was an assassin who’d been f**ked over—literally—by her client. These last few weeks mooning over Sebastian hadn’t exactly been my best. “I’m sure.”
“You want to tell me what happened?”
“I had a rough night,” I deadpanned.
He let out a low, rumbling laugh. Despite everything, I smiled a little. Well, at least I’d amused someone tonight—someone other than Sebastian.
“It seems like it was a little more than rough.”
“What?” I shot back. “You don’t like my bed-head look? I spent hours on it.”
He laughed again, the sound a little deeper and more genuine this time. But his face turned serious, and he stared at me again. “Look, if someone hurt you, or if there’s someone after you, I can take you to the cops. It’s no problem.”
I snorted. “Please. The cops in this town are a joke.”
“Maybe so,” he agreed. “But you look like you could use someone’s help.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing? Helping me?”
“Well, yeah. But you seem . . . really sad and just . . . hurt.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, biting back a curse at how perceptive he was. “My boyfriend and I had a fight. Apparently, he thought it would be hilarious to take me to a party and leave me stranded out in the middle of nowhere Northtown.”
“And your ripped clothes?” the guy asked in a quiet voice.
I shrugged. “The party was back in the woods. I didn’t know where I was going, and I couldn’t see because it was dark. I fell down a hill and landed in a briar patch.”
“Funny,” he said. “Because you look like you’re covered with dust, not dirt.”
I glanced down. The interior of the car was dim, but he was right. A pale gray powder covered me from head to toe, as though I’d had a bag of flour upended over my head. No, I didn’t look like I’d been out wandering around in the woods.
“Well, aren’t you observant,” I sniped.
He continued on as though I hadn’t spoken. “When I first saw you, I thought you were some haint, some ghost, that had wandered out of the woods.”
Oh, I was a ghost all right, one who was going to come back and haunt Sebastian. No, scratch that. I was just going to kill him. More rage burned in my heart, but I plastered a smile on my face. No use scaring my chatty driver. He hadn’t done anything to me—Sebastian had.
“You believe in haints?”
He grinned. “Don’t you?”
I didn’t answer, and he fell silent again. He made a turn that would take us to the downtown loop. The guy drove a few more miles before clearing his throat.
“Your boyfriend is a real dick for leaving you like this,” he said.
“You have no idea.”
“You just don’t do that to a girl, no matter the circumstances,” he continued. “I hope you don’t plan to see this guy again. He’s a total douche bag, if you ask me.”
“Oh, I plan to see him again all right. One more time, in fact, to tell him exactly what I think of him.” Right before I rammed my knife into his heart, but driver dude didn’t need to know that.
He nodded. “Good. I hope you give him a piece of your mind.”
Out of sight, below the seat, my thumb rubbed over the hilt of the knife still in my hand. “Oh, you can count on that.”
The guy hit the downtown loop, and ten minutes later, he pulled up in front of Finn’s apartment building. I glanced up and down the street. Several cars were parked by the curbs, including a black SUV with a bumper sticker that said Vaughn Construction, complete with that distinctive V made out of two thorns curving together. Through the windshield, I could see three giants inside, one of whom was talking on his phone, probably waiting for the final go order from Porter. I let out a tense breath. I had managed to get here in time after all.
Driver dude started to stop in front of the building, which would have given the giants a clear view of me in all my marble-dusted glory. Right now, the element of surprise was the only thing I had going for me, and I didn’t want to lose it.
“Actually, sweetheart, if you don’t mind, pull over into that lot right there,” I said, pointing my finger down the street.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He shrugged, but he steered the car into the lot. He pulled up to a side door, out of sight of the street and the giants’ SUV. He killed the engine, then turned to look at me, his eyes serious once more. “So now that you’re not seeing the dickhead anymore, what are you going to do with the rest of your weekend?”