Burned: Black Cipher Files #3 (Black Cipher Files series) by Lisa Hughey Page A

I’m warning you. I won’t give her up. Ever. And I’ll make you sorry you ever came after me.”
    For a moment, he went boneless as if every muscle released the tension he’d been holding in a rush of relief. Zeke gripped the door handle of the Volvo. “You won’t be sorry.”
    “I’d better not be.”
    I prayed I wasn’t making the last mistake of my life. I’d lost my freaking mind. But I really didn’t have a choice. The monster could come back at any moment. I could ram the Rover but the commotion would draw attention I couldn’t afford.
    I could run from Zeke, and my stepfather, but with that powerful SUV Zeke would be able to catch me fairly quickly.
    I needed a place to re-group and hide until I could figure out how my stepfather was tracking me. And I needed to let my mother know that the monster really was here. That he’d found us.
    For right now, I had to trust Zeke. He was my best option for getting away from my stepfather. I still couldn’t believe that Mama had given him access to our communication network.
    But until I could talk to my mother and explain that I’d lied about knowing him, she might keep feeding Zeke Thorn information.
    Besides that, I had this irrational urge to trust him.
    The look on his face while trying to convince me had been determined but not desperate and somehow vulnerable. As if he didn’t want to hurt me and he knew enough about me that he could have used other methods to get me to go with him, but hadn’t.
    His obvious sincerity had been what finally convinced me that he was my best option right now. I reached into the back seat and hefted a pink canvas duffel bag into my lap. “Let’s go.”

Fifteen
    Zeke started the Rover.
    “You want to hunch down?”
    “Yes.” She crouched in the well of the passenger seat. “Get the license plate number of the old Dodge truck parked across the street.”
    Her demanding tone struck a chord within him. And he admired her strength. Because for all her terror, she hadn’t fallen apart.
    He noticed the graceful length of her neck, the fall of her hair, and the curls that escaped to drift around her resolute face, softening her, making look more vulnerable.
    Ka-thunk.
    “Who is after you?” Zeke needed more information if was going to be able to help her. The old truck was just that. Old. Nothing special. He needed to find out why she was so terrified of the guy. He didn’t look threatening. He’d been mid to late fifties. Balding, with mostly gray hair and a paunch at the waist. He had the look of a man who’d played football in his youth but the muscle had gone to fat.
    Her silver eyes were shadowed with fear. “Where is he?”
    Zeke stopped at the exit of the parking lot and searched the crowded street, looking for the man who’d induced a blank terror in this amazingly strong woman.
    “Don’t see him.”
    “Turn the opposite way from the path he took.”
    Zeke turned right out of the parking lot and headed away from the campus. He kept glancing in his rearview mirror. And, surprise, the man was peering into the driver’s window of the old Volvo.
    The man straightened and his gaze zoomed in on the Rover. Zeke cursed silently, unsure, but hoping the guy hadn’t made him. Zeke quickly turned right, noting in his peripheral vision that the man was headed leisurely toward the truck. However his gaze was pinned on the rear of the Range Rover. Dammit.
    If he hadn’t caught Zeke’s plate, then he’d likely be running. But the guy was taking his time. Zeke didn’t know if that meant he’d already mentally noted his number or if he didn’t think that Zeke had anything to do with his search.
    Zeke thought about keeping the information from Sunshine but then decided to be up front with her.
    “He may have made the Rover.”
    Zeke rubbed the cap forward and back over his head and repressed the urge to put a comforting hand on Sunshine’s shoulder.
    Her face whitened but otherwise she showed no outward emotion.
    Zeke