Dual Release by Tara Nina

that by extinguishing her headlights the driver of the van would think the car turned onto a side road. That was if he even had noticed them at all. With Dour as her navigator, they’d kept a great deal of distance between them and focused only on the van’s red taillights as their beacon in the dark. Luckily, she had enough moonlight to keep the car on the road.
    Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed he’d managed to relax into the seat and had even loosened the intense grip he’d held on the dashboard for most of the ride. From the white color of his knuckles, she’d half expected his handprints to be forever embedded in the dash.
    He’d been filled with questions and she’d done her best to answer them. Most were about the car. Typical guy questions, how’d it work, what did the steering wheel do, the radio, the gearshift, the dashboard, how did the window operate, and most importantly what did it eat? That last one made her laugh. But then she’d realized he was comparing it to what he knew—horses. After that, she tried to see things more from his confused perspective. How would she feel if she’d been awakened from a curse after a couple of centuries? Deciding she’d be scared shitless, she thought his questions through more carefully and held her laughter so as not to discourage him from learning about this new world.
    When the van turned and stopped at a guarded gate, Jenny pulled the car off the road and waited. She didn’t want to drive past and be seen so she chose the first accessible location to hide and watch—a grove of trees. The moonlight filtered through the branches. Each crunch under the tires made her stomach sink as she hoped she wasn’t doing any damage to the car. Cait would kill her. She parked as deeply in the underbrush as she could without getting the car stuck and without hitting a tree.
    “Stay here,” she commanded Dour. Carefully, she climbed out through the open window so the inside light wouldn’t come on if she opened the door. This wouldn’t have been an issue if the switch on the light worked and she could’ve turned it off and gotten out through the door. But the car was old and several things no longer worked.
    Catching sight of movement in the car, she leaned back inside and spoke on a hurried whisper to Dour. “Don’t get out. I’m getting Cait’s binoculars.”
    “ Mi brathair be in trouble and ye want me to do nothing?” he grumbled and she could tell he wasn’t happy about being told what to do. She wasn’t sure if he didn’t like being told what to do or that it came from a woman.
    “For the moment, yes,” she commanded in a low tone, trying not to lose her temper. “We need to think this through and not act on impulse or it might get them killed.”
    She waited until he reluctantly agreed. Jenny turned and walked to the trunk. The moment she opened it, a bright flash at the compound stunned her and she immediately focused on the van, searching for any sign of Cait. Being too far away to see much, she prayed Cait and Dour’s brother were safe.
    “What happened?” Dour questioned as he hung as far out as the passenger window allowed.
    She would have openly laughed at the sight of such a large man squeezing out such a small hole if they weren’t in such a predicament. For a second, she wished she hadn’t shown him how to roll the window down in the first place. Was he stuck? She hoped he wasn’t. Good thing she didn’t show him how to open the door. With the way he listened to her, he’d probably be storming the enemy by now without a plan of attack and blowing any possibility of saving Cait and Donnell.
    “Not sure,” she answered as she hurriedly retrieved the binocular case, opened it and scoured the area with the binoculars. She got a glimpse of Cait and Dour’s brother being shoved toward a doorway into what looked like a hill. Was it some sort of underground facility? Jenny shook her head. How in the hell was she going to get her