Hunter, Healer

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Del turned east, slipping the bag with the hypos into a small loop attached to his rig that would keep them safe.

  "Rest easy, sweetheart,” he muttered, hardly aware he was speaking. “Agent Breaker's coming to get you."

  Chapter Seven

  The phone buzzed and Cath flipped it open. “Yeah?” Long pause. “Great. Great news. ‘Kay, we'll see you at home, baby. Tell Zeke I said smoochas .” Her fair, young face broke into a grin as she hung up.

  The pixie cut suited her more than the Mohawk had.

  She shifted the blue Subaru into reverse and pulled out of the rest stop parking space. “Everyone got out okay,” she said. “How you doing?"

  "Hurts,” Rowan said in a colorless voice. And it did—four hours after she'd been shot the agony was enough to draw a gray curtain over her vision. She was sweating, her cotton T-shirt sticking to her armpits and the small of her back. “Better soon."

  "I hope so. You look like hell.” Cath bit her lower lip, slid the car into “drive,” and began to roll forward through the rest stop. The air-conditioning came on full-blast. Rowan managed to open her eyes.

  The gray-green blurs pressing against the edges of her vision were trees hung with Spanish moss. The small brick rest stop, housing two bathrooms and a map proclaiming Georgia to be a Peach of a State!, receded as Cath accelerated onto the long driveway that would connect them to the freeway. It had taken most of Rowan's waning strength to simply stay conscious and boost Yoshi as Henderson—with his trusty pendulum—found the Sigma check teams, and Yoshi used his talent for electronics to long-distance trigger their equipment. Both the General and the slim Japanese man were in bad shape as well, having stretched their talents to the limit. Zeke would get them out, and Boomer and Brew were well on their way with Lewis and several pieces of gear, heading for the Canadian border. Rowan, for now, was Cath's responsibility—at least until the mind-numbing pain stopped and Rowan could think again.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, tears trickling down her cheeks. “Justin,” she whispered. He was back there, in the city they'd just escaped. Why did she feel like she was abandoning him again?

  "It's okay, Rowan. If he's back there in the city, he's probably got his hands full. He'll find you.” Cath popped her chewing-gum, her violet eyes focused on the road.

  "It's been three months.” I sound like an idiot. Her mouth was dry. The pain in her shoulder gave one more excruciating twinge and, thankfully, began to recede.

  "And you just got proof he was still alive, right?” Cath smashed down on the accelerator and the car leapt forward, merging with heavy afternoon traffic. “What do you want for dinner? We'll stop for something—oh, like Mexican. Mexican sound good?"

  "Fine.” Rowan forced her eyes open. “How are we for supplies?"

  "Got plenty of everything, including ammo. There's the real Rowan. Nice to have you back.” Cath popped her gum again. “Think of this like a vacation. We'll be Thelma and Louise."

  "Christ, I suppose I'm Louise.” It was a pale joke, but Cath giggled anyway.

  "You better believe it, sweetheart. Now, if you're not still moaning, dig out that map and start naggervating me.” Cath began to hum as she felt around in her purse—a khaki army-surplus map bag that doubled as her kitbag—for a pack of cigarettes. “And push the lighter in, will you?"

  "Give me a few minutes, Cath. I got shot , for God's sake.” The pain receded quickly, leaving Rowan sweat-soaked and chill in the blast of cold air from the air-conditioning. Four hours of hell, and her shoulder felt tender and dislocated. It would be better tomorrow, and in two or three days the scar would begin to shrink. Her old childhood scars—a small one on her right knee and the long one on the underside of her left arm from a bicycle mishap—had started to shrink too; a consequence of her breaking whatever psionic barrier she'd smashed the night Headquarters was breached.

  "Yeah, but you're a quick healer. Look at you. Bet it's all closed up by now. That's some voodoo you got, baby."

  Rowan closed her hand tentatively over her wounded shoulder. It felt hot even through the corduroy jacket Yoshi had made her take. He'd packed her clothes and kitbag, too. The canvas messenger bag rested between her hip and the center console. She was armed and dangerous, as the old police shows would have said.

  Funny, she thought through the swell of pain. I wouldn't have known what to do with a gun a year and a half ago. Now I feel naked if I don't have one. And I understand so much more about Justin now.

  Like what it might have cost him to drag a sedated Rowan across the country, eluding Sigma traps and nets to get her to safety. Like what it might have done to him to watch her sink further and further into grieving apathy.

  Like how he must have felt when she'd insisted on becoming an operative. She'd thought he was being brutal, but he'd simply had to be twice as tough as the Sigs would be, to prepare her to face an enemy with no conscience and few scruples. It must have tortured him to act so coldly toward her in the practice room.

  Rowan sighed, her hand tightening on her shoulder. A jolt of fading pain lanced across her chest. She was exhausted. “I've got to get some sleep,” she said heavily. “Wake me up for dinner."

  "Sure thing.” Cath's lighter clicked, she inhaled and then cracked a window to ventilate the smoke. The heavy smell of swamp and heat began to blow into the car's interior, and Rowan fell asleep thinking about juicy green vines and the life rioting wildly out of still stagnant water and sodden ground.

  Chapter Eight

  He picked west because something too deep to be instinct stirred vaguely in him at the thought. Besides, it made no sense for her to go north, that would bring her closer to some of Sigma's thickest-scanned areas. South would pin her against the Gulf with no escape routes after a major brush with Sigma, and east would do the same with the Atlantic.

  So west it was.

  It had been absurdly anticlimactic to escape. All he had to do was push one heavily-armed guard at the bottom of the murderously unfinished stairwell. Apparently even Andrews thought only a suicidally insane person would brave the rickety, no balustrade, leap-over-gaps Delgado had done.

  Maybe they were right. In any case, one bored guard smoking a cigarette was no match for Del. He wanted to take the man's wallet and gear, not to mention weapons, but for maximum confusion he needed to simply vanish without a trace.

  Negotiating the security net on the ground floor and the three-block radius outside the building was another matter. It took him two precious hours to traverse those three blocks. To keep himself invisible from the psionics and their handlers, he had to use every shadow-skill he possessed—he had to avoid killing one of them and leaving a hole, too. The wet heat and slowly increasing need for a hit of Zed made it even more difficult to concentrate. He even crouched behind a Dumpster for a full twenty minutes, less than six feet away from a precog and her handler, only escaping when the handler needed to take the thin bald girl in to a 7-11 bathroom because she had started to moan softly and sway with her knees pressed together.

  I could have ended up like that.

  And maybe this faceless Rowan Price could have ended up like that. The thought of that clean, deep mind broken, and maybe a brutal handler to add to the fun, made sheer red protective fury rise in him.

  What the hell am I doing?

  His first need was money. Thankfully, it was now in the prime hours of dusk, and he found himself in a bad part of town. He summarily relieved three crack dealers of their cash and left them with blinding headaches. He could have also taken a very nice Glock 9mm, but he wasn't sure if it was a clean gun.

  Del broke it down and left the parts in two separate Dumpsters. A cab ride later, he found a small teriyaki shack unlikely to have surveillance cameras and put away three bowls of rice and chicken. He wanted to buy some ibuprofen because he felt as if something monstrous was being torn from the center of his brain, but he didn't have time. Hunger would slow him down, but he could live with pain for a while longer before n
eeding to deal with it.

  He made it out of the city with thirty-eight hundred dollars and a ride hitched in a DariMilk semi that was actually, according to the garrulous mutton-chopped man driving it, carrying grape mash for winemaking.

  "Yeah, ain't no money to be had in carrying fuckin’ milk,” the driver said as Del settled back in the seat and watched the asphalt slip away under the wheels.

  "Guess not,” Del replied with a thin attempt at humor.

  The driver was feeling chatty, and his rig reeked of cigarette smoke and old sweat. The initial push to make him friendly hadn't been hard. Larry the Truck Driver was a lonely man, glad for someone to talk to. Del made the appropriate noises, one part of him monitoring the chatter from the CB radio and the patterns of traffic in front of and behind the semi.

  He'd done the easy part. Now he had to find Rowan Price.

  Chapter Nine

  "This has got to be the bleakest part of the country,” Rowan complained the next day, leaning against the back of the car as Cath deftly smacked the gas pump nozzle into the car like a teat into a piglet's mouth.

  “I mean, look at this."

  Rolling hills lay flat and pleated, covered with whatever grew on Oklahoma sod. The landscape stretched from horizon to horizon with nothing to break its monotony but the highway's dips. Deep blue sky was scored with the blazing eye of the sun, mercilessly beating down on humid black dirt and matted grass.

  The faraway shape of a water tower lifted like a distant pregnant elephant, another welcome break in the flatness. Insects hummed in the fitful hot breeze and sweat lay like oil against Rowan's forearms, between her breasts, against the curve of her lower back and behind her bare knees. She was glad she could wear shorts, even if she had to wear a T-shirt because of the glaring chunk taken out of her right deltoid. It was an angry bright red and didn't look like a normal wound should. Because it was healing too quickly, it looked weeks instead of days old and paradoxically fresh.

  Cath glanced around. “Nothing but sod, huh? But the hills break it up a little. Not like Wyoming. You ain't seen a whole lot of nothing until you see Wyoming.” She scratched at her cheek, the tails of her Dr.

  Who scarf stirring in the low, warm breeze. At least it wasn't the cloying heat of the city; this heat was fractionally less muggy.

  But the insects are worse. Rowan slapped at a bite on her forearm. The sky was a deep venomous blue, no trace of a cloud except in the south, where a thick band of black smudge promised a thunderstorm later in the day. I never thought I'd miss Saint City rain. Rain four days out of every five, rain until you grow mold between your toes. God. “How are you feeling, Cath? Want me to drive for a while?"

  "We should make Amarillo late-late tonight, and we'll stop for some real food and a real bed. We've made good time. Wish we didn't have to go through New Mexico, even for a minute. How's your arm?"

  The sign proclaiming Gas-Food-Ice squealed as the restless wind mouthed it. “My arm's okay.” Rowan massaged her left shoulder, feeling only a slight twinge—probably psychological. “We have made good time. I wish we could know how the others are doing."

  "They're probably fine. Worry about us first.” Cath popped her Juicy Fruit gum again and the gas pump clicked off. “I'm going to go get my change and some Doritos. You want anything?"

  "A cold Coke, if they have it. That bathroom dried my mouth out.” Rowan grimaced, and Cath laughed as she strode away toward the ramshackle mini-mart attached to the gas station. It had an actual Dirty Harry movie poster tacked to the window, Clint's sneer turning as yellow as the rest of him through the dingy glass. Rowan stood and waited, leaning against the car and blinking as the dust-laden wind rose again. The asthmatic ice machine on the store's front porch wheezed and made a cluttering thump.

  It was actually nice to be out in the country, with precious few people emitting confusing bursts of thought and emotion. Instead, there was the clean sweep of wind—full of chemical stink, probably from oil fields since the wind was from the south, but good enough. Rowan caught a flash of focused thought just as a hawk dove out of the deeply blue sky and caught some poor small bundle of fur. The hawk's satisfaction was a thread of gold spilled through the song of tough stubbled grass, weeds, and the ribbon of the highway.

  Rowan closed her eyes, letting the wind blow through her, hoping the space and sky would ease the creeping guilt chewing at her chest. And the nagging hole in her head, where Justin should be.

  "I got us some Pop Tarts too,” Cath said at her elbow. Rowan nodded, her eyes on the sky now. There was no sense of peace to be found in the deep blue haze. “And a couple of Tiger Tails. Come on, we're on a field trip, we might as well live a little dangerous."

  "If preservative-laced sugar isn't dangerous, I don't know what is,” Rowan muttered good-naturedly, and Cath stuck her tongue out.

  "Says the woman who can eat a whole pound of bacon at one sitting."

  "Only if it's crispy enough.” Rowan stretched. The wind was beginning to fall off, and she saw a distant flash among the black clouds gathering on the horizon. I wonder if they get big storms all the time, she thought, and shivered. “You need me to drive?"

  "Hell no. I need you to hand me my Tiger Tail when we cross the state line. Let's go."

  * * * *

  They did indeed make Amarillo late, so late Cath had to shake Rowan awake, her violet eyes bloodshot.

  “Come on,” she said, yawning. “I've got us a room, and there's a greasy-spoon diner."

  "Mrgh,” Rowan managed, opening bleary eyes. “Christ, I'm sorry."

  "No problem. I'll shoot you later. Help me carry the gear."

  Half an hour later, with the room clean and countermeasures in place, they crossed the weed-choked parking lot to the slightly better-lit, flat, cracked asphalt lot unrolling around what a buzzing neon sign proclaimed as Babe's Blue Hole Café. Cath lit another cigarette and coughed, deep and racking. “Want one?"

  "I'm trying to cut down,” Rowan returned, deadpan, rubbing at her left shoulder. Her hair felt greasy, her face felt leathery and dry, and her shoulder ached. Her entire body ached after two whole days in the car, catching only broken sleep as Cath drove, Cath napping as Rowan piloted the car over the gray ribbon of highway after highway. “I'm dying for a club sandwich. And an apple."

  "I think they can only help you with the sandwich. This part of the country ain't known for health food.”

  Cath stepped over onto the pavement. “You're worrying again."

  Rowan nodded. “I'm sorry, Cath. I know I should be focusing on—"

  "The thing I can't understand,” Cath said, bowling right over the top of Rowan's sentence, “is why you picked him . I mean, he's Delgado , for chrissake. He used to be Sigma, and he's scary . Was it just because he rescued you?"

  "You don't know him,” Rowan said flatly. “They did terrible things to him, Catherine. And he..."

  How could she explain that he was the only person who had truly seen her? Sigma saw her as a resource to be obtained, and the Society saw her as a powerful psionic to be kept out of Sigma's hands. Her father had seen her as his little princess, and even Hilary had only known Rowan as her slightly weird and geeky best friend. The only person who had seen Rowan as thoroughly as Justin Delgado had been her mother, long dead of a stroke.

  "He's different,” she finally said, as they walked up the sidewalk toward the front entrance of the restaurant. Mellow electric light shone out through the windows, and she saw a few nighttime customers and braced herself for the familiar wave of chaos that was normal minds.

  "You can say that again,” Cath snorted. She exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke. “He's scary different. You know what weirded me out the most? How he would just appear out of nowhere. One second, nobody there. Next, boom , Del's there saying hi. Freakiest fucking thing in the world. He even freaks Zeke out, and nothing scares Zeke."

  I know just how scared of him you all were. Rowan took a firm grip on the remains of her failing pat
ience. Nobody ever thought that maybe he was traumatized by what those bastards did to him.

  Drugs and electroshock. And beatings, although he never really talked about those. What was it he said? “They wanted what I could do, and I was ... resistant."

  The way he would stand so completely still, as if he'd forgotten to breathe, staring at Rowan with that oddly intent look on his face. How shy he was—and that was something the rest of the Society wouldn't have believed. They thought he was superhuman and coldly, efficiently robotic. Just a killing machine, a training machine. None of them saw the man who had slept in a recliner for months while Rowan took over his bed and eventually his entire room. She still cringed at the thought of how she had blithely assumed the room empty because it had no betraying personal marks or possessions other than a few clothes and Justin's weapons.

  "He's not scary,” she said quietly, holding the door open for Cath, who hadn't even bothered to ditch her cigarette. “They tried to break him. I'm not sure they didn't do it, in some ways. Emily asked me this too, you know. Why him? Well, he needs someone. Maybe I'm just a sucker for people who need me."

  "Well, we need you too.” As usual, Cath didn't sugar the pill. “You keep insisting on chasing him down everywhere we go and you're going to get someone killed—maybe one of us and maybe you. Let it go ...

  Yes, table for two. Smoking. Thanks, sweetheart."

  Rowan sighed, exhausted. Even keeping the faint blur that would disguise the fact that she was armed was a heavy weight against her mind. The leaden bottle-blond waitress shuffled them to a back booth and settled them with overheated coffee, plastic menus, and glasses of tap water. The smell of fried foods drenched Rowan's skin, and she was suddenly very tired of running and hiding.

  Even at Headquarters it had felt like hiding.

  I don't just want to stay alive, she thought. “I want to destroy them.” Her low murmur caught her by surprise.