She actually flushed, looking down at the table. “No, that's not necessary. I'll climb in the back seat with you when we hit the road again. But until then...” Her hand moved, and her fingertips met Delgado's wrist.
He was about to turn his hand palm-up so he could take hers, but the sensation—a palpable wash of peace that started at the crown of his head and slid down, coating his skin with liquid heat—nailed him in place. Fire roared through his veins. He felt her slipping through the surface of his mind, but the feeling wasn't the agony of his own talent burning and ripping at him even as it served his purposes. Instead, it was as if every bloodstained moment of his life was washed clean, as if she had taken all the pain from him for a brief moment, both the physical pain and the agony of a battered mind stretched to its limits.
When she took her fingers away he had to once again restrain himself from reaching out and grabbing her hand.
She hadn't managed to keep herself completely separate during the touch. The complex wash of emotion from her—relief that he was alive, uncertainty, worry and a powerful crimson-colored guilt—was underlaid with that same strong, clear, pure feeling he hadn't been able to put a name on before. He'd never encountered anything like it. It was dangerous . Getting addicted to that feeling would make Zed look like a cakewalk.
But it meant she was still emotionally attached to him. He could use that attachment, to worm his way back into her good graces and see if he could get a little closer. His hands had stopped shaking.
"Rowan—” he began, his voice rusty and hoarse.
Brew slid in on the other side of the booth, carrying a tray with four glasses. “Diet Coke, root beer, plain Coke, and plain Coke. Take your pick."
She picked diet Coke, Del took plain Coke, and by the time Yoshi had come back the conversation had turned to pizza as the perfect food. Brew was a vocal champion, Rowan a passionate detractor—due to the amount of cholesterol in the melted cheese—and Yoshi weighed in, as usual, with a hymn to the wonders of sashimi. He didn't seem to mind Del sitting next to her.
Del just sat back, sipped his Coke, and watched her grow more animated. He kept an eye on the front of the restaurant and moved a little closer in the booth, almost smiling each time she accidentally elbowed him. To hell with being fair, and to hell with playing nice. He needed her. If he had to add the sin of manipulation to his long list of crimes in the service of fighting Sigma, he was more than happy to do so for her safety.
That's the thing, he thought as the pizza arrived. I've turned into the monster Anton talks about all the time: a rogue freak. I don't care what happens as long as she's safe.
She elbowed him again and gave him a quick look of apology. Del had to take a deep breath and restrain himself from sliding a proprietary arm over her shoulders.
Chapter Nineteen
Rowan sat straight up, her entire body cold and prickling-wet with sweat. She gasped, reaching out to ward off danger, and found her hand caught in slim, strong fingers.
"It's only me,” Yoshi said. “Light.” And with that warning, he flicked the bedside lamp.
"What's wrong?” She almost choked over the words, and then saw Justin. He was repacking her bag, swift and efficient. Brew was gone. She almost reached for him, but that would disturb the portable dampers.
The motel room had two queen-size beds. Justin had elected to sleep on the floor, over her faint protest, and Brew and Yoshi took the other bed. A hideous painting of a lighthouse leered at her from above the television.
"Something's not right.” Yoshi was pale under the even caramel of his skin. “Brew had a nightmare and I think we're being followed. Here.” He shoved a pile of clothes into her hands. “Del thinks something's up too,” he added, apparently thinking that was enough of an explanation.
It was. She knew it was.
Justin zipped the duffel closed. “This is the last one. Get down to the car. If anything jumps, just go. I'll get her out."
Yoshi nodded. “Hurry,” he said, and left at a pace too quick to be called walking but not quite an undignified dash, taking Rowan's bag with him. Justin followed him to the door opposite the curtained window, and checked the hall.
The other bed was rumpled. Rowan swung her legs out and shivered. It was chilly in the room, a cold that seemed far more than physical.
"What do you think it is?” What a stupid question, Rowan. It's Sigma, that's what it always is. Won't this ever stop?
"Probably Carson and his lapdog.” He shut the door quietly, precisely. “Hurry, angel."
The pizza she'd had earlier churned in her stomach as she ran for the bathroom. Yoshi had left her comb, a pair of jeans, a button-down shirt, and her kitbag. She could stuff her tank top and shorts into it on the way down to the car.
The mirror greeted her with a vision of a rumpled, very pale Rowan, her hands visibly shaking as she used the small toilet and changed her clothes, taking a few moments to rinse the taste of fear from her mouth and splash her face with cold water. She decided to keep her tank top on and slide the other shirt over it.
The chill in the room seemed to work its way all the way down to her bones. It wasn't a physical cold, and the extra layer of clothing didn't seem to do much good.
She came out to find the lights off again and Justin by the window, peering out into the parking lot. They were up on the second story. A ground-level room had too many possible avenues of approach. The only trouble was, higher up, the avenues of escape were just as few as the avenues of approach.
The dampers were still running, he would leave them here just in case. “I don't like this,” he murmured.
“You ready?"
"Ready enough,” she managed.
He glanced at her. A thin, tight smile hovered around the corners of his mouth, and her heart began to thump. “Don't worry, angel."
"I'm not worried.” Her voice shook. Embarrassment warred with honesty, and a compromise was reached. “You're here.” She tried not to sound childish.
His eyes warmed for a brief moment. “That's right. Got your kitbag?"
She nodded. Her throat was dry and her head began to hurt, throbbing in time to her racing heart.
“Del..."
"For Christ's sake, angel,” he said, peering out into the parking lot again, “it's Justin . Now come on."
The hall was quiet, carpeted in brown, and thick with the smell of danger. Rowan clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering, Justin's hand closed around her arm just above her elbow, and she had the sudden feeling that the past was curving in on itself like a snake, doubling like a movie reel. He'd hustled her out of hotel rooms before, in the long dim days of their first escape from Sigma. She had never asked him how he had managed to keep a sedated psion out of the hands of several Sig search teams and bring them both safely to Headquarters, with only two nasty knife wounds and a severe case of exhaustion.
He made a low sound of strained amusement as they reached the end of the hall, under the glowing-green exit sign. “Feels just like old times,” he said quietly. “Down the stairs, and we'll take the door to the back parking lot.” He pushed the door open.
Rowan stopped dead. The stairwell should have been lit up with fluorescents. Instead, it was a black pit.
Danger exhaled from it, and Rowan heard a soft sliding sound. A footstep? Justin yanked her back.
"No other stairs,” Justin muttered. “All right."
"No elevator,” she said as he stepped back, sweeping the door closed. He gave a quick glance around—nothing he could use to bar the door, which would have been her first thought too. He'd already instinctively put himself between her and the stairwell; she could feel his sudden determination.
"Too dangerous.” That was the first rule: never use the elevator if you could help it. It was too easy to snip a wire and be caught between floors like a rat in a cage.
She could almost feel his brain clicking through alternatives. He dug in his pocket, fishing the room key out. Why didn't he leave th
at in the room?
"I thought they might have moved in on the stairs,” he said, as if reading her mind. He probably was, despite her attempts to keep herself shielded. God knew they had been close enough before for him to hear what she was thinking. At least once they'd started sharing a bed. “Back inside, Ro. Quick."
The naked, fizzing feeling of dampers slid over her skin again as they ducked back into the room. The hall was empty, but for how long? And the stairwell ... so dark. She'd never seen that before. Never felt that kind of chill malice before.
"Get the top sheet,” he said, pointing, and did a strange thing. He backed up to the end of the short entryway the door gave onto, a gun in his hand. He crouched down and lifted the gun carefully. “It's cotton, nice and strong."
Oh, God, you have got to be kidding. She didn't argue, yanking the bedspread away and tearing the sheet loose. “We could make a movie out of this,” she managed in a thready, unsteady voice. Her head began to pound—not with the glassy, needling pain and nausea of Sigma, but a different pain, this one rising and falling like a roller coaster and making her stomach flutter. What is that? What's going on?
"Not a very good movie,” he replied calmly. “Find something to brace that with, angel. We're taking the short way down."
If he was prepared to risk that, it must be more serious than even she thought. “If they have snipers—"
"This isn't an appropriations or a sweep team. It's Carson and his fucking psychopath. Hurry.” He sounded calm, but his mind suddenly knotted inside hers, dark intent and strange exhilaration making a lethal cocktail. His pulse sped up, and hers wasn't far behind. “Seems like every time I get some time alone with you something comes up."
"Curse of living in interesting times, I guess.” I sound calm. Good for me. She dragged the table to the window, turning it over and slip-knotting the end of the sheet. “Justin—"
He waved at her to be quiet, and Rowan swallowed her words.
Everything slowed down. She finished threading the remainder of the sheet through the slipknot. Her heart hammered, and her palms slipped wetly against the cotton. She had just half-turned to glance out the window at the parking lot when a sharp spike of agony slammed through her head and twisted.
I have you now, an old, lipless voice whispered inside her head, pulling, sinking in, and burning. I have you now. You've run a pretty course, my fine girl, but now it's over. Give in.
She was vaguely aware of cursing—Justin's voice, a rough sound of effort, a sharp popping roar of gunfire and the sudden whistling sound as a knife clove the air. She was barely aware of her head hitting the floor with stunning force as the old voice burrowed past every defense Henderson and Miss Kate had taught her to painstakingly erect. The dark slicing fishhook touched , speared through, and pulled her shrieking out of her own head.
She was struggling, thrashing, mental cords tearing as she fought to stay with herself, to deny him access, to deny him power over her. His laughter, old and unspeakably foul like something rotting from the inside, filled her brain as he chanted the name of the thing he wanted her to do. Give in. Give in. The foulness spread, staining every layer of her mind with contagion like a virus, self-replicating. She thought desperately of ocean, clean water, pure rain washing him away, blocking him out, barring his access.
" Rowan! ” Justin's scream. Rage spilled through her, a rage no more hers than the digging twisting thing in her mind. It was his anger, and it closed around her like a suit of armor, but oh its black depth frightened her. “No! "
He beat at the old voice, smashed it back, and forced a weak cry from her throat. Rowan struggled, thrashing mentally and physically, her wrist hitting the edge of the upturned table with a solid, bruising impact. She felt like a cord stretched between two elephants, Justin pulling from one side, the awful, dry, cracked voice pulling from the other. That rotten fractured voice had smashed through her defenses and sank its greedy claws in, but Justin's black fury pulled her back. He was linked to her far more deeply.
More deeply, even, than she had thought.
Then, as soon as it had come, the voice retreated, leaving behind a sick unsteady feeling and the cold weight of a gun jammed against the temple.
"Let go of her.” Justin's voice, low and harsh, as he pulled the hammer back. “Now, Carson."
"You kill me, it kills her.” The voice quavered, an old man's helpless evil voice. Fury again, burning under her skin, a rage so deep and wide it could consume her.
Rowan screamed, but all that came out was a thready, weak whisper. The voice dug in, tearing, causing damage wherever it could. Give in. Give in. Give in to me, let me IN—
A blinding flash. Justin, reaching through her again. It was dangerous for him to split his focus between her and whatever enemy he was facing. She struggled to lift her head, to fight whatever had struck her so hard.
Pain, a flash along her upper arm. She heard his low curse again, and then a meaty thunk as if someone had split a watermelon.
Agony rolled through her, a burning as if every synapse had been doused with gasoline and lit. Rowan thrashed blindly, heard a rabbitlike scream. It was Justin's pain, the pain he felt whenever he used his gift to break into a mind, the echo of the push he used screaming through her own nervous system. It seemed to last forever.
There was a long deathlike pause. Her vision began to return, and she saw the ceiling—oddly skewed because she lay twisted, half on her back with her arm flung out—and something warm and wet was in her eyes. Her lungs burned, and she dragged in a breath. Another. Blinked, vaguely surprised to find herself alive.
Oh, God. God. What the hell was that?
Her head ached fiercely, as if the hangover had only waited for now to make its appearance. The pulsing of some dark intent submerged itself below the layers of her waking mind, and she felt vaguely horrified through the pain and weakness. What was that thing? Where had it come from, and what was it doing in her head?
"When you get back to Sigma,” she heard Justin say hoarsely, “if you can still talk, you tell Anton I'll do the same to anyone else he sends after her. Now it's war ."
A short gurgle. Another one of those wet, horrible sounds, and she heard distant sirens. Someone must have called the cops. Why?
The noise went on. A short, sharp explosion, a gunshot. A thrashing sound. It was a wonder the cops weren't already here. Oh, God. God, please.
Footsteps. “Rowan?” Harsh, a croak. “Come on, sweetheart. We've got to go."
His face swam into view above her. Blood dripped down its right side, a shocking scarlet. He bent down, and his mind threaded with hers again, a tentative touch against bruised and scorched mental
“skin.” Still, she welcomed it. His mind was clean , not like the rotted thing that had tried to infect her, to break her to its will.
That wasn't a man. That was a sickness in a human body. How many people did he torture to turn his gift into that? She was suddenly, utterly, glad to have Justin. He'd saved her. Again.
Rowan's mouth worked. She had to drag in another breath as he hauled her upright. “Come on, angel.
Walk. We've got to go. Now."
"J-J-J-Justin...” She stammered over the name, relieved when she heard her own voice. The dark thing pulsed, burrowing into her mind, but she couldn't think , could not even imagine what it was. “What—"
"Never mind. Come on ."
"P-P-P—” Push me, she thought. He had to help her. There was something buried in her mind, something unholy. It was too hard to talk. Her throat closed up and refused to obey her. She tried again.
You h-have to. Push me...
"No.” He had his arm over her shoulder and dragged her along. Her head dropped forward, her neck unable to hold it up. She saw a slim man dressed in black lying on the floor, half hidden between the two beds. The lamp was knocked over, the television and the mirror smashed too, and blood painted the pale wall in a high arc, gleaming wetly. The television's shell smoked and sparked. Her
feet bumped something soft. She bit back a moan. There was a long white stick, like the kind blind people used, snapped in half.
“Not gonna push you, sweetheart. Come on, move with me, Ro."
"C-C—” She was about to say I can't , when her legs began to work again. She almost tripped, but he lifted her over the moaning body on the floor in the entryway.
It was a pudgy white-haired man, his sweatshirt torn and his khakis dewed with blood, scrabbling weakly on the floor. The owner of the rotted-out voice. A knife hilt protruded from his throat.
A shattered pair of sunglasses crunched under Justin's boot. “That's my girl,” he said calmly enough. He winced—she could feel the dragging pain in his chest, his scalp, his arm on fire. What had happened to him while she lay useless on the floor?
"Hurt,” she managed. Her wrist throbbed with pain. “You're hurt."
"Doesn't matter.” He half-carried her down the hall. The elevator's blank white doors loomed.
Elevator? “I thought you said—” Help me, please. God help me. Something blurred and shifted. She could no longer remember why it was so necessary he use his talent on her. It hovered just out of the reach of her battered memory. She gasped in cool air, tried to walk. Failed.
"This is an emergency.” The doors folded open, and she managed to help him drag her inside. “You okay? He hit you pretty hard. He's good at cracking empaths."
"H-hurts.” That was an understatement. She felt lethargic and pain beat under her skin, a terrible restless pain like nerves twisting, like insects pricking with needlelike feet. It wasn't normal. Something was happening inside her head. The elevator dinged, and he pushed the button for the ground floor. “How b-bad are y-you—"
"Don't worry about me.” He hissed in a breath, shifted his weight. The weightlessness of an elevator descending tugged at her stomach.
What if Sigma's out there? She didn't mean for him to hear the thought, but he did, and a flood of reassurance tingled through her tired, battered head. God, even a normal person's open sewer of a mind was better than that blind, rotting touch, squirming like maggots inside her skull. Justin's clear, cold calm dispelled the fog of pain and made it easier to think. The walls between them had been shattered. She had the uncomfortable feeling that a mental door between them had been blown off its hinges and she might not be able to put it back on. And something else taunted her, something about what had just happened dancing just outside her mental reach.
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