She spoke to me again in that unearthly language. It sent shivers up my spine, the sound was so beautiful. Of course I had no idea what she was saying. It could have been Hand over my husband, you shameless hussy! Or something even worse, like Kneel, lowly Earth creature, and prepare to meet your doom.
Just thinking on my doom gave me a little rush of adrenaline. Alabaster was so clearly miserable, shivering in the cold despite all the power she’d conjured up around her, that maybe I could make a break for it. I got to my feet and aimed for the woods. Behind me, I could hear her cry out, and from out of nowhere appeared two more of those beasts. I lifted up the gun and shot the first one straight in the heart—it dropped with a tragic yelp. But that second one looped around and slammed me from behind, tackling me to the ground and sending the gun flying.
I honked desperately, the wind knocked out of me, while the creature kind of straddled me, duffel bag and all. Maybe it was aware I’d killed its two friends because it sure seemed furious. Its rancid breath wafted over my face, and it bit into my shoulder—I felt it rip through layers of leather and wool, all the way through, so its teeth scraped my skin, a wound that opened and bled.
I tried to roll over on my back, but the damn bag prevented me getting enough leverage to get my feet under the beast’s stomach—I hoped maybe a good kick would do it. At the same time I hardly had any hope at all, was really just going through the motions, fighting the creature because I couldn’t stand the thought of going quietly. My shoulder hurt like hell. Now I could see the thing alive—not only half-bear, half-wolf, but plus something that didn’t grow on this earth, with red eyes, long fangs, and claws to match. The only thought my head could form was I guess this is how it all ends.
Probably rolling over was the worst thing I could have done, because the beast liked the look of my neck, the one part of my body that was all exposed and waiting to be torn open. The thing was, when he bit my shoulder, all my layers of clothing had protected his nose and gums—letting just his teeth scrape through. But heading in to relieve me of my jugular, he made skin-on-skin contact, his nose pressing into my neck before he got the chance to sink his teeth in.
All around us, the electricity quieted. The grass and trees stood back up to full attention. From where I lay, looking past the dog-bear-beast, I could see Alabaster, turning even whiter as the beast shuddered and fell back, like it had turned to stone and was on its way to cracking, before collapsing lifeless on the ground.
Alabaster looked at me like I was the devil himself. The gun lay at her feet and she looked down at it. I held my breath, but I guess she didn’t know what it was, because she just left it there. She grabbed the hem of her cape and kind of snapped it, and she and the creatures—the dead one and the stunned one—disappeared.
And now I had two of these creatures, pulsing through me.
I didn’t have time to gather myself and recover. The sirens were getting closer. My only chance was to head for the truck and hope that somehow Touch had made it there. Since I didn’t want anything more to do with that gun, I left it where it was and set off through the woods, out toward the truck, running not with Cody’s speed but something new, something even faster, something not human.
I ran the mile through the woods in just under two minutes, the trees a blur as I flew by. And there to my great joy and relief sat Touch, drumming his fingers on the dashboard, looking like any impatient man waiting on a woman, except maybe a damn sight handsomer.
“What the hell happened to you?” he said, through the open window. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry, I would’ve laughed at the sound of his elegant, almost-foreign voice cussing.
Instead I said, “What the hell do you mean, what the hell happened to me? You were there!”
“There?” he said, like he had no idea what I was talking about. “You told me to get food and then wait for you at the truck, so that’s what I did.”
The adrenaline from my run started to wear off in a sudden burst. I almost thought I would fall on the ground. “But you didn’t,” I said. “You said you wouldn’t and then I heard you in the kitchen talking to someone.”
“No,” he said. “I grabbed what I could from the kitchen and then I came out here to wait for you. Just like you told me.” He said it real firm. Almost too firm. Then I guess I looked like I might be about to keel over, because he reached out through the window to steady me. “Rogue,” he said again, softer this time. “What happened to you?”
“Your wife happened to me,” I said. “As if you didn’t know.”
I shrugged away from him, threw the bag in the bed of the truck, and climbed on into the passenger seat. Touch said, “I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“You didn’t. I know you didn’t. I heard you.”
“You’re hurt,” he said. “You’re confused.”
That first part was certainly true. Maybe the second was, too. I sure did feel dizzy, and not at all like arguing. “Just drive,” I said. “Fast as you can in any direction. Just get the hell out of here.”
Touch did as he was told. As the tires kicked up dirt and gravel, I wondered if it were true, if he’d really left the house before Alabaster arrived. What reason would he possibly have to lie to me? I lifted up my leg to examine where the creature had scratched me. It looked superficial, the worst damage done to my pants. My shoulder, on the other hand, throbbed something fierce, and I could feel the blood seeping through my sweater. There was nothing I could do for it right then, though. First we had to get away from everything that was chasing us.
I had told Touch to just go. But of course he went in the direction he always went. West.
“You’re badly hurt,” Touch said, once we’d put a fair bit of distance between us and the Wheeler ranch, and the sirens. I pushed my shoulder forward—the gash looked to be right above the shoulder blade, so I could just sort of see it if I pushed my chin down toward my back. On top of everything else that damn beast had ripped my only clothes, and stained them, too, since blood was still seeping through at a good rate.
“We’ve got to put something on that,” he said. “To stop the bleeding. And get you to a doctor.”
“A doctor?” I said. “Are you crazy?”
I pulled off my jacket, then pulled my sweater over my head. It was black but would have to do. I bunched it up, pushed the strap of my tank top aside, and pressed it to the wound to try and stop the blood. The cut hurt something fierce, burning and aching.
“You know what a doctor would do?” I said to Touch. “Call the police and stitch me up, in that order.” It scarcely seemed worth mentioning that I probably wouldn’t even get as far as the doctor, since the admitting nurse would likely die attempting to take my blood pressure.
“Stitch you up?” he said, with that quizzical look he got. The familiarity of that look flooded me with warmth toward him. Plus, I appreciated that he hadn’t yet said a word about his wife on account of being too preoccupied with my well-being.
“Yeah.” I did my best to explain needles and thread to him.
“I guess I can see it, for clothing,” he said. “But are you saying doctors do this, insert needles into your body? Sew skin together?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “How do they fix up cuts where you’re from?”
He sighed. “I’m not a doctor,” he said. “So I can’t tell you exactly how the elixir works. I can only tell you it does work. You go to the doctor, you take a swig, you go to sleep. Wake up good as new.”
“No kidding. What if you’re sick?”
“Same thing.”
“Any kind of sickness?”
“Yes, any kind.”
“Even cancer?”
His brow furrowed.
“So you’re telling me that where you come from, there’s no poverty, no needles, no incurable sickness. Remind me again why you left?”
A look came over his face that was so sad I felt sorry I’d said anything. “I left,” he said, “for all the wrong reason
s.”
There wasn’t time to ask him what he meant by that. The gas gauge had sunk to the very bottom of the E, I didn’t know when we might have a chance to fill up, and my shoulder was on fire. “We need to pull over at the next gas station,” I told Touch. Then I pulled out the bills I’d taken from Joe Wheeler’s money clip and started in to counting them, trying not to wince or pass out from the pain as I did.
For some time now, I’d been taking care of myself. Not always doing a very good job of it, but at the very least I’d kept myself alive and sheltered. Before that, like with most kids, I guess, I’d just kind of been a passenger on a moving train. Plenty of days I didn’t even know what I was eating for dinner till the plate got plopped in front of me. And I guess there’d been a part of my brain, from the moment I’d hopped into the first stolen car of our journey—no, I corrected myself, Touch had bought that car—I’d expected to be a passenger. I knew now that I’d mistaken Touch’s otherworldliness for worldliness. Sure he could keep me company. But something about the way he’d reacted to the gash on my shoulder, and the news that it needed stitches, reminded me that whatever super gadgets he might have in his possession, he was about as new to this planet as an eight-week-old baby. If there were any plans to be made, it was going to be up to me to make them.
While Touch filled up the truck with gas, I marched right on into the convenience store wearing nothing but my jeans and tank top, my hair down to cover up the injury and Mrs. Wheeler’s black wool cap over my hair. I bought gauze bandages, a traveling sewing kit, a hand mirror, a bottle of ibuprofen, a new road atlas, and some hydrogen peroxide.
“Lady,” a man said to me, as I stood in line waiting to pay. “You’re bleeding.”
I shot him the evil glare that had started to come naturally. “No kidding,” I said, holding up my purchases so he’d see he wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.
“That some sort of dog bite?” Mr. Busybody said, hovering dangerously close, like he wanted to take a look. “Dog bites you, you need to report it. You need to make sure it’s got all its shots.”
I stepped forward and put my purchases on the counter. “Wasn’t a dog,” I said, hoping my tone made it clear this was none of his business. “I scraped it on an old barn nail.”
The clerk handed me my first aid kit in a bag. I snatched it and started heading out the door.
“Make sure your tetanus shot’s up to date,” the busybody hollered after me, guaranteeing that every last one of the ten people in the store would remember I’d been there, if ever they were questioned by the police.
Sitting in a Motel Six just outside of Dove Creek, Colorado, I squinted my eyes to thread the needle. Joe Wheeler’d had five hundred and fourteen dollars. Touch and I figured it was best to postpone using that blue ball as long as possible, so we wouldn’t be staying in hotels much more, not even cheapos like this one.
Finally I got the needle threaded and ripped off the bandage I’d slapped on in the car—it was soaked through with blood, as was my tank top. The only light garment in my possession, and now I’d have to toss it. Joe Wheeler’s money might buy a few days’ worth of food and gas, but it didn’t exactly leave room for a shopping spree.
I thought again how I should have let Touch go in and buy the first aid supplies. Noticeable as he was, he wouldn’t have drawn nearly as much attention as a girl in ripped-up leather pants with blood running down her back. And he’d gone in anyway, right after me, while I bandaged myself up as best I could. “What’d you buy, anyway?” I said. “When you went into the store.”
“Whiskey,” he said.
“Whiskey! Don’t tell me you have alcohol in that perfect world of yours.”
“I was introduced to it back in Jackson, by my friends in Smith Park. Made the cold a little more bearable. Thought it might help you with the pain.”
I’d already taken about five ibuprofen, which had done something to cut through the bloody pain of the creature’s bite. But I knew that as soon as I started sewing myself closed, the pain would get a whole lot worse. It’s not as if I’d ever plunged a needle in and out of my own body before. I’d only had stitches once in my life, when I tore the back of my leg open on a staple in some old upholstery. I was only about ten at the time, and it took two nurses to hold me down for Dr. Sparks to get the stitches done. Now here I was, all grown up, with nobody stitching me up or holding me down because nobody could do it and survive.
“Hand it over,” I said to Touch, meaning the whiskey. He pulled the little bottle out of the inside pocket of his leather jacket (one of these days I’d have to take a look myself into that inside pocket) and handed it to me. I put down the needle and thread. The bottle unscrewed with a click as the tamper-free seal broke. I took a swig, enough for the warmth to start flowing from my throat to my stomach. Then another, and I stopped myself. I’d only drunk whiskey a time or two before; I needed just enough to dull the pain, but not so much to make my hands unsteady.
“OK,” I said, letting out a long string of breath. “Hold up the mirror.”
Luckily the damn beast had gored my left shoulder. Right shoulder and I never would have got it done. As it was, I had to scrunch up my face, plunge the needle, stop a moment working real hard not to scream, and then pull the thread through. Each time I could see Touch’s face contort in sympathy, and the real effort not to reach out and hold me. He wanted to comfort me so bad, but my arms were bare. So he restrained himself, occasionally reaching over to give my leather-panted thighs a squeeze.
“Hold it up,” I said, for the sixth time. “Hold it up real good and let me see.”
The cut looked terrible. Before threading the needle, I’d burned the end of it, then doused the whole thing in hydrogen peroxide, so it was as sterile as I could get it in these conditions. The five stitches I’d managed looked wide and uneven—holding the skin together sloppily, with little blue bruises and a pinprick where each stitch had gone in and out. It was going to leave one hell of a crazy scar.
“One more stitch,” I said, like I was cheering myself on. I thought of the slug of whiskey I’d take—washing down at least one more ibuprofen. I knew what I really needed was antibiotics, and a tetanus shot like Mr. Busybody’d said. Not to mention a rabies shot—I had to remember to ask Touch if they had rabies where he came from. Because rabies was just what I needed to make my untouchability complete!
I forced my eyes to stay open, plunged the needle in, then out, pulled it to suture the skin together. Touch cut the thread with the little traveling sewing kit scissors, and I tied the two ends together, double and then triple knotting. Then I lay down on my stomach while Touch poured some more hydrogen peroxide over the whole mess. I had to put my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming.
Touch put his hand out, like he wanted to stroke my head, but stopped himself. He said, “I know what did this to you.”
I wondered when he would come around to talking about it. “Oh yeah?” I said.
He made a low noise that sounded less like a whistle and more like growling. If I hadn’t been in so much pain, I might’ve laughed. “That’d be a perfect name for that thing, if it didn’t sound so pretty,” I said.
“They’re not generally vicious,” Touch said. “I’ve never met a vicious one, anyway, though I’ve heard stories about what they used to be like, in the old days. Before Arcadia, they were used as guards at the palace. Now the palace belongs to the people, and those creatures—wildebears, that’s the best translation I can come up with—they roam free in the outskirts, the forest land. I haven’t heard of one attacking a human during my lifetime.”
I pushed myself up to a sitting position and reached for the box of big square bandages. “How’d you know that’s what they were, then?” After I spoke, I ripped the package open with my teeth, then pulled off the protective layer and slapped the bandage on my shoulder. I leaned forward so Touch could take a look at it. “Is it completely covered?” I asked.
“Yes
,” he said. “It is. I’ve heard rumors over the past year. That certain factions were rounding up the wildebears. Training them as guards and worse.” He said this with a very concerned look on his face, and I figured he was thinking on his son, hoping he wasn’t being exposed to the wildebears.
“Listen,” I said. “Whoever trained this one did a damn good job. It went after me like a coyote after a rabbit.”
“But you got away,” he said. “I’m very impressed by that. From the stories I’ve heard, it’s almost impossible to survive a wildebear attack. And you survived two.”
He handed me the whiskey. I took another swig. When I handed the bottle back to Touch, he took a swig himself.
“Are you worried,” I said, “about your son?”
Touch frowned. “I’m always worried about him,” he said. “But not that Alabaster would hurt him. Hurt him physically, that is. There are other ways to hurt a person. And if Arcadia falls, if there’s a war, nobody will be safe for a long time.”
I nodded, and Touch said, with a little crack in his voice I’d never heard before, “But it’s not only that. I don’t want him fed those ideas, about what he deserves, and what’s right for others. And if the wrong side wins… I don’t want him living in a world like this one.”
A world like this one. I almost wanted to tell him it wasn’t so bad, that despite everything that was screwed up about my world there was still plenty of joy to be found between the cracks. The pain in my shoulder started to subside a bit, though the cut still throbbed in a hot and distant manner. And I just couldn’t engage too hard in such philosophical conversation. Touch must have realized this, because he stopped talking. I could tell it still weighed heavy on his mind as I plopped down onto the scratchy motel comforter, my head landing on thin pillows. Touch sat on the opposite bed, taking an occasional sip of whiskey and watching me. He still hadn’t said a word about his ex-wife (I decided in that moment that’s how I was going to think on her, not his wife but his ex-wife).
Rogue Touch Page 13
