Jack! Embarrassment vied with concern as she glanced around the empty truck box for him. If he had seen . . . but, no, he was passed out in the opposite corner. A rueful smile tugged at her lips. Today would not have to be the day for that birds and bees talk.
Jack was sleeping heavily, his head cradled on one arm. She watched him, her heart aching. She would have spared him this if she could. Him and Ethan. If there had been a way to overcome Ethan’s instincts to protect her, she would have climbed into the back of the van without a protest to save the two of them. But she had tried that once before. Ethan just wasn’t capable of giving her up without a fight.
As before, there was water in the back of the truck with them. She tore open a bottle and upended it, draining it in seconds. Then she grabbed another bottle and crawled to where Jack lay huddled on a pile of blankets.
She lifted him into her lap. “Hey, buddy, time to wake up.”
It took more than a minute of cajoling, jiggling and, finally, chafing at various pulse points to get him to come around. She blew out a breath in relief when at last his lids lifted a fraction and showed the blue of his eyes beneath.
“Thirsty,” he mumbled.
“Got some water right here, baby.”
“My head feels funny.” His voice was stronger.
“I know, buddy. They gave us drugs to make us sleep. They wanted us to be quiet.”
Jack sat up as if he’d been poked. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know, Jack. I can’t tell how long we’ve been driving.”
He lurched to his feet and weaved to the front of the truck, pressing his ear against the panel that separated the cargo compartment from the front seat. He listened for a long moment, his face screwed into an expression of concentration. Then he looked at her with something close to panic.
“I can’t hear anything!”
“What’s wrong, honey?” She took his hand and made him sit down. “What’s going on?”
“Mom, do you think we’re in Arizona yet?”
She tried not to let her exasperation show. “I don’t know, Jack. Maybe. Why?”
“Because that’s where it’s going to happen.”
“Where what’s going to happen?” Her voice took on an edge; she couldn’t help it.
Jack just looked at her like she had no sense. “Something bad. Something really bad!”
As he spoke the truck swerved to the right, the tires below them rumbling over rough pavement. They were no longer on the interstate. Asia wondered just how long it had been since they’d left the highway. Jack’s face had gone pale. For the first time since they’d been taken, he looked terrified.
She took his hands in hers. “Okay. We have to let your dad know where we are. Come on. You have a job to do.”
He nodded, swallowed. His gaze darted to the front of the truck and back.
“Jack!” She was stern with him, forcing him to look at her. “Settle down. Think. Do what you were taught to do.” Beyond that she couldn’t help him. She didn’t know what it was he did, but apparently what she suggested was the right thing.
He calmed down. He closed his eyes.
Then the truck slid to a rough stop, and Jack looked up at her in horror. “It’s too late.”
Ethan dropped to his knees in the shower, felled by a bludgeoning avalanche of dread so dark and impenetrable he could barely lift his head. For long seconds there was nothing but overwhelming emotion—terror, raw and ungovernable; a panicky search for help.
They’re coming! They’re coming, and I don’t know what to do!
Then silence, more frightening than the wail of a little boy’s terror in his mind. Ethan began to tremble, every muscle locking up with shivery tremors, even though the water still pelted down as hot as he could take it from the showerhead.
Please, God, not after all of this, he prayed. It can’t be the end. Not now.
An hour earlier he’d crashed on the couch in the den, the television tuned to something inane. The FBI agents had long since learned to leave him alone; he wasn’t pleasant company, and who knew when he might turn out to be a viable suspect again. Sam and Rayna had given up on him, too, for the night. So he’d been alone when he’d dreamt of Asia and woke in the middle of an orgasm.
He’d wanted her so damn bad. The dream had felt so real. It had been as if he could still feel her wrapped around him. He’d had to jerk off again as soon as he got upstairs into the shower. And yet he’d been angry—so fucking angry with her, though God knew he couldn’t blame her for any of this.
And now . . . Jesus, Jack! What the hell is going on?
Ethan pulled himself to his feet and slapped at the faucets to turn the shower off. He refused to believe there was nothing he could do to help his family. He dried off and got dressed, then picked up the fancy comm unit Sam had left behind for him to use.
Sam responded to his signal, but he didn’t sound happy. “This better be important.”
If it had been another time, he might have smiled. “I’m sorry if I interrupted something.”
“Shit. Ethan. No, I’m sorry. I, uh, I didn’t look at the readout. What’s wrong?”
“I . . .” He stopped, started again. “I got a partial message from Jack. Then it cut off. They’re in trouble, Sam. You’re still tracking them, aren’t you?”
There was just the slightest hesitation. “My crew would have told me if they’d lost track of them. Give me a second.”
A soft murmur of voices—Ray’s rising alto, Sam’s answering bass–confirmed he’d interrupted his friends’ limited private time. Ethan waited, swallowing an ache that was equal parts regret and envy.
“I was calling up their current location on my compscreen,” Sam explained when he came back. “Looks like something is happening. They’re off the interstate. And they’ve stopped. Pulled up about fifteen minutes ago.”
Ethan’s heart dropped into his belly. “Where are they?”
“Middle of fucking nowhere in Arizona. No town, no stores, no houses, nothing.”
“Breakdown?” God, please tell me—
“No way to tell.”
“Jack was afraid, Sam. For the first time in this whole mess, he was terrified. And now I can’t hear him.”
“Okay, just calm down. It could have been anything. We already talked about the fact that they probably drugged him. He’s likely disoriented. All this could be starting to get to him a little. That would only be natural.”
“We need to find them, Sam.” Ethan refused to be “handled.” “Where is Gabriel?”
“They’re catching up. We don’t have a track on him and Lana so I’m not sure—maybe six hours behind?”
“Damn it, Sam! They might as well be on the far side of the moon!”
“No.” Sam paused for effect. “I think I’d know.”
“You can’t send a team in from up there?”
“Ethan. Take a minute to think, man.” Sam’s voice was soothing, logical. “We’re not positive this vehicle is carrying Asia and Jack; that part is just an educated guess. Even if we’re right, we go blasting in with no plan and no cover and we’d do nothing but get them killed. If they’re off-road now, they’re probably going to ground again. That’s a good thing. Trust Gabriel to do his job. Believe me, he’s the best there is.”
Ethan blew out a frustrated breath. “Okay. Just get in touch with Gabriel. Tell him to put on some speed.”
“We’ll do everything we can, my friend. Hey. You want to come up here and keep watch?”
“No. I don’t know how far Jack can ‘send.’ I better stay close in case he tries to reach me.”
There was another pause. Sam still didn’t trust his communication with Jack. Ethan tried not to hold it against him.
“Okay,” Sam said at last. “I’ll let you know as soon as we learn anything.”
South of the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation, Arizona, Earth, Sector Three
The doors in the back of the truck opened to reveal two men, their husky fram
es silhouetted by the deep orange, lavender and purple of the desert sunset behind them. One gestured to the other. “Get the brat.”
Jack went rigid in her arms. Asia turned him toward her and wrapped arms and legs around him. “Like fuck.” She curled inward, giving the man as little to grasp as she could.
He wasted no time fighting her. He pistol-whipped her in the back of the head. Her arms would not obey her commands as her vision exploded in shards of bright white and neon color, then faded to black. She only blanked out for a second, but it was enough. She went limp, and the man pulled Jack, kicking and screaming, from her grasp.
“Fucking bitch.” He kicked her in the ribs as he took Jack.
The boy was inarticulate with rage and fear, growling and spitting, writhing in the man’s grip to no avail. Helpless and despairing, Asia watched them take him, seeing Jack as he’d been when she and Ethan had first fostered him—unable or unwilling to speak, so traumatized by what he’d been through that any frustration would send him into blind, feral rampages. All the progress he had made, all the love they had given him, and it was all going to be for nothing. They had stripped Jack to his essential terror in seconds, and it was going to end before she could do anything to help him.
She cursed and dragged herself to her knees, unable to make it to her feet. She crawled, fighting the nausea and the dizzy pain in the back of her head, ignoring the crushing disability in her side to get to him. Goddamn it, Jack was not going to die out there alone! He was going to know she was there for him. He was not an animal, a slave, a piece of garbage that the galaxy used and threw out. He was her son. And Ethan’s. And they loved him.
She made it to the edge of the truck and looked out. They had dragged Jack to the lip of a draw. One of the men was pulling a gun out of his waistband. She rolled from the truck to the ground and started to stagger in their direction.
She shouted. “Jack!”
He looked up. Met her eyes.
Somebody grabbed her from behind. She struggled in an iron grip, fighting to get to Jack. “No! Get your fucking hands off me!”
The men with Jack looked around, dismissed her, went back to their business.
No!
The man with the gun raised his hand.
She felt . . . something . . . an electric charge . . . go through her, and the man behind her fell away. She turned her head to look. He wasn’t there.
And when she turned back to look at Jack, the men around him just . . . vaporized.
Jack stood alone on the edge of the draw, his hands at his side, his face blank and pale. Asia stumbled to a stop, her heart thundering in her chest, unable to understand what she had just seen. She turned and looked back toward the truck. The vehicle sat unattended by the side of the road. There was no sign of anyone for miles except for Jack and herself.
She stared at the boy standing motionless not a dozen yards from her, his eyes on the ground. He had done this. Oh, God. Somehow Jack had done this and saved himself—and her. She took a shaky breath and ran to him. “Jack?” She knelt in front of him and reached out to put both hands on his shoulders. “Jack. Look at me.”
After a long moment, he raised his eyes to hers. They were a dark, dark blue, so unlike his usual bright color that she pulled in a breath. And they were full of uncertainty. But Asia wouldn’t let him think for a second that any of her reaction was due to a fear of him.
“I was so scared, Jack,” she told him. “So afraid I’d never see you again. Whatever it was that you did to save yourself, honey, I want you to know that it was okay. I’m glad you did it. Because it means you’re here now and we’re both safe. You were very brave.”
Jack just looked at her with those blue, blue eyes and a face so expressionless it could have been struck from the red rock of the desert that surrounded them. Even the brief doubt he had shown had faded into blankness. He had retreated again, to that place he’d found to hide when life was too painful to endure. It had taken all of Ethan’s professional skill and the love of both of their hearts to bring him out of that cave the first time. Asia had no idea what it would take to coax him out again.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.” She pulled him into a hug, her tears rolling down her face to soak into his dark hair. After a minute she pulled back and brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Come on.” She stood up and took his hand. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
She was almost giddy as she trotted back to the truck and boosted Jack into the front seat. They were going to get out of this! This nightmare was almost over! She yanked open the driver’s side door and scanned the interior. There was little of use—no cell phone, no map, no clue as to where they were. There was a GPS, though she wasn’t sure they could use it without leading their kidnappers’ colleagues to them.
She slid behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition and . . . nothing. She pumped the gas and tried again. No crank. No catch. No click, even. The truck was as dead as its owners, probably for the same reasons. After all, Jack had been responsible for a breakdown before.
“I don’t suppose you could fix this, Jack?” She gestured at the truck.
He shook his head.
“Are you sure? It’s important.”
The head shake was adamant this time. Then he looked out the window.
“Okay. Okay, Jack. I understand.” But now they were stuck in the desert with night coming on and the likelihood of another car coming by on this pathetic excuse for a highway was—
“Oh, my God! I think those are headlights!”
She jumped out of the truck and stood in the road. These people were not going to drive by them. She waved both arms over her head, just in case they didn’t get the message.
“Hey! We need help!”
A battered old pickup slowed its approach and swerved to the left side of the road. For a brief, breath-catching moment, Asia thought maybe they wouldn’t stop, that the move to the left was just so they could get around her and go on. But she could hear a high, quavery voice issuing orders from inside the cab, a lower, younger one arguing back, and the truck slid to a dusty stop beside her.
She came up close to the open passenger-side window, where a wizened, bronze-skinned crone gave her a sunny grin. A young man of about twenty-five was scowling behind the wheel, sweat running from beneath a Stetson that looked like it had spent time under the tires of the pickup.
“Hi. Thanks for stopping.”
“Trouble,” the old woman said.
“Yeah, you can say that again.” Asia nodded. “My son and I need a ride. Do you have a cell phone?”
The man shook his head. “Cells don’t work out here. No towers. There’s a phone at a store down the road. We can take you.”
“Thanks. Really. Thanks so much.” She ran back to the truck, gathered Jack in her arms and brought him around. The woman slid to the middle of the bench seat and made room for them. Asia climbed aboard and put Jack in her lap. Like most of the farm trucks she’d ridden in as a kid in Tennessee, the seat lacked a safety belt.
The young man put the truck in gear and rolled back onto the road. Then he leaned forward to squint past the old woman at Asia. “You driving that truck by yourself?”
“Yeah, it’s a rental.” She lied as smoothly as she could. She saw no point in starting a long, unbelievable story about a kidnapping. “Got turned around at the last exit, started going the wrong way, I guess, then the thing just quit on me.”
“Hunh.” Then, “Timing chain, maybe.” He didn’t offer any support for his argument.
“Could be. It didn’t overheat or anything.”
The woman gestured at Jack. “Your son.”
Asia smiled. “Yes. This is Jack. I’m Asia.”
“Geneva Twohawks. That’s my grandson, Hardhead.”
“Keep it up, old woman, and I’ll make you walk home.” The man scowled. “Name’s Will.” He thought for a moment. “You come this far off I-40?”
“Yeah.” Asia laughed. “Talk about lo
st, huh?” She had no clue how far off the interstate she was. “I just kept hoping I’d see a sign.”
Will grunted. “Only sign you’d see out here would be fucking ‘wrong way.’”
Geneva responded with a frown. “Huh. Comedian.”
Having the windows open made for a noisy ride, so there wasn’t much conversation once the truck got up to speed on the flat highway. Asia was grateful. Something about Geneva Twohawks’s shrewd brown eyes made it hard to lie to her, and something about her grandson made it hard to tell him the truth. She was glad to be able to keep quiet.
A deep blue night sky sprinkled with stars had rolled out over the desert by the time they pulled off the highway into the pot-holed parking lot of a one-room store. Jack had fallen asleep in her lap and was a dead weight in her arms as she carried him inside. Asia was close to sleepwalking herself, fatigue and relief and a strange sense of disconnectedness combining to slow her movements and her thinking. Maybe it was the last of the drugs working their way through her system? She blinked like an owl in the yellow light of the store’s interior and fought to sharpen her wits. She pushed forward to the counter. In a few seconds she would be on the phone with Ethan, and it would all be over.
Geneva and Will were already standing at the counter speaking with the tall, broad-shouldered man behind it, but he was shaking his head. He looked at her with sympathy.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” He had a voice as deep as the night outside. “Phone’s been down since last night. Prairie dogs got in the connection box and chewed up the wires but good. I can’t get a man out here to fix it ’til end of the week.”
The man was still talking, but Asia was no longer listening. She had slumped to the floor in despair, Jack still draped over her shoulder as though dead.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Interstate 40, Somewhere near Gallup, New Mexico, Earth, Sector Three
She had wanted to cry like a helpless child.
Goddamn it, Lana thought, I never even was a helpless child, and it was all I could do to keep from blubbering like one. What the hell is wrong with me?
Trouble In Mind (Interstellar Rescue Series Book 2) Page 21
