The Last Time I Saw Her

by Karen Robards

  There was no mistake. He was there, all six-foot-three hunky golden inches of him. Aggressively masculine despite the outrageous good looks. Seriously badass.

  He wasn’t looking at her. He was glancing around, frowning, and seemed maybe a little dazed, like he was having to work to get a handle on exactly where he was. She had a really good worm’s-eye view of the underside of his square jaw, of the stubble that darkened it, of the flat planes of his cheeks, of his chiseled nose and high cheekbones, of the firm lines of his beautifully cut mouth. From her angle, she couldn’t see his eyes. She didn’t need to.

  Michael. She had no doubt whatsoever about his identity, couldn’t believe she had ever in a million years mistaken Hughes for him. She recognized him with something more accurate than anything her eyes could tell her. She recognized him in some deep, atavistic place in her soul.

  For a moment, an agonizing moment, she wondered if he was some kind of illusion, if he would vanish as suddenly as he had appeared, if this was a repeat of the quick vision she’d had of him the previous twilight.

  Her hand shot out on the thought and grabbed the nearest part of him, which happened to be the instep of his boot. At least, she tried to grab the instep of his boot. Of course her hand sank right through.

  But the tingle, the electric tingle that accompanied any contact she had with him in his incorporeal state, was there.

  He was real. Present. On the bus just inches away.

  He must have felt the tingle, too, or sensed her eyes on him, or something, because he looked down at her.

  Sayers went storming through him right then, shouting at the men in the back, waving an impatient hand at the air where Michael was standing as he passed, like he thought he’d run into a patch of cobwebs or static electricity or something.

  Charlie yanked her hand out of the way of Sayers’s stomping feet just in time. She heard a thunk, and Sayers’s curse, and guessed that he’d stumbled over or kicked Hughes on his way to the back of the bus.

  Michael looked after him, then looked down at her again. However dazed he might have been originally, he was clearly getting over it now. His brows rushed together in a fierce frown that was absolutely directed at her.

  Her lips parted—

  “Do not say a fucking word. Do not make another fucking move,” he growled, and then he hunkered down, squatting in the center aisle directly in front of where she huddled on the floor beside her abandoned seat. He looked as big and bad and muscular and intimidating as he ever had. His expression was scary enough that any right-minded person on the receiving end of that look would have shrunk back as far away from him as she could get.

  Charlie didn’t shrink. Instead she drank in the sight of him. Her pulse hammered. She could feel the blood rushing to her head, feel it pounding against her temples. She didn’t care how menacing he looked. Her heart erupted in glad hosannas.

  “Oh, my God, where have you been?” Her voice was a barely audible croak. Not because she was deliberately keeping it low. That wasn’t a consideration; everything that wasn’t him had temporarily fallen off her radar screen. She didn’t wait for his answer, because she knew: his eyes were the burning, fathomless black that she’d seen before, and the savagery in his face and voice were familiar, too. The longer he stayed in Spookville, the darker he got, and this time he’d been gone longer than ever before. She didn’t care. She would take him any way she could get him, darkness be damned. “I didn’t think you were coming back!”

  “What part of ‘Do not say a fucking word’ did you miss?” Those ferocious black eyes glittered at her. “Oh, I know: the same part as ‘Keep away from fucking serial killers’ and ‘Stay out of the fucking prison’ that you never seem to hear. The whole damned thing, because you refuse to listen to a word I say, because you have a fucking death wish.”

  It was vintage Michael, all of it, and, God, she was so glad to see him, so relieved, so happy, that she could feel herself smiling at him even as he yelled at her.

  “Do not,” she said, forming the words with her mouth without making a sound.

  “Are you fucking smiling?” He sounded furious. He looked furious.

  “No.” She shook her head. But because she simply couldn’t help it, her smile stayed in place, or maybe even grew.

  Michael. To have him back—

  “You are! You’re smiling. Goddamn it, you’re totally nuts, do you know that? Do you know what that bastard Fleenor is going to do to you if he gets the chance? Hell, yes, of course you know: you meet with him every week, so you can do your precious research that’s probably going to end up getting you killed.” His mouth tightened as he glanced around. He was speaking in a perfectly normal tone—actually, a louder-than-normal tone, because he was angry and yelling at her, and a tone that was deeper and more gravelly than usual, too, because that’s what Spookville did to him. Listening to him, looking at him, Charlie suddenly felt better than she had in, oh, a little over two weeks. “What did you do, take your serial killer buddies on a fucking field trip? Who wouldn’t have guessed that might go wrong?”

  Giving him a mildly indignant look—as if she would!—she opened her mouth to reply and offer a quick explanation of what was happening. He shut her down with a fierce look and a warning finger pointed at her. “We’re talking about this later. For now, for once in your life, just keep quiet and stay still while I try to figure out how the hell to get you out of this alive.”

  “We’re sitting ducks! They’re on our ass,” Sayers yelled from the back of the bus, almost certainly addressing Abell. Michael cast a frowning look in their direction. Now that the first shock of his return was over, Charlie was once again becoming fully aware of the world beyond him, beyond them. She heard distant sirens—either there was an echo or there was more than one cop car chasing the bus now. She felt a shiver that combined hope and fear. Far more than before, she wanted to be rescued. She wanted to get out of there alive. They—the hostages—all wanted to be rescued and get out of there alive, of course. But for her, the stakes had just heightened dramatically. Michael was back, and he needed her to keep him grounded to the earthly plane. Michael was back, and that meant her world had regained its color and warmth and possibility. The weight that had been crushing her was gone. She felt like she could once again breathe. She felt like she could once again live.

  If the escapees were cornered, though, she had no doubt at all that that could change in an instant. She knew five of them very well, and if they saw no way out for themselves they would not only have no compunction about killing everyone in the bus, they would enjoy the slaughter.

  Go out with a bang and all that.

  Her chest tightened again.

  Abell bellowed, “You gettin’ up in my face? Huh? Huh? Get back up front, Google Eyes, and let the people who know how to run things run them.”

  Sayers’s reply was so loud it practically rattled the windows. “What did you call me?”

  An unexpected sound—a soft little whimper, really—drew Charlie’s attention to something closer at hand. Turning her head in the direction from which it had come, she found herself looking through the dark space beneath the seats at Bree, whose face was pressed to the floor, too. The girl had her fist shoved up against her mouth in an attempt to muffle what were obviously sobs. Her whole body shook. Tears flowed from her eyes as they met Charlie’s. Her fist moved away from her mouth.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  Charlie didn’t waste time by lying and telling her that everything was going to be all right. She had no way of knowing that, and feel-good platitudes were of no help to anyone.

  “We have to get away,” Charlie whispered back. The escalating argument between Abell and Sayers, the banging of the unsecured back door, the rattling of the bus, and various sounds from the others on board were enough to mask her barely-there whisper, she hoped. A quick glance at Michael reassured her: he was still focused on the argument at the rear. If he wasn’t hearing her, she could
be certain Abell and Sayers and the rest weren’t, either.

  Bree nodded as another head dropped into view: a boy, with buzzed brown hair and a nose ring, peering beneath the seats. Previously she’d been able to see only the lower part of his jeans-clad legs as, like the others, he knelt on the floor. He looked at Charlie, who went “Shh!” with a finger to her lips, then continued with what she’d been saying, directing it to both of them now. “When the bus stops, when there’s a distraction, try to get out a window or one of the doors. These men are killers. Take any chance you get to escape.”

  “Are you talking to somebody?” Michael demanded. Charlie’s head snapped up guiltily.

  “…think they’re not going to set up roadblocks?” Sayers screamed. The bus swayed as they went around a curve, and Charlie, on all fours now, had to brace her hands against the floor to keep her balance. “They’re probably blocking every damned road off this mountain right this minute!”

  “You don’t know shit,” Abell screamed back. There was more, but Charlie quit listening to focus on what was going on closer at hand.

  “Under there,” Charlie mouthed to Michael, and pointed.

  Michael bent down and looked. Charlie followed suit. The kids couldn’t see him, of course. Now the blond girl was looking beneath the seats, too. Her pale cheek rested against the floor.

  “They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?” the girl whispered. Her voice trembled.

  “Shut up, Paris,” the boy responded, sending a glare her way as Bree drew in a harsh breath that was just short of a sob and then pressed her fist to her mouth again.

  “We have to try to escape,” Charlie repeated as quietly as before. “First chance you get: go out a door, a window, whatever, and run. Tell the others if you can.”

  “She won’t fit out a window,” the boy said, jerking a thumb at Paris.

  “Suck off, dirtwad,” Paris fired back.

  “Shh!” Charlie cautioned fiercely, glaring, and they both clamped their mouths shut while Bree stifled another sob.

  “Holy shit,” Michael said, resurfacing. Charlie straightened to look at him and found her gaze colliding with those angry, burning black eyes. “Those are fucking kids.”

  She knew he had a thing about getting involved with endangered kids. “Yes, they are.”

  “How the hell—”

  “They were visiting the prison. A Scared Straight group. This is a prison break, and they got caught up in it.”

  His face tightened. His eyes looked even scarier than they had before. “Same as you did, huh? Just one of those unfortunate things that could happen to anybody.”

  There was no missing the sarcasm.

  “Could you drop the attitude, please?”

  “Drop the attitude? Like that’s the problem here? My attitude?” He eyed her like there was a whole lot more he wanted to say, then made a disgusted sound and shook his head. “You know what your whole life reminds me of? That Hole album, Live Through This.”

  Funny. Charlie didn’t say it out loud, but she made a face at him. Then she caught herself smiling at him again, because it felt so good to have him there and being pissy at her and because, with him there, she was no longer quite so deathly afraid.

  That last thought didn’t even surprise her. Her faith in Michael as her own personal superhero was infinite, she was discovering.

  “I knew it. You’re insane,” Michael growled in the face of her smile, only to have his attention diverted as Sayers, who’d been in the act of storming toward the front of the bus, stopped when he reached Hughes and snapped, “This asshole’s in the way. Help me get him out of the aisle.”

  From her position on the floor, Charlie couldn’t see a lot, such as who Sayers was talking to. But by looking beneath the seats again, she was able to see Hughes’s body come up off the floor. She presumed Sayers and one of the others at the back were lifting him. Then Hughes was dumped in a semi-sitting position between two seats. As he slumped sideways Charlie saw his hands, which were cuffed behind him, clench into fists.

  Not so unconscious, then.

  She was just watching Hughes’s fingers straighten and clench again, a clearly deliberate movement, when something, a sound or a vibe, she didn’t know for sure, snapped her attention back to Michael.

  He was looking toward where Hughes had been. His expression was absolutely shell-shocked.

  Of course, if he’d seen Hughes’s face—and from the look of him he had—he would be. There was no way he could have missed the resemblance.

  “Hey,” she whispered. It was the merest breath of sound, but Michael heard, because he looked at her then. His face was a study in stupefaction.

  “Who—” he began, while at the same time Sayers said, “He remind you of—”

  Both were interrupted by Torres shouting, “Mierda! Here they come!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Charlie’s heart pounded in terrible anticipation. “They” could mean only the cops. Would the escapees try stopping the bus again, and would they—?

  “Punch it, Doyle,” Abell yelled, giving her the answer. Already bouncing over the pavement, the bus picked up speed. The jolting of the floor beneath Charlie telegraphed the location of every pothole. Her shins hurt from the unforgiving metal slamming into them. An outbreak of curses from the escapees, coupled with the increasing loudness of the sirens, told Charlie that the cops who were behind them must be closing in fast.

  Michael said, “Stay put,” stood up, and walked out of her line of vision. Catching her breath—having him out of her sight rattled her, she instantly discovered—she was relieved to find that she could follow the progress of his boots down the aisle. He stopped in front of the place where Hughes now sprawled. From the position of his feet, she knew that Michael must be studying him.

  She didn’t think it would take Michael long to grasp the significance of what he was seeing.

  “There’s two of ’em this time,” Ware warned, clearly referring to the cop cars.

  Charlie couldn’t see them, of course, but the revolving bar lights were reflected in the mirrors and the sirens were impossible to miss. The blur of trees flying past outside the windows gave silent testimony to how fast they were traveling. Charlie had a momentary mental image of the cliff edge beside the road, which made her shiver. Flying off a sheer drop in a hijacked school bus was relatively low on the list of horrible ways she could die in the next few hours, though, so she thrust it out of her mind. Shifting positions so that she could sneak a look around the seat, Charlie was just in time to watch Abell grab one of the handcuffed guards, jerk him off the seat where he’d been slumped, and force him—he didn’t struggle—toward the rear door, barking, “Wedge it open,” to Ware as he came.

  Ware forced the door all the way open and locked it in place. Charlie caught a glimpse of roiling mist colored blue by the flashing lights before Abell, with the prisoner in tow, filled the opening.

  “Back off!” Abell screamed at the cops in pursuit. Bracing his feet against the rocking of the bus, he held the unresisting guard in front of the open door, one hand twisted in his collar. He placed his gun against the back of the guard’s head.

  Bang.

  A cloud of dark particulates mushroomed from the guard’s forehead and out into the deepening fog. Inside the bus, there was a collection of gasps. Somebody let loose with a truncated scream.

  Charlie’s mouth fell open as she watched the guard topple limply out of the bus. She heard the thud as he landed in the road. There was not the slightest doubt in her mind that he was dead, and that she’d just watched murder being committed.

  Oh, my God…

  From behind the bus came the sudden screech of tires. She could only assume that the cops, witnessing the shooting, seeing the body hit the pavement, had slammed on their brakes.

  “Jesus Christ.” Michael was back, hunkering down in front of her. Charlie didn’t know what she looked like, but from his expression she guessed it wasn’t good. “Get back
down on the floor, put your head on your knees, and cover it with your arms. And stay there.”

  Michael was right, she knew: she was way too exposed and she needed to get down. At that moment she was kneeling, her forearms resting on the seat as she craned her neck to look toward the rear door. There was nothing left to see, nothing she could do. The guard was dead.

  Numbly, she dropped to the floor, pillowed her head on her knees, clasping her hands behind her neck, and concentrated on taking deep breaths.

  “I’ll be right back,” Michael said. Although she had her eyes closed to combat the dizziness that was assailing her and thus couldn’t be sure, she got the impression that he was moving away toward the front of the bus. Her heart was pounding, and she focused on trying to slow it down. Since no bullets were flying—the cops apparently had been stopped in their tracks by the murder—there didn’t seem to be a lot of point in shielding her head. Unclasping her hands, she wrapped her arms around her knees instead. She was shivering—from shock, she knew.

  “We offing hostages now?” somebody—Charlie thought it was Fleenor—asked gleefully.

  “Just slowing the bastards down,” Abell answered. “Scraping corpses off the pavement takes time.”

  “Maybe we ought to get los marranos some bumper stickers: we brake for dead people,” Torres said, and snickered.

  “Good one,” Ware answered, while Abell said, “Hey, get over here and help me.”

  Michael hunkered down in front of her again. Charlie’s eyes were still closed, but she knew he was there, and that knowledge was as stabilizing as an anchor in a storm. She expected him to tell her to cover her head, but he didn’t. The sounds of quiet weeping reached her ears—Bree, or possibly Paris or even one of the boys. Of course they were terrified. She was terrified, and she had Michael, who she knew would do everything in his power to protect her.

  “What? Wait!” It was a man’s voice, one that Charlie didn’t recognize, and it sounded panicky. It was accompanied by the sounds of a scuffle.