by Faulks, Kim
“I know who you are, Sixth. I also know she needs us, the longer we spend talking, the longer they have her.”
He was already in the driver’s seat and starting the car before I yanked open the door, and climbed into the car.
The door closed behind me with a thud. I took one last look at the sprawling house as he turned his head, gripped the back of my seat and backed the Mustang out of the drive.
“You don’t want to see your parents?”
“They know.” He worked the wheel side to side and then spun, whipping the ass end of the Mustang around so we nosed down the drive. “They’ve always known.”
My gaze went to his wrist and the black markings tattooed on his skin…two eight seven eight…
Marking’s just like mine. I eased back against the seat as a strange feeling washed over me. Here he was…Tex, driving a car I rented, right after I just touched down on US soil…after spending the last four years of my life being the one in control.
The one who knew.
The one who saw.
The one who saved.
And yet there was no saving in this moment. There was no me at the helm. The Texan hummed softly, some country song I didn’t know as we turned back along that thin road before he punched the brakes, stopping us on a dime. “Right, where we headed?”
Hazel eyes blazed as he turned, his energy sweeping over me like wildfire. Massive hands gripped the wheel. I remembered the flames that danced at the tips of those fingers. Flames that had a life of their own.
Where to?
The Highway beckoned. I turned inward, to the other one of us…Shadow waited, clinging to the edges of my mind like a remnant of the night yet to be revealed to the sun.
I lifted my hand, the border to Mexico one way…but Shadow waited for us at the other. “North…we head, north.”
“Yes, Sir,” Tex growled, shoved the car into gear.
Tires spun before they gripped and swung us hard into the lane. The growl of the engine filled my ears. Behind Tex the sun disappeared behind the trees.
We drove in silence. Him handling the Mustang like he was born for NASCAR and me, searching for the other part of our tribe.
Something else hovered at the edge of my mind…a nagging feeling I was missing something—something important and as Tex leaned forward and hit the lights illuminating the road ahead of us that icy touch of fear spread deep.
“I haven’t been able to feel her…”
I flinched with the sound of his words and glanced toward him. Dashboard lights splashed against his face as Tex gave me a look of concern. “I’m hoping you can.”
Purple Hair…I tried…I’d been trying, every second I was awake, I’d been searching for a trace she was still there—still connected. But there was nothing. No whispers…no cries. Nothing since… “When was the last time you felt her?”
“Days now.” Soft words…aching words.
Hunger flared in both of us. The kind that made a man weak…the kind that made him desperate. I turned my head to catch the last faint traces of sunlight leave the sky. “They were drugging her.”
A harsh intake of breath filled the space. His hands tightened on the wheel, clenching and strangling. “Wanna say that again?”
“That was the last connection I had with her. She was strapped to some kind of hospital bed with a tourniquet around her arm, and a needle hanging from her vein.”
The muscles of his jaw bulged in the dashboard lights. I thought about the men he’d face when we stood shoulder to shoulder…
And I thought about the embers he’d leave behind…
“If you can’t feel her, then how can we find her?”
I swallowed hard as the glare of oncoming headlights blinded me before the car whipped past. That was the question wasn’t it? The one real fear I’d had since I woke up in that hospital bed.
How can I find her now? “I don’t know,” I answered as the white lines blurred. “I just don’t know.”
We drove like that for hours, stopping to refuel the car and ourselves before we were out onto the highway once more.
Mile by mile, town by town, we left them all behind. We left everything behind, and slowly this quiet Texan began to talk. “Your parents talked to you about that place?”
“No, yours?”
There was a shake of his head. “Never said a goddamn word. Not about what they did to me, or who they were. They never spoke about it, not even when I burned down their goddamn barn when I was nine.”
I stiffened and then glanced at his hands.
“Like you said before.” He lifted his hand and clicked his fingers. “Poof.”
I was caught on that image as lights behind us filled the car. Tex stole a glance at the mirror and then looked away. “Goddamn asshole.”
He eased off the accelerator, letting the Mustang coast.
But the car behind us didn’t overtake. It just sat there riding our bumper as another mile slipped behind us.
“Fine,” he snarled and planted his foot down.
The V8 engine answered in perfect form, eating the asphalt as it surged forward…as did the sonovabitch behind us.
High beam lights flared from the four-wheel drive.
“Jesus,” Tex snarled and hunkered out of the glare.
Metal kissed metal as the car behind us hit the rear bumper and we surged forward.
I stared into the lights, and that growing urgency returned. That knowing there was something I was missing—something that needed to be understood. “Can you lose him?”
“Out here?” Tex barked. “Not much to lose him with.”
He rode the shoulder of the road and punched the accelerator, kicking up stones and chunks of asphalt in his wake.
The ping…ping…ping…of stones echoed behind us, still Tex whipped the wheel around and the tachometer redlined.
But the four-wheel drive picked up pace, and the roar of the gunning engine filled my ears.
“What the fuck is his problem?”
Metal punched metal as he hit us again. The tires squealed as Tex fought to regain control, but we were losing…slowly turning as the heavy four-wheel drive pushed us sideways.
White lines blurred under the middle of the car. In the distance the faint glint of headlights came over the rise. We were shoved headlong across the center line.
Rubber burned, filling the cabin with the bitter stench. Tex rode the brakes, but it was useless.
“Take the wheel,” he roared.
I held on as he shouldered open the driver’s door and leaned out. Trees whipped by so damn close to the back end of the car. I turned my head, staring into the blinding lights of the four wheel drive before the car suddenly slowed.
“Got it,” Tex snapped, holding the door with one hand and the wheel with the other. Orange bled into the night. The snarl of a fire filled the car, as flames smothered his hand in one second, before he yanked his hand backwards and thrust the fireball into the air.
There was second where the Mustang slowed and the Ford Explorer surged. But there was a problem with front tire and the black beast behind us listed to the side.
The flap…flap…flap of rubber met the road, but we were already pulling ahead, as Tex whipped the front of the Mustang onto our side of the road.
Headlights flooded us. The blare of a horn filled the air as the oncoming car whipped past.
“Jesus…Jesus fucking Christ,” Tex muttered and shot a glance in the rear-view mirror.
The Explorer slowed. I caught faint white tendrils of smoke drifting from the front tire before we pulled ahead. There was only the distance…only the miles that separated us and…him…
Gready’s fucking smirk came back to haunt me. I gripped the door handle and glanced behind us to the dimming headlights. “I think I know who it is.”
Tex gripped the wheel and focused on the road ahead. “Well they’re going nowhere fast.”
He was right. Headlights dimmed as we left them behind. I settl
ed against the seat. “What the Hell did you do?”
A devilish grin curled his lips as he lifted a hand. Tiny flames came alive on the tips of his fingers, casting an orange glow against the dash. “Burned their goddamn tire.”
I glanced behind us and met his smile with my own. “Hot damn.”
The movement was a reflex, as I punched out a fist and met his as the flames were smothered in an instant.
I’d never known anyone else like me—anyone that could do things no one should ever be capable of. Tex’s eyes widened before he turned back to the road.
“You ever met anyone else like us?” I asked.
There was a shake of his head. “You?”
“No, only Purple Hair…she’s the only one I’d never felt, until you and Shadow.”
“What’s it like…” he said. “You know, to feel her.”
“You don’t feel her?”
“Only muffled, like she’s under water…just fragments, but I think it comes through you.”
It made sense…it made a whole lot of sense. His power was fire…mine was this sixth sense…and the future. The future where we stood on an open field. “What do you remember of that place?”
“Pain mostly. Pain and needles…and this goddamn noise.”
“Like a radio turned all the way up.”
“Yeah,” he answered as an all hours gas station came into sight. “That’s it. I remember voices…screaming mostly. I remember the…the…”
“Blood…a woman screaming…flashing words over and over…”
He never answered…didn’t need to. His pale skin turned ashen as we came to a stop under the overhead lights. The ticking engine filled the space. We just sat for a second…before he turned. “Why? We were just kids.”
I wished I had the answers—wished I could give him something more than a blank fucking look and a shake of the head. For all the fucking things I’d seen both in the past and in the future, this was one thing I’d never been able to understand. “I wish I knew.”
It fucking hurt when he turned away and shoved open the door. It hurt to give him nothing—but nothing was all I had. He grabbed the nozzle from the bowser and refueled as I climbed out.
There was an awkwardness between us now, like a festering old wound had been opened, and neither of us knew first aid. I made for the shop, grabbed six energy drinks, and a hotdog that’d seen better days before Tex made his way inside.
A young guy watched us through the perspex divider. He glanced at Tex, and then me…still dressed in battlefield greens and murmured. “You boys going huntin’”
“Something like that,” I said and slid two fifties across the counter. “For this, the fuel, and whatever he grabs.”
CCTV cameras behind the counter flickered, black and white static filled the screen, like a signal lost communication.
“Goddamn thing,” the young guy punched the monitor next to him. “Supposed to be a brand new system.”
Energy danced across my skin, standing the hair at the back of my neck. I glanced out of the windows to the dark grey of the early morning. “Has it done this before?”
“No. It usually just goes black and says, No Signal.”
It wasn’t no signal though, was it? It was a rush of power…
I glanced to the Texan who stepped up to the counter with a small carton of plain milk and a packet of cookies. “What?”
I shook my head, waited for the attendant to ring up the items before we left. It was my turn to drive. My turn to try to put the scrambled jigsaw in my head together, and as I climbed into the Mustang I had an eerie sense of déjà vu. The engine started with a snarl. I pulled out onto the highway as headlights flared behind us.
My heart picked up pace as I drove my foot to the floor. I stole glances in the rear-view mirror, watching the headlight become brighter and brighter. “Heads up,” I growled as Tex opened the carton of his milk.
He leaned forward, reached through the window and tilted the side mirror. “Same jackass?”
Wide, bright headlights were blinding. “I think so.”
“Pull over.”
I jerked my head toward him, catching the service station falling far behind. “What?”
“I said, pull the fuck over.”
My hands worked the gears as I downshifted and eased the Mustang over to the shoulder. Tex shouldered open the door. Two gigantic strides and he placed himself right in the middle of the road.
Crazy motherfucker was gonna get himself killed. “Jesus Christ.”
But I never moved, just gripped the steering wheel as the towering male stared into the oncoming headlights and lifted his hands.
Flames came alive at the tips of his fingers.
And this time there was no tiny dancing spark…
This was an inferno cupped in the curve of his palm.
Orange flames lapped the dark, early morning air.
All I saw was fire…all I heard was his scream of rage…
And all I saw was death as the four-wheel drive hurtled along the highway toward him.
Chapter Fifteen
I shoved open the driver’s door as the massive fireball grew between Texan’s hands.
But the Ford was still coming…the driver a man possessed. Tires screamed as the swirling inferno gathered speed and size, until with a grunt, Tex thrust the fireball through the air.
The blast hit the side of the Explorer with a boom. I was slamming my boots into the ground as that metal missile bore down. Still he never moved from the middle of the road only righted his stance and held out his hands like he could stop the world.
“Get the fuck down!” I roared, lunged too far away and hit the guy at the waist, lifting him off the ground.
Heartbeats…that’s all there was in it…heartbeats before the blazing inferno skidded past.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” Tex roared and tore himself from my grip.
He was big…and strong. But that had nothing on skill. I grabbed him around the arm, using his own momentum to sweep him in the opposite direction. “Stop! Hey…just wait a minute!”
Those hazel eyes burned with the kind of hunger that made me still. The Explorer rattled and burned, coasting along the highway until it finally rolled to a stop and the sharp stench of burning rubber filled the air.
“Get the fuck off me!” Tex snarled and wrenched his arm from my hold.
I raised my hands, palm up. “Easy now.”
“You know for someone who can see a lot, you’re pretty good at missing the damn obvious!”
I was watching his movement, watched his hands. “What do you mean?”
“Black Ford Explorer, trying to run us off the road, not once, but fucking twice…you think that’s a coincidence when we’re trying to find someone strapped to a bed and drugged…hello, this shit reeks of government conspiracies.”
I shook my head and stumbled toward the burning wreck. “You just wait right here.”
Two steps was all I had before the Explorer went boom! Fire swallowed the back of the truck and then the rest. I sucked in a breath and turned.
Tex just shook his head and stared at the wreckage. “It’s the damn government, I’m tellin’ you. They wanted us dead, or damaged, either way they wanted us far away from the girl with the purple hair…now, ask yourself why.”
The second explosion rocked the air. The car was too far gone now…too far gone for answers…too far gone for life.
It wasn’t Tex’s death I’d seen in the seconds before the truck hit…it was theirs—whoever they were. Gready’s face filled my mind. Was it his death I saw? I searched my mind for the answers.
“I’m tellin’ ya, think about it. I’ve watched the X-Files, Sixth. I know all about it.”
He sounded fucking ridiculous. I shook my head and turned from the burning wreck. I gave the last five years of my life to the Government. I saw men die for them…saw them wounded…saw them carried off the front-line missing limbs.
Our Government
wouldn’t do that.
Probably some drunken asshole who saw the Mustang and thought we were an easy target…
“They hurt us.” His words wormed their way under my skin. “They put needles in our brain. They put us in those rooms…the woman screaming…blood, and that deafening music over and over again. They made our parents just hand us over—like we were nothing. Who has that kind of power? Think about it, Sixth…who has that kind of power?”
The Government.
Lights flared behind us in the distance. I glanced toward the growing daylight and caught the faint flicker of red and blue. “We have to get out of here.”
He turned his head toward the flashing lights. Long strides became an easy jog. Everything seemed so fucking easy for him. So easy to…accept.
I raced for the driver’s seat and climbed in as the passenger’s door closed behind him with a thud. Then we were moving, giving the blazing Explorer a wide berth before I punched the accelerator and sped toward the rising sun.
They wanted to stop us…wanted to kill us if they could.
All because we were seeking the one constant in my life—I glanced at Tex and words resounded—the one constant in all our lives. “Who the fuck are you Purple Hair?”
“They come for her…and I come for them.”
There was no tremor in his voice. In this moment, the quiet, towering Texan was a killer…just like I’d been the last five years.
That image resurfaced, Purple Hair strapped to a bed with a needle in her arm…I can’t hold on, she whimpered. Please help me…I can’t hold on. “We come for them,” I repeated. “Government, or no government. We’ll come for them all.”
I punched the accelerator as the morning sun swept across the highway. The pull inside me was getting stronger, luring me toward the horizon. City streets filled my head and thoughts of Gready slipped further away as Tex hunkered against the seat and leaned backwards.
Sleep was a long time coming…he opened his eyes more times than I could count before he finally succumbed.
An ache flared across my chest. I lifted my hand, and probed the dressing, and that pain flared a little deeper. I didn’t feel right…like I’d aged ten years in the blink of an eye.
