“One problem,” his boss said.
He directed Jack’s attention toward the floor.
First one, then several drops of blood hit the top of Jack’s bare feet.
I’m bleeding?
“It can’t be,” Jack said. “I don’t feel a thing.”
“How much Karat did you take to help you get here?” Gavin asked.
Karat. He’d gambled on using the drug to amp his abilities so he could save Lara, but it came with a price. He was about to pay.
“Only one,” he told Gavin. No, the time for holding back was over. “Three. I took three of the pills.”
Jack held his hand up in front of his eyes. It grew transparent so rapidly he could barely see it.
“No,” he said. “Lara–”
Chapter 26
Lara was lifted carefully in a man’s arms, a man who treated her like precious cargo. Except she knew Jack’s arms, and these weren’t them. Strong, yes, but Jack’s were bigger.
Opening her eyes, she found a man with a long, sharply angled face and thatch of white blond hair carrying her into the open air.
The sky! She thought wearily, seeing it this time for real, or with her real eyes at any rate, something she’d doubted she’d ever experience again.
“Lara Freberg?” the man said.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“Someone who’s very glad to meet you. My name’s Gavin,” he said.
Oh. The man who couldn’t get off his paranoid ass to warn anyone about the bombing.
The man carrying her jerked and stumbled, though his arms remained steady, supporting her securely. A second later he recovered his footing.
Lara mourned all over again for the unsuspecting innocents in her dream. That poor little boy with the book bag. All those people in the street.
They would die, just like the other victims she’d seen since the dreams had begun.
What’s the point?
She wished she could put that question to Jack. What was the purpose of having this ability if it didn’t do anyone any good? Jack would know what to say. He’d have a good answer, and that face of his, with its scarred cheek and those dark blue eyes, troubled by their own mysterious guilt, would understand why her failure to speak up earlier about her dreams ate at her so badly.
Jack! Where’s Jack?
Suddenly in a panic, she squirmed in Gavin’s arms. Why was a stranger carrying her out of her prison, and not Jack? Agitated, she tried to free herself from Gavin’s arms and get to her feet. She had to find Jack.
Gavin’s arms didn’t budge.
“Quiet, Lara,” he said. “I need you to keep still. We’re not out of this yet.”
To underscore his warning, he broke into a run, carting her through a decaying courtyard, while an assault of bullets stung and chipped the cement at his feet.
We’re being shot at!
Return fire from an automatic rifle held just inches away momentarily deafened Lara. Shell casings flew from the weapon, pinging against the concrete where they dropped and scattered. They weren’t alone. Armed personnel flanked and shielded them on all sides.
Gavin never slowed. He chugged up flight after flight of stairs, every one of which sent shock waves through her damaged hand, reopening and jarring the injury in time with his steps. Pain filled up her chest, her face, her head until she was nothing but hurt, and she lost the ability to think clearly. She heard cries and sobs, probably her own, weapon harnesses jangling, boots pounding on the stairs, and finally the shooting stopped. Gavin’s team moved quickly, yet covertly into the open, where a second team met them on the final landing.
“Are we clear?” Gavin asked.
“That was the last of them,” another man’s voice answered. “How is she?”
Gavin didn’t answer aloud. Lara felt a minute shift in his body and knew he shook his head, not good.
“Jack?” the same person asked.
Again, no response from Gavin, not even the head shake. Just dark silence. Something had happened to Jack.
No. Please, no.
“Shh, Lara,” Gavin said and gave her a reassuring squeeze. She must have moaned her fears aloud.
To the man who had spoken, Gavin issued orders. “We need a clean up, but make it fast. I don’t know how much time you have.”
“Blood?” the man asked.
“And three bodies,” Gavin confirmed, “in addition to the snipers you caught up here.”
“Leave or take?”
“Leave the bodies, but take the weapons down below. I don’t know which ones Jack may have handled. Spray everything in the cell. Wipe the cell door, and the immediate corridor for prints. Any DNA he’s left should vanish or degrade on its own, but he took a triple of Karat so who knows for sure.”
“Okay. Got it.”
The second team moved on, descending while she and Gavin moved forward again, crunching over gravel. Mercifully, Lara passed out.
When she regained marginal consciousness she found herself in the back of an enormous SUV. Someone, a woman judging by the light, deft hands working on her, slid a needle into Lara’s arm, adjusted tubing, and cool liquid began to flow into Lara’s veins. Her eyes flickered open, but she was too physically drained to move. They drove at a high rate of speed, so fast trees lining the road became one long smear of green. How long had she been out?
“Lara?” Gavin said from what felt like a hundred miles away. “Lara? Can you hear me?”
She tried, but couldn’t hold on to more than scraps of consciousness over the next hour, possibly two. She had impressions of traveling a lengthy bridge over water, then speeding down into a tunnel, a serious jolt when they took a metal ramp upward and then slammed on the brakes.
“Hold on, Lara. Stay with us. We still have a ways to go.”
Confused, Lara looked around the next time she came to, better able to turn her head this time. Though their vehicle had halted, the feeling of motion continued. They rode in an enclosed space. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought the SUV might be inside a semi-trailer.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I keep fading in and out.”
“I see that a lot in my line of work,” Gavin smiled and said.
“Where’s Jack?”
Worry clouded Gavin’s eyes, but he covered it quickly. “He had to go fetch something.”
Lara had a terrible feeling she knew what that something was. She’d felt the blood spreading from Jack’s wound when he’d slid into and shielded her from Grey Man’s gun.
“He asked me to look after you,” Gavin said.
Tears welled up in Lara’s eyes. She turned away so he wouldn’t see them slipping down her face. She was simply too tired to lift her hand and brush them away.
The next time she opened her eyes, it was to another confusing change of scene, Gavin ferrying her across an open field toward a waiting helicopter. Bits of grass and dust flew up at them from under the chop from the blades. Gently, he laid her on a stretcher, which two medics, both women, slid into the cabin. Gavin and the others piled in after her.
“Thanks,” Gavin shouted above the engine’s roar, addressing the man sitting behind the controls. Mid-thirties and wearing a business suit that must have cost thousands, he wasn’t what she’d expect of a pilot.
“Sorry, couldn’t find a hospital ship on this short notice,” the man shouted back.
Gavin waved aside the apology. “Appreciate you coming to our rescue.”
The pilot turned in his seat and glanced at her, his expression one of unedited sadness. “Anything for a Lost One,” he replied. “Jack?”
This time Lara saw Gavin’s unhappy, silent response.
They lifted off.
Jack was dead. Either dead or gone, which amounted to the same thing, and now she was left in the hands of strangers. Gavin, the man clearly in charge of everything, including her life, didn’t have a cruel voice. But then neither had Grey Man sounded evil, just matter of fact. What were these people going
to do with her? Was she still a commodity, the only difference being a change of custody? Where were they taking her? Could she get away if she tried?
“Home, Lara,” Gavin leaned down and spoke directly into her ear, so she’d hear him over the helicopter’s rotors. “We’re taking you home.”
She was stunned that he’d guessed her thoughts. She wanted to ask how he’d known, but instead the real question, the one she was afraid to ask, let loose a banshee wail in her head.
Is Jack still alive? Please tell me he is. Please tell me.
No one told her.
Chapter 27
Concealed by brush on a ridge a quarter mile from Jack’s cabin, Rafe shifted his weight and stretched cautiously after a long night of surveillance. He handed off the good set of binocs to Poppy, his partner for this assignment, who shimmied into position on her belly and took up the task of watching for hostiles who might approach the unauthorized safe house. They’d fought boredom and fatigue, and battled swarms of bugs. After ten hours of it non-stop, Rafe swore the raucous chorus of tree frogs in the forest around them had already caused permanent hearing damage.
“How long do we have to stay here, do you suppose?” Poppy asked.
“Until Gavin says we don’t, would be my guess.”
“We ran out of coffee two hours ago.”
“Something to remember for your next stake out,” Rafe said. “Note to self, bring a 55-gallon drum of coffee. For someone who’s a health nut, you really like your caffeine.”
“Drug of choice,” Poppy said.
Rafe thought about it.
“Could be worse.”
The satellite phone in his jacket vibrated. He answered with a single word, “Here.”
A moment later, all humor drained from his face. Like a flipped switch, his habitual laconic demeanor vanished, replaced with that of a focused warrior. He was on his feet, grabbing up two heavy packs of gear in one movement, the fluidity of which was second nature.
“We’re on our way,” he said.
Poppy didn’t need to be told they were moving out. She’d shouldered her gear before Rafe’s expression had even changed.
All desire for stealth was abandoned. They raced flat out down the ridge where they’d spent the night, crashed through a stream too wide to jump at the bottom of the hollow, and charged up the next ridge to Jack’s place.
Where they met his security system in the form of a front door with no lock, handle, or knob.
“It’s rough planking over steel,” Rafe said after studying it briefly. It took him only a few seconds longer to locate the hidden panel at knee level, behind an old crock. “Tricky, Jack.” He jumped off the wooden porch to the ground, a good 30 inches below, and shoved the crock out of the way. He lifted the piece of wood hiding the panel and almost had an eye to sensor view of the–
“Biometric lock,” he said. “The only one who can get through that door the usual way is Jack.”
They went for the windows next, Poppy to the one left of the door, Rafe to the window on the right. Each used their hands to block out the sun, and put their faces close to the glass.
“Mirrored film is too strong,” Poppy said. “I can’t see a thing inside.”
“Me either.”
“Shoot it out?”
“Not mine. It’s bullet resistant.”
“I don’t know what bullet resistant glass looks like.”
Rafe stepped back from the building and glanced at Poppy’s window.
“Yours, too.”
“What now? Blow the door? What if he’s just on the other side and was trying to get out?”
“Gavin said it’s bad,” Rafe said.
“How bad?”
“He didn’t think he’d made it.”
“Let’s go. Blow the fucker.”
Poppy had been Jack’s first Lost One. Or, at least, his first successful find of a Lost One. She might appear as diminutive and fragile as her name suggested, but she’d survived a locked down psychiatric hospital that had given Rafe nightmares once she’d told him about it. She’d had a rough life, and it showed in her vocabulary during moments of stress.
Rafe hopped up on the porch, opened his pack and took out the necessary materials and tools. Though the door had no visible hinges, he opted to place the charges best guess where he thought they might be.
“Back,” he ordered and retreated from the stoop.
They took shelter behind the rusted carcass of a 1940s Dodge truck, which listed in the mud a few yards away, no doubt left there by Jack to make the place look even more derelict than it already did.
With a muffled whomp, the cabin’s door blew inward, releasing a swirl of dust, but thankfully, not landing on a prone Jack. In fact, they didn’t find him anywhere inside the sparsely finished one room structure.
“Okay, where is he?” Poppy said.
“Over here.” Rafe rushed to the pantry door, flung it open, saw the stairs leading down to another steel door, this one open, and gestured for Poppy to follow. Their search of the underground living area, kitchenette, bathroom and first bedroom turned up nothing. Rafe reached the threshold to the second bedroom, started inside, and then pulled up short, stopping in the doorway.
Jack lay on the floor. The pool of blood spreading outward from under his still form was too large to belong to any other than a dead man.
“We’re too late.”
Poppy pushed him aside to hurry into the room, but Rafe grabbed her and pulled her back in his arms.
“Poppy. Forget it.”
She stood motionless for several seconds. Her body went tense with concentration. Rafe swore he could feel something, a presence reach out from her to Jack. An invisible hand stirred the hair at Jack’s neck, and two circular depressions in the shape of fingertips appeared in the skin over his jugular.
Rafe had seen her do something like this before. Freaky. He couldn’t decide whether it awed him, or creeped him out.
The presence retracted toward her, brushing past the barrier his embrace had created, and lifting the fine hairs on his arms in the process.
“No.” She shrugged off his hold, irritated. “He’s still with us.”
“What? He can’t be.”
“Just barely, but he’s there.”
She dragged a chair from near the bedroom’s dressing area to a spot just beyond the pool of blood and sat down. A moment later, Rafe was forgotten as she went deep inside herself to work.
Rafe knew he couldn’t help, not with what she was doing, and immediately retreated, heading upstairs. Provided Poppy could keep him alive long enough, they needed a way to transport Jack down to the road and get him more traditional medical help ASAP. But how to do that when faced with the impassible road to the cabin, and solid, near-old-growth forest covering the rest of the slope between?
“You do what you have to do,” he said to himself, dropped every bit of gear on him except for his keys, side arm and satellite phone, and took off at a run.
He fully expected Jack to be dead, for real this time, when he returned twenty minutes later. Loping into the cabin and taking the steps underground three at a time, he came upon a terrifying scene in the bedroom where he’d left the two of them.
Poppy was grey. Not just pale or ashen with blue lips, but grey as one of the suits their enemies wore. She didn’t move and her skin felt like cooling meat when he dared touch her. Jack appeared no better. His blood, what was left of it in his body, seemed to be settling with gravity, and his eyes, closed when he’d departed, now stared off into space. They had the hazy look people’s eyes started to take on shortly after death.
“Oh, God.”
He never should have left her alone. She’d just killed herself in a useless effort to save Jack.
“Don’t start blubbering yet,” Poppy spoke, startling him. Her voice was like wind whispering between dry bones. “We’re both still here.”
“Okay.”
Not wasting any time on the improbability of
it, Rafe kicked himself into action. Poppy wouldn’t be able to walk on her own, not like this, which meant carrying them both out. He would have loved to be able to pick up the two and carry them at the same time, but Jack weighed more than he did, and it was an easy guess he’d have trouble fitting himself and two others into the passage upstairs at the same time. He had to make a decision.
“Taking Jack first okay?”
Poppy looked up at him with shadowed and sunken eyes, only just managing a nod.
“Okay. You’ve done your bit,” he told her. “Rest now. I’ll be right back.”
He turned Jack over, grabbed him under the armpits, and lifted him into a sitting position. Jack didn’t feel like dead weight, not exactly. His limbs didn’t flop like one of the deceased, which was a good sign. Rafe hefted his friend over his shoulder, the blood soaked clothing smearing his own, and hurried out of the room.
Thankfully, Poppy looked a little less grey when he got back. She heard him coming and tried to stagger up out of the chair, failing miserably.
“Nope. None of that. Upsy-daisy.” He threw her over his shoulder and up they went out of the ground into the sunlight.
Their SUV waited, parked in front of the cabin’s steps, passenger door open. Rafe had lowered the seats in the back to create a large area where he could lay Jack flat. Three blankets covered the injured dreamrunner and a cushion from one of the cabin’s kitchen chairs was pillowed under his head.
Rafe stood Poppy on her feet next to the open passenger door. Her eyes went wide when she noticed the vehicle.
“How?” she said in amazement. “That’s not possible. How did you get this up here?”
“I don’t ask you how you do what you do, so don’t question how I do what I do.”
“Never again,” she said, as he helped her slide into her seat.
He reached over for her seat belt.
“Let’s get you buckled up. You’re not going to like this ride.”
He climbed in behind the wheel, glancing back over the seat at Jack.
“How long does he have?” he asked.
Dangerous Dreams (A Dreamrunners Society Novel) Page 15
