by Mallory Kane
Rider wrapped his arm around her waist and ran, forcing her to run with him. She could hardly keep up, and several times her feet left the ground as he carried her along. Her hand burned like fire, but she hardly had time to think about it.
"Who was that?" she huffed.
"Tank," Rider muttered, stopping at the end of an alley to glance briefly behind him.
Kristen looked back, too, but there was no one behind them. Yet.
"Weapons." Rider had a bewildered scowl on his face.
"What?"
"They've got blasters."
"Blasters?" She gaped at him. "Blasters? Like Star Wars or something? Come on, Rider."
This was really getting ridiculous. Okay, so she couldn't explain the two explosions. Okay, so there was somebody after them. But she drew the line at Star Wars and blasters. "What next, Mr. Rider from the future? Robots?"
"It could happen," he muttered, grabbing her hand and holding it in front of her face. Kristen looked for the first time. A streak of puffy blisters surrounded by reddened skin ran across the back of her hand.
"Blaster burn, Doc. It barely skimmed your hand. You know what it can do in a direct hit?"
She shook her head, swallowing hard as her brain assessed the seriousness of the burn. "Don't worry. It's only second degree. I'll have blisters and it's going to hurt. But there's no nerve damage."
Rider grabbed her jaw. "Nerve damage?" He laughed harshly. "If you take a direct hit, you won't have time to worry about nerve damage. A direct hit will burn a hole right through anything but metal. You could be looking at the sidewalk through your hand right now."
She shuddered, feeling his sincerity in his touch. "No. That can't be true. This can't be happening."
"It's happening, Doc. We need a place to go."
When he touched her, she believed him. But that was just hormones and her traitorous empathy trying to cloud her judgment. At the very best, Rider was psychotic. At worst, there were people five hundred years in the future who wanted her dead so badly, they were sending killers with blasters after her.
"Don't touch me," she snapped, pushing his hand away. "You're confusing me." She looked behind them, then back at him. "Who wants me dead?" she said, cringing at her own irrational words, at her meek tone. "Who sent you? Who sent them? Why?"
Hot tears welled in her eyes and she clenched and unclenched her fists, stretching the burned flesh of her hand. Her heart fluttered, her breath caught. "Why?" Somewhere in the rational part of her brain, she heard the hysteria in her voice.
Rider must have heard it too, because he grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Come on, Doc. Use that doctor's brain. Don't bark out on me like a mongrel."
His fingers gripping her sent urgency streaking through her. "Mongrel?" she echoed.
"Yeah. One for the dogcatchers." He looked at her. "A crazy person," he explained.
"Oh."
"Think about it." He glanced down the alley. "Damn, we don't have time for this. Think about what I told you. When I left, the technology that would allow them to send weapons back here was at least a year away, maybe more. I know this, Doc. I was in on the testing. Metal caused the damn machinery to explode. It couldn’t be done. But this guy had a blaster. A metal blaster. Not only did I see it, I have proof right here," he indicated her hand, "that you were shot with it. That means at least a year from now I won’t have killed you, or there'd be no reason for them to still be after us."
"A year from—?"
"A year from my time, in the future. Here, it's still now." He sent her a quick look, then shrugged.
Kristen stared at him, trying to make sense of his words. It was too much to comprehend. A year from now he still hadn't killed her? A year from now unnamed people from some unimaginable future five hundred years away were still trying to kill her right now, today? She tried to put her thoughts into words. "You're here now, and a year later, they're here now, too?" It was too much. She couldn't grasp it. She growled.
"That's time travel," he said, shrugging. "They can set you down anywhere, any time—well, close," he added wryly. "They slammed me into a brick wall." His eyes changed, turned pensive, as if he were considering all the implications of his words for the first time too. He shook his head slowly. "Don't try to figure out time travel Doc. It'll just give you a headache."
Kristen felt the bewilderment in him, and still, the urgency.
Behind them, down the alley, she heard a noise. "What do you say, Doc? Me, or him?" He jerked his head toward the sound.
She studied his face and stared into his intense blue eyes, trying to decide whether to believe him. They could go to Skip's house. As soon as the thought surfaced, she tried to quell it. She hadn't been there since her brother had died, and she didn't want to go now. But where else could they hide?
As her heart screamed in protest, she pointed. "This way," she said. "We'll go to Skip's house."
"Skip?" Rider asked suspiciously, even as he dragged her down the street in the direction she'd pointed.
"My brother."
His eyes narrowed. "Your brother is dead."
An arrow of pain struck her in the heart. "That's right. Is that safe enough for you? He can't pose much of a threat. At least, in my time that's true," she added sarcastically. She wanted to cry. She was tired, confused. She didn't want to be forced to confront Skipper's house. It was too soon.
Rider’s gaze assessed her. “You think his house is safe?”
She shrugged wearily. “I haven’t been back there since he died.” Her voice broke a bit. She didn’t want to go now. "I don't know where else to go."
"Okay." He sounded unsure. "Lead the way. But, Doc." He jerked her around to face him. "Don't go the easy way. We need to lose this guy. How far is it?"
"Where are we?" She squinted at the street signs in the early morning mist, then sighed. "We've been running in the right direction, but it's still a long way."
"How far?"
"The hard way?" She shrugged, trying to figure it. "Probably eight, ten miles. His house is out toward the bay."
Rider ran his fingers through his hair and wiped his face with his hands.
He wasn't sure he could make it. Kristen saw that in the slump of his shoulders, in his drawn white face. If his strength failed him, she wouldn't be able to make it alone.
So she squared her shoulders and put her arm through his, sending up a prayer that she was doing the right thing. Oh, and as an afterthought, a quick prayer that Rider wasn't psychotic, because if he was, then so was she for believing him.
"Come on," she said, trying to send confidence and strength to him through her touch, confidence she didn't have, strength she was fast losing. To her surprise, he seemed to rally. Had she actually managed to send him some of her determination?
He wrapped an arm about her waist again and propelled her forward, into the misty morning.
Kristen kept them to the back alleys and side streets as much as possible. Cars passed occasionally, and each time, the two of them would crouch behind a garbage bin or in the shadow of a building, but the cars drove harmlessly by.
There were homeless people too, curled up on steps, huddled in alleys, their desperate eyes following them. Kristen steeled her mind against their desperation as best she could. Between her own and Rider's, she had quite enough to deal with right now.
The sky had brightened considerably by the time they reached Skipper's house almost three hours later.
Rider was as close to collapse as he'd been when she'd brought him into the clinic. His head lolled on his neck and his breathing was labored. His skin was clammy. She was afraid he was going into shock.
Kristen maneuvered him up to the front door, then stopped. "Oh, no!" she breathed, despair and weariness nearly undoing her.
Rider raised his head. Through his arm, which clutched her shoulder for support, she felt the cramping in his muscles, the sudden tension that gripped him. "What?" he whispered.
"Locked. I don't hav
e my keys." Tears stung Kristen's throat. She couldn't go any more. She was too tired. She had no keys. Nothing. “We came all this way for nothing.”
He stared at her. "Keys—" he muttered, then let go of her to reach into his pockets.
When he pulled out her key ring, Kristen sobbed in relief. "You had them. I forgot."
He fitted the right key into the lock and turned it. "After you, my dear," he muttered as he opened the door.
Kristen just stood there. Could she walk into the house where Skipper had lived? Could she stand to feel the echoes of him again, after all this time? She still remembered the instant he'd died, the moment in time when his presence had gone. It had been like a physical blow. She'd been dictating charts, and she'd dropped them in a scatter of clipboards and paperwork. It was so intense—that sudden absence of sensation. Between one second and another, her twin brother was gone.
Then the echoes had started. Echoes in the hollow corridors of her heart. She'd known what they were, but knowing didn't make it any less painful to endure. Would faint remnants of those echoes still be lingering in his house?
Rider stood there like a concierge, his arm out in a gesture of welcome. "What's the matter?" he asked, peering at her.
She just shook her head, still staring into the darkened interior of the room. "I don't know if I can," she whispered.
He took her hand and pulled her in with him and closed the door.
"No!" Panic suffused her, blocking out everything else. She fought him, pulled against the hand clutching hers so tightly, beat at him with her other hand. "No, no, no!"
"Hey!" Rider caught her and flipped her around so his arms were around her from behind, pressing her wrists against her breast, scraping the burned flesh of her hand. She was pinned against him, unable to move.
"Look. I really don't have a lot of strength left," he whispered in her ear. "So could you stop throwing a fit and tell me what the matter is?"
"Skipper. He's—" She stopped. Rider still held her firmly, but she no longer fought him. She shut her eyes, testing the air, testing the room, testing for Skipper. There wasn't much there. Skipper was gone. The little she did glean from the atmosphere in his house was good. A feeling of welcome, of peace. She went limp.
"It's okay," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm fine. I just haven't been here since he died."
Rider's hold relaxed. "How long?"
"Two years. He died two years ago." A lump tried to form in her throat, but she swallowed it.
"Yeah. Not hardly long enough, is it?"
Something in Rider’s voice made her turn around and look at him. His eyes were brilliant blue with fatigue and pain. His arms hung loosely around her shoulders and she felt his grief.
"You lost your wife two years ago?"
"Probably closer to three," he said flatly. "Time loses its meaning after a while in the TAINCC."
Kristen nodded, her sadness melding with his. "It can lose its meaning if you're not in the TAINCC, too."
He stared at her as if trying to search for something in her eyes. "There's something about you—" he whispered, his gaze traveling from her eyes to her mouth and back.
Kristen closed her eyes and relaxed, leaning in toward him, lulled by the tender sadness and wary desire she felt inside him.
He stiffened, dropping his hands from her shoulders and averting his gaze. "Think the shower works?" he said curtly.
She almost overbalanced when his supporting hands left her shoulders. It was so jarring, the way he could abruptly withdraw from her. "Everything's still on. I pay a maid service to clean it twice a year." She shrugged. "I was thinking about selling it, but—"
Rider looked around, assessing the layout of the house. "Who knows about this place, Doc?"
She thought for a minute. "Skip had a lot of friends. Unlike me," she said with a little laugh. "He could handle a lot of people around—he loved it. There were guys and girls always coming over. That's why I finally got my own apartment." It had been too noisy, living in the house with Skip. People had always been drawn to him, had seemed content just to be around him. And they all broadcast their every emotion to her, until finally, drained, she'd moved into her own place.
Rider's voice brought her back to the present. "You didn't answer my question."
She heard the faint threat in his voice, had no doubt that he could gather enough reserves of strength to twist her arm one more time.
"Probably no one I know. And Skipper's friends—well, it's been over two years. None of them ever call me." She thought about a couple of his friends she’d tried to date. They thought she was weird.
It had always irritated Skipper that she isolated herself. He was just the opposite, and while he had tried to understand her discomfort around people, he never really could.
"Hey, Doc. Your comlink get caught in a loop?"
She looked at him, catching the quirky smile on his face that turned her heart upside down. "My comlink?"
"Never mind. Which way is the shower?"
"His bedroom and bathroom are through there," she said, pointing. "I'm going to see if there's any canned food. You might—you might check his closets for clothes."
Kristen steeled herself for the chore of digging through Skipper's pantry. But like coming into the house, the reality wasn't as bad as her anticipation. It actually comforted her to be here, to see his things meticulously laid out, so unlike her own jumble of an apartment. She smiled as she touched the row of cups hanging on their little cup hooks underneath the cabinets, then winced as she saw her blistered hand.
In the pantry, she found a stock of canned foods. There were several kinds of soup, two canned hams, and a various assortment of canned vegetables and meats.
She heated vegetable soup, carefully keeping her burned hand away from the heat, and opened some asparagus and new potatoes, which she tossed with a jar of marinated artichoke hearts for an impromptu salad. After a longing gaze at the canned ham, she decided not to offend Rider's sensitive nose by opening it.
Just as she set the dishes on the table, Rider emerged, his hair damp and clinging to his skull and his lean body encased in a pair of sweatpants she recognized as Skipper's.
He hadn't put on a shirt, and his beauty assaulted her like it did every time she looked at him. Even bruised and scraped, his body looked perfect to her. There was a huge inflamed scratch across one shoulder. Kristen crossed to him and touched the raw skin, drawing a quick breath at the ribbon of desire that whipped through her when she touched him. "I should put something on that," she said. "It's going to be sore."
Rider put his hand over hers. When he did, her heart sped up and she felt like she'd had the breath knocked out of her.
"It's not as bad as your hand," he said softly.
Kristen’s gaze was caught by the mesmerizing blue of his eyes. She licked her lips and he frowned, his gaze dropping to her mouth. Through his skin, she felt the heat of arousal burning in his belly.
"I—I made us some food," she stammered, pulling away. For a brief moment, he held her hand imprisoned beneath his, but then he finally relented. It was probably exhaustion that made her vulnerable to his every touch. Exhaustion and the irritating way he broadcast his feelings to her like sonar.
He dropped into a chair and ate heartily. Kristen ate too, but it took almost more effort than she could muster. She was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open.
Rider was having the same problem. As soon as he'd finished, he pushed the chair back. "Doc. I have no idea what's going on in that pretty head of yours, and I'm not going to ask you if I can trust you, because I wouldn't know if you were lying. I guess you can trust me though, since I apparently won't have managed to kill you by the time they've perfected the transfer of metal through time."
His eyes were heavy lidded with drowsiness. "I've got to have some sleep. If you call the police or the dogcatchers while I'm out, then so be it. I don't think I give a damn anymore." He shrugged, an odd look of regret shadowing his fac
e, then got up and left the room.
CHAPTER NINE
Kristen sat at the kitchen table for a long time before she roused herself and glanced at the clock. Ten o'clock in the morning. She'd almost lost track of time. As near as she could tell, the explosion at the clinic had happened early Friday evening. Then they'd escaped her apartment sometime probably after midnight.
She pushed her hands through her hair and sighed. Just a few hours, and within that time she had become a fugitive, linked by danger to a man who claimed to be from hundreds of years in the future.
The really absurd thing was, she was beginning to believe him. And even more ridiculous, she trusted him. Rider’s emotions were more open to her than anyone she had ever met, other than Skipper.
Every pain, every bit of sadness, communicated itself to her through his touch, and sometimes just his glance. She was exhausted from his anguish, and the sadness and fear that lay on his heart. There were other, sweeter feelings, too. The tenderness he exuded when he touched her, the desire he tried to deny. Yes, she was linked to him by more than danger and chance.
Kristen’s thoughts kept coming back to the physical attraction. She wasn't immune to it, not by a long shot, but she had never been able to endure more than kisses before. She'd always been repelled by the casual attitude of the kisser—and sometimes the calculated, planned seduction. They'd been so shallow, those few men who had tried to come on to her.
Nothing like Rider. Whatever he was, whoever he was, he was sincere. Whether he was a refugee from a loony bin, or a killer from the future, he believed in himself. There was something very reassuring about that.
There was another thing that gave her a measure of reassurance, too. He genuinely cared about her. She had felt it in his fingers when they caressed her nape, denying the threat of his words. She had tasted it in his lips.
Kristen started. Had she fallen asleep? She sighed and stood. She needed a shower too, and a long, undisturbed nap. With a poignant smile she remembered she'd kept some clothes here at Skipper's for late nights when they were working on his research.
