Shattered Highways

by Tara N Hathcock

  Quincy sat staring at the phone for a minute, trying to process what had just happened. Idly she wondered if the headache would follow. She hadn’t had time to piece together that aspect of her drama but she could worry about it later, she supposed. The number, it was the middle four digits of Logan’s military i.d. She had seen it once, that very first day on the quad at school. He had been playing Ultimate Frisbee with a bunch of teenagers and had gone down hard, his dog tags slipping out from under the collar of his t-shirt. She shouldn’t be able to remember the number. She had only seen it for a second, at a distance, before she even knew him. She didn’t think the number itself had even registered so much as the fact that there was a number. So how had she pulled it back up? It was one thing to figure out how to break the code; she’d read that book on cryptology a couple of years back. But to do it in seconds, using a number she didn’t even know she knew? In computer terms, it was a lot of processing power in a ridiculously short amount of time. It was crazy, was what it was. It was also a pattern, one she hadn’t noticed before. But she hadn’t known to look before, either. Now that she knew about Dr. Garrison’s theory, now that she had accepted it as fact, there was so much that could possibly be explained. Why she couldn’t sleep. Where the noise in her head came from. How she could do such random, unlikely things. She suddenly wanted to meet Dr. Garrison so badly. To sit down and talk with him, let him explain to her the way Logan said he’d explained to Jones - kindly, like someone who actually cared. She needed so desperately to understand. And she wanted so badly to be understood.

  Logan’s phone was still clutched tightly in her hand. She unlocked the screen again and started scrolling through the phone looking for contacts, inching her legs towards the side of the bed as she did. But not slowly enough. The pain tore at her and she doubled over as it took all the air from her lungs. She couldn’t breath, couldn’t swallow. She panicked and tumbled off the bed, landing on her knees and jarring her neck, gagging as her swallow reflex fought against the pain. Time stopped as she huddled there, unable to do anything but gasp and wheeze, tears running reflexively down her face. Suddenly, a warm hand was against her back, another pressed against her shoulder. She could hear Logan’s deep voice, saying the same thing over and over but she couldn’t make it out. He reached around and pulled her back against his chest, bracing his own back against the bed with Quincy in his lap. He pulled the pillow off the bed and tucked it against her chest before crossing their arms over it, providing compression for her ribs and something stable to rest her head against. And like before, her breathing slowly calmed, the involuntary spasms in her neck and throat easing off. They sat like that for Quincy didn’t know how long. It could have been minutes or it could have been hours. But eventually Logan shifted behind her, trying to see her face.

  “Better?” he asked.

  Quincy checked her instinct to nod. “Yes.” It was gritty and barely more than a whisper, but it would have to do.

  Logan shifted slowly out from behind her, then leaned down and wrapped his arms around her like a hug.

  “We’re going to stand up real slow, okay?” he said.

  She closed her eyes, letting her forehead rest against his chest, and allowed him to guide her to her feet. She stood, held upright by Logan, and tried to keep her breathing slow and shallow.

  “What...?” she managed to get out.

  How he actually heard her, she had no idea. Her voice was so mangled and weak, the sound of the tracks beneath them was enough to overwhelm it.

  “Do you remember anything?” he asked.

  Talking was easier than shaking her head, but not by much.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Let’s get you situated first,” Logan said, “and then we can talk.”

  Logan stepped forward, easing her backwards until the back of her legs bumped up against the bed and then, bracing her with his arms, helped her sink slowly onto it.

  “Here,” he said, gathering up all the pillows in the room and stacking them against the wall for her to lean against. He pulled his chair up close, sat down, and slowly lifted her feet and sat them in his lap. “There,” he said. “Comfy?”

  As close as I’m going to get anyway, she thought. She started to ask again what had happened but thought better of it at the last minute. Instead, without moving her arms from where they were wrapped around the pillow, she held her hands out. It was a universal gesture and Logan didn’t disappoint.

  The smile disappeared from his face. “Right. Do you remember being outside on the balcony car?”

  When she just looked blankly back at him, he went on, “You went out there after we...talked...about Dr. Garrison.”

  She remembered a fight about Dr. Garrison more than a talk but she liked his version of the story better.

  “We were talking and you were cold so I handed you my jacket before going back inside?”

  Quincy frowned and blinked once, trying to let him know he needed to speed up the explanation. She remembered they had argued, Logan trying to convince her that RNB wasn’t so bad and her saying some terribly nasty things that she wished she didn’t remember before escaping to find fresh air. But she didn’t remember going outside.

  “Well, I followed you and we talked a little more. And then I left you outside and went back to the room. I wanted to call Dr. Garrison and let him know our progress. He wants to drive up and meet us when we get off the train but I didn’t like it. Not with the Colonel and his minion still running around somewhere. I wanted to cut that idea off before it really grabbed hold of him.”

  Logan’s eyes were serious. “I remembered I’d left my phone in the pocket of my jacket so I went back. If I hadn’t…” The thought seemed to jar him. “I don’t know how he managed it but the Colonel was on the train. I don’t know how he knew what we were planning or how he managed to trace us so fast. He certainly had more skills than me.”

  Had. Quincy picked up on the past tense. Logan must have seen it on her face, because he went on.

  “He slipped out onto the balcony when you had your back turned. He cut the cord off the curtains over the door and used that to,” he gestured towards her neck and she blanched.

  “He got you pretty good. You were already unconscious by the time I made my way back. We fought,” Logan said abruptly, “and then he fell over the railing. He was gone before I could do anything.” Logan looked down at this, idly running his hands up and down her feet.

  “I’m sorry,” Quincy managed to squeeze out past the gravel.

  “For what?” he asked, surprised. “Neither of us believed he’d be able to get that close again. And even if we did, I’m not sure if there was anything we could have done differently anyway.”

  “You killed him.” she said with difficulty. “For me. I’m sorry.”

  Logan was a soldier and had seen combat, she knew, but Logan was also sweet and easy going and killing wasn’t something he would ever be casual about. It would mean something to him, no matter who it was.

  Logan held her eyes for another few seconds before dropping them back down. He swallowed hard, reigning himself back in, then gave her feet a squeeze before saying, “You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

  Chapter 69

  Quincy

  They stayed like that for a few minutes, soaking in the relief that this trip from hell might finally have an end in sight. Quincy didn’t realize she’d closed her eyes until Logan cleared his throat. She opened them, shooting him a glare without moving her head, which was situated just perfectly to take the strain off her neck.

  “That’s looking pretty bad,” he said, gesturing towards her neck. Or maybe her face. She didn’t really know. “I’m going to grab some more ice. And maybe some ibuprofen.”

  She shut her eyes again and he stood, lifting her feet and setting them back down onto the chair.

  “Anything else you need?”

  She flicked a finger, enough to make him laugh and shoo him away without effort.
It was hard to believe it was over. She could say it had been a rough couple of weeks but in truth, it had been so much longer. It had started in that truck stop back in Boise, back when she was Kara Scott. It seemed like a lifetime ago but that had been her first taste of the paranoia. That she remembered, of course. It seemed pretty likely someone else had come before Kara Scott. But she had been running, first as Kara, and then as Grace Elliott, and finally as Quincy O’Connell, for so long that she didn’t know what she was supposed to do now. Of course, the company was still out there but without their lead bird dog, it seemed unlikely she’d be back on their radar for awhile. She could go wherever she wanted. Start a new life with another new identity. Settle down and make some real friends - make a real life, like Logan suggested. But the thought didn’t sit well with her. One more identity wouldn’t help her figure out what had happened in the past. It wouldn’t help her figure out what was going on right now, in the present. If RNB was real, and at this point she couldn’t very well deny it, then she needed to learn how to deal with it. She needed to know as much about it as she could and learn what she could do to manage the symptoms.

  Symptoms, she thought with disdain. That was too mild a word. And she really didn’t even know what all of those symptoms were. She knew she didn’t sleep much. She knew her brain didn’t stop. She knew she memorized weird, random things without trying. But she didn’t know what it all actually meant. There was only one place she could go to deal with the disease. Only one person who could help her. Well, two, she thought, as Logan pushed the door open with an elbow, the ice, a Coke, and a bottle of ibuprofen in his hands, and waltzed in like he was the Queen of England. She couldn’t help but smile back, his relief and energy contagious.

  “Here,” he said, sitting the coke on the tiny nightstand and opening the bottle of pills. “How many do you want?”

  She held up four fingers and he shook them out onto her palm. She popped them and took the can he offered. She looked at it, not sure how she was going to drink it without being able to move but he quickly produced a straw and dropped it into the can with more flourish than it deserved.

  “Thanks,” she managed to squeak out.

  He frowned. “Would you quit trying to talk?” he scolded. “You were strangled. I think you can forego the rules of polite society for awhile.”

  “But how will I annoy you without my verbal wit and charm?”

  The comeback lost a little something as a gravelly whisper but still, mission accomplished. He just shook his head, took the can back from her, and set the ice pack in her hand instead.

  “Where...?” she asked weakly, gesturing towards the supplies.

  “They come by way of our good buddy Albert.” She looked at him blankly.

  “Oh yeah,” he said, chagrined. “You were busy dancing with the Colonial while I was making friends. Sorry,” he said, falsely contrite. “Anyway,” he continued at her look, “Albert is our porter. Our overly helpful, blindingly cheerful porter. He also saw me carry you back to the car, by the way. You apparently went out onto the balcony to have a drink, had a little too much, and slipped, busting a very expensive decanter and hitting your head.”

  So, he’d made her a lush. Swell. He was getting pretty good at reading her mind, or at least her facial expressions, because he quickly continued.

  “An accident. Just someone who enjoyed a little too much of the bubbly on her honeymoon,” he assured her.

  “Hmm.”

  “Plus, I had to think on my feet and that was the best I could do.” He stretched the ice out to her, arranging it against her neck and throat. “Let’s put this ice on your neck while it’s still cold.”

  She thought about making more of a protest but decided against it. She really did hurt. The ice rested gingerly against her neck and she relaxed into it as the cold started to numb the skin around her throat. But there was still something she needed to do. She snapped her fingers and he looked up.

  “You rang?” he asked drolly.

  She brought her hand slowly up towards her ear, pantomiming a phone call, and then pointed back at him. He got the message.

  “Sure,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket and handing it over. “But are you sure you really want to? It’s kind of horrific.”

  No, she didn’t really want to. The ice felt so good against her neck and what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her, but she unlocked his phone anyway, ignoring his mock irritation that she had used her cool new super powers to figure out his password. The camera screen popped open, already set on selfie mode, and when she peeled the ice away she could see the full scope of the damage. Her throat was angry and raw, purple and red bruises tracing where the cord had pressed against her throat, the skin burned from the friction. As bad as it hurt, she knew it was going to look bad. And it did. But what shocked her the most were her eyes. She hadn’t expected the blood, though she probably should have. As many books as she’d read, she knew strangulation caused the tiny blood vessels in the eyes to burst and fill the whites. But she had never seen it in real life before. She looked like she should be dead.

  “Hey,” Logan said, drawing her attention away from the gruesome image. “I have an idea. Now that we’re real friends and not lying to each other about stupid things, I have some questions for you.”

  She frowned and tipped her head just a fraction. He knew she didn’t have any answers.

  “Not about your birthday or your family, maybe. But there are some things you do know.” He shot her a grin. “For example, I’ve always wondered - is this your natural hair color?” he asked, reaching up and tucking a strand that had fallen onto her face behind her ear. “It was the first thing I noticed that day in the quad,” he said absently, moving back and propping his forearms against his knees.

  “I had seen the picture you were using at the school but it didn’t exactly do you justice. You were blonde as Kara and brunette as Grace. I’m just curious which is real.”

  Instead of answering, she just pointed up at her head, surprised he’d remembered what her aliases looked like. She had gotten tired of coloring it with every move so she’d just stripped the brown out for Quincy, letting the red take back over.

  Logan nodded like this didn’t surprise him. “That’s what I thought,” he said, sounding supremely satisfied. “Then I guess green is your real eye color, too?”

  “I see better without the colored contacts,” she managed. “And the glasses are just for show, too.”

  “So, a redheaded, green-eyed master of disguise.” He grinned. “And with those freckles, I bet a sunburn is never far away.” She smiled.

  “SPF 50 all the way baby.”

  “So let’s see, what else?” His eyes light up. “I know! Tattoos and piercings.” He looked her over appraisingly. “Anything I should know about?”

  Quincy decided a change in subject was in order. “Maybe you should be the one answering questions,” she winced, trying to work a swallow past the swelling. The speculative look Logan threw her said he wasn’t going to give up on that topic forever, but he cut her some slack.

  “Sure. Let’s see, something personal…,” he paused to think about it. “I think I told you I grew up along the coast of Oregon. It was this little town called Winchester Bay. Well, it’s not really even a town. More of a village. The same people have lived there forever and everyone knows everyone. We do have a lighthouse you can visit and some of the highest dunes in Oregon.”

  Quincy smiled. “Fancy,” she mouthed.

  “Absolutely,” Logan agreed. “What else? My dad was a crabber. He’d toss out his traps and we’d go check them every morning and evening and we’d spend some time clamming in between.” She must have looked lost because he laughed.

  “You know. Clamming. Wading around at low tide to see if you can find any clams burrowing down in the leftover pools. Kids love it.”

  “Idyllic,” she managed to force out. And it really did sound it. Maybe she’d try it sometime.


  Logan smiled. “It was. For awhile. My dad died in a boating accident when I was fourteen and my mom tried, but she couldn’t hold it together after that. She’d always been kind of flighty but my dad was her anchor. While he was alive, she could be happy having roots.

  “She stuck around for a couple of months after he died but took off while I was in school one day. I haven’t heard from her since.”

  Logan leaned back against the wall of their tiny compartment and stretched his legs out in front of him, not upset in the least, like his childhood tragedy was nothing more than a story he’d heard. It caught Quincy off-guard.

  “Okay?” she finally asked. Wasn’t he mad or hurt or, or something, when his mother left him?

  “No, not at all. I was a kid who’d just lost his dad and whose mom didn’t even bother to say goodbye. I was definitely not okay. I was mad and hurt and whatever other emotion you want to toss in there. But that was twenty years ago. I had to let go of the hurt eventually or it would have killed me.”

  He shrugged. “Plus, I do understand. She hadn’t been built to settle in one place but my dad was worth the sacrifice. When he died, she was devastated. She fell back on old patterns because that’s what people do when they’re hurting and because she didn’t know how else to survive.”

  He saw her look. “Oh, she tried to make it work for me. But even at fourteen or fifteen, I could see what was coming. Even when she was there, she was barely functioning. I was taking care of her instead of the other way around. I think, looking back,” he said reflectively, “she ultimately left because she was trying to protect me.”

  Interesting angle to take. “My mom might have been gone when I came home from school that day but I wasn’t alone,” he went on. “My high school football coach and his wife were sitting on my couch. Mom left them a letter and they always made sure I wasn’t alone.”

  Logan was so eternally optimistic and energetic. Quincy would have never imagined his childhood was so tragic. And to see all he’d seen overseas and lose his best friend the way he had...how was he this man after enduring all that?