Her feet hit the bottom. Her legs crumpled, and she tumbled backward. Her head struck a hard surface — the arroyo wall, she realized, as phantom lights danced in her vision. She'd fallen into another arroyo, or maybe an offshoot of the one that blocked the road.
A figure leaped into the arroyo from above her head. The commando landed directly in front of her, spun around, and thrust his gun in her face. She lurched sideways to squeeze around him. A starburst of pain behind her eyes stopped her mid step. She fought back a retch.
The commando seized both her wrists in one massive hand. Threads of pain shot up her arms into her shoulders.
Not like this, they could not take her like this, so easily, so quickly. Fight, dammit, give them hell. She couldn't. Her body felt as limp as towels linked together with string. Her tongue was parched and bloody. She breathed hard, fast, unable to swallow enough oxygen. The first sharp pain of a migraine blossomed behind her eyes. A twinge in her neck stiffened into the sensation of a steel rod jammed up her neck and straight into her brain.
She needed help. God, she hated admitting it, but she could no longer deny the truth. She needed somebody somewhere to somehow help her. No one was around. Just a battalion of commandos operating on orders to capture her — dead or alive, she suspected.
Anybody. Anywhere. Somehow.
A bright light popped on, aimed straight at her face. A flashlight.
The pain behind her eyes burst into a full-fledged migraine. The light hit her with a physical force, driving the pain deep into her brain. The sound of her own breathing hurt. Her stomach heaved, and she gulped back her gorge.
The commando spoke. His words pierced her brain, sharp as needles, though she couldn't comprehend the meaning. She squeezed her eyes shut. Please, anybody, help me. No, not just anybody. His name wisped through her as a fleeting thought and she grabbed it, holding onto it like a mental life preserver.
David, help me. I need you.
The migraine bulldozed all thoughts from her mind. She pressed her hands against her temples. The commando yelled. Calling his friends, she realized between waves of dizziness.
David, please.
He came. She sensed his presence, though she couldn't open her eyes. The flashlight beam was too bright, the pain too intense. Despite bouncing on the waves of nausea and dizziness, struggling to stay afloat, she felt better. Safer.
The commando grunted. Feet scuffled. Sand sprayed her face.
Silence.
Voices shouted above and behind her. The other commandos.
Arms cradled her body and lifted her. She chanced opening an eyelid a sliver. David carried her down the arroyo, his face stern, his arms strong beneath her. He was holding something in his left hand, an object that bumped against her every so often. She shut her eyes as he broke into a trot. Rather than exacerbating her symptoms, the bobbing motion of his gait soothed her. The glow from the flashlight weakened and faded into blackness. A chilly breeze wafted over them, and she huddled closer against David, absorbing the warmth of his body. The pain in her head ebbed as a tide of weariness swept into her.
David halted.
Commandos shouted, their voices distant.
"Where is she?" one asked.
"I dunno," another answered. "Didn't you see?"
"She couldn't have disappeared."
"Look! Donaldson's down there."
"Check him out … we'll go this … "
The voices diminished until she could no longer distinguish the words. The grumbling of the Jeep's engine grew fainter.
The migraine was almost gone now, vanishing in record time. Yet even when she'd been engulfed in the pain, she'd felt safer than she should have, safer than logic allowed. Commandos hunted for her. They would find her and, when they did, they would kill her. If they didn't, then whoever had sent them would. It didn't bother her. The intense weariness, an aftereffect of the migraine, skewed her thoughts. She wasn't thinking clearly. She had trouble thinking at all.
David bent his head down beside hers. "You're safe."
Too exhausted to speak, she pressed her face against his chest, curling her fingers around the neck of his T-shirt.
No more shouting. No footsteps. No engine noises. The commandos were out of earshot, maybe even gone altogether, having given up the search. She harbored no illusions that they'd give up permanently. They would be back. Soon. With a lot more men.
David ducked his head out into the arroyo. Empty. Carrying Grace, he knew he could never outrun the guards. Carrying her while clutching the guard's helmet and trying not to trip in a hole or smack into a big rock was even harder. A crack in the arroyo wall, four feet deep and three feet wide, had offered refuge. Their concealment was aided by a large cactus growing at the apex of the arroyo wall, which shaded the fissure. Although the commandos had scanned the arroyo visually, the crack was not obvious, especially in the dark. The cactus cast a long shadow on the arroyo wall so that, in a quick glance, the crack looked like a part of the shadows, not a fracture in the wall.
He knew this landscape the way he knew his own mind. Months of exploring the vicinity of the facility, psychically, had given him an intimate knowledge of every slope and gully, every rock outcropping and copse of Joshua trees. He knew the locations of three abandoned homes, nothing more than shacks now, and the path of every arroyo within fifty square miles. His travels had acquainted him with the creatures that inhabited the desert, both human and animal. No one knew this area better.
Except, perhaps, the architects who had built the facility.
Grace clutched his shirt tighter and moaned.
The bastards had hurt her. He didn't know how, couldn't see a wound or a mark, but he knew they had done this to her. Pain had possessed her body like a parasite, eating away at her strength, and he had no idea what to do for her, if anything could alleviate the pain. She seemed unable to speak.
She needed a doctor. He couldn't trust anyone in Reston. He wasn't sure she'd make it to the next town, over a hundred miles away, even if he conjured a car and drove two-hundred miles an hour the whole way. Her face had paled. A bead of blood formed on her lip where she'd bitten it. Scratches drew red lines across her cheek.
Dammit, help her. Don't just stand here.
The arroyo snaked eastward about two hundred feet, then forked northeast and southwest. At the fork, the walls sloped at a more oblique angle and animals had worn a path up the slope at that spot. He could at least get them out of the arroyo there. After that, he knew exactly where to take them. The route ran through his mind, a series of lines on a mental map, leading toward the one safe place he knew.
He lunged out of the fissure.
Grace huddled in his arms, her body limp, as he traversed the arroyo and found the trail up the slope. Once he'd climbed out of the arroyo, he paused to check her pulse. It beat strong and steady against his finger. Her breathing was slow and shallow. She seemed to be sleeping, rather than unconscious. He relaxed a little. Rest would do her good.
While the sun dipped ever closer to the mountains, David strode across the desert toward a house he couldn't be sure still stood. He hadn't seen the place in six months.
His arms quivered. Sweat trickled down his brow. Even in a manifestation, he could exhaust himself, and he was no good to Grace if couldn't walk. Besides, he might grow so tired he'd snap back to the facility, back to a locked room miles from her. He would not abandon her.
Not after what she'd sacrificed to get him here.
He halted in an area populated by rocks. He dropped the helmet. Kicking aside some of the rocks, he cleared a spot and lowered Grace onto the sand. She didn't stir. God, she looked weak. Vulnerable. If they found her like this, she couldn't defend herself. Tesler might haul him back to the facility at any moment by administering drugs or an electric shock to break the connection. He must see her through whatever injury or illness had seized her, because she would never survive alone, not like this.
She opened her eyes partway. Red veins webbed the whites of her eyes. She sniffled as her gaze settled on his face. He wanted to hold her, but feared he'd cause her more pain. So instead, he smoothed the hair away from her face.
She spoke, her voice rough. "It's over."
She's dying. He bent over her, his gut wrenching into knots. "What happened?"
"Migraine. It's going away, though."
The tension flooded out of him in a long sigh. She had meant the migraine was over. He shook his head and almost laughed. She wasn't dying. Though the migraine had weakened her, she would recover. In fact, she looked much better already. Her cheeks showed a slight pinkness, rather than the frightening pallor he'd seen when he found her in the arroyo.
"I'm okay," she said.
Sitting down beside her, he managed a weak smile as he stroked her hair. "I was afraid they'd hurt you."
He slid his hand down to her cheek — the one without scratches on it.
She scrunched her face into a confused expression. "How are you here? I thought you were too weak to manifest."
"I was," he said, taking her hand in his. "You gave me some of your energy. That's probably what caused your migraine."
"What?"
"You wanted me here, and you made it happen." He squeezed her hand gently. "Now be quiet and rest. We still have a ways to go."
Grace shivered. The chill of night had settled over the desert.
In one motion, he scooped her into his arms and rose. As he started down the path outlined in his mind, she looped her arms around his neck. Whatever happened, they would deal with it together.
Whether she liked it or not.
Sizzle. Crackle. Grace opened her eyes. The migraine had ended. She was tired, weak, hungry, and thirsty, but no longer in pain. She lay on her side, on the floor, where David had set her down … how long ago? The memory seemed more like a half-remembered dream.
The wood felt rough and cold against her skin. A draft swirled over her and she shivered. Something thunked. A door closing, she thought, unable to muster the energy to lift her head and look. The draft ceased. Across the room, a fire burned inside an old fireplace. Two logs crackled. Flames licked upward from the logs.
A figure passed in front of her. She pushed up into a sitting position, supporting her body with her arms.
David kneeled by the fire. He held twigs and broken boards under one arm and, piece by piece, tossed them into the fire. She watched him stoke the blaze with a five-foot metal fence post. He had carried her here and started a fire. He was taking care of her. No one had done that for her in a long time.
He turned toward her and sat down, patting the floor beside him. "It's warmer over here."
She scuttled toward the fireplace. Sitting several feet from him, legs crossed under her, she studied the fire. Orange and yellow flames darted up from within the pile of wood, flickering and dancing.
David scooted closer to her and clasped her hand in both of his. She turned sideways to rest her head on his shoulder. He felt so solid, so real, that she had forgotten what he was — an illusion. Sure, he existed, in a building out there in the desert, but he was not really with her, not really touching her hand, not really giving her a look of earnest concern.
His face was haggard, his lips pale. As he exhaled, he let his shoulders sag. She shifted her attention to his hand, cupped over hers. It looked real. Everything looked the opposite of how it was these days. Her life looked normal. People looked like people, even the ones she now knew were not people, but instead humanoid mirages.
She nudged David's hand with one finger. His flesh gave under the pressure, until her fingertip bumped the bone. His skin felt warm and pliable, the bone firm, the muscles taut when flexed and soft when relaxed. Beneath her finger, she detected the coarseness of hair, the texture of skin, and upon pressing, the surge of blood flowing through veins. David's explanations did nothing to subdue her confusion or the surreality of the situation.
She scraped her fingernail lightly across his hand. "Can you feel this?"
"I feel everything." He reached up with his free hand to lift her chin, bringing their gazes into alignment. "You ought to know that after last night."
She felt like curling up in his arms again, feeling his warmth surround and infuse her.
His gaze was intent. She looked away, focusing on the fireplace, at the embers glowing beneath the half-consumed wood.
"When you left me in the car," she said, "there was wind and pressure. It made my ears pop. What was that?"
Releasing her hand, he slipped his arm around her shoulders. "Breaking the connection too abruptly can cause a sudden expulsion of energy. It's often experienced as a localized shift in air pressure. Inside a confined space, it's more noticeable. We call it backfire."
"Right." She'd pretend that made sense, because if he offered more details her head might implode. "You said I gave you energy."
"Yes."
"How?"
He shrugged and tried to laugh, but coughed instead. "I don't know how you do it. I can't do it, and neither can anyone else I've met."
The firelight no longer lit his face. Now, it seemed to draw the energy out of his body as fuel for its flames.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"I will be. The shot of energy you gave me is almost gone, though."
"Maybe I could give you more."
"No." His expression hardened to match the tone of his voice. "It's too dangerous."
She said nothing. Her gut told her the same thing, but she didn't like seeing him weak and virtually defenseless.
"You should go," she said.
"I don't like leaving you alone."
"I'm used to it."
"They'll find you. One against a dozen, maybe more." He brushed his thumb across her cheek. "Not good odds."
"Odds can be beaten."
He didn't scowl, though she expected he would. Instead, he turned his head to study the fire, his expression not blank, but simply inscrutable as he said, "You're inside the perimeter now. If you try to leave, they'll find you. If you stay in this house too long, they'll find you. You might reach the facility, and I might be able to help you get inside it, but — " He looked at her, and this time he did scowl. "What do you hope to accomplish there?"
She lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. "Not sure. I'm trusting my instincts here, and they tell me the answers I need are inside that facility."
"We've already established I can't stop you." He stared down at the floor, tapping one fingernail on the scuffed wood. "I know the grounds around the facility. Sean knows the interior better than anyone except the engineers and architects who built it. He's hiding inside the facility now, but I can find him and get his help in sneaking you inside."
"Thank you."
Reaching into his back pocket, he brought out a yellowed and wrinkled piece of paper that was folded in quarters. As he unfolded the sheet, he held it out to her. "I found a pen in your purse and an ancient sheet of paper wadded up in the corner there." He pointed over his shoulder. "So I drew you a map."
She took the paper and ran a fingertip over the black ink lines drawn on it. One zigzagging line ducked between and around shapes and words he'd scrawled across the page. Landmarks, she realized, and explanatory phrases to guide her.
"It isn't the most direct route," he told her, "because the direct route is too exposed. This way will take a little longer, but it should get you there with the least risk of being spotted."
She noticed he didn't say zero risk, just less risk. Complete safety no longer existed for her.
"Your gun is in your purse," he said. "I picked it up back in the arroyo."
"Thanks."
Bending sideways and leaning backward, he retrieved an object from the shadows behind him. When he sat straight again, he offered her the object. It was a full-face helmet like the ones the commandos wore.
"Take this," he said, thrusting the helmet at her. "Traveling at night is difficult, and the facility's security force isn't the only danger out there. If you step on a rattlesnake or run into coyotes … " He grasped her right hand and folded her fingers around the helmet's bottom rim. "The helmets have built-in night vision capability."
She accepted the helmet. He gestured for her to put it on, and she did. Darkness swallowed her.
"In daylight, the visor acts as sunglasses," David said, his voice coming through clearly, if a bit softer. "This button turns on the night vision."
He guided her finger to a switch on the bottom rim. She flicked it.
The world transformed into shades of green. The fire was blinding on the night vision screen in front of her eyes, and she swiveled her head to look into the darker recesses of the room. She made out the individual boards that formed the walls, the outlines of the window frames, and even a Joshua tree that stood maybe twenty feet beyond the window.
Shutting off the night vision, she removed the helmet. "Thank you."
"Stop thanking me," he muttered. Then he pressed his lips to hers in a brief, tender kiss. "Just be careful."
And he was gone.
A breeze whistled through the old house. The floorboards creaked. The windows rattled. Inside the fireplace, flames whipped back and forth, dwindling until only the embers remained.
The storm ended in a flurry of dust. Flames burst up from the embers in the fireplace.
David had broken the connection more carefully this time, or else the room was big enough to dampen the backfire.
She was alone. Again.
"Move and I'll split your head open. Don't care if you are female."
The maw of a shotgun gaped at her, nearly kissing her nose. A man loomed above her, shadows masking his features. A faint grumbling issued from behind him, and a bright light from outside silhouetted him from behind. The front door hung wide open.
Still groggy from sleep, since she had woken up seconds earlier, Grace struggled to make sense of the images. Gun. Man. Light. She had fallen asleep in front of the fire, that she remembered.
The man gesticulated with the gun. "You're trespassing. Just 'cause I don't live here, don't mean you can break in. "
"I thought the house was abandoned."
"Yeah. But I still own it."
Grace yawned. She couldn't help it. Her brain needed oxygen. The landlord, however, took her action the wrong way.
He jammed the gun into her forehead. "I said don't move."
"It was a yawn, not an act of war." To hell with this. She slapped the gun away, pushing onto her knees. "My car broke down. I was lost, so I started walking and came to this place. Since it looked abandoned, I decided to sleep here. Sorry I offended you."
She hopped onto her feet.
He swung the gun toward her. The barrel bumped her chest. "How'd you find me?"
"I told you, I got lost."
"Carlos sent you, didn't he?"
"I don't know any Carlos. I got lost."
"Sure." He shuffled backward. "The stuff better be here. If it's not, your pretty little face is gonna wallpaper this room."
Drugs. The word popped into her mind as the man kneeled, keeping the shotgun sighted on her head, and pried one board loose from the floor, then another. He dragged an olive-green canvas bag out of the hole and plopped it on the floor. She waited for an opening to run, but he kept the gun pointed at her. Though his aim varied by a few inches, he wouldn't need a straight line at her head for the shot to kill her. If the blast hit her shoulder or her chest, she'd probably die all the same.
The commando helmet lay near her feet. Her gun was inside her purse, which also lay nearby. To grab either, she'd need to duck way too close to the shotgun's muzzle.
The man unzipped the olive-green bag. She glimpsed white bricks wrapped in plastic. Duct tape secured each package. Cocaine. Maybe heroine. She'd seen enough cop shows to recognize the stuff.
How did this creep get inside the facility's perimeter?
There were no fences. Anyone could walk across the perimeter, ignoring the warning signs. The sensors would detect the intrusion, however, and commandos would be dispatched.
Everything inside her went cold. The commandos had shown up quickly when she breached the perimeter.
Out the window, through the grime encrusting the glass, she saw a vehicle with its headlights blazing. The grumbling she'd heard was the engine idling. Her heartbeat quickened.
"Lucky for you," the man said, zipping the bag and dropping it into the hole, "it's still here."
"I told you, I just got lost."
"What were you doing out here in hell's back forty? You know this whole blasted desert is owned by some nasty corporate types."
"I — " She couldn't think of a good lie. She couldn't think of a bad one either.
With his foot, he maneuvered the floorboards back into place. They snapped into position.
She felt the earth liquefying beneath her, in a metaphorical sense, at least so far. If she moved too quickly, she'd plunge into the mire. If she waited too long, it would swallow her. Neither option appealed to her.
"It's silly," she said. "I was looking for UFOs. Took a wrong turn and got lost."
"That's the worst-smelling load of bat guano I ever heard. Carlos, you scumbag!"
The gun trembled in his hand. His trigger finger wobbled.
She dove sideways just as he jerked the trigger. The shot detonated with deafening force. Wood splintered and sprayed across the room. Bricks around the fireplace crumbled.
The man bellowed a wordless cry of rage and anguish.
Grace snatched up the helmet and her purse, scrambling for the door.
Another shot boomed behind her. The door frame exploded into projectile slivers.
She crawled out the door on all fours.
Footsteps crashed behind her. She yanked the gun out of her purse, rolled onto her back, and aimed the gun at the doorway.
The man stomped into the opening, shotgun leveled at her head.
She pulled the trigger.
As the shot resounded in the air, the man jerked, seemed to freeze for a split second, and then tumbled backward to hit the floor with a concussion that shook the cracked glass in the window.
Had she killed him?
The thought triggered a swell of nausea, and she rolled onto her side, afraid she might vomit. The nausea passed in a few seconds, though, leaving her trembling and sheathed in a cold sweat.
She had to make sure he was … not a threat anymore.
Still gripping her gun, she pushed onto her knees and finally clambered to her feet. The man lay motionless just inside the threshold. On tiptoes, she approached the doorway.
His eyes were open. Blank. Sightless. Dead.
She'd killed a man. He was a drug dealer. How many lives had he taken, through murder or from the drugs he peddled? He had tried to kill her, after all. She did nothing more than defend her life.
Whirling around, she sprinted for the vehicle, a black Land Rover. She flung the door open and jumped inside, tossing her purse and the helmet onto the passenger seat. Maybe she wouldn't need the helmet after all. Plucking David's map out of her purse, she set it on seat beside the bag. She slammed the gear shift lever into reverse.
Easing her foot down on the accelerator, she turned the Rover around to head in the direction indicated on David's map. Soon, the dark outline of the old house vanished from sight in the rearview mirror.
This was a little too easy.
The thought niggled at her as the Rover bounced over the terrain. She had to ignore the concern, because getting to the facility as quickly as possible was the top priority. The drug dealer had undoubtedly triggered the perimeter sensors, drawing a horde of commandos who were swarming the old house at this moment. The Rover left tire tracks, which the commandos could follow.
Hell.
She would drive the Rover to within easy walking distance of the facility, and then abandon it to finish her journey on foot. It seemed the best, and fastest, plan.
Less risk, not zero risk.
She relaxed into the seat. The supple leather cradled her body. The vents bathed her feet in warm air that leeched the chill out of her flesh. The radio, its volume turned down, murmured classical music. Between the front seats, a cell phone sat in its cradle. The fuel gage registered three-quarters of a tank. Attached to the dashboard, a GPS unit showed the car's position as a mobile dot superimposed over a satellite image of the desert.
Stopping the car, she took a couple minutes to compare David's map to the GPS display. As she set off again, she felt more confident in her ability to find her way. The universe had granted her a measure of good luck, at last. Angering a drug dealer and being forced to shoot him hardly counted as good luck, but his leaving the Rover idling did. Thank heavens. She needed a break almost as much as she needed dinner.
The Rover bumped over a rut. Her buttocks lifted off the seat, but she held onto the steering wheel, keeping the vehicle on course.
The phone rang.
Her grip on the steering wheel loosened, and the Rover swerved toward a Joshua tree. She jerked the wheel to avoid the tree, stomped on the brake, and gasped as the car skidded to a stop.
The cell phone, cupped in its cradle, rang a second time.
She picked up the phone but did not answer the call. The phone's LCD screen said "caller unknown." While the phone rang a third and fourth time, she debated answering the call. No way in hell, she decided. It might be Carlos, and she had a feeling she did not want to chat with him.
The phone rang once more and stopped.
Grace stared at the LCD screen. Her heart was beating so fast she could barely catch her breath.
The phone made a bloop-bloop sound. "New text message," it announced on the screen.
Biting her lip, she tapped the screen to open the message. It contained three words: "I see you."
Could he really see her?
The Rover's engine died. She twisted the key in the ignition. Nothing. The door locks clunked into position. She yanked on the handle. Locked. She pressed the button that lowered the windows. Nothing. The phone rang. She reached for it, but then hesitated with her hand resting on the device. It rang two, three, four times.
She answered.
On the other end of the call, a man snarled. "You're mine."
"Excuse me?"
"I wasn't dead. Did you see any blood, lady?"
She flashed back to the man lying flat on his back, eyes open but sightless.
At least, she'd thought they were sightless. Dead. Had she seen blood? In the murky conditions, she couldn't say for sure. The voice on the phone sure sounded like the same drug dealer.
Through the phone connection, the man snarled, "Think you can steal my car and get off scot-free? Think again." He paused. "Tell Carlos I'm onto him."
"I don't know any Carlos." The desperation in her voice surprised her, though she couldn't imagine why. She was desperate. "You can have your car. Just let me go."
"Uh-uh, lady. I'm comin' to punish you good."
"How? I've got your car."
"You ain't gone far and I've got a GPS app on my backup phone that lets me track the car from anywhere." He sniggered. "You can't do nothing except wait for me, missy. You're trapped."
He hung up.
You're trapped. Like hell. She scrambled into the backseat headfirst, dragging her body after her as glanced around in search of anything that might help her escape the vehicle. When she saw nothing, she scaled the backseat too, landing in the rear cargo area. Empty garbage bags. A gasoline can. A small tool kit. A jack. And a short-handled shovel.
She grabbed the shovel and climbed back into the driver's seat. There, summoning all the anger and frustration she had bottled up inside her, she slammed the shovel's tip into the windshield.
Cracks webbed through the safety glass, transforming it into a gummy sheet. She swung the shovel harder. It punched a hole in the sheet, admitting a breeze that chilled the sweat beading on her skin. She struck the glass again, widening the hole. Using the shovel's blade, she folded the glass out of the way. The opening was just large enough for her to squeeze through it.
First, she tossed her purse and the helmet out the hole. Stuffing the map under her waistband, she crawled over the dashboard and shimmied out the hole headfirst. Once on the hood, she turned around to slide off it, with her boots hitting the ground first.
A series of booms echoed across the desert floor.
She looked back in the direction she'd come from, back toward the old house. Bluish-white lights twinkled there, low to the ground. Headlights. The commandos must've arrived. The booms must've been gunshots.
The drug dealer probably was dead this time. She didn't know how she felt about that. Some comfort came from knowing that at least she hadn't killed him.
In the beams of the headlights, she consulted the map. Choosing the direction she thought was right, she started away from the Rover at a brisk pace. She'd find the facility or she'd die from exposure — or a snakebite.
Either way, her journey ended tonight.