A twinge in my shoulder pulled me back.
Drew was twisted around, his knees on the front seat. His fingers manipulated something against my shoulder. My skin pinched, and I tried to pull away from it.
“Stay still, damn it.” Drew pinched harder.
“What are you doing?”
“Super gluing the cut. I’m trying to hold it closed until the bond forms, but you’re squirming around like a virgin on prom night.”
“I love when you sweet talk me.”
Sammy still had my head in her lap. “So this is why you wanted the glue? I didn’t know you could do that for a cut.”
“Stitches are better, but we can’t get him to a hospital right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’d be killed.”
“In a hospital?”
“Yeah,” Drew said. “They almost got us in a police station.”
He released my arm and inspected the cut. “Looks like it’s holding.”
I sat up with a groan. My body had stiffened from the short nap. Trees stood outside the windows. A metal-roofed pavilion sat a few hundred yards into a clearing. “Where are we?”
“About two miles outside of D.C.” Drew sat back.
“You let me sleep for that long? Christ, we have to get moving.”
“Just hang on a minute. I get that you’re trying to play the hero card, but your body is running in the red. If I’m going to help you with whatever it is you feel we need to do, then I have to know what you saw in that agent’s head.”
I cut a glance at Sammy. “We shouldn’t say anything in front of her. She needs deniability, or she’s going to end up like us.”
“Too late,” Sammy said. “He already told me that those men wanted me dead because I was with you this morning. And Nami keeps saying that you can read minds. I mean, I believe in psychics and all of that, but if you could really hear someone’s thoughts, then why do you live in that dumpy apartment? Why not read some investment banker’s head and then buy some stocks?”
“It doesn’t work like that. Well, it could, but that isn’t exactly moral. Besides, I spend most of my time trying not to hear what everyone is saying. Do you ever see someone and think about how stupid they look in their clothes or how fat their ass is? I hear that. Ever think about how horny you are? I hear that too.”
Sammy blushed. “Really? Do you know what I’m thinking right now?”
“I’m trying not to.”
“Why?”
“Because I like you and if I get a peek at what’s inside your head, then I’ll end up feeling the same way about you that I do everyone else.”
“Oh.”
The key word there was trying. I did my best to blot out their thoughts, but it wasn’t working so well. They were the only people within my telepathic range, so the problem was at least somewhat manageable.
Still, things were slipping through the cracks.
Sammy didn’t believe that I could read minds. Good. I didn’t bother trying to convince her. The idea of escape kept coming to her, but she wasn’t sure how she could get away from us. She understood that we’d saved her life. She also realized that I was the reason people were trying to kill her in the first place.
I would have let her run if I thought that she would be safer that way.
Nami stood outside the vehicle, talking into a cell phone. I watched her through the windshield as she waved her arms in an animated fashion. Her pigtails flopped around as she shook her head no.
I could hear the argument she was having with her mother in my head.
“She’s trying to convince her mom that she isn’t a criminal,” I said.
Drew bobbed his head up and down. “Her name popped up on the news about ten minutes ago for stealing this ride. She’s also wanted for questioning in the shooting at Samantha’s. Oh, and for kidnapping her. She’s trying to explain to her mother that she’s been framed, but it doesn’t appear to be going well.”
“Whose phone is that?” I asked.
“She borrowed it from a couple having lunch in that pavilion up there.”
“By borrowing it, you mean she stuck a gun in their face and took it.”
“Yup. She’s sassy. I like it.”
Underneath Drew’s hardened, sarcastic exterior, he feared that his life was effectively over. His career as a detective would never recover. Jail time was likely. Melissa’s life might be in jeopardy too.
He’d always understood that his affiliation with me could get him in trouble with the government, but he’d never expected such madness to pop up out of nowhere. The repercussions of me walking into that bank were beyond what either of us could have imagined.
Despite the turmoil and near-death experiences I’d shoved Drew into, he never considered abandoning me. He would ride this out by my side until the end.
A truer friend, I couldn’t ask for.
“I’m sorry about all of this, Drew.”
Get out of my head, Ashley.
“I’m trying.”
Try harder, or I’ll start thinking about things I do in my private time.
“Oh God, please don’t.”
Sammy inched away from me. “Why are you talking to yourself?”
“He was talking to me.” Drew smiled. “We’re coming to an understanding.”
Sammy’s fear of me grew. She found me interesting and dangerous, but she assumed that I was a loon.
Maybe I was.
“There are checkpoints all over Baltimore. We barely got out. Every cop and fed on the east coast is looking for us,” Drew said. “That’s not to mention Murdock. We’re neck deep, Ashley.”
“Who is Murdock?” Sammy asked.
“A nightmare.” I waved for Nami to come inside. “A nightmare that won’t stop coming after me until I’m dead.”
I’m getting really tired of these riddles, Sammy thought.
“I’m being cryptic for your own good.” The words came out before I realized that Sammy hadn’t actually spoken.
Her mouth dropped open. No way.
I held her gaze, but didn’t say anything.
Nami yelled one more time before slamming the phone shut and throwing it into a thicket of bushes behind the Expedition. She climbed back into her seat. “How was your beauty sleep?” She leaned closer to me. “Oh wait, you’re still ugly. Never mind.”
“I’m not going to take shit from someone who had to call her mom, Nebraska.”
“Did you just call me a state? Wow. All the beatings you’ve taken have lowered your IQ even further.”
Drew held a hand up. “There’s a nationwide manhunt going on for us right now. How about we trash talk each other later?”
“He started it,” Nami mumbled.
“Tell us what you saw with that agent back there,” Drew said.
Sammy shifted in her seat and crossed her arms under her breasts. She expected me to start spewing a bunch of bullshit that she wouldn’t believe.
That she didn’t want to believe.
“I couldn’t make sense of it. I was trying to poke around in there while he was dying.”
“You were reading his mind while he died?” Nami asked. “What was it like? Did he see a white light or something?”
“Actually, he did. Images of his childhood flashed to him too.”
“Whoa. That’s like the stuff they show in movies.”
“Things were moving so fast in there that I couldn’t do my normal thing. It’s hard to explain what it’s like for me when I’m searching someone’s mind, but I would describe it kind of like digging through a filing cabinet at warp speed. Some of the folders are thicker than others, and they’re in a neon binding. That’s usually the stuff that’s important to someone. I’ll go through those first, before moving onto other memories.”
Sammy blinked several times, incredulous. “You’re telling me that reading someone’s mind is like looking through a neon filing cabinet?”
What a crock.
I ignored the thought. “With that guy though, I couldn’t really access anything. His defenses were incredible. Smith has somehow trained his men to block out telepathic access.”
“Then how did you get in?” Drew asked.
The sun was setting through the windshield behind him, illuminating the five o’clock shadow on his head.
“The gunshot had weakened him a lot, and I managed to worm my way inside. It took a crazy amount of effort though. Our struggle put him into convulsions.” I inspected my hands for a moment, and saw a small tremor running through my fingers. My body was done. “I did see a few things though. Something is going on with Murdock, the president, and the Washington Monument.”
Drew rubbed his stubble-covered head. “The Washington Monument?” He spun around in his seat and pushed the dial on the radio.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Hang on a second.” He rolled through the stations.
Sammy continued staring at me. What random thought can I use to prove that he isn’t reading my mind? What about my first grade teacher, or—
“Don’t go down this road unless you’re ready to accept certain things.”
My first crush was Billy Dee Williams.
“Billy Dee Williams? Really?”
I hate my job.
“Who doesn’t hate their job?”
Her hands dropped to her lap. Her internal struggle with acceptance was at its tipping point. I gave it the final push it needed, even though I knew that it would make her look at me as some kind of monster.
Then again, killing someone in her kitchen had probably already done that.
“Your mother died when you were thirteen, you moved to Baltimore three weeks after you graduated college, and you haven’t had sex in six months. That’s a crime, if you ask me.”
Sammy made a funny sound that came out like a mixture of a cough and a gag.
Then she punched me in the nose.
Nami laughed so hard in the front seat that I thought she might piss herself. She doubled over, hand on her stomach, and rested her head against the seat as she cracked up.
I grabbed my nose and squeezed it as tears formed in the corners of my eyes. One thing I’d learned about myself in all of my boxing classes was that I didn’t take a punch to the nose very well. The damn things always made my eyes water.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. Sammy had a pretty good punch on her.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Sammy reached out and touched my arm. “I didn’t mean to do that. It just sort of… happened. What you said freaked me out.” Her face reddened. “And it was embarrassing.”
“It was my bad. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t expect to take a shot to the nose, but still.”
Nami saw my tears and laughed even harder, pointing at my face. “You’re crying because you got punched by a girl? Too awesome!”
Drew looked at me in the rearview mirror and shook his head.
“To hell with all of you.” A laugh slipped out of me, despite the pain radiating through my entire body.
Even Sammy smiled as she looked around at all of us. We were such an unlikely, dysfunctional group that it was hard not to find us amusing in some way.
Drew found a news station and stopped fiddling with the radio. He leaned toward the dash, turning an ear in the direction of one of the speakers.
“How is this possible?” Sammy asked after a few seconds. Her hands fidgeted in her lap as she watched me.
Don’t think of anything embarrassing, don’t think of anything embarrassing, don’t think of anything embarrassing.
“I took a knock to the head during my last tour, and my life’s been fucked up ever since. Remember the beer I was swilling in the bank?” I tapped my temple with my index finger. “It helps to block out other people’s thoughts.”
Sammy’s face softened. “That’s why you live so poorly. You have trouble functioning.”
I nodded.
She reached out and touched my hand as she had at the coffee shop that morning. It felt like that had been a decade ago. The same electric shock ran through my body from her caress. Her soft fingers were like magic on my cut and swollen hand.
It had been six months since she’d been with someone, but I was already in a years’ long draught.
Her trepidation remained, but it lessened as she looked into my battered eyes.
“You guys aren’t going to make out now, are you?” Nami asked. “That would be disgusting.”
“You’re a nasty little bugger.” Sammy retracted her hand.
“Quiet,” Drew said. He turned the radio up louder.
“—twenty minutes, President Thomas will take the stage in front of the Washington Monument to discuss today’s horrific events. Typically, he gives these kinds of speeches from the Oval Office, but his aides have informed us that he wants to—”
Drew turned the volume down. “So one of Smith’s men knew something was going to happen with Murdock and the president at the Washington Monument.”
“And the president is going to give a speech there in twenty minutes,” I said.
We sat in silence for a few moments.
“So what in the shit does that mean?” Nami asked. “I’m confused as hell. If Smith knows Murdock is going after the president next, why wouldn’t he warn the Secret Service? There’s no way they would allow him to go out in public if they knew he would be in danger.”
If only I could have seen more of what that agent knew. I felt like we were blindly diving headfirst into a pool, and we didn’t know how deep the water was.
“What if Smith wants Murdock to take President Thomas out?” I asked.
“What?” Nami’s head tilted to the side. “Do you have brain damage? You were in the same building I was. He’s had agents chasing us all afternoon.”
“Yeah, actually, I do have brain damage—that’s why we’re all here, Nelly. And yes, I was there. They barely had any men, or equipment. Drew just told us that the building was being renovated for a private company.”
“But—”
I held a hand up, cutting her off. “They’ve been ridiculously cavalier about killing us too. They don’t seem to care how public the setting, or what questions might be asked about their actions. That typically isn’t something a high-ranking government official orders.”
Drew drummed his fingers on the center console. “You think he’s gone rogue?”
“Maybe. I don’t know for sure. But what if he has?”
“Then I’d say that we know even less than we thought we did. I’d say that we’re a couple of pawns in a chess game, and we aren’t even sure who’s moving us around.”
I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. It hurt. “It also means that we need to get down to the Washington Monument. I might be the only person who can single out Murdock.”