Somewhere in Oklahoma, Cyan’s psychic radar spiked like a warning flare. Nearly dizzy, fearing she might fall off the back of the bike, she laid her head against McCrae’s shoulder and pressed tighter into him.
Can’t black out. Not now.
They’d been riding for hours. Stopped once to pee, get something to eat, steal some gas, and for McCrae to make a call, bumming some cash and borrowing a cell from a truck driver. Smooth talker. He never spoke into the device though, and just shook his head as he walked back toward the bike. She noticed he did take a moment to punch in a series of numbers before hanging up.
Locater device? GPS tracker?
Maybe he was sending some sort of signal to Chaco. She hoped so. Hoped Chaco was alive to receive it.
Shit. Her mind went totally blank for a split second. Then the vision flashed of the night before raced across it and clarity hit. Fast. They were going too fast. She had to stop him, stop McCrae.
Before…
Ahead. Overpass. Far ahead. Could barely see, but yes, like in her vision. Could McCrae see? She couldn’t bet on it. She saw things others didn’t.
Men. With high-powered laser rifles that could cut an elephant in two at 700 yards.
Leaning forward, she slapped at his chest to gain his attention. Pointed ahead at the overpass, far in the distance.
“There!”
Dammit. Their helmets had radios. Why didn’t they work?
“Hold on!” He yelled the words over his shoulder and it was then she knew that he understood.
Deep shit.
McCrae let off the throttle and in a split second had jerked the bike off the pavement, struggling to keep it upright. They moved roughly off into the tall grass at the side of the road and jumped a drainage ditch. Cyan held on tight. McCrae concentrated only on his task. She wondered where the bad men were.
Breathing deeply, she closed her eyes, trying to cull out the evil vibes from the simply scary ones. Tried to breathe deeply and slowly and methodically so she could call up the vision. Where were they? The men. Were they coming?
There. She could see them. In her sight. Running. Along the side of the road. Weapons charged, poised, raised….
Too close.
Zingpht! A beam of fire-laser split the sky beside them and skidded off into the road.
Zingpht! Zingpht!
Closer.
McCrae revved the bike’s engine, threw up sod behind them, and headed straight into the field ahead.
“Duck!”
Shades of green flashed by Cyan’s face. She burrowed into his back as they moved deeper and deeper into the cornfield. The blades whipped around them, cutting her forearms. His. She could see wind trails of blood working up his forearms. And all at once, Cyan sensed, knew, what was going to happen next.
Corn. They were in a cornfield. Not bamboo in her vision. Corn.
Her belly flip-flopping with nausea, she struggled to keep herself on the back of the bike, no clue where they were headed, unable to see anything but green. McCrae couldn’t see, either, she was sure, but he kept plowing ahead through the damned green curtain.
Some sort of bird, a big bird, with flapping wings and a screaming squawk shot up on front of them. The bike skidded. McCrae fought for control. Finally, it spun out sideways and he laid the bike over…sliding…taking them with it. The tires plowed a deep rut in the soft earth and Cyan went tumbling over and over to a rolling stop. She lost her helmet somewhere in the process.
McCrae reached for her hand. Pulled her up. Farther into the field. Running, dragging her along behind him.
The shouts behind them grew louder. Closer.
Green whips bit at her. Sliced.
Fuck. “Don’t leave me!” she shouted at McCrae’s back, begging. Desperate.
He gripped her hand tighter and tugged her along.
Something exploded beside them and suddenly, McCrae was gone, tossed over into the next row of tall slender stalks, too thick to see through. Shit! Had they blown him up? Cyan hit the ground, her eyes tearing, dirt raining down around her, spitting corn dust. Smokey, dusty, billowing cloud surrounded her.
“McCrae!”
Get up. Get up!
Move, Cyan. They are close. The men! Tossing hand bombs. Something.
They want you. You are who they are after.
McCrae can take care of himself, if he’s not dead.
Move!
She jumped up about the time they burst through the small clearing made by their motorcycle slide. A flash of metal sliced through first. The machete. Three of them. Black hoods. Only their eyes peeking through.
Hands. White. Anglo.
She froze.
Somewhere in her psyche she remembered being in the meadow, four years old, a helicopter, and an incredible power that had built up inside of her out of fear… It was welling again and she wasn’t sure she knew how to handle it.
They were coming. She couldn’t move.
This was the thing she’d been running from since childhood. This, was her father’s greatest fear. How they had lost her mother….
Dead. Cyan was convinced of it.
Bits and snatches of memory flashed through her brain. A bedroom. Her mother. On the bed. Three men. Her father on the floor. Urinating. A man’s hand in her panties. Another man grunting over her mother….
She shook her head, body. Shook away the flashes. Cringed.
Pushed them away. Didn’t want them in her head. Made her feel ugly inside.
“No! No!”
She was never going to make it to Betatakin. Not now. Felt so safe there. Once. Until the incident that took her mother. More visions lashed through her mind. Her father has been bent and broken at first, mentally and physically. Betatakin had been their safe haven until the Revolution. Then violated.
She’d hoped it would be safe again. She hoped going there was the right thing to do.
She honestly didn’t know.
The lead man in the pack approached her. Too close. His glare penetrating. The machete aimed at her heart.
Daddy? Please be with me. Mama?
She felt his spirit. Heard his deep, soothing voice. I am always here for you, Cyan. Always.
Funny how she’d never heard her mother’s voice after she died.
The thick-bladed knife, cold and impersonal, lifted her chin. The hard steel bit into her neck and she raised her chin as far as she could away from it, then backed up into an ogre of a man standing behind her. He grasped her biceps from behind and held her steadfast.
Shock must be setting in. No power to move. Jelly legs. The welling up inside her gut waning now as if in defeat. The only thing she registered was a great urge to vomit, her stomach wanting to vault at the touch of the man behind her, and the thick blade of the knife piercing her neck.
“Long time waiting for this, Ms. Virgin.” Machete Guy moved closer. The whites of his eyes peered out from behind that damned hood.
“Don’t come any closer you goddamned son-of-a-bitch.” Fear and fire surged up from her gut. There. There it was. Her hands moved into tight fists. And she stared directly into her aggressor’s face.
The man chuckled and lifted her chin up further with the sharp edge of the knife.
“I’m warning you,” she bit off, keeping her gaze pinned to his eyes. “I can’t be responsible for what happens if you—”
Suddenly he jerked the machete away and nailed it straight into the ground at her feet. She was afraid to look down. Did she still have toes? But she couldn’t anyway because the man had replaced the knife with the grip of his fingers. Firmly, possessively, he grasped her chin and angled her face toward his with a jerk.
“Your eyes.”
A spray of spit showered her face.
“My eyes?” she returned coyly. “What about them?”
“Take them out.”
Cyan laughed. “Sorry, they’re attached. And I’m quite fond of them.”
With a growl he released her and picked up the machete again. Cyan stumbled back a bit but the ogre guy was still there. Solid. The knife in Machete Guy’s hand again, he now pushed the tip of it into the corner of her right eye. Felt like he was drawing blood. The afternoon sun glinted off the polished steel, nearly blinding her.
“Take them out! Take out whatever it is covering your eyes, or I’ll pluck them out of your head myself. I want to see those baby blues while I fuck you.
“Now!”
His bark startled her and she jumped. Scared as hell, but she had to preserve some measure of coolness here. Right?
She swallowed.
“All right. But back off a bit? I need space.”
Balls. Some days she had them.
“And get this ogre behind me to let go of my arms, okay?”
He backed off. Barely. And the ogre released her.
Cyan bent her head forward slightly, then a little more, then brought her hands up to her eyes, her curtain of Navajo bronze providing a bit of privacy. She popped the left brown contact out of her eye and without looking up, handed it to him.
“Yes…” he hissed. “The other one.”
She popped that one out, too, and offered it to him in the palm of her hand.
As he reached for it, she turned her hand over and dropped it to the ground. On pure instinct, and that was what she was hoping for, the idiot bent over to retrieve it. Speed, she knew, was going to be critical in the next few seconds. She moved in quick as a cat on hot tin and kneed him in the face with a satisfying pop. She hoped to hell she’d broken his nose. The surprise impact stunned the man momentarily and he faltered back just long enough for her to see the blood gurgling from his face, and then she twirled and elbowed the ogre behind her. With her heel, she stomped down his shin and ground her heel into the top of his foot.
She guessed those self-defense classes her father had insisted on came in handy after all.
The fire in her gut was building, too.
Sonsabitches.
He yelped and lurched for her at the same time. She sidestepped, but quickly realized she was out of moves and out-numbered. Machete Guy picked up the blade again and was angrily heading for her. Smiling. The third guy hadn’t moved an inch this whole time. Just watched. But he was moving in too, with a nasty, wicked smirk on his face.
Her palms itched. Heat radiated from them.
“Cyan!”
McCrae’s voice tore through the charged atmosphere from behind them, bringing a brief pause to everything. Everything, that is, but him.
He spun into their circle like a Kansas tornado, landed behind Machete Guy and kick-punched him in the kidneys. Cyan leaped to the side as both knife and man flew forward. The third guy, the standoffish voyeur up until now, lit into McCrae and dropped him to the ground. They wrestled. Machete Guy was up. Cyan saw him tackle the two on the ground. The knife slid to the side.
She raced for it. As her fingers reach out to snatch it up, she was pummeled from the side and rolled into the edge of the cornrow. The knife skidded off, far from her reach.
The ogre was now on top of her. All of her defenses were knocked off-kilter. Her palms froze. Her gut cold as ice.
“McCrae!”
But all she could hear were grunts and moans and thuds and guttural sounds.
Trust him.
The ogre worked frantically. Obviously realizing this was his chance. To hell with his comrades, he was going to get his piece of priceless ass. Clutching, clawing at her clothing. Cyan punched him in the nose with the palm of her hand and pulled off that damn hood.
He pinned her arms to the ground on either side of her, leaned closer.
“Get a good look at my face, sweetie,” he snarled. “Cause my face is one you ain’t never gonna forget.”
She did take a good look. Because when the time came, she wanted to make damned sure she could identify him.
“You fucking bastard.”
“You betcha sweet ass.”
Her chest heaving, she held that gaze for a few seconds longer, then spat in it with all she could muster. Where the hell was McCrae?
“Goddamed fucking little whore!” His hand went up. Shit. I’ve done it now. And came down with a jolt against the side of her face, knocking her head sideways. Her ears rang, pain lanced through her jaw; her senses knocked off kilter.
She tried to draw cleansing breath. It came out coarse, choppy. Ragged. Tried to get control. So…hard.
Her head spun. Saw stars.
The bastard took advantage of the situation. His hands clawed, ripped at her pants, pulled and tugged while he straddled her. Cyan was damned near useless. McCrae? She’d all but given up on him. Damn, he could be dead already. Two on one. Could he handle…?
Once he’d gotten her pants down far enough, the ogre started fumbling with his own zipper. When Cyan saw the red ugly cock that came protruding out his fly, she thought she would black out.
Maybe it was better that way.
He grinned. Positioned himself over her. Forced her legs apart. More.
Whump-whump-whump-whump-whump.
The pounding echoed in my brain.
My eyes squeezed shut tight; I can feel the corners crinkling. My fists clenched so tight they hurt, and my body. Stiff. I stood solid, unmoving, facing them.
Soldiers.
Helicopter.
The men.
I shook. My entire body rigid, but shaking. My eyes flashed open. Then the fiery explosion. Shooting flames. Hot.
I screamed. And screamed.
Mama! Daddy?
“Remember this always, honey,” he said sweetly, looking up into her face and grinning. “Everyone always remembers their first time.”
Cyan turned her head away. Tasted bile. I like her little titties, boss. Can I suck them? Something surged up from deep inside her.
“Look at me, goddamnit!” He reached up and clasped her chin, jerking her face back to look at his.
Fire roared in her belly and raced to her hands. She clenched her fists tighter. “You cock-sucking, motherfuck—”
She didn’t get the words out. Sun glinting off metal caught her eye and in the next instant, the man who was forcing her to look into his face, violating her, getting ready to plunge his god-awful cock inside her, suddenly didn’t have a head. The machete swept from Cyan’s right to left in one fell swoop and the bastard’s head went sailing into the next row of corn.
No, she would never forget that last look on his face.
His body slumped over her.
“Sonofabitch! Get him off!” She screamed and rolled, arms flailing at the headless corpse. She pushed at his chest and he flew off her body and exploded into a ball of fire several feet away.
Cyan sat up. Hyperventilating. Trembling. Screaming. “Oh my God!”
McCrae was next to her in an instant, pulling her away. Up. Into his arms. She clung to him chattering, shivering, sobbing as he tugged and straightened her clothes. Then he encircled her, held her, her face buried in his chest.
Her legs buckled and he lifted her securely into his arms.
“Don’t look,” he told her. “Don’t look at anything. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
Trust him.