Part 4 (2/2)
”A cold c.o.ke, if they have it. That bathroom dried my mouth out.” Rowan grimaced, and Cath laughed as she strode away toward the ramshackle mini-mart attached to the gas station. It had an actual Dirty Harry movie poster tacked to the window, Clint's sneer turning as yellow as the rest of him through the dingy gla.s.s. Rowan stood and waited, leaning against the car and blinking as the dust-laden wind rose again. The asthmatic ice machine on the store's front porch wheezed and made a cluttering thump.
It was actually nice to be out in the country, with precious few people emitting confusing bursts of thought and emotion. Instead, there was the clean sweep of wind-full of chemical stink, probably from oil fields since the wind was from the south, but good enough. Rowan caught a flash of focused thought just as a hawk dove out of the deeply blue sky and caught some poor small bundle of fur. The hawk's satisfaction was a thread of gold spilled through the song of tough stubbled gra.s.s, weeds, and the ribbon of the highway.
Rowan closed her eyes, letting the wind blow through her, hoping the s.p.a.ce and sky would ease the creeping guilt chewing at her chest. And the nagging hole in her head, where Justin should be.”I got us some Pop Tarts too,” Cath said at her elbow. Rowan nodded, her eyes on the sky now. There was no sense of peace to be found in the deep blue haze. ”And a couple of Tiger Tails. Come on, we're on a field trip, we might as well live a little dangerous.”
”If preservative-laced sugar isn't dangerous, I don't know what is,” Rowan muttered good-naturedly, and Cath stuck her tongue out.
”Says the woman who can eat a whole pound of bacon at one sitting.”
”Only if it's crispy enough.” Rowan stretched. The wind was beginning to fall off, and she saw a distant flash among the black clouds gathering on the horizon. I wonder if they get big storms all the time, she thought, and s.h.i.+vered. ”You need me to drive?”
”h.e.l.l no. I need you to hand me my Tiger Tail when we cross the state line. Let's go.”
They did indeed make Amarillo late, so late Cath had to shake Rowan awake, her violet eyes bloodshot.
”Come on,” she said, yawning. ”I've got us a room, and there's a greasy-spoon diner.”
”Mrgh,” Rowan managed, opening bleary eyes. ”Christ, I'm sorry.”
”No problem. I'll shoot you later. Help me carry the gear.”
Half an hour later, with the room clean and countermeasures in place, they crossed the weed-choked parking lot to the slightly better-lit, flat, cracked asphalt lot unrolling around what a buzzing neon sign proclaimed as Babe's Blue Hole Cafe. Cath lit another cigarette and coughed, deep and racking. ”Want one?”
”I'm trying to cut down,” Rowan returned, deadpan, rubbing at her left shoulder. Her hair felt greasy, her face felt leathery and dry, and her shoulder ached. Her entire body ached after two whole days in the car, catching only broken sleep as Cath drove, Cath napping as Rowan piloted the car over the gray ribbon of highway after highway. ”I'm dying for a club sandwich. And an apple.”
”I think they can only help you with the sandwich. This part of the country ain't known for health food.”
Cath stepped over onto the pavement. ”You're worrying again.”
Rowan nodded. ”I'm sorry, Cath. I know I should be focusing on-”
”The thing I can't understand,” Cath said, bowling right over the top of Rowan's sentence, ”is why you picked him. I mean, he's Delgado, for chrissake. He used to be Sigma, and he's scary. Was it just because he rescued you?”
”You don't know him,” Rowan said flatly. ”They did terrible things to him, Catherine. And he...”
How could she explain that he was the only person who had truly seen her? Sigma saw her as a resource to be obtained, and the Society saw her as a powerful psionic to be kept out of Sigma's hands. Her father had seen her as his little princess, and even Hilary had only known Rowan as her slightly weird and geeky best friend. The only person who had seen Rowan as thoroughly as Justin Delgado had been her mother, long dead of a stroke.
”He's different,” she finally said, as they walked up the sidewalk toward the front entrance of the restaurant. Mellow electric light shone out through the windows, and she saw a few nighttime customers and braced herself for the familiar wave of chaos that was normal minds.”You can say that again,” Cath snorted. She exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke. ”He's scary different. You know what weirded me out the most? How he would just appear out of nowhere. One second, n.o.body there. Next, boom, Del's there saying hi. Freakiest f.u.c.king thing in the world. He even freaks Zeke out, and nothing scares Zeke.”
I know just how scared of him you all were. Rowan took a firm grip on the remains of her failing patience. n.o.body ever thought that maybe he was traumatized by what those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds did to him.
Drugs and electroshock. And beatings, although he never really talked about those. What was it he said? ”They wanted what I could do, and I was ... resistant.”
The way he would stand so completely still, as if he'd forgotten to breathe, staring at Rowan with that oddly intent look on his face. How shy he was-and that was something the rest of the Society wouldn't have believed. They thought he was superhuman and coldly, efficiently robotic. Just a killing machine, a training machine. None of them saw the man who had slept in a recliner for months while Rowan took over his bed and eventually his entire room. She still cringed at the thought of how she had blithely a.s.sumed the room empty because it had no betraying personal marks or possessions other than a few clothes and Justin's weapons.
”He's not scary,” she said quietly, holding the door open for Cath, who hadn't even bothered to ditch her cigarette. ”They tried to break him. I'm not sure they didn't do it, in some ways. Emily asked me this too, you know. Why him? Well, he needs someone. Maybe I'm just a sucker for people who need me.”
”Well, we need you too.” As usual, Cath didn't sugar the pill. ”You keep insisting on chasing him down everywhere we go and you're going to get someone killed-maybe one of us and maybe you. Let it go ... Yes, table for two. Smoking. Thanks, sweetheart.”
Rowan sighed, exhausted. Even keeping the faint blur that would disguise the fact that she was armed was a heavy weight against her mind. The leaden bottle-blond waitress shuffled them to a back booth and settled them with overheated coffee, plastic menus, and gla.s.ses of tap water. The smell of fried foods drenched Rowan's skin, and she was suddenly very tired of running and hiding.
Even at Headquarters it had felt like hiding.
I don't just want to stay alive, she thought. ”I want to destroy them.” Her low murmur caught her by surprise.
”Destroy who? Sigma?” Cath took a slurp from her water gla.s.s, and then inhaled another lungful of smoke. Her pack of Dunhills was placed ceremonially on the table, a battered h.e.l.lo Kitty lighter on top of the rich red glitter. ”Me too. But they're too big.”
”They are big,” Rowan agreed. ”But I'm serious. I want them to go to jail. I want them to be accountable.”
”Good luck. They own the courts.” Cath blinked through a veil of cigarette smoke. She looked far older than her nineteen years. ”Don't go all Caped Crusader. You'll burn out.”
They both fell silent as the shuffling, tired-eyed waitress returned. ”Hey I'm Blair. What canna getcha?”
A little bit of hope, Rowan thought, and a plan to take down a secret government agency. You got one in your back pocket?
”Club sandwich, please, on sourdough if you have it. And french fries.” I might as well. I probably won't live long enough to get clogged arteries.”Chicken fried steak and baked potato, with the clam chowder,” Cath said cheerfully, collecting Ro's menu and handing it to the waitress. ”Can I have a side of Ranch dressing too? You're a doll. Thanks a million.”
She lit another cigarette with the burning stub of her first as the waitress trundled away. ”I mean it,” she continued. ”You're going to burn out. And if that happens we're dead in the water. I don't know what we'll do if we lose you. I thought we were goners after Headquarters bit it. But you managed to keep Henderson from going nuts and organized us, and we're actually fighting back. Stop thinking you have to go save Del. He's tough enough. He can save himself.” She blew twin jets of smoke out her nose, the sheaf of earrings on each ear and her nose ring glittering.
She'd actually be quite pretty without all the metal, Rowan thought again. ”I've done my duty,” she said quietly. ”If it was up to me we never would have left him behind.”
Cath made a short disgusted sound. ”You know your problem, Price? You're too G.o.dd.a.m.n serious.
Now get out the map. I want to look at our next day of fun and games.”
Chapter Ten.
He lay sprawled on the cheap bed, the thin blanket rasping against his bare left arm; his right was flung over his eyes. The hypo sat on the bedside table, but he hadn't used it yet.
Not while he had this to do.
Outside, Lubbock pulsed with light under an endless star-scarred Texas sky. Del had managed to get this far by hitching rides with truckers, but he needed a car of his own. That meant he would need all his talents, which meant he had to use one of the precious hypos of Zed so he could think clearly for a few hours.
But first, there was something he had to do.
The smooth, blank wall inside his head taunted him. The wall had remained firm under the sodium pentothal mixed with Zed and the beatings. They hadn't dared to use electroshock. That might have destroyed vital pieces of information. And the telepaths had been unable to read him without excruciating pain and possible death, Del's own talent extinguis.h.i.+ng the mind that sought to probe it.
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