Part 11 (2/2)
”Too dangerous.” That was the first rule: never use the elevator if you could help it. It was too easy to snip a wire and be caught between floors like a rat in a cage.
She could almost feel his brain clicking through alternatives. He dug in his pocket, fis.h.i.+ng the room key out. Why didn't he leave that in the room?
”I thought they might have moved in on the stairs,” he said, as if reading her mind. He probably was, despite her attempts to keep herself s.h.i.+elded. G.o.d knew they had been close enough before for him to hear what she was thinking. At least once they'd started sharing a bed. ”Back inside, Ro. Quick.”
The naked, fizzing feeling of dampers slid over her skin again as they ducked back into the room. The hall was empty, but for how long? And the stairwell ... so dark. She'd never seen that before. Never felt that kind of chill malice before.
”Get the top sheet,” he said, pointing, and did a strange thing. He backed up to the end of the short entryway the door gave onto, a gun in his hand. He crouched down and lifted the gun carefully. ”It'scotton, nice and strong.”
Oh, G.o.d, you have got to be kidding. She didn't argue, yanking the bedspread away and tearing the sheet loose. ”We could make a movie out of this,” she managed in a thready, unsteady voice. Her head began to pound-not with the gla.s.sy, needling pain and nausea of Sigma, but a different pain, this one rising and falling like a roller coaster and making her stomach flutter. What is that? What's going on?
”Not a very good movie,” he replied calmly. ”Find something to brace that with, angel. We're taking the short way down.”
If he was prepared to risk that, it must be more serious than even she thought. ”If they have snipers-”
”This isn't an appropriations or a sweep team. It's Carson and his f.u.c.king psychopath. Hurry.” He sounded calm, but his mind suddenly knotted inside hers, dark intent and strange exhilaration making a lethal c.o.c.ktail. His pulse sped up, and hers wasn't far behind. ”Seems like every time I get some time alone with you something comes up.”
”Curse of living in interesting times, I guess.” I sound calm. Good for me. She dragged the table to the window, turning it over and slip-knotting the end of the sheet. ”Justin-”
He waved at her to be quiet, and Rowan swallowed her words.
Everything slowed down. She finished threading the remainder of the sheet through the slipknot. Her heart hammered, and her palms slipped wetly against the cotton. She had just half-turned to glance out the window at the parking lot when a sharp spike of agony slammed through her head and twisted.
I have you now, an old, lipless voice whispered inside her head, pulling, sinking in, and burning. I have you now. You've run a pretty course, my fine girl, but now it's over. Give in.
She was vaguely aware of cursing-Justin's voice, a rough sound of effort, a sharp popping roar of gunfire and the sudden whistling sound as a knife clove the air. She was barely aware of her head hitting the floor with stunning force as the old voice burrowed past every defense Henderson and Miss Kate had taught her to painstakingly erect. The dark slicing fishhook touched, speared through, and pulled her shrieking out of her own head.
She was struggling, thras.h.i.+ng, mental cords tearing as she fought to stay with herself, to deny him access, to deny him power over her. His laughter, old and unspeakably foul like something rotting from the inside, filled her brain as he chanted the name of the thing he wanted her to do. Give in. Give in. The foulness spread, staining every layer of her mind with contagion like a virus, self-replicating. She thought desperately of ocean, clean water, pure rain was.h.i.+ng him away, blocking him out, barring his access.
”Rowan!” Justin's scream. Rage spilled through her, a rage no more hers than the digging twisting thing in her mind. It was his anger, and it closed around her like a suit of armor, but oh its black depth frightened her. ”No!”
He beat at the old voice, smashed it back, and forced a weak cry from her throat. Rowan struggled, thras.h.i.+ng mentally and physically, her wrist hitting the edge of the upturned table with a solid, bruising impact. She felt like a cord stretched between two elephants, Justin pulling from one side, the awful, dry, cracked voice pulling from the other. That rotten fractured voice had smashed through her defenses and sank its greedy claws in, but Justin's black fury pulled her back. He was linked to her far more deeply.
More deeply, even, than she had thought.
Then, as soon as it had come, the voice retreated, leaving behind a sick unsteady feeling and the coldweight of a gun jammed against the temple.
”Let go of her.” Justin's voice, low and harsh, as he pulled the hammer back. ”Now, Carson.”
”You kill me, it kills her.” The voice quavered, an old man's helpless evil voice. Fury again, burning under her skin, a rage so deep and wide it could consume her.
Rowan screamed, but all that came out was a thready, weak whisper. The voice dug in, tearing, causing damage wherever it could. Give in. Give in. Give in to me, let me IN- A blinding flash. Justin, reaching through her again. It was dangerous for him to split his focus between her and whatever enemy he was facing. She struggled to lift her head, to fight whatever had struck her so hard.
Pain, a flash along her upper arm. She heard his low curse again, and then a meaty thunk as if someone had split a watermelon.
Agony rolled through her, a burning as if every synapse had been doused with gasoline and lit. Rowan thrashed blindly, heard a rabbitlike scream. It was Justin's pain, the pain he felt whenever he used his gift to break into a mind, the echo of the push he used screaming through her own nervous system. It seemed to last forever.
There was a long deathlike pause. Her vision began to return, and she saw the ceiling-oddly skewed because she lay twisted, half on her back with her arm flung out-and something warm and wet was in her eyes. Her lungs burned, and she dragged in a breath. Another. Blinked, vaguely surprised to find herself alive.
Oh, G.o.d. G.o.d. What the h.e.l.l was that?
Her head ached fiercely, as if the hangover had only waited for now to make its appearance. The pulsing of some dark intent submerged itself below the layers of her waking mind, and she felt vaguely horrified through the pain and weakness. What was that thing? Where had it come from, and what was it doing in her head?
”When you get back to Sigma,” she heard Justin say hoa.r.s.ely, ”if you can still talk, you tell Anton I'll do the same to anyone else he sends after her. Now it's war.”
A short gurgle. Another one of those wet, horrible sounds, and she heard distant sirens. Someone must have called the cops. Why?
The noise went on. A short, sharp explosion, a gunshot. A thras.h.i.+ng sound. It was a wonder the cops weren't already here. Oh, G.o.d. G.o.d, please.
Footsteps. ”Rowan?” Harsh, a croak. ”Come on, sweetheart. We've got to go.”
His face swam into view above her. Blood dripped down its right side, a shocking scarlet. He bent down, and his mind threaded with hers again, a tentative touch against bruised and scorched mental ”skin.” Still, she welcomed it. His mind was clean, not like the rotted thing that had tried to infect her, to break her to its will.
That wasn't a man. That was a sickness in a human body. How many people did he torture to turn his gift into that? She was suddenly, utterly, glad to have Justin. He'd saved her. Again.
Rowan's mouth worked. She had to drag in another breath as he hauled her upright. ”Come on, angel.Walk. We've got to go. Now.”
”J-J-J-Justin...” She stammered over the name, relieved when she heard her own voice. The dark thing pulsed, burrowing into her mind, but she couldn't think, could not even imagine what it was. ”What-”
”Never mind. Come on.”
”P-P-P-” Push me, she thought. He had to help her. There was something buried in her mind, something unholy. It was too hard to talk. Her throat closed up and refused to obey her. She tried again.
You h-have to. Push me...
”No.” He had his arm over her shoulder and dragged her along. Her head dropped forward, her neck unable to hold it up. She saw a slim man dressed in black lying on the floor, half hidden between the two beds. The lamp was knocked over, the television and the mirror smashed too, and blood painted the pale wall in a high arc, gleaming wetly. The television's sh.e.l.l smoked and sparked. Her feet b.u.mped something soft. She bit back a moan. There was a long white stick, like the kind blind people used, snapped in half.
”Not gonna push you, sweetheart. Come on, move with me, Ro.”
”C-C-” She was about to say I can't, when her legs began to work again. She almost tripped, but he lifted her over the moaning body on the floor in the entryway.
It was a pudgy white-haired man, his sweats.h.i.+rt torn and his khakis dewed with blood, scrabbling weakly on the floor. The owner of the rotted-out voice. A knife hilt protruded from his throat.
A shattered pair of sungla.s.ses crunched under Justin's boot. ”That's my girl,” he said calmly enough. He winced-she could feel the dragging pain in his chest, his scalp, his arm on fire. What had happened to him while she lay useless on the floor?
”Hurt,” she managed. Her wrist throbbed with pain. ”You're hurt.”
”Doesn't matter.” He half-carried her down the hall. The elevator's blank white doors loomed.
Elevator? ”I thought you said-” Help me, please. G.o.d help me. Something blurred and s.h.i.+fted. She could no longer remember why it was so necessary he use his talent on her. It hovered just out of the reach of her battered memory. She gasped in cool air, tried to walk. Failed.
”This is an emergency.” The doors folded open, and she managed to help him drag her inside. ”You okay? He hit you pretty hard. He's good at cracking empaths.”
”H-hurts.” That was an understatement. She felt lethargic and pain beat under her skin, a terrible restless pain like nerves twisting, like insects p.r.i.c.king with needlelike feet. It wasn't normal. Something was happening inside her head. The elevator dinged, and he pushed the b.u.t.ton for the ground floor. ”How b-bad are y-you-”
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