Part 15 (2/2)

And then, Rowan could get her revenge.

Four days later she woke in the middle of the night, her breath coming short and harsh in her chest, the soft maggot-writhing voice whispering inside her head. Sweat cooled on her skin as Rowan sat up, gasping, reaching blindly for a light, any light. The lamp on the two-drawer nightstand next to the bed toppled alarmingly before she could catch it and find the b.u.t.ton to turn it on. When it finally clicked, the hotel room resolved itself into horrid pink and beige around her.

She let out a coughing breath as her head twisted with pain. Justin? Instinctively, she had reached for him again on waking. Why did thinking about him hurt her head so much? What was wrong with her?

Rowan found herself clutching the phone, her fingers poised above the keypad. She laid the phone back in its cradle, hoping she hadn't dialed. Who would she call? There was n.o.body to call. If she called in, Henderson would have a fit and probably officially throw her out of the Society. And Justin ... What did he think? Did he think she had betrayed them?

Never. I never would.

But if they started to torture her or injected her with Zed, how long would she be able to hold out? She had no illusions about her capacity to deal with torture. Justin might be able to endure the unspeakable, but Rowan knew very well she couldn't. Though she had, since joining the Society, done some amazing things when forced to. If they tortured her before she could get her revenge, she would just have to see how strong she truly was.

Rowan lifted her hands and examined them in the warm, forgiving light of the bedside lamp. They shook, her fingers almost blurring. ”Look at that,” she said. ”I'm so brave. What am I doing?”

Revenge, the persistent little voice whispered in her head. Revenge. Revenge.

She settled cross-legged into the creaking mattress, pain cresting inside her fragile, aching head again.

Something's wrong. Something's very, very wrong. I'm not thinking clearly.

Just then, the sensitive fringes of her mind registered a touch. It was light and fleeting, simply a brush against the very outer borders of her awareness, as if someone had stepped into a room and hastily stepped back.

All uncertainty faded. Rowan reached under her pillow for the knife. She wasn't close enough to be sure she would be taken to Zero-Fifteen. There was another installation just thirty miles from here they would probably drag her to. She wasn't even under dampers, was she? She couldn't remember turning any dampers on, and the funny, naked feeling she always had under dampers was gone.The knife blade gleamed in the bright electric light. She jammed her feet quickly into her boots and slid out of bed, her jeans rasping against the bleached sheets, then ghosted on silent feet to one side of the door, knife held low and reversed along her forearm. She was sleeping in her clothes, only taking her shoes off and sometimes not even that. She might have to move quickly and couldn't afford the time it would take to get dressed if she was attacked. Adrenaline washed the pain from her head and narrowed her concentration.

Now she could hear someone fiddling with the doork.n.o.b. Air-conditioning washed chill over her skin, and the unit in the window made a racket that would cover any noise she made. Rowan slowly sank down, crouching, wis.h.i.+ng she hadn't turned on the light. A dark room for eyes adapted to the light outside in the hall would have given her an advantage.

The cheap deadbolt was eased open. Someone was very good with a set of lock picks, not everyone could tickle a deadbolt. The chain on the door was almost useless, held only by one flimsy screw. She had left it open. Why? That was a violation of procedure. Even a flimsy chain was better than no chain at all.

Now the doork.n.o.b began to turn, a millimeter at a time.

Whoever this is, they're going to get a big f.u.c.king surprise.

If it was a Sig, she intended to do some damage before letting them catch her. If it was anyone else...

The doork.n.o.b turned. The adrenaline freeze poured over Rowan's vision, everything standing out sharp and clear-the nap of the cheap bedspread, the horrid beige carpet, the print of a fruit-basket over the useless television, the individual scratches left on the painted wall from other people banging their luggage carelessly around. Rowan's pulse slowed. She was still and quiet as an adder under a rock, b.u.t.toned down tightly, not daring to scan outside the door in case the attacker was a psion.

The door released. The attacker waited a moment before opening it an inch at a time. Chill industrial-filtered air swept across Rowan's body as she slashed, her legs turning into coiled springs, driving a shoulder into the attacker's hard-muscled midriff and spilling them both to the cheap harsh carpet out in the hall. She struggled wildly, her right wrist caught in a bruising grip and locked, twisted mercilessly until the knife dropped. Then he grabbed her other wrist and rolled, effectively trapping her.

A sharp twisting psychic attack smashed into her already bruised and vulnerable head.

She shunted the force of the attack aside, not even bothering to turn it back on him. Rowan found her mouth near his shoulder, so she did the only thing she could, training suddenly shoving aside fear. She bit him as hard as she could, thras.h.i.+ng wildly.

He let out a short barking cry. She brought her knee up swiftly and rolled free as his arm loosened, scooping up the knife as she made it to her feet. She threw a kick, catching the man squarely in the face, and catching a glimpse of blond hair as he collapsed backward. Then Rowan was on him again, the knife sinking into flesh with a solid sound.

Memory cascaded inside her head. She seemed to remember a blond man clutching her arm as Justin, b.l.o.o.d.y and battered, raised his hands slowly, one full of a knife blade that glittered through the drugged haze of sedation.

The man swore in a vicious whisper and Rowan stabbed again, the knife sinking in just as Justin had taught her, the shock of blade meeting bone jarring up to her shoulder. Twist it, break the suction of muscle on the blade, good girl. Just like that.The man gurgled on the floor under her. Rowan got one foot on the floor, her knee in his midriff. She let out a short, sharp breath. The man was in Sigma gear. They'd found her, all right.

A small psshht! sound jerked her halfway around, but not before a spear of ice buried itself in her shoulder. Ow! What the h.e.l.l- Comprehension burst inside her head just as the compulsion broke, shattered by its consummation, and Rowan's entire body turned to lead. The drug was quick, the tranquilizer dart loaded with something icy and p.r.i.c.kling that flooded her. For one agonized moment before her head hit the floor she understood that she had been trapped like an idiot, and she was very, very grateful Justin was safe back at Headquarters.

Sigma had her now.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Del watched from the screen of thick bushes at the side of the parking lot as the Sigs carried down two limp forms. One was Rowan, her pale sheaf of ash-blond hair rising on the faint, chill night breeze. Two Sigs carried her to the black van and bundled her in.

Del's hands turned to ice.

The second person they carried was a man with familiar blond hair. Andrews. I'd bet anything that's him. A hard, satisfied agony burst in Del's chest, and his arms and legs turned to ice. He drew back into the shadows, but they weren't scanning for him. They had what they'd come for. If he'd been a little quicker he might have saved her, but now it was too late. She wouldn't be served by him getting himself caught too.

Oh, Rowan.

The limp male body was Andrews, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d recognizable even in death. They bundled his body into the second black van, and more of them carried her duffel and kitbag. It was the off season and the parking lot was empty of everything except a smattering of cars. Not many people came down south in spring or summer when the heat got unbearable. By tomorrow her hotel room would be empty and wiped, no trace left of the woman who had stayed there.

He had narrowly escaped the Sigs himself in Saint City while following her. She had taken suicidal chances by operating without dampers and doing everything but getting arrested and shouting, ”Here I am, boys!” It was a wonder she hadn't been picked up until now.

Too late, too late, I'm too f.u.c.king late. Where are they taking her?

She'd accessed an old map from the intranet at Headquarters. He could have told her it was out of date.

There was an old Sig installation near here, but it had been closed for a good five years. That made the closest installation Zero-Fifteen.

The belly of the beast itself.

Are you crazy, Delgado? You just escaped from there. There's no way you can go back in. Christ, they'll eat her alive and there'll be nothing left but a husk. They'll break her. Anton will break her.

Don't do it. Please don't do what you're contemplating. It's insanity. You won't make it out alive.

He reached out blindly, his hand closing over a juniper branch. He squeezed, hearing the crackle of dry wood under his fingers, strangely removed. Besides, she doesn't love you. She couldn't. She's not that type. She's good, and you're not. What the h.e.l.l are you thinking?

The vans roused themselves, purring like beasts. The one carrying Rowan made a short, sharp half-circle in the parking lot, its headlights splas.h.i.+ng wetly against other cars. Del ducked instinctively, even though his cover was good and he was sure they couldn't see or sense him. The invisible man, Justin Delgado.

The receding fire of Zed withdrawal burned under his skin. He felt cold. His legs had turned to solid blocks of ice.

If they caught him, he was done for. He was finished. There was no way he could penetrate Zero-Fifteen and get her out. None.

I'll just have to be careful then, won't I? I escaped once. But escaping was not the same as penetrating a high-security installation without backup and bringing out a potentially broken psion. It just wasn't.

He fumbled for his cell phone. Then he shut his eyes and breathed in the smell of dust and junipers. Here he was crouching in the bushes, looking for a snakebite or worse, dithering. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was that van, carrying Rowan away to a fate she probably couldn't imagine but Del could picture all too well.

The vision of the empty room, Rowan's room, rose again. Drenched in sunlight, he could almost feel his pupils contract against the force of that light. The scarves thrown across the bedstead glowed in rich blues and greens. The plants grew green and lush, healthy, and the bookshelves were jammed full. The French door to the small balcony was open a little, wind stirring the curtains as they hung. He took a deep breath, smelling Rowan's skin.

<script>