Chapter 5 Hangry #4
When I’m two steps from the door, one of the men lifts his head and takes in a deep, deliberate inhale. His gaze snaps to mine and locks. I feel it then, the foreign brush of something cold and sinister at the back of my mind.
They’re searching for me, for us. Using that strange blend of scent and mind-touch. I don’t know how to describe it. The words for what’s happening don’t exist in my language, in the vocabulary of my world. It’s like trying to name a color I’ve never seen before.
The duffel bag jerks violently against my hip. Sorren thrashes inside it. He senses them too.
No time.
I turn and run just as I hear one of them speak.
“Get her.”
I shoot out onto the street and skid to a stop right before I fly into traffic.
A glance left, then right, shows sidewalks bustling with people.
We’d chosen a hotel near Main Street, close enough to the harbor to smell salt in the air.
Tourists spill from storefronts and restaurants, drifting downhill toward the water in loose clusters.
Perfect.
I merge with them, forcing myself not to run.
Walk. Walk.
Main Street slopes toward the harbor, lined with historic brick buildings and narrow colonial row houses painted in cheerful pastels. Window boxes overflow with flowers. American flags snap in the breeze overhead.
The duffel bag bumps against my hip with every step, Sorren jostling inside the bag. I angle my body to hide the movement and keep going, head down, just another tourist out and about.
Don’t look back.
Don’t look back.
Whatever I do, do not look back.
I look back.
For a second I don’t see them.
Relief flashes through me.
Then one of the men steps into view.
And another.
And another.
They’re already out the door.
All three of them, spreading onto the sidewalk. One lifts his head, nostrils flaring slightly, and turns, unerringly, toward me.
Shit.
I break into a run.
Someone shouts as I shove past them. A stroller clips my thigh. A man in a polo shirt curses when I nearly knock his drink from his hand. The slope of the street works against me, dragging me downhill faster than I want to go.
Good for escape.
Bad for control.
I veer past a narrow alleyway between two centuries-old buildings and nearly slam into a cluster of midshipmen in crisp white uniforms gathered outside a pub. The domed top of the Maryland State House rises above the rooftops, its gold-tipped spire flashing, catching the last of the evening light.
Somewhere nearby, church bells begin to ring. Six deep clangs. Six p.m.
No wonder it’s so busy here. It’s peak dinnertime.
Restaurants and pubs overflow onto the sidewalks.
Dinner tables fill the patios, dogs tied to railings as they wait for their owners to finish eating.
A Doberman’s ears perk, its tail stopping mid-wag as I move past. The dog lets out a low-pitched whine, and I glance over to see its ears flatten as it swivels its head to stare behind me.
I risk another look over my shoulder to follow the animal’s gaze and immediately wish I hadn’t.
The men are there.
Not running. Walking.
Measured and relentless.
They aren’t pushing through the crowd. They don’t have to.
Instead, the crowd parts for them, as if it knows something dangerous is there. Like the people sense in some primal part of their minds that predators are among us.
This is bad. Like really bad.
I drag my gaze away and move faster, running now as I wind through alleyways and streets, hoping to throw them off my trail even as I understand how pointless it all is.
How can you lose someone who can smell you from three streets over?
Who can sense the pattern of your brainwaves—or however they do it?
Speaking of which, I reach out for Sorren and find him there, in the corner of my mind. Invisible but permanent. The warmth of a campfire in the darkness. I brush my consciousness over his, seeking knowledge. Comfort. He sends me a vague picture of something familiar.
Water? The ocean?
It snaps into clarity.
The bay!
Maybe it’s harder for them to scent me by the water where so many smells combine?
I don’t know. It’s probably just an act of desperation at this point, but I follow the thought anyway.
It’s easy here to let gravity do the work.
To follow the slope of the street down toward the harbor.
Within minutes Ego Alley stretches out before me, lined with sailboats bobbing in their slips, masts clinking softly in the evening breeze.
Beyond them, Annapolis Harbor opens into the wide gray-blue expanse of the Chesapeake Bay, the sunset bleeding across it in streaks of orange and pink.
I slow without meaning to.
There’s nowhere left to go.
Open water stretches out ahead of me. To my left, the dock is packed with tourists leaning over the railings to watch the boats come in.
To my right, restaurants and shops press close, but the sidewalks are choked with people.
There are no taxicabs to jump into, no bikes to steal and ride away into the sunset on.
A sob tries to work its way up my throat.
I turn.
They’re already stepping onto the street a few blocks away but getting closer. The men who aren’t really men. They don’t even try to hide their unearthliness. Even from this distance slit-like pupils stare back at me, tinged pink. Noses twitch and snuffle.
They’re coming for me.
My chest tightens. My lungs burn. My legs feel like they’re made of wet sand.
I can’t outrun them.
I can’t fight them.
I—
A voice cuts through the panic.
“All aboard! Last call for the sunset cruise!”
My head snaps toward the sound.
A sailboat idles at the end of the dock, gangplank down, its engine rumbling low. Sailors are already untying it from the pier, piling thick rope into coils at their feet. A crew member in a navy polo shirt waves the last of the tourists aboard, ready to pull the plank.
He calls out to me. “Ma’am? You’d better hurry! Aren’t you joining us?”
I don’t answer.
I run.