Chapter 9
“This has got to be the bleakest part of the country,” Rowan complained the next day, leaning against the trunk as Cath deftly smacked the gas pump nozzle in like a teat to a piglet’s mouth. “I mean, look at this.”
Rolling, pleated semi-hills, covered with whatever grew on Oklahoma sod.
The landscape stretched from horizon to horizon with nothing to break monotony but the highway’s dips.
Deep blue sky was scored with the sun’s blazing eye, mercilessly beating down on humid black dirt and matted grass.
The faraway shape of a water tower lifted like a pregnant elephant, another welcome break.
Insects hummed in a fitful hot breeze and sweat lay like oil against Rowan’s forearms, between her breasts, against the curve of her lower back, behind her bare knees.
She was glad of the shorts, even if she also had to wear a T-shirt instead of tank top because of the glaring chunk taken out of her right deltoid.
It was an angry bright red and didn’t look like a normal wound should.
Cath glanced around. “Nothing but sod, huh? But the hills break it up a little. Not like Wyoming. You ain’t seen a whole lot of nothing until you see that.
” She scratched at her cheek, the tails of her Dr. Who scarf stirring in the low, warm breeze.
How she could wrap herself in that wool was beyond belief.
At least this wasn’t the cloying of the city; this heat was fractionally less muggy.
But the insects are worse. Rowan slapped at a bite on her forearm.
The sky was a deep venomous blue, no trace of a cloud except in the south, where a thick band of black smudge promised thunderstorming later.
Never thought I’d miss Saint City grey. Rain four days out of every five, until you grow mold between your toes.
God. “How are you feeling, Cath? Want me to drive for a while?”
“We should make Amarillo late-late tonight, and we’ll stop for some real food and a real bed. We’ve made good time. Wish we didn’t have to go through New Mexico, even for a minute. How’s your arm?”
The sign proclaiming Gas-Food-Ice squealed as the restless wind mouthed it. “My arm’s okay.” Rowan massaged her left shoulder, feeling only a slight twinge—probably psychological. “We have made good time. I wish we could know how the others are doing.”
“They’re probably fine. Worry about us first.” Cath popped her wad of Juicy Fruit again as the gas pump clicked off. “I’m going to go get my change and some Doritos. You want anything?”
“A cold Coke, if they have it. That bathroom dried my mouth out.” Rowan grimaced.
Cath laughed as she strode away toward the ramshackle mini-mart.
There was an actual Dirty Harry movie poster tacked to the window, Clint’s sneer turning yellow as the rest of him through dingy glass.
Rowan waited, leaning against the car, blinking as the dust-laden wind rose again.
The asthmatic ice machine on the store’s front porch wheezed, gave a cluttering thump.
It was nice to be out in the country, with precious few people emitting confusing bursts of thought and emotion.
Instead, there was the sweep of south wind—full of chemical stink, probably from oil fields, but good enough.
Rowan caught a flash of focused thought just as a hawk dove from deeply blue sky to catch some poor small bundle of fur.
The bird’s satisfaction was a thread of gold spilled through the song of tough stubbled grass, weeds, and the ribbon of the highway.
Rowan closed her eyes, letting the air blow through her, hoping the space 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. There was no sense of peace to be found in the sky’s 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.” The wind was beginning to fall off, and she saw a distant flash among black clouds on the horizon. “You need me to drive?”
“Hell 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. “Christ, I’m sorry.”
“No problem, I’ll shoot you later. Help me carry the gear.”
Half an hour afterward, with the room clean and countermeasures in place, they crossed the weed-choked parking lot to a slightly better-lit, flat, cracked asphalt lot unrolling around what a buzzing neon sign proclaimed as Babe’s Blue Hole Café.
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 leathery and dry, and her shoulder ached.
Her entire body ached after two days in the car, catching only broken sleep as Cath drove, Cath napping as Rowan piloted 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 part. 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 bowled 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,” 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 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 headed for the front entrance of the restaurant. Mellow electric light shone through the windows; 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.
“You know what weirded me out the most? How he would just appear out of nowhere. One second, nobody there. Next, boom, Del’s saying hi.
Freakiest fucking 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.
Nobody ever thought that maybe he was traumatized by what those bastards 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.
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 suite.
She still cringed at the thought of how she had blithely assumed the space was empty because it had no betraying personal marks or possessions other than a few clothes and Justin’s weapons.
“He’s not scary.” She held 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. Even keeping the faint blur which would disguise the fact that she was armed was a heavy weight.
A bottle-blonde hostess shuffled to a back booth, settled them with overheated coffee, plastic menus, and glasses of tapwater.
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. “I want to destroy them.” Her low murmur caught her by surprise.
“Sigma?” Cath took a slurp from her water glass, then inhaled another lungful of smoke. Her pack of Dunhills was placed ceremonially on the table, a battered Hello Kitty lighter atop 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 smoke. She looked far older than her nineteen years. “Don’t go all Caped Crusader. You’ll burn out.”
They both fell silent as a tired-eyed waitress arrived. “Hey I’m Blair. What canna getcha?”
A little bit of hope, 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 thought we were goners after Headquarters bit it.
But you managed to keep Henderson from going nuts and organized us, 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 from her nose, the sheaf of earrings on each ear and her nose rings glittering.
She’d actually be quite pretty without all the metal. “I’ve done my duty,” Rowan 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 goddamn serious. Now get out the map. I want to look at our next day of fun and games.”