Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Rowan,” he said, shaking her again. “Get up, angel. We’ve got to go.”
She made a sleepy sound of inquiry before her eyes flew open. “What?” Her voice was a harsh croak.
“It’s okay. They haven’t found us yet. But we have to go now. Here—” He gave her a fistful of cloth. “Clean clothes. Get dressed, use the bathroom. We’ve got to hurry.”
She was about to protest, but the back of her neck prickled. The instinctive feeling of danger approaching hit her, and she bolted out of the bed so quickly he actually stepped back. “Something’s wrong,” she whispered, and grabbed the clothes. Her throat was on fire.
“I know,” he whispered back. “Get dressed, angel. If anything happens, hit the ground and stay there. I’ll come get you.”
She didn’t bother to say anything, just ran for the bathroom. The room was dark, and she almost tripped over something laying on the floor. As soon as she reached the bathroom, sour heat rose in her throat, and she had to fight down nausea.
She dressed quickly, splashed some water on her face, and wished she had a toothbrush. A moment’s quick thought made her use the toilet too.
When she finally emerged, carrying the red sweater and feeling a little bit more like herself with new clothes and underwear on, Delgado was standing by the window, watching the parking lot through the curtains. A single suitcase lay at his feet. “All ready?” he said.
“I think so.” The unreality of the situation walloped her. Her nape prickled, just as it had right before the men in black—he called them Sigs—had burst into her house and killed her father.
I’m taking all this as a matter of course, aren’t I? Nausea rose again.
“Stay close to me,” Delgado said quietly. “And, Rowan, no matter what happens, I will find you and make sure you’re all right. Okay?”
She found her dry throat would barely work. “All right,” she husked. “But what if—”
“But nothing. If Sigma manages to get their hands on you, you just hold tight and wait for me. I’ll come for you.”
“Let’s go.” The tingling, prickling feeling of danger now ran down her back in waves. “I don’t feel so good.”
“I’m not surprised. Here, your purse.”
She took it with numb fingers. He took the red sweater, bending down to stuff it in the suitcase at his feet. “Justin?”
“Hmm?” He took one last look out into the parking lot and then picked up the suitcase, straightening. “Just stay close to me, that’s all.” He sounded as if he was reminding himself, not her.
Why are you doing this? But she knew why. She was valuable to their Society because of the freakish things she could do. Valuable to these other people too. Sigma. The people who shot and kidnapped and killed.
Who are they, really? “What does Sigma stand for?”
“Standard Integrative Intelligence Growth and Management Agency,” he said. “Go figure, right? You ready? Let’s go.”
She followed him out the door and down an indifferently-carpeted hall.
The elevators were to the right, but he chose the stairs instead.
“Harder to get caught,” he murmured, as if reading her mind.
“Stairs you can get off at any floor. An elevator—well, they can just pull a wire and have you trapped between floors.”
Rowan’s mouth was desert-dry. “How can you think of all these things?”
“Training. Wait a second.” He stopped short, and Rowan froze.
Prickles ran up and down her back. She felt a headache beginning at the base of her skull, tightness turning into pain. “It hurts.”
“You’re getting more sensitive. It happens. Just take a deep breath.”
Rowan reached out and grabbed his free hand. The electric prickles of his touch raced through her, up her back, chasing away the nausea and pain and replacing both with a strange light sensation—her heart hammering and her head spinning instead of hurting.
He started again, pulling her down the stairs, his feet soundless. She tried to stumble along quietly behind him, failing miserably. The electric feel of his skin against hers intensified. She could tell he was concentrating on something.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to keep us hidden. You’re like a magnet, Rowan. A big one.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry.” He squeezed her fingers slightly, ran his thumb over the inside of her wrist. “It’s easier with you touching me. Just be calm, angel.”
Irritation rasped at her. “You keep calling me that.”
“I do,” he confirmed, as they reached the ground floor. “Hang on.”
She waited, looking at his broad back as he peered out the small window set in the metal door between the stairwell and the lobby.
He cursed in a whisper, his fingers tightening on hers again. “Stay still. Breathe deep. Pretend you’re invisible. Can you do that?”
Rowan shut her eyes. I’ve been doing that since I was four years old. She concentrated.
She dimly heard him let out a sharp breath.
I’m not here. Ignore me. Your eyes slide right by me.
There was a subliminal snap, as if something had broken betweem her temples, in the very center of her brain.
Rowan?
I’m here, she answered Justin’s silent whisper.
Good work. Let’s go. He tugged on her hand again. She’s so powerful. God, how did she learn how to—
The blast of thought made her whimper, driving her teeth into her lower lip.
She had gone too far, inadvertently touching him, sliding below the surface of his psyche to where the dark things in every human brain lived.
In him it was something hard, cold, and fierce as an animal, but without an animal’s unconscious harmlessness.
The car door opened. “Let go. You have to let go of my hand, angel. We can’t stay here all night.”
Rowan blinked. Cold air touched her cheeks. She was perched in the passenger side of the car, Justin’s fingers still tangled with hers. She made her hand uncurl, sliding free of the borders of his mind. Her head pounded.
What did I just do?
“You linked with me,” he said softly, and brushed a strand of hair back from her face. “Get your legs in the car. We’ve got to go. They’re sweeping the hotel. We just missed them.”
Was that disbelief in his voice? Rowan numbly pulled her legs inside the car, and he shut the door, managing not to make much noise. In short order he was in the driver’s seat, and she wondered what he’d done with the suitcase.
The car’s engine roused with a swift soft purr. He pulled out of the parking space, and within fifteen minutes they were cruising smoothly on the freeway. Rowan rested her head against the seatback and wondered why her hands were shaking.
“What was that?” she whispered, and he gave her a single dark-eyed glance.
“That was two full Sigma teams. They’ve got a tracker or something. Damn.”
“I’m sorry,” Rowan offered, inadequately.
“Don’t,” he said shortly, his eyes on the road, flicking up to the rearview mirror. “It’s all right.”
Oddly enough, that made her feel better. If he said it was all right, she had no choice but to believe him.
Something dropped on her hand. Rowan looked down. It was a tear.
She scrubbed at her cheek with the back of her left hand. Stop it. Stop crying.
He handed her the tissues again. “It’s normal, angel. Sometimes I wish I still could.”
“It felt horrible.” It still does. “Whatever it was, it felt horrible. Something awful.”
“Definitely a tracker. They take remote-viewers and locators, and brainwipe them with Zed. Then they—”
“I don’t want to know.” Rowan’s breath hitched on a sob. “Please. I don’t want to know any more.”
“Oh.” He watched the road, the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry, Rowan.”
“It’s n-n-not your f-f-fault. It’s mine.”
“I already told you—” he began, but broke off as lurid light drenched the inside of the car. “Oh, fuck. Rowan, I have to pull over. There’s a cop behind us. Stay calm, okay?”
“Oh, God.” Rowan balled the tissue up in her fist. “What if he recognizes me?”
“I can handle this, but I need you to be calm, all right?”
“All right.” Her throat ached with unshed tears and her ruined voice.
He pulled over, slowing, and the cop whizzed past them in the left lane. Delgado let out a long, harsh breath. “Isn’t that a piece of luck. Good job back there, angel.”
“I didn’t do anything. I’m useless.”
“Hardly. You threw them off the scent with that little invisible trick. You’re a pro.”
A thread of pride bloomed in Rowan’s chest. “You think so?”
“I do,” he replied. “Try to get some sleep, angel. I’m going to get us out of range. You did good work. I think we’ll get out of this yet.”