Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
“Well, isn’t this a fucked-up situation,” Henderson said, soft, tight humor tinting the words.
Rowan shuddered. Blackness, a claustrophobic trap even though the tunnel was wide enough for a transport and narrow walkway to either side. Henderson’s Brigade walked single file: Henderson, Brew, Cath, Rowan, Yoshi, Zeke.
Justin. Tears slicked her cheeks. Her head hurt from pushing both the helicopter pilot and the other Sigma psychics. Now she knew she had fought off their combined mental weight, keeping them blind until it was too late.
Sobs rose in her chest. She stayed fiercely silent.
“What’s up?” Brew’s quiet voice.
“We have to decide. Go back toward the central hub and see what we can salvage, if they’ve cleared out, or take our luck with outside.”
Silence again. Rowan leaned against the wall. She had never felt so tired. Even her hair hurt. “Everyone they had,” she murmured.
“What, Rowan?” Henderson, suddenly attentive.
“Back there. After we saw the flashlight. It felt like they had a large group of psychics, trying to pin us down.” Her voice was flat, exhausted.
“Were they working through someone? A focus?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Pinwheels and sparks of false light flared through the darkness. “I couldn’t tell. I was busy trying to hold them off.”
“Christ,” Brew said. “Bloody fucking hell.”
“Don’t freak out,” Cath hissed.
“Shut up.” This from Yoshi. They were all claustrophobic. Fear tainted the air, a sharp acrid smell.
Rowan dragged in a deep breath. “Let’s just calm down.” False serenity in her tone. It was hard to reach that place of tranquility that let her heal people, but she took another breath and prayed for it.
Finally she felt the fear fade, stroking at its edges, soothing it away.
“What do you think we should do?” Cath, anxiously.
Is she asking me? I don’t have any clue. “I’d say we should go back and get him.”
“No,” Henderson vetoed, immediately. “We go on and hope nobody’s found the exit.”
“What if they have?” Rowan clamped her mouth shut, wishing she hadn’t asked.
“Then we’re dead.” Henderson’s motion could only be sensed in the blackness. “Everyone, hand on shoulder. Let’s go.”
The sound of their footsteps fell into a dark, silent well. Rowan reached for Justin, again, felt nothing. An absence. “He said tranquilizer dart.” Her voice was ragged. “Why would they do that?”
“He’s valuable,” Yoshi said. “Was one of their best operatives, and they need to figure out how he escaped them.”
“Not to mention the fact he’s been linked to you,” Henderson added. “And if they can break him, they can root out any Society cells they find.”
Rowan swallowed a sob, willed her mouth to seal itself.
They trooped on in silence until Henderson halted. “Here it is. Rowan, can you do one more thing?”
She felt pale as glass, past exhaustion and in an enervated haze. “I think I can.” Heard her voice crack, and hated the weakness. Why couldn’t she be strong? Like Justin, like Cath?
I was so sure I was ready for this.
“Good. Scan out there, tell me if anyone’s waiting to surprise us.”
Rowan closed her eyes. Yoshi’s hand tightened slightly on her shoulder. It wasn’t Justin’s support, but did make her feel a little better. She took another deep breath, centered, and cast her awareness out the way Kate had taught.
Kate. Was she dead? Justin had said something about everyone being corpses.
Contact.
—what the—
—it’s me—
—oh God—
Rowan sagged in relief. “It’s Eleanor. And Boomer, Bobby, a couple others. No Sigs that I can feel.”
“Good.” Henderson felt for the keypad.
A shock-blast of worry and tight-throat claustrophobia, awe and fear and terror combined. She drowned in Cath’s emotions for a moment, her knees buckling.
“Careful, Ro.” Yoshi dug his fingers into her shoulder. The grating pain helped, gave her a focus. She stumbled out, her hand tight on Cath’s shoulder.
It was a good thing her eyes were closed. Light played over her face. She flinched, blinked.
“Dammit, Boomer, turn that off. Are they following you?” Eleanor lowered the rifle from her shoulder.
“Rowan!” Bobby cried.
“We need to move,” Henderson barked crisply. “Any other survivors?”
“Not that we saw.” Eleanor exhaled, hard. “We were in the infirmary looking for Rowan. Boomer had one of his presentiments. They came there last, I guess. If it wasn’t for Bobby, they’d have caught us too.”
“The infirmary last? That makes no sense.” Zeke’s dirt-smudged face swung around, and he looked straight at her.
No. Oh, no.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Why? All that, just for me?”
“I doubt you were more than a secondary objective.” Henderson glanced at the small, ragged group.
Boomer. Eleanor. Bobby. Emily, whose round face was terribly pale, a bandage glaring white around her head.
A tall thin young man with his arm in a sling.
She dredged up his name—Eric. Tamara, one of Lyle’s team, red hair caked with mud and her face covered in dried blood, eyes terribly shocked.
Garth, another one of Lyle’s team, his arm around Tamara’s shoulders, wincing whenever he took a deep breath.
And last of all, little Melissa, eyes wide as she held Bobby’s hand, blonde hair in two pigtails falling down her back.
And Henderson’s Brigade. Minus one.
They were in a small stand of pine trees, full of clean fragrance. The chill wind after the tunnel confines was like heaven, no matter that her teeth almost immediately began chattering. Yoshi curled his hand around her upper arm and peered at her face. “General? She’s going into shock.”
Zeke slid his leather jacket off, draping it over Rowan’s coat. She blinked at him gratefully.
“All right,” Henderson said. “We’ve got to get out of here. Can everyone walk?”
Murmurs of assent.
“Brew? Which way to the road? We’ll parallel, come into town, get some shelter, and send someone for a cache.” Henderson started giving orders.
Rowan simply stared at the yawning hole that was the end of the transport tunnel. Any moment she expected to see him emerge, maybe bloody but still alive, his dark eyes meeting hers as they always did.
I never even told him… She shivered harder.
“Rowan?” Henderson was right next to her. Cath and Zeke pushed the round metal door closed. Yoshi lay his hand over the keypad, his eyes closing and a small sound of effort escaping his lips. Electricity crackled. Rowan suddenly understood—he was scrambling the lock.
She stared up, at Henderson’s lined face. “He’s not coming, is he?”
“Don’t underestimate him,” the General replied softly. “If there’s a way, he’ll come back to you. Fine work, keeping them off us. Good job, operative.”
Bile rose in Rowan’s throat. She hadn’t done anything but screw up. She hadn’t realized it was a trap until too late, the combined weight of the Sigma psychics rendering her blind and deaf. She’d failed, just when it counted most.
“Don’t blame yourself,” Henderson said. “It will poison you. And I need you if I’m going to get everybody out of this.”
“You don’t—”
He shook his head, laying a finger to his lips.
Rowan shut up.
“Right. Let’s move out. Everyone pick a partner and buddy up. Brew, Yoshi, you two take Rowan. If she starts fading give her a glucose tab and call a rest stop. Cath, Zeke, take the kids. Quiet and quick as we can now.”
Moments later, the small stand of pines was empty.