He tried to match my tempo but began to shake. His hand clutched mine over his flexing abdominals and squeezed so tightly I thought my fingers would break.
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m not letting go.”
I breathed again, and he moved with me, a low, strangled moan seeping out his throat.
In. Out.
Again.
Again.
The terror passed quickly, leaving him exhausted and drenched. There was water in the car, in the bag Beth had given us, but I didn’t dare leave him even for a minute. I used the Sister of Salvation handkerchief to blot at his neck and forehead while he gripped my other hand, and when he fell back onto his heels, I somehow ended up shifting in front of him, so that I straddled his lap.
My breath caught. Our eyes locked, both of us waiting for what would come next. His fingers slowly spread over my back, his thumbs grazing my ribs. I ran my hands through his damp hair, feeling his gaze, somehow staggered, linger on my face. Feeling our bodies warmly connected. Finally, his head came to rest on my heart and I held him, willing him to know that he was not alone.
“WAS I like Beth?” I asked, frowning. “When you came back. Did I seem so young?”
I sat on the ground across from him, arms encircling my knees, chin resting on the crook in my elbow. He mirrored my position, watching the way our boots overlapped, but refusing, like me, to back away. The second we had separated he’d become shy, though not cold, and my mind drifted back to what had happened at my house.
A small smile graced the corners of his mouth. “Maybe a little bit.”
I thought of how naive Beth had sounded, how idealistic that she was doing the right thing, so impenetrable to consequences.
“I must have driven you crazy.”
“You drive me crazy on a pretty regular basis.”
I stomped on his toes. He grinned, and then blinked and rubbed his eyes.
“You’re tired,” I said.
“Yes.”
He wouldn’t sleep until he was ready, but I wished I could do something to help him.
“There’s food in the car,” I said. “Come on. You can eat something at least.”
He reached for my hands and I pulled myself up, and then used all my remaining strength to hoist him off the ground.
The pendant-shaped burn below my collar had begun to throb again, and I prodded it gently, thinking of Cara and how she’d needed St. Michael’s protection more than me. The lump grew inside of my throat. I still wasn’t sure what to feel. Anger that she’d been so cruel, so secretive. Guilt that she was killed by people trying to kill me. Pain, though we hadn’t been friends.
We began slowly walking back toward the cruiser.
“Listen, back there…” he started, then paused.
I waited while he sorted through his thoughts. I hoped he didn’t try to apologize. What had happened out here had bound us closer, and it would have stung had he regretted it.
“It just gets heavy sometimes,” he finished, with a great heave of breath.
He didn’t have to explain further. I knew exactly what he meant.
A muffled whisper diverted our attention, driving my heart into my throat. Chase’s hand was immediately at his back, where he’d placed the gun Polo had given him, but he didn’t draw.
Tucker jerked out from behind a cement blockade just to our left. “Scared me.” He was wearing the same jeans and sweat-stained thermal he’d been in earlier, though now I noticed a streak of burnt copper down his left side. Was that his blood, or Cara’s?
“Who were you talking to?” I asked.
“No one,” he said. “I was looking for you.”
“Where’s Sean?” Chase didn’t bother to hide the accusation in his tone.
“Still on guard,” Tucker answered. “But he didn’t rotate back. I thought maybe he came to find you.”
My shoulder blades tightened. I glanced around, as if Sean might appear, too, but there was no sign of him. Somewhere closer to the heart of the old city, the clouds began to groan.
“So you thought it was a good idea to leave post, too, huh?” said Chase.
Tucker didn’t lower his gaze. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t the FBR anymore, Jennings. It’s every man for himself out here.”
“Actually it’s not,” I said flatly. “Come on, let’s find him.”
Chase held me back, tilting his head toward Tucker as if to say,
“Do you think Tucker’s telling the truth?” I whispered to Chase. I reached into my pocket to feel the copper bullet once again. I wanted to show him, but not with Tucker around.
“No.”
“Do you think Cara’s really dead?”
He nodded once.
So it wasn’t her death that he questioned, but the manner in which she’d died. I felt the shiver run through me. Tucker had seemed genuinely affected by the sequence of events that had led him to my door. But what if he’d lied? What if he’d reported us, and somehow turned Cara in? And then turned Billy in, just after?
And now Sean, wherever he was, was willing to risk his life on Tucker’s supposed contact in the MM. If Chicago didn’t offer any better options—and I really hoped they did—Chase and I would, too.
We were seriously considering placing our safety in the hands of the one person I trusted least in this world.
We searched the garage and the outlying area, calling for Sean only as loudly as we dared. As the minutes passed, my dread began to build, until Tucker finally admitted he’d last seen Sean near the terminal. With a harsh word, Chase took off immediately in that direction, and I followed closely behind, feeling Tucker clinging to my shadow.
We crossed what had once been a street and went left around a large base of construction waste. We found him there, just beyond the bend, facing the opposite direction.
“Sean!” called Chase. “What are you doing out here?”
Sean jumped at the sound. “Thought I saw someone. Over there, behind…”
Three men in ragged clothes emerged from the asphalt and concrete dunes, twenty feet away. Two were in their thirties, and handled their rifles with an unsettling degree of confidence. The third man was younger, close to Chase’s age, with a massive muscular torso, and a baseball bat resting over one shoulder. He looked like the type that might bulldoze anyone that got in his way.
Resistance. They had to be. But if they were, Marco and Polo were right. They did
Chase deliberately placed himself in front of me.
“You lost, strangers?” asked the man in front with a rifle. He had a crisp, city accent. His dark hair was tussled and he hunched slightly to hide his immense height.
“I doubt it,” said Chase.
My pulse quickened.
“Then how may I be of service?” The tall man grinned.
“Knoxville sent us,” said Chase. “Before the FBR burned it to the ground.”
The man snickered. “Any weapons?”
“Possibly,” said Chase.
“Yes,” confessed Sean. “But I’m sure as hell not giving it to you.”
The tall stranger’s smirk dissipated, ratcheting up the silence to a tighter, tenser level of unease as he clicked his dirty fingernails along the rifle shaft. He was clearly trying to intimidate us.
