Firestorm

The gray-haired man screamed and charged up from the floor, hands outstretched for my throat.

The woman on the bench turned her head toward me and made the tiniest gesture, the smallest little lift of a finger, and I was spinning into the darkness.

My last sight was of the auburn-haired man lunging for me, trying to hold on. There was torment on his face, and for a second… for a second I thought I knew him.

Then I was gone.

Chapter Eleven

I was lying on something cold and wet, and I was naked and shivering. Afraid. Something was very, very wrong with me.

I reflexively curled in on myself, protecting as much of myself as I could, as awareness of the world washed over me in hot, pulsing waves.

Biting, frigid wind. Ice-cold sleet trailing languid fingers over my bare skin. I forced my eyes open and saw my arm lying on the ground in front of my eyes, hand outstretched, and my skin was a pallid, blue-tinged white, red at the fingertips. Frostbite.

I ached all over, so fiercely that I felt tears well up in my eyes. And I felt empty, cored out and thrown out like an old orange peel.

I forced myself to look beyond my own hand, and saw that I was lying in a mound of cold, slimy leaf-litter. Overhead, fall-colored trees swayed and scratched the sky, and what little could be seen between the skeletal branches was gray, flocked with low clouds. The air tasted thin in my mouth.

I tried to think where I was, how I'd gotten here, but it was a blank. Worse, it terrified me to even try to think of it. I shuddered with more than the cold, gasping, and squeezed my eyes shut again.

Get up, I told myself. Up. I'd die if I stayed here, naked and freezing. But when I tried to uncurl myself from the embryonic position I'd assumed, I couldn't get anything to work right. My muscles jittered and spasmed and protested wildly, and the best I managed was to roll myself up to my hands and knees and not quite fall flat on my face again.

I heard a voice yelling somewhere off in the woods. Sticks cracking, as something large moved through the underbrush. Run! something told me, and I was immediately drenched in cold terror. I lunged up to my feet, biting back a shriek of agony as muscles trembled and threatened to tear. I fell against the rough bark of a tree and clung to it as cramps rippled through my back and legs, like giant hands giving me the worst massage in the world. I saw sparks and stars, bit my lip until I tasted blood. My hair was blowing wildly in the wind where it wasn't stuck to my damp, cold skin or matted with mud and leaves.

I let go of the tree and lurched away. My legs didn't want to move, but I forced them, one step at a time. My arms were wrapped around my breasts to preserve a warmth that I couldn't find, either within me or without.

My feet were too cold to feel pain, but when I looked back I saw I was leaving smears of blood behind on the fallen leaves. Cuts had already opened on the soles.

I kept moving. It was more of a lurching not-quite-falling than running, but I was too frightened to wait for any kind of improvement. Had to keep moving.

More shouting behind me. Voices, more than one. The hammer of blood in my ears kept me from focusing on the words. Someone did this to me, I thought. Put me out here to die. I didn't want them to find that they'd failed.

Not that they really had failed, yet.

Up ahead was a tangle of underbrush. My body was already covered with whip-scratches and a lacework of blood against cold white skin. Even numb as I was at the moment, I couldn't throw myself into a thorn thicket. I needed a way around… I turned right, holding to a massive tree trunk for support, and clambered up a short rise.

Just as I reached the summit, a shadow appeared at the top of it. I gasped and started to fall backward, but the shadow reached down and grabbed my forearm, pulling me up the rest of the way and then wrapping me in sudden warmth as his arms closed around me.

I fought, startled and scared, but he was a big man, tall, and he managed to pin my arms to my side in a bear hug. 'Jo!' he shouted in my ear. 'Joanne, stop! It's me! It's Lewis!'

He smelled like woodsmoke and sweat, leaves and damp fabric, but he was warm, oh God, warm as heaven itself, and against my own will I felt myself go limp and stop fighting. For the moment.

'Jo?' He slowly let his arms loosen, and pulled back to look down at me. He was taller than I was by half a head, with shaggy-cut brown hair, and a long patrician face with big, dark eyes. A three-day growth of beard coming in heavy on his cheeks and chin. 'We've been looking for you for days. What the hell happened to you? Are you—?' He stopped himself with an impatient shake of his head. 'Never mind, stupid question, you're not okay or you'd have contacted us. Listen, we're in trouble. Bad trouble. We need you. Things have gone wrong.'

I realized, with a terrible sinking feeling, that I had no idea who he was. And then the sinking turned to free fall.

He must have known something was wrong, because he frowned at me and passed his hand in front of my eyes. 'Jo? Are you listening to me?'

I had no idea who I was.

SOUNDTRACK

Yep, once again, I had a soundtrack to help me stay focused, and boy, it was huge this time. (It was a big challenge. What can I say?) If you can't afford a gazillion CDs, hey, do what I do: Download them from iTunes or one of the other fine music services where the artists receive compensation per song. Please don't steal. Mother Nature doesn't like it when you steal, and I think we've established what happens when you make her mad…

Battleflag… Lo Fidelity Allstars

Extreme Ways… Moby

Come Undone… Duran Duran

Objection (Tango)… Shakira

Push It… Garbage

Let's Get It Started (Spike Mix)… Black Eyed Peas

Goodnight Moon… Shivaree

Virtual Insanity… Jamiroquai

Stop Don't Panic… Jamiroquai

Superstition… Stevie Wonder

You Haven't Done Nothing…Stevie Wonder

Angry Johnny… Poe

Molly's Chamber… Kings of Leon

Red Rain… Peter Gabriel

Twilight Zone… Golden Earring

(The System of)

Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether… Alan Parsons Project

Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)… The Offspring

Mustang Sally… The Commitments

Vertigo…U2

No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature… The Guess Who

Thunder… Prince