them? Would it stop them from doing harm? Of course not.
But if she escaped, the gang might take their anger and frustration out on her father and Rane. She hooked her arms around her knees, pulled her knees up close to her chest. There she sat miserably as though she were still bound, still
locked in.
Each time she thought of her father, her mind flinched away, then fastened onto him again, forcing her into memories of the thing that had almost happened-into confusion, fear, shame, loss, desire. . . .
Then she would remember the way Eli had looked at her, the feel of his body along the length of her own and inside her, hurtful, but good somehow. That would not happen again. Meda would be there and Keira's father would not. Eli
would steer her toward someone else; he had warned her. That hurt, but it could not matter.
She listened intently for several seconds, heard the movie end, heard the shooting flare up and die down. Down the hall, people were making love- or the ranch women were being raped. She had heard a little of that before and did not want to hear more. There were people wandering around, talking, firing occasionally at targets they probably could not see. Someone was talking about eating raw meat.
The words made her mouth water. Her hunger was not painful yet, but it would be soon. Nothing else was hurting her body now, but hunger could change that quickly. If she waited much longer, let herself be locked in again, she could starve. The car gang would not understand. It might ignore her. This closet could become her tomb.
She grasped the knob, turned it slowly, noiselessly. She heard nothing nearby-not even breathing.
Yet the instant she opened the door, something small, silent, and incredibly quick leaped into the closet with her. Only her speeded-up reaction time saved her. Her moment of confusion and terror passed so quickly, she was able to keep herself from screaming. Instead, she shut the closet door quickly, quietly, and turned to face Jacob.
He was naked and trembling. Before she realized what he meant to do, he leaped again, this time at her.
To her amazement, she caught him. He was heavy, but she had no trouble holding him. A few days before, she did not think she could have lifted him from the ground, let alone caught him in midair. He clung to her, utterly silent, but clearly terrified.
'What are you doing here?' she whispered, hugging him and rubbing his trembling shoulders. She was surprised to realize how glad she was to see him-and how frightened she was for him in this deadly place. 'Jacob, you could get hurt! You could get-' She stopped. 'You have to get away!'
'You do, too,' he said. 'Nobody knew where you were in the house so I came to find you. Everybody from home is outside.'
'Do your parents know you're inside?'
'No!' He drew back from her a little, his trembling quieted. 'Don't tell them. Okay?' 'I won't tell them a thing. Just let's get out of here. How did you get in?'
'There's a room with a hole instead of window glass. You were in there before. It smells like you-and like other people.'
'A room with a hole?'
Distantly, Keira heard shooting and running feet. It sounded like fighting within the house. Car people fighting among themselves.
Jacob glanced toward the door. 'They were hurting her,' he said. 'She's got a gun and shot one of them. Now she's shooting more.'
'Who?'
'Your sister. She's getting away.' 'Is she? My God, let's go!'
'Your father's gone, too, I think. I smelled the room where he was back at home. His same smell was in the room with the hole.'
God, while she had sat worrying about leaving them, they were leaving her. She opened the door, crept out of the
closet, still holding the boy.
'I'll show you where the hole is,' he said. He squirmed against her, leaped soundlessly to the floor, sped down the hall toward her father's room. Of course the hole would be there. But how had her father broken out the glass?
And Rane. Was she all right? Could she make it alone? Keira turned, crept back up the hall to the family room. This room adjoined the kitchen and the dining room. From the hall door of the family room, Keira could see car people
crouched behind the counter, occasionally looking around or over it into the kitchen. Keira could see over the counter and into the kitchen, could see Rane sitting at the back door, cradling an automatic rifle. For an instant, Rane's eyes met
Keira's. Then Jacob was tugging at Keira's dress.
'Go!' Keira whispered. 'Get out!'
'You come too,' the boy pleaded. 'The whole house smells like blood. People are dying.'
Rane began firing again, and people did die. Keira saw one of them raise his head at the wrong time and get the top of it blown off.
Terrified and repelled, Keira snatched up Jacob and fled. Doctor's daughter that she was, sick as she had been, she had never seen anyone die before. She ran almost in panic, reached her father's bare room and looked around wildly.
'There!' The boy pointed to another door. The bathroom -no bigger than the closet she had been shut in, but it had a window.
She ran into the bathroom, shut the door and locked it, then lifted the boy to the windowsill. He was over it and down
in an instant. She pulled herself up after him, no longer marveling at the return of her strength, no longer marveling at anything. She had *o get out of the house, get back to Eli and safety. Her father was probably already safe, and Rane soon would be.
She dropped to the ground and ran.
Keira ran through the rocks, hoping they would conceal and protect her as she circled around the house. She was halfway around and already aware of the distinctive scent of Eli's people when she recognized another familiar scent. The new scent confused her for a moment because of its clarity. She was so utterly certain it was her father's that for a moment she thought she had actually seen him.
The wind favored her. It blew toward her from Eli's people and across the path of her father. She looked down the slope through the rocks. Her nose told her this was the way her father had gone-away from the house and Eli's people, toward the highway.
Of course.
Her enhanced sense of smell led her to spots of his blood, some of them still wet on the rocks. In one place near a brown wedge of rock, blood had actually pooled-an alarming amount of blood. Before finding this, she had thought she would go on to Eli and say nothing about her father. Jacob, running ahead and back to her like an eager puppy, might
notice the scent and he might not. If he spoke of it, she would have to admit what she knew, but perhaps by then her
father would have made good his escape. She would have let him escape, even knowing what that would mean to Eli and his people. This was all she could do for her father. And in his way, he was not wrong. He was taking the long view, trying to prevent a future epidemic. Eli and his people were trying to live from one day to the next, trying to raise their strange children in peace, trying to control their deadly compulsion. Eventually, inevitably, they would fail. They must have known it. If not for the blood, Keira would have deliberately permitted that failure to happen now.
But the blood was there, slowly drying in a natural depression in the rock. Her father had been hurt, needed help. Eli had the medical bag, maybe even had it with him here to treat his own people. He should not be able to use it, but Keira suspected he could-and her father might die before he could reach other help.
She turned aside to follow the blood trail. The next time Jacob raced back to her, approaching in utter silence, and concealed except for his scent until the last instant, she stopped him.
'Come on,' he said. 'I'll take you to where Daddy is.'
'You go,' she said. 'Tell him my father's hurt and I have to find him. Tell him to send someone after me with my father's bag. Okay?'
'Yes.'
'Good. Now go. And be careful.'
The boy bounded away, leaping among the rocks as though they presented no obstacle at all. Her children would do that someday. They would have four legs and be able to bound like cats, and they would be beautiful. Perhaps she was already pregnant.
Somehow, when she found her father, when Eli helped him, he had to be convinced to stay and be quiet. He had to be! Living day to day, free on the desert was better than being a quarantined guinea pig in some hospital or lab, better than watching Jacob and Zera treated like little animals, better than perhaps being sterilized so that no more children like them could be born. Better than vanishing.
She ran down the rocky slope with new speed and agility she hardly noticed. It seemed she could always see a place for her feet, always find a handhold when one was necessary. She felt as secure as a mountain goat. Once she stopped to examine the body of a red- bearded, balding man. He was not one of Eli's people, not one of Badger's. Most likely, he was one of the new group Badger had called. He was newly dead of a broken neck. Her father's scent was especially strong near him, and she realized her father had probably killed this man. It was even possible that this was the man who had wounded her father-though she saw no gun. Perhaps her father had taken it. That would mean she had to be careful. If he were wounded and armed, he might be panicky enough to shoot without waiting to see who he was shooting at.
She continued down the slope with greater care. She did not have Eli's or Jacob's ability to move in complete silence, but she moved as quietly as she could, missing the rock and sand she could have knocked loose, avoiding the dry plants that would crackle underfoot, quieting her own panting.
She paused briefly to listen. The wind, now blowing toward her from her father, brought her the sound of his
