With his stomach still on spin cycle, Cole jogged out of the building and to the woman with the bandaged hand. Jen was leaning against the car and facing the highway. He approached her slowly and announced his presence by clearing his throat.
She jumped, but relaxed when she saw him. “Are you all right?” she asked.
Cole nodded and told her, “More or less. I was more concerned about how you’d answer that same question.”
“I’m…well…I guess I’ll be fine. Sooner or later.”
Cole leaned against the car next to her and crossed his arms. “I know just how you feel.”
“I saw how you fought those things. I was too frightened to move and you two came in to chase them off. I doubt you’re afraid of much of anything.”
“You wouldn’t be so impressed if you saw the mess I left in there.”
For a second Jen just stared blankly at him. Once she allowed herself to laugh, the tired woman quickly dissolved into a mix of trembling giggles and choking sobs. Cole eased his arm around her but didn’t know what else to do. Judging by the way Jen turned and pressed against him, he was doing more than enough.
“Don’t worry about any of it now,” he said. “Just try to breathe.”
Jen nodded and pulled in a few measured breaths. She held the air in her lungs and let it out as she forced herself to look back toward the diner. “Thank you so much. I wish I could find a way to thank both of you.”
“And I wish we could have gotten here a little earlier.”
Jen wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him so tightly that he began to see stars. The anaconda grip didn’t let up until the crunch of boots against gravel approached the car.
“We need to get going,” Paige said. Before she could say another word, she was nearly knocked off her feet by a hug from Jen that was equally as enthusiastic as the one she’d given to him. Paige smiled and rubbed Jen’s back as the scent of burning grease drifted through the air.
“Good Lord,” Cole said, catching sight of flames through the diner’s front window. “We really do need to get going.”
All three of them piled into the car and sped back to the highway.
“Why don’t you call 911 before that fire gets too big?” Paige asked.
Cole took out his personal phone, flipped it open and then swore loudly. “No coverage. Freakin’ Wisconsin!”
“Freakin’ bad phone is more like it.” Leaning to look at Jen in the backseat, Paige added, “So far, that phone of his makes a better camera than anything else.”
“Ha ha,” Cole grumbled. “It’s also got some pretty decent games on it.” Before he could expound upon the virtues of playing Tetris during gridlock, he was connected to the authorities via Gerald’s satellite phone. He called in the fire, pointed them in the right direction, then hung up.
“Now call MEG,” Paige said. “She can make sure you don’t get any calls from the Fraternity of Firefighters bugging you about tickets for their charity banquets.”
“Huh?”
“MEG. Call MEG and tell her your number’s now in the 911 system.”
Finally, Cole nodded and said, “Oh, you mean MEG! Right.”
Paige looked in the back and started to say something but was cut short by Jen’s quickly upraised hands.
“Don’t want to know,” she said.
“Perfect,” Paige replied, nodding, and shifted her eyes back to the road. “There’s another gas station at the next exit. You can wait there for a while and then come for your car later.”
Jen shook her head forcefully. “I don’t want to go back there. If that means abandoning my car, then so be it. I left my purse back there as well, so I might as well complete the set.”
Digging into the pocket of her jeans jacket, Paige took out a wad of money and handed it back to her. “Take this and get a bus ticket or a ride or a room or whatever you can. You need to call anyone?”
“No. Well…I can do that when I get cleaned up.” Looking at the money, she asked, “Are you sure you can spare this much?”
“Yes. Take it. You want us to drop you off here or—”
“Here’s fine,” Jen said. Holding the money in both hands as if cupping a head of lettuce, she said, “That truck stop would be good. Aren’t there usually showers there?”
Cole nodded. “Yep. And great food. Some of the best ham steaks I’ve ever tasted came from truck stops.”
Jen smiled warily and stuffed the money into her pocket. She didn’t say another word until they were braking in front of a store that appeared to be stocked with everything from country music CDs to pecan logs. Even then she seemed too tired to pull herself out of the car. Once she heard the sounds of hydraulic brakes, talking, and other signs of normal humanity, she perked up a little. “Thanks again,” she said.
Paige waved. “’Bye. Take care of yourself.”
“If you…” Cole kept the rest of his offer to himself, since Jen was all too anxious to get out of the car. He watched her go until she disappeared within the sprawling mecca of gasoline, beef jerky, and ridiculously strong coffee. Once the door had rattled shut behind the woman with the curly hair, he looked over to Paige and asked, “Do we need any gas?”
“Yeah,” she replied as she backed away from the entrance and drove past the pumps, “but we’ll wait until the next place.”
“I don’t think she’ll say anything to anyone else. About us, I mean.”
“Me neither.”
“Should we even be worried about that?” he asked. “I mean, don’t we swear anyone to secrecy?”
“It wouldn’t matter if we did. Most people just want to forget whatever they saw so they can get back to what they were doing before.” Paige sighed. “The ones who latch onto this sort of thing don’t usually have a lot of credibility anyway.”
Cole rolled down his window and let his arm dangle in the cold breeze. With Paige’s window already open, a stiff wind blew through the car. Even though he could feel his fingers starting to tingle before the car even got up to speed on the highway, he let them dangle. The cold washed through him and made it difficult to focus on anything else.
It was nice.
“Should I call MEG now?” he asked.
Paige looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. She studied his face for just long enough to get Cole thinking there might have been something hanging from his nose. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“What?”
“You heard me. That was a lot to take in, even for me.”
“Are you surprised I’m not back there eating a ham steak with Jen?” he asked.
Without hesitation Paige replied, “No, but still…it was a lot to take in. Are you all right?”
Slowly, Cole nodded. “It’s just one more batch of strangeness heaped onto all the rest.”
“It does seem to get heaped onto some of us more than others, huh?”
He shrugged. It was a lot easier than trying to figure out why things turned out the way they did.
“Call MEG later,” Paige told him. “Our phones are all registered to fake names and addresses anyway. They can send you a new SIM card registered to another fake name and that usually does the trick. If it doesn’t, there are plenty more phones out there. Just remember to think ahead whenever you—”
“When I use official Skinner phone lines to contact the authorities. Got it.”
“I’ve got to admit, Cole. You impressed me today.”
“Thanks. Now when do I get my own set of stakes?” He snapped his fingers and said, “You’re not supposed to stake a Nymar through the heart! You’re aiming for the spore attached to the heart, right?”
“Now, you learn, young one. But a stake won’t kill it unless you hit that spore just right. The thing squirms around in there, so it’s mostly luck if anyone gets a lethal hit. You stake a vampire and it may be able to live for a long time while the spore heals. A big hit will take a while to heal, but it can be done. Sometimes, if a Nymar gets hit too close to the spore too many times, the spore can pull some bone aside to hide behind. Don’t forget that thing is alive inside of them. It’s got a mind of its own.”
“That reminds me,” Cole said. “I shot Misonyk in the chest and it looked like there was solid bone protecting his heart.”
