“We’ll find her,” Jolie said.
Matt didn’t even turn at her approach.
The snow felt hard around them, melting off their hot bodies and disappearing altogether. It was close to pitch black out here, but they would see each other perfectly. In the distance, Danni hit himself again, this time hard enough to dislocate her jaw.
Kent was miles away, listening as he did, probably not wanting to be around Danni when the girl was like this.
“If she keeps that up,” Matt said, “it’ll just make everything worse for her.”
“Then please remind her,” Jolie said. “She listens to you more than anyone else, and that was true even before Peter died.”
Matt just kept looking forward. He didn’t like to walk, and given what he had gone through, Jolie couldn’t blame him.
She put an arm on his shoulder, twitching slightly at the heat emitting from him. Deep under his skin, she could see the swirls and rivers of the NaU pumping through his veins, making his body look like a city when viewed from above at night. The lights almost hid the scars on his back, but it did not get rid of a small tattoo on his shoulder, a red lizard with the name “Clarke” written underneath it.
“Please,” Jolie said.
Matt sighed. He turned and levitated over to Danni, who was in the process of shoving her fingers repeatedly into his eyes.
Jolie turned away. Whatever was being discussed, even if she could hear it, was between the two of them. Instead, she took off into the sky, the snow melting all around her as she did so.
Oh, the sky was a nice place, all right. If she could still feel the temperature in the normal way, she was confident that she would be freezing.
She turned around, feeling the green power all around her. She pointed to the south and made her way through the clouds.
Jolie only ever felt comfortable in the sky. She enjoyed the way the air swirled around her, and the green bolts going here and there. She listened to the quiet of the stormy night.
She was confident that Kent wouldn’t hear Becca. No, that young girl, now that she had her father’s NaU, made her more powerful than all of them. She would be careful, destroy any radios or transmitting machines she encountered, and be hard to catch, but caught she would be—
Jolie’s mind went blank for a moment. Her chest tightened up, and she started to descend.
She tried to move, but her muscles locked together, and she could feel foam rising in the back of her throat.
The ground looked close in front of her. She thought she could dampen the blow if only for a moment—
She stopped right before hitting the ground. Matt levitated next to her, arm extended, holding her up. She was about to thank him when she emptied her stomach into the snow.
He levitated over and lowered her into his arms. It still felt odd when he held her. She was a head taller than he, but it still comforted her.
“We’ll find her soon,” Matt said. “And when we do, we’ll make sure you get her NaU.”
She nodded thanks and enjoyed being held by him. Deep inside her, she could feel her baby’s heart rate in sync with her own.
Yes, they would have to find Becca.
Before it was too late.
Chapter Three
I know I shouldn’t be worried about my daughter. She was given a rough hand in life, but I’m confident that if I am to die either at her hands, Matt’s, or through the decay within me, I’m confident that she will survive. She takes more after her mother on that account than me.
Robbie’s Journal
Someone had definitely been at the rest stop, though doing what, Walter hadn’t the slightest idea.
All of the safes looked to be in order, and the gift shop hadn’t been broken into. But the place was definitely tarnished.
Stop 17 had an antique intercom system.
Small speakers lined the walls. The original intention was to warn people there, presumably people who were eating lunch, of either a lane closure due to an accident, the weather, or both. Walter hadn’t worked here when they had been put in, but if he had, he would have told them not to bother.
But it didn’t seem to matter much now.
All of the speakers were cut open, the edges burned and seared, the wires fried.
Burn and melted marks stretched around each of the openings. Walter shined his flashlight at them, not sure how anyone could have done any of it. The only radio that was not destroyed was Rodney’s old Cat radio that looked more like a clock than anything else. Rodney used to hide it above the ceiling titles and try and make the people there think the rest stop was haunted. The radio now sat on the desk in the back, and to Walter, it seemed like it would work all right.
He had looked the place over. He checked the office, the maintenance closets, both of the bathrooms, the back storage room, the loading dock—everything.
There wasn’t a person anywhere.
He walked to the back room and checked the breakers. All of them were intact. He brought the lights on, so he could get a more extensive look at the damage.
He looked out the window. His truck was still there, so he couldn’t chalk up the recent disappearances to anyone going out to his truck, hot-wiring it, and driving north to Canada and the like.
He reached for his walkie-talkie. Now was probably the time to call the troopers. He wasn’t sure what they’d be able to make for all this, but he didn’t much care. He brought the walkie-talkie up to his mouth.
Something fell out in the main room.
Walter’s blood turned ice cold. He brought his talkie back down to his belt, and walked out, brandishing his gun.
He hoped it
