There was a shuddering impact, probably against a bedroom door upstairs, that shook the whole house.No time to calm her down.No time to doanythingbut get her out.Cold hit his skin in a wave, and his entire body felt full of electric prickles.Danger—andher.She wasn’t screaming, but she was struggling ineffectually, beating at his back and trying to twist free.
“I’m sorry, Rowan,” he said again, and moved faster.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Everything was going too fast—thecar was black, a two-door model.He dumped Rowan onto the seat, almost bashing her head against the edge of the car’s door.
“Move over,” he said, and she blindly scrambled for the passenger side.She made it to the other side and started frantically scrabbling at the door lock.It wouldn’t budge.
At that moment, all the fight went out of her, like water going down a drain.She actuallyfelther will to resist slip away.Her hand dropped down, and she pulled her knees up on the seat and hugged them, making herself as small as possible.Tears slid hotly down her cheeks.There was a limit to what she could do, and what exactly did this man want?It was a nightmare, only a bad dream, and she’d wake up soon.
He dropped into the driver’s side.Rowan took a deep, shuddering breath and stared out the windshield.Her feet ached with the cold.Daddy.Her shocked brain reeled.
There was a huge black van with a trailer parked in front of her house, its lights turned off.Her house was completely dark, the front window broken.Oh, God, Daddy.
The man closed the car door.“Got to get moving.Are you hurt?Rowan?Are you hurt?”He didn’t precisely yell, but his tone was harsh.He dug in his jacket pocket and produced his cell phone.
“N-n-n-n-” Rowan shivered.She couldn’t finish the word.The car was cold, and her feet were bare.The sweater did nothing to keep her warm.Her teeth started to chatter.She stared as shadows detached themselves from the van and tramped through her front yard, surrounding her house.Now there were lights—flashlight beams.She saw a light flicker upstairs.
They’re searching the house.For what?Why would someone want anything in our house?The television’s old, and Dad’s laptop is ancient.
“It’s Delgado,” the man said into the cell phone.“I need a diversion.The Sigs have cleared the house.Two casualties.”A pause.“No, I got us both out.No net, just a single unit on primary penetration.They just now sent in the net… Don’t give me a goddamn editorial, General.Give me somehelp.”
They shot my Daddy,she thought, and Delgado glanced over at her.She shivered, pulling away from his gaze.They shot Hilary.Oh my God.
“She’s in shock, and I’m not too goddamn happy either.Get me out of here, General.”Another pause.“Okay.”He hung up.“We’re going to wait for a distraction,” he said quietly.“Then we can get out of here.Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, numbly.“Daddy,” she whispered.His blood still coated her hands.They had shot him in the chest.Shot her Daddy.“What the hell is happening to me?”
“They want you, Rowan.”Very quietly.She got the strange idea he was trying to be soothing.“Because of what you can do.They’re Sigma, a black-sector government division.They take psionics and drug them, brainwash them and turn them into weapons.Nasty stuff.”
It was as if he was speaking a foreign language.Rowan blinked at him, then stared out the windshield at her house.“Why do they wantme?” she heard herself ask.
“Because you’re very special, Rowan.Don’t worry.I’m going to take care of you.”His eyes moved smoothly over the house and the black van.
“Whoareyou?”she whispered.“What have you done?”
“I didn’t do anything.They tried to pick you up this morning, and I stopped them.I didn’t think they would take a risk like this so soon in the game.They must want you very badly.I’m sorry, I really am.You don’t deserve this.”He didn’t look at her; he was too busy watching the house.“Sorry about dragging you, too, but we had to move fast and there was broken glass on the floor.Your feet.”
What the hell, someone just shot my dad and he’s talking about my feet?“Hilary,” she heard herself say, in a wounded little voice.
He looked at her.The car was parked in a pool of shadow, taking advantage of two overgrown pine trees blocking the glow from the streetlight.He’d carried her, cutting through the weak spot in the hedge between her back yard and the McClellan’s.She remembered the junipers grabbing at her hair.“I’m sorry,” he said again.
Rowan let out a dry, barking sob.
A tiny thread of sound interrupted the tense silence inside the car.He flipped his cell phone open.“Delgado.”
Whatever he heard must have been good news, because he twisted the key in the ignition.The car purred into life.“Waiting for it,” he said, and then, “Okay.”He closed the phone, dropped it into his breast pocket.Then he put the car in gear and freed the emergency brake.“I promise I’ll explain everything.Right now I have to get you to a safe place, where you can have something to eat and warm up a bit.Half an hour, forty-five minutes at most.Can you do that?’
“Daddy,” she whispered.“Hilary.”It seemed all she could say.
He nodded as if she’d said something profound.“I won’t hurt you.I’m here to make sure you aren’t forced into anything.”
Don’t be frightened.I won’t hurt you.Memory lit up like a klieg light inside her head again.She fastened on it.It hurt less to think about last night that what had just happened.
“It was you last night,” she said again, numbly.“You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“Not now.Look, I’ll tell you everything soon.Right now I need to get us out of this, okay?I’m not going to hurt you, Rowan, I swear it.I was trying to find a safe way to break the subject to you.”
