I look like I’ve been in a fight,Rowan leaned close to the mirror.She had a raccoon-mask of bruising around both eyes, and her nose was puffy.It had been a good hit, but the swelling was already beginning to go down.It smarted, though.
The only problem with healing rapidly was that most of the pain was compressed into a shorter time.Well, what do you know?Iwasin a fight.Me, the sissy girl who ran away from every schoolyard brawl.Imagine that.
“I probably am,” she murmured, touching her split lower lip with a fingertip.“Ellis got me a good one, but I won the fight.”
“I wastalkingabout Del, Rowan.”Catherine couldn’t have sounded any more sarcastic if she’d tried, which was in and of itself a compliment.“You’re hopeless.”
“Catherine… how did you get into the Society?”It wasn’t the right time to ask, but Rowan was curious.
The younger girl paused, slim fingers tangled in a boot lace.“Sigma snatched me from the playground at Sacred Heart,” she said finally, tonelessly, tossing her head slightly.Like a ponytail,Rowan realized, and shuddered.Sometimes Catherine seemed no more than a very scared child, for all her toughness.“They nabbed me and put me in a holding tank.They ever tell you about Sig holding tanks?They’re padded and circular, with a drain in the middle so you can piss.But the top is Plexiglass and always dark.You can’t tell if you’re being observed or not.The lights are fluorescent, and they never go off.I was in there for about sixteen hours before the door was blown and Del and Henderson came in.They got me out.On the way we passed the Sig who was coming to shoot me full of Zed.He had forty hypodermics.Someone had broken his neck.Probably Del.”She paused, yanked the bootlace tight, and tied it swiftly.“Guess why they wanted me.”
“Probably something to do with your telekinesis,” Rowan guessed.
“Yeah.I used to make pebbles and rocks rise up off the playground and smack the other kids.Wasn’t very nice.And the nuns reported it to the priest, who reported it to Rome.Somehow Sigma found out.”She shook her head, her mohawk—now tipped with crimson—shivering.“Del was first in the door.I threw myself on him, and he put me in an armlock and said,‘If you want to get out of here, come with me’.Super cool.”
Rowan let out a soft breath.Oh, honey.
Cath shivered; then she bounced from the bed, booted feet hitting the floor with a thud.“Grab a coat.I want to smoke a cig topside, okay?”
Rowan shook her head.“What an awful habit,” she said, but she found her camel coat hanging on the rack by the door.“What’s this doing here?”
“You left it that afternoon we played pinochle, remember?Hand me my scarf.I’m hungry too, so let’s hurry.Wonder what’s for dinner tonight?”
“Probably spaghetti.”Rowan handed over the long, striped Dr.Who scarf and shrugged into her coat, wincing as a few more bruises made themselves apparent.Justin hadn’t been kind.
Neither was I.She sighed.At least he’d been smart enough to leave her alone.She was a lot calmer now.Enough to feel a little guilty over the way she’d screamed at him.
Catherine chattered the entire way up to the surface, silver jewelry flashing and hoop earrings shivering.Rowan made the appropriate noises, her mood lightening.The girl meant well.For all her punk bravado she was a sensitive, intelligent young lady.
And she was trying to make Rowan feel better.
Hilary would have snorted and dragged Ro out for a night on the town, dancing, drinking, and overriding Rowan’s good-natured complaints.Thinking about Hil sent the usual pain through her chest; a pain that seemed to be getting… if not less sharp, then at least easier to bear.
She would have chided Rowan into calling Delgado, or she would have bought a carton of ice cream, raged against jealous men, and insisted Rowan tell her every detail.
Rowan shook her head, dislodging the thought.Catherine, busy talking about parallel processing and gigs of RAM, didn’t notice.
When they stepped out through steel-reinforced doors, dusk was creeping into the sky, between the buildings.Catherine flicked her lighter at the first possible instant, amber flame caressing the cigarette’s end.“God, I’ve been dying for this.You want one?”
It was late March but still chilly, the sky clear though the grass wet from morning sleet.Pockets of snow still held on in deeply shaded corners, eroded from rain and the ground slowly warming up.Venus glimmered in the sky.
Rowan could still hear her father’s voice telling her about the stars.“No thanks.”Her breath plumed in the air, as if she was smoking too.
“How about you?How did you get here?”Catherine’s eyes glinted.She hopped down the steps, then wrestled herself up to sit on the low stone wall next to the carved lion.The lion’s heavy paw rested on a stone urn frothing with ivy.“I only heard about half of the story from Del.”
Rowan shrugged.“I saw a light in an abandoned house and thought it was kids playing around for Halloween,” she said slowly.“Then I ran across Justin.When he said you were parapsychology investigators, I freaked out.I couldn’t have anyone suspecting what I was.”
“You blew out the instruments, you know.Without even trying.It was weird.”Catherine frowned, took another drag.“We weren’t sure if you were government or not.Del looked like he’d been hit with a two-by-four.I think he already had a case for you.”
“Well, the next time I saw him two Sigs were trying to kidnap me in a parking lot.He chased them off and got invited to dinner.”He probably ‘pushed’ Dad,Rowan realized, remembering her father’s odd insistence.“Then he came to dinner—and so did Sigma.They shot my father and my best friend.”
“God, I’m sorry.”Catherine looked aghast.“I didn’t hear that part.I just heard Del snatched you from a Sig team and dragged you halfway across the country before it was safe to bring you in.”
Rowan shrugged, crossing arms over her chest, hugging herself.Her left arm twinged—she had a bruise on that biceps.As gentle as he’d tried to be, Justin had still hurt her.
Maybe that’s a lesson.
“I hate those fucking Sigs.”Catherine blew out a long vapory jetstream.“Brew says they’re just guys doing their jobs, most of ‘em.I say, so were the Nazis.”
