Of course,if it wasn’t for me the Society would stillhaveHeadquarters.Sigma was after me, and they killed everyone they could find at Headquarters because Justin brought me in.He’s had time to think this over and remember what a jerk I was.Guilt flashed through her, bloomed into hideous certainty.And I didn’t go after him.I left him to suffer.
“I can be ready in fifteen, the moment Cath gets out of the bathroom,” she answered tonelessly, sliding her legs off the bed, rocking to her feet—and swaying, her knees weak.
Blood loss will do that, even if you are the Super-Healing Freak.
She scooped the gun off the nightstand, checked it habitually, and winced, testing her left leg.The cut leg of her jeans flopped.She tasted bile, feeling crusted denim against her skin.
“Henderson’s going to be happy to see you,” she tossed over her shoulder, hobbling toward the dresser.She recognized her duffel bag sitting next to Cath’s, let out a sigh of relief.Fresh clothes sounded heavenly right about now.
“Rowan.”Justin’s voice was harsh.“They hooked me on Zed again.”
She nodded, her lips compressing, as unzipped her bag.Oh, thank you, God.Clean clothes.“I know.Don’t worry, I’ve got detox down to a fine art.We’ll have you fixed up in no time.”The fake cheerfulness in her voice hurt.It was the same tone she’d heard other nurses use at the mental hospital.She had always hated the teeth-gritting falsity of trying to jolly the patients along for their own good.
“Rowan—”
The bathroom door opened; Cath banged out in a puff of steam.
“Christ,” she said cheerfully, “you’d think a place in the desert would have more hot water.”
Great.A cold shower.Thanks.Rowan made her escape to the bathroom’s sanctuary, thankful that at least the younger woman had left her a few towels.
She tried not to wonder why tears welled up, tracing down her cheeks the moment she closed the door.
CHAPTER16
Delgado tookthe back seat with the kitbags.Cath drove, lighting yet another cigarette.Rowan hunched forlornly in the passenger seat, frowning at the map.
He was boiling with frustration.They shouldn’t have put him next to the guns and the gear, but evidently they trusted him.
For all they knew he could still be Sigma, especially since he was still hooked on Zed.
He’d lied, of course.He hadn’t been checking the parking lot.He’d been looking for a place to hunker down and slam the last hypo, but hadn’t been able to.The thought of her eyes, dark green and lit with that awful, forgiving clarity, had stopped him.
No, that wasn’t true, either.What hadactuallystopped him was no private place to shoot up.He ran the risk of having the cops called if he jacked in and zoned out for an hour in a motel parking lot.Self-loathing crawled along his skin, burrowing in.
No wonder she didn’t want to look at him.He could barely stand to look at himself.
Now his hands shook and the unsteady lightning-bursts of pain were getting closer together, his nervous system crying out for a jack and overstrained willpower digging its heels in, refusing.He slumped in the back seat, letting wind play over his face.It smelled of water and thick, rank growing things, hills rising green to blot out the empty sweep of sky he’d become used to in the desert or traveling through Wyoming.
We’ll have you fixed up in no time.A door had slammed behind those beautiful eyes; he’d fucked it up somehow.
She’d obviously been glad to see him at the casino, but now the distance was palpable, her lovely face closed, cool, professional.Cath didn’t help, either.Her normally abrasive manners had gotten worse, if that were possible.
Had he done something inappropriate?He didn’t think so, but his memory was a little spotty.He’d forgotten how gorgeous Rowan was, how a few silken strands of pale hair could fall into her face and make a man think of brushing them back, which would lead naturally to touching the curve of her cheekbone, a curve begging to be kissed just like her flawless pretty mouth or the vulnerable inner hollow of her elbow, not scarred with hypo-marks like his.
He had forgotten just how it felt to look at her bowed head, see her nape because she’d pulled her hair up in a loose knot, and feel his entire body tighten.
He’d been trying to explain why he hadn’t been back earlier.Why he had stayed so long instead of fighting tooth and nail to escape, to get back to her even if it killed him.He had fouled up somewhere.He hadn’t known what to expect—tears, maybe.She’d cried in his arms plenty of times before, grief at the loss of her father and best friend still raw and sharp.
He’d been trying to remember why she called him by his first name, then her face had closed with an almost audible snap, eyes going dark and distant.Since that moment she treated him with a polite cheerfulness, making him want fifteen minutes with a heavy bag so he could let loose some of the rage.
Just a little.
They were heading back northeast to rendezvous with the rest of Henderson’s Brigade.Cath’s description of the situation—punctuated with such colorful terms asabsolute fucking disaster, Del—left him wondering if the Society was worse off than he’d thought.It was a miracle they had managed to elude a government apparatus with damn near unlimited funding and highly trained support staff.
Then again, they had Rowan.
If she had felt like a thunderstorm before, her talent prickling along every exposed edge, she now felt like a smooth deep river of force, the surface deceptively placid, a riptide underneath.She seemed even more powerful now—and more self-contained than ever, her former guilt and insecurity washed away.He’d trained her well, and functioning under fire with the Society evidently taught her a few things.
