She was struggling, thrashing, mental cords tearing as she fought to stay with herself, to deny him access, to deny any power over her.His laughter, old and unspeakably foul, rotting from the inside, filled her brain as he chanted the name of the thing he wanted her to do.Give in.Give in.The foulness spread, staining every layer of her mind with contagion—a virus, self-replicating.She thought desperately of ocean, clean water, pure rain washing him away, blocking him out, barring access.
“Rowan!” Justin’s scream.Rage spilled through her, a feeling no more hers than the digging twistingthingin her mind.It washisanger; it closed around her like a suit of armor, but oh its black depth was frightening.“No!”
He beat at the old voice, smashed it back, and forced a weak cry from her throat.Rowan thrashed both mentally and physically, her wrist hitting the edge of the upturned table with a solid, bruising impact.A cord stretched between two elephants, Justin pulling from one side, the awful, dry, cracked voice pulling from the other.That rotten fractured tone had smashed through her defenses and sank its greedy claws, but Justin’s black fury pulled her back.He was linked to her far more deeply.
More deeply than even she had suspected.
Then, as quickly as it had arrived the voice retreated, leaving behind a sick unsteady feeling and the cold weight of a gun jammed against the temple.
“Let go of her.”Justin’s voice, low and harsh, as he pulled the hammer back.“Now,Carson.”
“You kill me, it kills her.”The voice quavered, soaked in an old man’s helpless evil.Fury again, burning under her skin, rage so deep and wide it could consume her.
Rowan screamed, but all that arrived was a thready, weak whisper.The voice dug in, tearing, causing damage wherever it could.Give in.Give in.Give in to me, let me IN?—
A blinding flash.Justin, reaching through her again.It was dangerous for him to split his focus like this.She struggled to lift her head, to fight whatever had struck her so hard.
Pain, a flash along her upper arm.She heard another low curse, and then a meatythunkas if someone had split a watermelon.
Agony rolled through her, a burning as if every synapse had been doused with gasoline and lit.Rowan thrashed blindly, heard a rabbitlike scream.It wasJustin’spain, the agony of using his gift to break into a mind, the echo of thepushscreaming through her own nervous system.It seemed to last forever.
There was a long deathlike pause.Her vision returned fitfully, and she saw the ceiling—oddly skewed because she lay twisted, half on her back with her arm flung out—and something warm and wet was in her eyes.Her lungs burned as she dragged in a breath.Another.Blinked, vaguely surprised to find herself alive.
Oh, God.God.What the hell was that?
Her head ached fiercely, as if the party-hangover had only waited for now to make its true appearance.The pulsing of some dark intent submerged below the layers of her waking mind; she felt vaguely horrified through the pain and weakness.What was that thing?Where had that thing come from, and what was it doing in her head?
“When you get back to Sigma,” Justin said, hoarsely, “if you can still talk, you tell Anton I’ll do the same to anyone else he sends after her.Now it’swar.”
A short gurgle.Another of those wet, horrible sounds, and she heard distant sirens.Someone must have called the cops.Why?
The noise went on.A short, sharp explosion, a gunshot.A thrashing, crumpling sound.It was a wonder the cops weren’t already here.Oh, God.God, please.
Footsteps.“Rowan?”Harsh, a croak.“Come on, sweetheart.We’ve got to go.”
His face swam into view above her.Blood dripped down the right side, a shocking scarlet.He bent and his mind threaded with hers again, a tentative touch against bruised and scorched mental skin.
Still, she welcomed it.His mind wasclean, not like the rotted thing that had tried to infect her, to break her to its will.
That wasn’t a man.That was a sickness in a human body.How many people did he torture to turn his gift into that?She was suddenly, utterly, glad to have Justin.
He’d saved her.Again.
Rowan’s mouth worked fruitlessly.She had to drag in another breath as he hauled her upright.“Come on, angel.Walk.We’ve got to go.Now.”
“J-J-J-Ju—” She stammered over the name, relieved when she heard her own voice.The dark thing pulsed, burrowing into her mind, but she couldn’tthink, could not even imagine what it was.“What wa?—”
“Never mind.Comeon.”
“P-P-P-”Push me.He had to help her.There was something buried in her mind, something unholy.It was too hard to talk.Her throat closed up, refused to obey her.She tried again.You h-have to.
“No.”He had his arm over her shoulder and dragged her along.Her head lolled, her neck unable to work properly.
A slim man dressed in black lying on the floor, half-hidden between the two beds.The lamp was knocked over, the television and mirror smashed, and blood painted the pale wall in a high arc, gleaming wetly.The television’s shell smoked and sparked.Her feet bumped something soft.She bit back a moan.There was a long white stick, the kind blind people used, snapped in half.
“Not gonna push you, sweetheart,” Justin continued.“Come on, move with me.”
“C-C—” She was about to sayI can’twhen her legs began to work again.She almost tripped, but he lifted her over the moaning body in the entryway.
