“Sounds good.It can wait.”Henderson’s eyes were on her, kind and utterly ruthless.“Go get some more shut-eye.I’ll need you soon.”
Need me?Like you need a hole in the head, maybe.“Sure,” she mumbled, twisting her wrist free of Justin’s grip.“I’ll see you later.”
She carried the bowls away and heard Henderson murmur a question.A worried one, to judge by the tone.If I’m dangerous to the Society, you should just tell me outright.It’d be a lot easier than all this pussyfooting around.
When she reached the kitchen Tamara wasn’t anywhere in sight, so she put the bowls in the large industrial sink for dirty dishes, then leaned against the counter.
Rowan held up her hands.
Her fingers trembled, as did her palms.She watched them distantly, as if they belonged to someone else.The pain vanished as her mind latched onto the single undeniable conclusion, the only course of action she could possibly take.
“Calm down,” she told herself.“You know what you have to do.”
She might never have another chance.They called himRowan’s shadowfor a reason.
Kitbag,she thought, suddenly glad to have something to focus on.I’ll need my duffel.And a car.Can I get out without anyone seeing me?I can do that.This is the Society, after all.They trust me.
Which is exactly why I have to get away from them.I’m the danger.I’m the bad-luck charm, the reason nothing’s going right.God, how could I have been so stupid?
Time to get going, before Justin decided otherwise.It wasn’t like him to leave her alone, but maybe he was having second thoughts about her now as well.She had, after all, brought him nothing but trouble.
She peeled herself away from the counter and set her shoulders, striding quickly, purposefully.She needed a map, too.Fortunately, she could access the Headquarters intranet with her clearance and get any of Henderson’s maps that Yoshi had loaded.She was sure one of them would show Sig Zero-Fifteen.
Forty-five minutes later, her duffel and bag safely stowed in the passenger seat, Rowan crossed the state line and pressed the accelerator.
She knew where she had to go next.
CHAPTER22
“She all right?”Henderson asked, low and worried.“She looks dazed.”
“He hit her hard.You know how dangerous he is to empaths.”Del shrugged, rolling his shoulders.As soon as she left the room Zed withdrawal settled deep in his bones, twisting.The leftover wounds from his run-in with Carson also twinged, a mounting song of discomfort.He set his jaw, ignored the feeling.
She needed a little solitude at the moment, time for her violated psyche to put itself back together.He would only make the situation unbearable by nagging.The mental walls between them had slammed up, tinted a deep, dark red with pain and guilt, and he’d noted the shaking in her hands.She needed rest and maybe a little good, old-fashioned therapy the moment they had both recovered a bit.“She’ll be okay soon as she gets some more sleep, I think.”
“What if she’s not?”The old man’s steely gaze met Del’s.
“Then I’ll take care of it.”He didn’t bother disguising the possessiveness.“Take her up to Calgary, maybe, or go start causing trouble in Europe.Get her out of the country, somewhere nice and isolated where she won’t worry so much.She’s been scared half to death, old man, and withdrawing from everyone as well.”He took a firmer grip on his temper.He didn’t need to start shouting at Henderson.
It was just that she had gotten so damn good at hiding what she felt, keeping that brave face on.It was frustrating, thinking about the pain behind that serene façade.Even more to think of how other people must have taken it for granted.She was so powerful and outwardly calm it was easy to assume she was all right, while she bled to death internally.
“I know.”Henderson took his glasses off, rubbed his eagle eyes.Hard.“I’m sorry, Del.She’s so fucking talented it’s hard to know how to approach her.She does things no other psion I’ve seen can.And if I try to tell her to back down, to take a break, she just stares at me with those big eyes.It’s like she feels personally responsible for every goddamn thing.”
“What, likeyoufeel responsible for every damn thing?”The attempt at humor was met with a wan smile.Let’s leave it alone, General.If I think about this much more I’m going to get angry, and I don’t want to.“What’s the situation like here?”
Henderson took the change of subject gracefully.“Good as it can be.We have plenty of liquid assets and are three-quarters done with the infrastructure.Yoshi’s been working around the clock with Cath and the new guy, Lewis—Rowan got him out of a dicey situation, and he’s been one hell of an asset.Anyway, we’ve pulled everyone back in to consolidate.The next few weeks are critical, but we’ve got every fail-safe I can think of—and a few that were Rowan’s ideas—in place.The newbies are undergoing intensive training; most of them have come through wonderfully.The teams are concentrating, shaking free of Sig nets, and arriving one at a time.There are a few out causing trouble, which is good for us.They’ll retreat once they’ve finished a shift, then we’ll send a few more out.”
“You’ve been busy.”
The old man shrugged, his rig creaking.Henderson was the only person Del knew—other than himself—who carried his knives everywhere.“Well, it’s not like cooling my heels in an Italian villa, but it’ll do.Listen, I want you to take a look at these?—”
From that point on it was natural.He’d worked with Henderson for so long it was easy to catch the man’s train of thought, and Del was suddenly grateful to be back where he belonged.
Funny, but before Rowan he’d never considered that hebelongedanywhere.But wherever she was felt like home, and now more than ever—poring over maps, coming up with scenarios, crosschecking protocols and procedures.He didn’t notice darkness had fallen until he heard a faint sound and looked up from a stack of printouts, catching Yoshi slumped over his keyboard, asleep.
Henderson, in a captain’s chair behind a folding table that served as a desk, rubbed at his eyes once more.The sound came again, a tentative knock.
Eleanor cleared her throat.She stood framed in the door, a beanpole of a woman with messy dark hair.Her rig was supple and well-oiled; she favored Sig Sauers instead of Glocks.Del was relieved to see she’d escaped the ruin of the old Headquarters too.
