Hunter, Healer

by Lilith Saintcrow

Rowan blinked. Memory roared in. Justin.

  Where is—

  The door rattled.

  She pushed herself over on her side, reaching for the nightstand and the gun that lay there in its habitual place. Had he put it there?

  Where was he?

  Her fingers closed on empty air. She lunged and caught the gun as the door opened, letting in a blast of hot air and the smell of car exhaust and high plains wind. Justin stepped inside, shaking his head, and closed and locked the door. Cath had apparently found him a new shirt, but he wore the same hip-length jacket and jeans. As usual, he looked maddeningly precise. The haircut helped the image. So did the set, grim expression on his face. Somehow he never looked rumpled, even with the fading bruise over his left eye.

  Rowan lowered the 9mm just as he turned around, his shoulders dropping. He regarded her over the space of empty air between them. The new T-shirt was blue, and it made his eyes seem even darker.

  Cath's singing continued in the bathroom, underscored by the splashing of hot water.

  "You can put that away,” he said finally, his eyebrow lifting just a little. He was pale, fever-spots standing out on his cheeks. He looked like hell, with dark circles under his eyes and his jacket hanging oddly on his frame. He'd lost weight but still looked deadly, muscle flickering as he crossed his arms over his chest.

  And his eyes were new, burning and fully alive, hazel coals in his pinched, gaunt face. “I was checking the parking lot. Nothing stirring. I think we might be okay."

  Rowan blinked. She laid the gun back down on the nightstand and then pushed back the covers. Her jeans had been cut away and the bandage was glued to her thigh with dried blood. She peeled it carefully off. Her leg twinged roughly as she looked at the bloody hole and wide stain on the denim.

  "God,” she said. The heavy material was stained all the way to her ankle. She'd bled a lot . She felt pale just thinking about it, didn't want to imagine the scar the wound would leave behind.

  Doesn't matter. The scar will close up and fade like all the rest. It was a chilling thought.

  "Why didn't you tell me you'd been hit?” He yanked one of the chairs out from under the spindly table and dropped into it gracefully. Then he seemed to go absolutely still, his eyes sweeping the hotel room and then coming to rest on her.

  She found her voice. “You had enough to worry about."

  This wasn't like any reunion she'd envisioned either. She'd imagined ... what? Falling into his arms and everything going back to the way it was before—her father still alive and Hilary still working for the newspaper and calling or dropping by almost every day to visit? Or had she imagined waking up at Headquarters and finding out that it had all been a dream, her normal life and Justin's capture?

  Instead, this gaunt man stared at her, seemingly content just to sit and watch. He reminded her of an alley cat, all nerves and dark eyes, every muscle taut and ready. The sudden mental image—Justin as a cat, prowling in a dark corner, disdainful of a plate of food, and reminding you he could leave at any moment, that he was just visiting—would have made her smile if it wasn't so sad.

  "I'm sorry.” He even looked sorry, his mouth pulling down and his eyes turning even darker. The shower shut off, she heard Cath switch to I Will Survive and felt her mouth want to twitch again.

  "Why? You didn't shoot me.” She took a deep breath. “I've missed you."

  Three inadequate words, completely unable to convey the longing and frustrated guilt she felt. Rowan hunched her shoulders and dropped her eyes to her knees, one pale and streaked with dried blood, the other still covered with her sweat-soaked jeans. She reeked of sweat, coppery blood, and spilled alcohol.

  "I pushed myself,” he answered, almost inconsequentially. “To forget. Forget everything about you. I had to—Sigma had me. Then when I got loose, I pushed myself to remember. You're in trouble, angel.

  They're sending Carson to hunt you."

  A cold finger slid down her spine. Who was this Carson character? The General hadn't said much, just that he was bad news and for Rowan to be very careful.

  "Henderson told me.” I need a shower. And I need to get dressed. Why is he looking at me like that?

  Why won't he touch me, talk to me? Really talk to me? He sounds like he's giving a report back at Headquarters. Nice and impersonal. “Justin?"

  He shook his head, as if shaking away a sudden bath of icy water. “Never figured out why you called me that,” he muttered, his eyebrows pulling together. He actually scowled , an expression light-years away from the calm, precise man she remembered.

  What had they done to him? “It's your name,” she whispered. It's what I've always called you. “Don't you ... don't you remember?"

  "Just Delgado. Or Agent Breaker.” He shrugged. “Makes no difference. Look, how soon can you be ready to move? I've got to get you out of here."

  Rowan's entire body turned to ice. Her heart gave one wounded, incredible leap and fell back into her chest with a plop, like a stone tossed into a pond. She'd been so sure he would come back—maybe wounded, maybe bloody but relatively unbowed. And she had also assumed that he would want to pick up where they'd left off. But that presented another problem, didn't it?

  I hate you! she'd screamed at him in the training room, after he'd pushed her too far. I wish I'd never seen you!

  She hadn't meant it. It had only been frustration and agonized grief speaking. But what if he'd thought she had meant it?

  Of course, if it wasn't for me the Society would still have Headquarters. Sigma was after me, and they killed everyone they could find at Headquarters to get me because Justin brought me in. He's had time to think this over and remember what a jerk I was to him. Guilt flashed through her, bloomed into a hideous certainty. And I didn't go after him. I left him to suffer there.

  "I can be ready in twenty, as soon as Cath gets out of the bathroom,” she answered tonelessly, sliding her legs off the bed and rocking to her feet. She swayed, her knees weak. Blood loss will do that, even if you are the Super-Healing Freak , she thought bitterly. She scooped the gun off the nightstand, checked it habitually, and winced as she tested her left leg. The cut leg of her jeans flopped. She tasted bile, feeling the crusted denim against her skin.

  "Henderson's going to be happy to see you,” she tossed over her shoulder as she hobbled toward the low wide dresser. She recognized her duffel bag sitting next to Cath's and 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 she limped to the dresser and 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 that, hated the teeth-gritting falsity of trying to jolly the patients along for their own good.

  "Rowan.” He sounded as if he was about to say more, but the bathroom door opened and 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, Cath. Rowan sighed and 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 and traced down her cheeks as soon as she closed the door.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Delgado hunched in the back seat next to the kitbags. Cath drove, lighting yet another cigarette. Rowan sat in the passenger seat and frowned at the map.

  He was almost literally boiling with frustration. They shouldn't have put him there next to the guns and the gear, but evidently they trusted him. They trusted him too much, as a matter of fact. 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 from underneath with clarity, had stopped him.

  No, that wasn't true, either. What had stopped 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 were shaking, and the unsteady lightning-bursts of pain were getting closer and closer together, his nervous system crying out for a jack and his overstrained will digging its heels in, refusing.

  He slumped in the back seat, letting the wind play over his face. It smelled of water and thick, rank growing things, hills rising green and blotting out the empty sweep of sky he'd become used to in the desert and traveling through Wyoming.

  We'll have you fixed up in no time. A door had slammed behind those beautiful eyes. He'd done something wrong. She had obviously been glad to see him at the casino, but now the distance was palpable, her lovely face closed, cool, and professional. Cath didn't help, either. Her normally abrasive manners had gotten even worse, if that was possible.

  Had he done something wrong? 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 her 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 that begged 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 and 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, her 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, and her face had closed with an almost audible snap, her eyes going dark and distant. And since then, she had treated him with a polite cheerfulness that made him want fifteen minutes with a heavy bag so he could let loose a little of the rage he was feeling.

  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 as absolute fucking disaster, Del— left him wondering if the Society was worse off than he'd thought. In light of what she was telling him, it was a miracle they had managed to elude a government apparatus with damn near unlimited funding and highly trained support staff.

  But then again, they had Rowan.

  If she had felt like a thunderstorm before, her talent prickling along every exposed edge of his skin—and quite a few that weren't—she now felt like a smooth deep river of force, deceptively placid on the surface with a riptide underneath. She seemed even more powerful now—and more self-contained than he had ever seen her, her former guilt and insecurity washed away. He'd trained her well, and functioning under fire with the Society for the past few months had evidently taught her a few things. And he'd missed it, dumb useless bastard that he was, cooped up by Sigma and forgetting—however temporarily—that she existed.

  They'd left Cheyenne early that morning and were now in the lower end of the Black Hills. The scenery was grand, but Cath snorted when Rowan remarked wistfully that she'd always wanted to see Mount Rushmore. Delgado pushed down the urge to strangle the girl, who had slid most of her metal jewelry back on—nose ring, tongue stud, the earrings marching up each ear, the hoop in her eyebrow—and correspondingly started acting the disdainful teenager instead of the seasoned Society operative. Warm summer wind poured in through the open windows, and the windshield was peppered with murdered insects.

  I've never liked South Dakota. Delgado went back to studying the curve of Rowan's neck, the slope of her shoulder, everything he could see about her. Looking at her made the persistent burning need for Zed fade a little bit.

  Thinking about touching her made a different kind of pain worse. The kind of pain he hadn't realized he was feeling for months, a gnawing emptiness inside the middle of his chest. He wanted to reach over, cup his hand over her nape, and whisper something in her ear—anything to erase that solemn frown as she stared unseeing at the map. Were those tears in her eyes? Big, fat, shining tears?

  Oh, Christ. He leaned forward, unable to help himself. “Rowan? You okay?"

  She actually flinched, as if he'd tried to touch her. “Fine.” Then she turned to look out her window, so he could see nothing but the back of her head. He'd chosen the driver's side seat in the back so he could look at her profile, and now he found himself denied even that. “It's just dusty, that's all."

  "Is your leg hurting?” Cath, now sounding concerned. For all her brash impoliteness, she seemed to sometimes care how Rowan was feeling.

  "No, it's fine. Almost healed up. The worst is over.” Was there a telltale hitch in her voice? Did she sound a little choked? “Are we stopping in Pierre?"

  "Maybe just outside, for a snack. You hungry?” Cath sounded hopeful. Of course, she'd been stuffing herself with junk food the entire trip, if Del guessed right. Nutrition did not seem to be a word in her vocabulary. It was a wonder how she stayed rail-thin with all the calories and preservatives she swallowed.

  "A little. Jus—ah, Delgado? Are you hungry?” Rowan had to half-shout to be heard over the rush of wind.

  Delgado. The name hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. She called me Delgado.

  Not Justin. Delgado . The name the rest of them used.

  She's changed her mind. Doesn't want anything to do with me. What am I anyway, but a junked-out Sigma? She's probably already dating someone else, if she has time. God knows there were enough men at Headquarters that would have jumped at the chance.

  His heart burned, cracking in his chest. It felt like a goddamn cardiac arrest. The road slipped smoothly under the Subaru's tires, pavement singing and engine purring. Sunlight fell thick and liquid across the dash, tingled in Rowan's hair, picked out the crisp whiteness of her button-down shirt, worn open over a tank top. They were supposed to be tourists, just another car with Georgia plates, a man traveling with two pretty women, maybe a wife and a niece.

  Stop it. Goddammit, stop it. If there was one thing he couldn't afford right now, it was fantasy. She didn't want anything to do with him.

  "Not hungry,” he said. It was only half true—the withdrawal was killing any hunger pangs he might be feeling, and he wouldn't want food anyway. The only thing he needed was to be near her. “Better stop anyway, to take a look at that wound."

  "I'm fine ,” Rowan protested.

  "It'll slow us down,” he answered harshly, almost hating himself. “Another fifty miles or so, Cath. We'll stop for a late lunch, early dinner."

  "You got it.” Cath apparently had no problem with taking direction from him. Old habits die hard, he thought, and didn't miss the flash of irritation, like a bright dart of sunshine, that jetted out of Rowan.

  Too bad, angel. The stubborn endurance that had carried him through the last few months of hell rose up now, bright and hot. Sigma hadn't broken him. They'd just hooked him on Zed and beaten him up a little.

  He could take that. He'd broken a Zed habit once and could do it again—especially if this pale-haired angel let him stay near her. He didn't ask for much, just to watch over her while the Society rebuilt itself.

  Del, you're a fucking fool. She's beautiful. Just look at her. And you can't get rid of a Zed habit by yourself again. It nearly killed you last time.

  Remembering that time almost made him shudder—beating hi
s head against a wall until the skin broke and bled, hours spent at the heavy bag just pounding away the furious frustrating weakness and torturing pain, prowling the halls of Headquarters because he couldn't sleep with his skin feeling like red-hot ants were swarming over it—but she could cure him. He remembered the first time she'd done it, cured a woman they had rescued from a Sig installation already moaning and eye-rolling when they brought her in. It had taken Rowan awhile, but she'd somehow treated a Zed addiction without a system flush plus detox and the implied risk of cardiac arrest for the victim.

  The thought of how close it had been intensified the cold sweat standing out on his skin. If Jilssen had found out, if Del hadn't pushed himself to forget, Sigma might have gone to even greater lengths to acquire her. She was a high-priority target anyway, but if they found out what she could do, it was likely to become capture-or-kill, no price too high and no mandate too broad to bring her in or neutralize her.

  If that happened, she would need him. They would need an operative who knew every dirty trick Sigma could pull because he'd been one of them.

  Del touched the small bag nestled against his hip. Inside, the last hypo was cupped in its antishock foam, clipped in and just waiting to detonate inside his head, wipe out the burning he felt in all his nerve channels. It was only going to get worse. Withdrawal was no picnic.

  I've got to ditch this, he realized, with a sinking sensation. He settled himself to wait for the next stop, his heart hammering and his sweat smelling sour even to himself. The voice of self-preservation shrilled inside his head, but he paid no attention.

  One way or another, he was going to keep Rowan Price alive and free. If she didn't like him, that might actually be better. The kind of man she'd feel proud of wouldn't do half of what Del was prepared to do if Sigma didn't leave her alone.

  * * * *

  The rendezvous with Henderson's Brigade was in, of all places, Fargo.

  The landscape was entirely flat—flat enough that Del thought privately it was a wonder anyone who lived here didn't die of sheer boredom. But by the time they reached the small suburban house, he didn't have time to think about the landscape, or the fact that Rowan had brightened perceptibly the closer they got.