by Owner
"Uh-huh. Sure doesn't look like it to me." I steered the car back toward the road. Thank God we hadn't been near a bridge when he'd done whatever that was.
"No hospitals, no doctors," he repeated. I looked over at him half-lying across the seat. "What, are you going to stop me?"
"It would not take long for Nevan to find us in a hospital. Our presence, particularly mine, would not go unnoticed. He would make another attempt on your life, and he might succeed this time, taking an unknown number of innocent lives with yours." I gritted my teeth, thinking of Dewey and Earl Johnson. If there was even the smallest possibility that Caelan was right, I couldn't take the chance. "All right," I said, almost shouting in frustration. This was not going at all the way I'd thought. "What am I supposed to do?"
The tension seemed to run out from his body. "If you insist on stopping, all I need is a place to rest so my body can heal. Some place where we will not garner much attention."
"Unless we bump into Barnum and Bailey, I think you're out of luck on that last part," I muttered. Then I said, "I'll help you find a place to rest, all right? But then I want to hear everything." I shuddered, remembering the strange feel of his thoughts inside my head and the sight of me through his eyes, shorter, paler, and thinner than I'd ever seen myself. I knew he recognized me, or he thought he did, but how I knew that was an entirely different matter, one that scared me.
"I will tell you everything," he said. "But–"
"I won't believe you," I finished his sentence. "So you've said." The troubling thing about that statement was that twentyfour hours ago I would never have believed the diner would be gone, an alien would be trying to kill me, and I'd be fleeing town behind the wheel of a 1982 powder blue Impala with another alien riding shotgun. And two and a half years ago, I never would have believed aliens would live on Earth, let alone that my dreams would be filled with them. So, it seemed reality had little or nothing to do with what I believed, and that was more than a little terrifying.
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Chapter 5
Two miles outside of Findlay, I found something I thought might work. The Bide-A-Wee Motor Inn was a squat one-story building with paint peeling off in large sections and a parking lot where weeds waged war against the gravel. I couldn't imagine how much worse it would have looked in daylight. But the Bide-AWee was "OP N," according to the neon sign out front, and deserted, which was exactly what we needed.
I saw a window marked "Office" with another glowing sign and parked as far from it as possible. Caelan didn't look good, and I didn't want to attract any more attention than necessary. It might provoke questions I didn't have answers for yet. I shifted into park and unbuckled my seat belt, then looked over to Caelan. He was close to unconscious, definitely not up to strolling in with me and pretending everything was normal. In fact, I wasn't even sure once I got a room how I would get him in it. I sighed and pulled down the sun visor, hoping for a mirror. I found one, distorted by age, but still clear enough to see in the harsh fluorescent light of the parking lot that this evening had taken a toll on my appearance.
My red hair had escaped from its ponytail in a half a dozen places, becoming plastered to my neck and face. Dark circles under my eyes, now permanent features of my face, only further emphasized the shocky color of my skin. A large red and purple bruise decorated the right side of my face, a souvenir from when Nevan had thrown me into that wall. A long red scratch, which I didn't know how I'd gotten, divided my left cheek into northern and southern hemispheres. Not to mention tear stains, runny mascara, and a lot of grime, all coming together to create that notwashed-in-days look. 45
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I swallowed back a groan and shoved the visor up to the roof. No way was this going to work. But then again, this wasn't exactly a Holiday Inn. Who knows what they were used to seeing around here?
"All right, stay here," I told Caelan, not even sure if he could hear me. "I'll be right back." I got out of the car, taking the keys with me. I didn't think he would try to leave without me, I'm not even sure I would have minded if he did, but I didn't want to take any chances. I locked and shut the car door, then headed for the office.
When I pulled open the office door, a bell jingled somewhere to announce my presence, but there was no one behind the counter. I pulled my inhaler out of my pocket, so I could dig for money. I knew I had some in there, I just hoped it was enough. A sudden gasp tore my attention away from counting. I looked up to see an older woman, wearing too much make-up and a tight flannel shirt, standing in the doorway of the room behind the counter, her eyes wide and her hand pressed to her throat. I frowned. I'd been expecting disgust or suspicion based on my slightly tattered appearance, but not this surprise...and something close to fear. She stared at me like I was the Grim Reaper checking in and I'd just inquired where I could store my sickle.
But before I could ask her what was wrong, she recovered herself, lowering her hand from her throat and stepping up to the counter. "Can I help you?"
"Yeah." I took my turn to stare at her now. Her fuchsia fingernails tapped an anxious rhythm on the counter top, and she wasn't quite meeting my eyes. For some reason, I made her nervous. That was weird.
"We..." I started to explain with a lie about a house fire, then stopped. The more I said, the more complicated this would become. "We'd like a room, please." I lifted my chin, daring her to 46
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question me.
She reached down, bringing up a box of keys, which she set on the counter. After a second or two of fumbling, she pulled out a grimy Smurf key chain with a number taped to its blue belly. She tossed it at me. I caught it, thanked her, and started to walk away, feeling her eyes on me the whole time.
"Hey," she called out. "Twenty bucks down. A deposit." Her hand fluttered up by her mouth, the long nail on her index finger clamped between her teeth, muffling her voice. I turned back and searched the various faded signs posted on the warped paneling behind her and saw nothing about that particular policy. Nor could I see what there was to be so protective of. Behind the counter, news anchors jabbered silently on a television with knobs instead of buttons, though both knobs had been broken off. In place of sound on the television, a police scanner squawked from somewhere nearby, though I couldn't make out the voices clearly. The carpet in here was as threadbare as the Astroturf on the sidewalk outside, and a strange and powerful odor that might have been cat pee clogged my nose. I prayed the room wouldn't smell the same way.
"Here, take the whole thing." I stepped forward and slid $30, the posted rate, across the counter to her. That seemed to make her relax, but still, I felt her watching me as I walked out. It's bad when someone who relies on reprobates and adulterers to make a living doesn't trust you.
I unlocked and opened the car door to find Caelan just as I'd left him, semi-conscious and shivering.
"All right," I told him. "I got you a place to rest, but I make no guarantees about a mint on your pillow." Given the looks of that office, he'd be lucky if there was a pillow, let alone one that wasn't infested with God only knows what.
I moved the car around the parking lot, watching the room numbers on the doors until I found the one matching the key she'd 47
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given me. "Here it is." I pulled into a parking space again. "Lucky number 13."
I got out and started walking toward the door before I realized he wasn't following me. I could see him in the car, struggling to get the door open.
I hesitated for a second, then walked back over. I opened the door for him, then leaned in. "Wait here for a second, okay?" I crunched across the gravel again to the room door and opened it, grimacing at the sticky doorknob. While I was there, I stuck my head in for a quick peek inside the room. The overwhelming stench of cigarette smoke greeted me, but no smell of cat pee, or whatever that had been at the office. The room was decorated in shades of eye-popping blue, from aqua to royal. A double bed with a ho
rrible green and blue paisley bedspread stood in the center of the left-hand wall with bedside tables on either side. On the opposite wall, a television, knobs intact, was balanced on a wobbly-looking dresser next to a rickety rocking chair. The only window in the room was to the right of the door. I poked my head into the bathroom, just to the left of the room door, and found it to be tiny but relatively clean.
Satisfied, or as close as I was going to get, I backed out of the room, leaving it unlocked. When I turned around, I found Caelan trying to get out of the car on his own.
"Hey, I said to wait a minute." I hurried back over to the passenger side of the car. "You're going to make it worse and I'm not taking any responsibility for–"
He looked up at me, eyes still shielded by silver, his whole body trembling. "You do not have to carry me into this place."
"Yeah, well, I'm not going to watch you crawl, so let me help you." I put my hand beneath his elbow, gripping his leather jacket to give him balance. He'd saved my life twice–I suppose I could at least get him in the door. But he was almost a foot taller than me, so I couldn't offer much in the way of assistance. 48
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"I will be fine," he said. But a fresh sheen of sweat had appeared on his face. "I just need to–"
"Rest. Yeah, I know." With my free hand, I slammed the car door shut, then helped him toward the room. He didn't lean against me much–fortunate because my ribs ached something fierce just from the moving around–but his forward progress was very slow. I got him into the room, helped him find his balance against the wall, then shut and locked the door behind us.
"All right," I said. "Let me see it." I sucked a breath from my inhaler, fortifying myself. This couldn't be pretty.
"I told you," he said between ragged breaths. "I need rest." He began working his way toward the bed.
"No." I stepped in front of him. "Let me see. It might be more serious than you think." If it was, I'd have to figure out some way to get him help without putting him, me, or anyone else in danger. He looked down at me, eyes barely focused. "No." He tried to move around me, but couldn't, which only demonstrated how bad off he was. If he'd been healthy, he probably could have darted around me before I blinked.
"You save my life, but I'm not allowed to help you?" I said. He sighed but said no more, and I took that as a victory.
"Besides," I tried to joke, "if you die, I'll never learn what's going on here." He paused, his hands on his jacket, to look at me. I shrugged. Okay, so it wasn't funny, but it was true. And I was doing everything I could to keep this from turning me into a big, gibbering, weepy mess.
"Just don't touch my skin." The strain of moving showed in the tightness around his eyes.
I paused, my hand a few inches from touching him. "Why is that again?"
"What happened in the diner and in the car, what you refer to as weirdness," I flinched at hearing my thoughts come out of his mouth, "I believe that is caused by skin to skin contact." 49
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I frowned, thinking about it for a minute. "But you touched me before, when you warned me to leave the diner, and it didn't happen then." He'd frightened me half to death, but nothing else, no weirdness.
"I think my injury may have something to do with the onset." He sat down on the edge of the bed.
"All right, sure. It makes perfect sense now." When he seemed to be taking my answer seriously, I lifted my hands in a come-on gesture. "Tell me already." He let out a soft breath of air, seeming to search for words to explain. "We have the ability to read thoughts. But we can control this ability consciously. We can block our thoughts from being heard by others as well as prevent the thoughts of others from intruding upon us. This blocking mechanism allows us some measure of privacy and sanity. Without it, we would hear the thousands of thoughts of all those around us, yet not be able to understand any of them clearly because of noise. So, we use this block or shield at all times, selecting what to listen to and when–that was how I missed your sheriff's approach."
"You were listening elsewhere?" I asked, starting to understand.
He nodded.
"Okay, and?" I was still waiting to hear how this connected back to the weirdness.
"As with anything set forth with conscious effort, the shield is less effective in situations of extreme pain or pleasure. We believe it is because the mind is too distracted to maintain the level of concentration necessary."
"So, you're saying because you were hurt, this shield of yours was weakened," I said.
"Yes." He was watching me closely with a little bit of that same intensity that had frightened me in the car. "And when we touched, something in your gift cut through what remained of the 50
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barrier, allowing you access to my mind."
"But that doesn't make any sense. I can't do stuff like that." I crossed my arms over my chest.
"Why? Because you never have before?" he asked.
"Exactly," I snapped.
"But you have never met one of my kind before." I stopped, my next snippy comment held in check by the idea of what he'd just said. That I was the one responsible for the weirdness and the only thing that had kept me from discovering it earlier in life was simply my lack of contact with injured Observers.
"Wait a minute, earlier today...I mean, yesterday, I was just some crazy woman with horrible nightmares about aliens and now you're telling me I have some kind of super power that works only when I'm around injured Observers?"
"You keep mentioning your dreams–"
"You're nuts," I said, like he hadn't said anything at all. I dropped into the rickety chair in the far corner, ideas buzzing around in my brain like somebody had just squashed their hive.
"If so, how do you explain what happens when I am injured and we touch?" He seemed undisturbed by my disbelief.
"Your power," I said instantly. "You're trying to trick me." But why? And if he were trying to trick me, why did he seem so surprised when it happened for the first time at the diner?
"I knew of your role in the prophecy, not of your gift," he responded to my thoughts before I had time to voice them. I frowned. "But–"
He let out another shaky breath. "Zara, I promise I will tell you everything, but first, I–"
"Need to rest," I filled in. "No, first you need to show me what's wrong with you." I stood up and came toward him, clenching my trembling hands into fists.
He started to say something, but I cut him off. "I promise I 51
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won't touch your skin."
My words seemed to relieve whatever anxiety he had left on the matter. That, or he'd just grown tired of arguing about it. He stood and eased one arm and then the other out of his jacket. By the end of that operation, sweat rolled down his face, and he was shaking so hard I could hear his teeth clacking together. I went to his back and lifted up his shirt, then immediately dropped it back into place, fighting the need to gag.
"It is bad then," he said.
That could only be classified as an understatement. His back was a raw, bloody mess. In just that brief glimpse, I'd seen a dozen places or more where glass and debris had shredded his shirt and pierced his flesh.
I swallowed hard. "Please, let me get someone to help you." By throwing himself on top of me at the diner, he'd saved me from these injuries or worse.
"No, I need to rest. They will heal." He struggled briefly with the shirt before managing to remove it. I had to look away.
"Before you bleed to death?" I yanked the top covers off the bed, praying for the best with the sheets. But they appeared clean, and I thought I even smelled bleach, though that might have been wishful thinking.
"Without movement, a half an hour should be enough." He grimaced as he lay down on his side and rolled to his stomach. Blood ran wet and red onto the sheets as his muscles and skin stretched.
"You're just going to carry that stuff around with you for the rest of your life?" I demanded. "What
happens the next time you bend to pick something up or try to sleep on your back?" He looked up at me, his struggle against the weariness and pain showing in the tight lines of his face. "It will be fine." He closed his eyes.
I stared at him for a second, waiting for him to say more, but 52
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that was it. His breathing, though ragged, was still regular, so I knew he was doing okay, for the moment. But for how long? I wondered.
My God, Zara, how did you get yourself into this? I began to pace, wearing another path in the thin carpeting. Five minutes, then ten went by. His breathing sounds grew deeper, and I suspected he was either asleep or unconscious. I hoped for the first over the second.
I couldn't just sit here. I had to do something. I headed for the phone on the bedside table, intending to call Scott. If Mike had gotten into the house and found me gone, he or someone from the Sheriff's Office would have called Scott by now. He was probably worried sick.
I lifted the receiver on the phone, pinching it gingerly between my thumb and first finger, and started to dial, only to see the big sticker at the base of the phone. "Local Calls Only, If No Calling Card."
Great. My calling card was with everything else in my wallet, either buried in the diner rubble or collected as evidence by the sheriff and his men. I slammed the phone down. Caelan didn't even twitch at the sound.
I checked my pockets, but I didn't have any change, even if I knew where a pay phone was. I probably could have gotten change and the location of the nearest pay phone from the desk clerk, but who knows? She might have fainted if I'd shown up again. I had already started to pace again, when I spied Caelan's leather jacket lying on the floor.
You shouldn't do this, I told myself as I checked over my shoulder to make sure Caelan was still sleeping. I scooped the jacket off the floor and carried it into the bathroom. It needed to be hung up anyway, so the lining could dry from all the...blood. I grimaced as I laid it on the counter. The lining was black so it didn't show the blood as much, but some parts of it were darker, 53