Their final stop was at Papillion Creek, where her bike and backpack had been found. He held her by the arm as they made their way toward the brush surrounding the creek, not because she needed the support, but because he did.
“This is where we found your bike,” he said quietly, pointing to a thicket of undergrowth. “It was half hidden in the bushes right there.”
Her face was pale and drawn, her eyes wide as she took in her surroundings. He led her into the dappled shade, explaining as they went how he and the sheriff had searched the area. He helped her down the bank toward the creek.
“Your backpack was right here.” He showed her. “It was covered in blood. Of course, we later determined it was from a lamb.”
“Lamb’s blood?” Her voice was faint, fragile.
“Are you all right?” He held her arm tighter, searching her face. Was she going to pass out? But no, she was calm, almost unfazed.
Josh could see that the place held no meaning for her. It was he who was haunted by it, and haunted by the girl within the woman. A ghost in a Kevlar vest.
He marveled at the exquisite mystery of her. The woman who stood in perhaps the very spot where the girl had been taken. She was battered, damaged in ways he didn’t yet understand, and yet still she stood. A spark among the shadows. A ghost no more.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Sumner rolled into Amarillo the day after Ryanne and Josh cleared out their bank accounts. To his misfortune, the I Fidele agents who were hunting Josh and Ryanne also converged on Amarillo that day. It was pure coincidence they found him instead, and the irony of the situation was lost on him until much later. He came upon them in, of all places, the same Walmart Supercenter where Josh had shopped the day before.
Sumner had purchased a Smith & Wesson M&P Shield 9mm handgun from a pawnshop in Fort Worth and had spent the last few days visiting various shooting ranges as he traveled north through Texas.
The manager of the first one had taken pity on his obvious ignorance. He patiently demonstrated how to strip the gun down, clean it, and put it back together. He gave Sumner pointers on firing it, and then taught him a sequence that began with the gun tucked up against the small of his back. He had to pull the gun out of his belt, aim it with precision, fire off all the rounds, reload, aim, and fire again. Sumner’s efforts had been sloppy at best. He secretly wondered if, under pressure, he’d be able to manage it without lodging a bullet in his butt cheek.
Although the manager had snickered at Sumner’s choice of gun (apparently anything less than a .45 was a “chick’s gun”), he recommended buying better-quality bullets, and wrote down the name of the ammo on a scrap of paper.
Sumner was paying for the ammo, along with a sandwich and lemonade, when he felt the warning buzz of a bogey approaching. He stopped short while reaching for his change, his hand frozen in midair.
He didn’t know the real names of any of his bogeys, if they even had names, but over time he had christened them according to their personalities.
Coach hounded him any time his feet were dragging on an important task. In Sumner’s mind, he was thick necked and red faced, all booming voice and bulging veins.
Loretta was a motherly type who appeared whenever he was upset or angry. She was soothing green light and the smell of meadow grass, a cool kiss on a fevered forehead.
Soapy, dubbed after the famous American con man Soapy Smith, was the trickster. He liked to pop in at inopportune moments and drop knowledge-bombs that were twisted versions of the truth. Soapy was a smirking swindler, always trying to cause trouble, and Sumner did his best to avoid contact.
The one who approached in the Walmart was Redlight. Rarely seen, Redlight was an alarm in a nuclear plant, all bullhorns and red-hot strobe lights. To ignore Redlight, even for a second, was to risk death.
Sumner grabbed his change from the cashier, pulled the plastic bag off the carousel at the end of the checkout line, and beat a hasty retreat toward the automatic doors. All the while, his eyes were scanning the people around him, searching out the danger.
There were moms with toddlers tucked into shopping carts, a rangy old man in the self-serve aisle buying a six-pack, and some construction types standing in line at the Subway. But Redlight was still blaring.
Danger! Danger!
If anything, Redlight was growing more strident. Sumner’s mouth flooded with a bitter taste, like pennies. What? What was it?
The sun blinded him as he raced through the automatic doors, and he collided with the I Fidele agent who was on his way in. Redlight disappeared, leaving Sumner alone in the deafening silence.
They did the dance two strangers do when they collide, shuffling around each other with mumbled apologies. He was sure there was a joke in there somewhere: a couple of psychics collide outside a Walmart and fumble around like two of the Three Stooges.
Maybe he should have clunked him over the head with his sandwich. Bet you weren’t expecting that, my psychic friend! Nyuck nyuck nyuck!
The moment before the agent’s eyes registered recognition stretched in front of Sumner with all the hope a driver standing on his brakes must feel just before the inevitable, jarring impact of the crash.
And there was the third Stooge, approaching from the parking lot right on schedule. He was big and beefy and looked like he could snap Sumner in half with the twist of one tree-trunk-sized arm.
The agent Sumner had collided with was smaller than his beefy companion. He looked a lot like that T-1000 dude from Terminator 2, the one who looked like no match for Arnold Schwarzenegger until you saw him run down a car on foot.
And his focus was sharpening in recognition. Another moment and it would be too late. Beefcake would be upon them and Terminator would raise the alarm.
Hysteria bubbled up inside Sumner. With insane joviality, he clapped Terminator on the arm. “Time to split! Say hi to Skynet for me!”
He was lucky enough to get a bit of a head start, but he was pitting a thirty-year-old VW against a cherry-red V8 Camaro.
Oh yeah, he thought, this is going to end well.
He veered out of the parking lot onto Amarillo Boulevard eastbound, nudging into traffic and ignoring the irate honking of nearby drivers. The Camaro butted in about ten cars behind him, raising another ruckus.
They bobbed and weaved through traffic, jockeying for position, pausing at red lights and pushing through stale yellows. There was no way he could outdistance a Camaro under different circumstances, but the traffic put them on equal footing. Bit by bit he pulled away from them, gaining two car lengths and then losing one.
His break came when the Camaro got stuck at a red light at Western Street. Sumner pulled away, cackling madly as traffic flooded in behind him from the cross street. When he took the on-ramp for US 287 northbound, the Camaro was nowhere in sight.
Within a few miles, the traffic thinned out and the world spread out around him in a yellowed expanse of scrubland. The road was straight and flat, providing no place to hide. There wasn’t a chance of him outpacing the agents if they chose the same route.
His only hope was that they turned south, and he watched the rearview mirror with morbid fascination. He pulled open a box of bullets with his right hand and wedged the gun between his thighs to load it.
“Hey Sumner, how’d you lose your ballsack?” He cackled wildly. And sure enough, there was a flash of red behind him.
“Shit!” Braking hard, he swung right onto Gravel Pit Road. Shockingly, it was covered in gravel. The car fishtailed when he pounded the gas pedal. Almost immediately, he realized what a bad decision he’d made, but it was too late. Nothing to do but bounce along at a teeth-rattling pace, kicking up a wild trail of gray dust.
“Do you think they’ll notice me?” He couldn’t stop laughing. The horror of the situation somehow seemed to call for it. It was either laugh or start screaming.
Sure enough, that telltale streak of red appeared through the dust in his rearview mirror, and he watched it grow bigger with a gruesome eagerness he couldn’t explain.
Instead of the advertised gravel pit, Sumner caught a shimmer of blue-green through the dust. Was that a lake?
“Hey boys, care for a swim?” he said to his rearview mirror.
Veering toward the water, he tucked the gun into his armpit, wrapped the Walmart bag around his wrist, and opened the driver’s-side door.
Sumner did his best Mission: Impossible dive, skidding and rolling across the loose gravel and feeling nothing at all like Tom Cruise. The gravel seared his skin like a million tiny daggers, but at least the gun didn’t go off.
Dripping blood, he stumbled to the brush surrounding the lake and dove headfirst into the thickest bramble, hoping he wasn’t awakening snakes or other vile creatures.
A second later, there was a surprisingly undramatic splash. The Westfalia rolled forward, nosing its way into the water. The driver’s-side door eased shut.
By the time the Camaro pulled to a stop, spewing gravel from underneath its tires, the driver’s compartment of the Westfalia was completely immersed and the tail was sticking up, back wheels spinning.
Sumner placed the Walmart bag on the ground beside him, wiped the sweat and blood out of his eyes, and positioned his hands on the gun. He took aim and waited.
Seven rounds—that was all he had. There was no chance he’d be able to reload before one of the agents was on top of him.
Beefcake was driving, and was therefore the closest. Sumner watched him get out of the Camaro. He could see the cocky smile on his face.
Sumner’s hands were shaking violently. He took two deep breaths, sighting down the shaft of the gun, and waited for his moment.
He shouldn’t have worried about whether he would be able to shoot another human being. Cornered as he was, the instinct for survival kicked in with stark clarity, peeling away his fragile human mask. He would kill or he would die. It was that simple. And he didn’t intend to die.
“Not today,” he growled, and pulled the trigger.
Of course he missed.
Beefcake roared and flew toward him like a tornado of muscled fury. Sumner closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger again. This time he didn’t miss. Beefcake dropped with all the grace of a wild buffalo. One eye was open in shock; the other looked like raw hamburger and was spurting blood.
Terminator flew out of the passenger seat toting an enormous assault rifle that made Sumner’s gun look like a dainty teacup.
He had five bullets left.
Sumner had the advantage of being hidden in the scrub while Terminator stood brazenly out in the open, trusting in his rifle to do its job. He laid down a spray of bullets, the closest of which missed Sumner’s nose by several feet. The rifle was huge and obviously hard to control. It pulled Terminator in an arc from left to right.
The dumbass has his eyes closed, Sumner thought, conveniently ignoring the fact that he’d killed Beefcake with a lucky shot while his own eyes were closed.
It took four of the remaining five rounds before Terminator went down, and a new Sumner was born.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Ora was in deep shit. It was entirely her fault for underestimating the Fathers, and if she could have kicked her own ass she would have, but it would have been quite the trick while drugged and strapped to a bed in the Priest’s quarters.
Stupid! How could she have been so stupid?
She wondered where Lexy was. And Phoenix. Were they still on The Ranch? Were they still alive? She couldn’t get a sense of them, either way.
Things had gone badly from the very start.
She should have run when she’d had the chance. Maybe stayed with Sumner. And speaking of Sumner, something big had happened Outside. She’d picked up only fragments of it, but whatever he’d done had caused a flap within the Priesthood the likes of which she had never seen.
They weren’t used to losing, and they didn’t take it well. Disquiet simmered beneath the calm surface. But rather than feel satisfaction over the stir Sumner’s actions had caused, she was nervous. They were on a witch hunt.
And guess who would look superhot strapped to a burning stake?
Ora hadn’t seen her dad since arriving at The Ranch. That was the first clue things weren’t going to go well. She couldn’t remember a time when Father Narda had not been waiting on the porch for her. Father Thanos, Phoenix’s and Lexy’s dad, was also missing.
Fathers Gabriel, Zaniel, and Palidor had greeted them instead, with their dour faces and cold eyes. A perfect trifecta of doom.
She had no idea how, but they knew about her relationship with Lexy. They knew about their foolish little rebellion. Strangely, the only thing they weren’t aware of was their interest in Jack.
He was alive.
While it was only an educated guess before, or perhaps an instinct, now that she was back on The Ranch she could feel him. They were linked.
And the boy was strong. Phoenix was right about that. Jack was . . . special. Special how, she couldn’t tell, but he was being well protected by some kind of spirit barrier around him. It was like nothing she’d ever encountered and she didn’t know quite what to make of it. Any time she tried to reach out to him, she was blocked by a rising swarm of angry spirits. They bit at her like gnats until she backed off. Yet she could feel his pull in her blood and bones; his magnetism made her teeth ache just as much as the simple boy-ness of him made her heart ache. Because, despite his otherness, he was just a boy. He was scared and lonely and more than anything he wanted his dad.
“That makes two of us, kiddo. But I don’t think either of our dads is riding in to save the day.”
She kept trying to get through to Jack, but they were on a one-way intercom. All she was getting in return was dead air. He never responded to her, or gave any indication he was picking up what she was sending.
Was he being drugged? Was he in a coma? She couldn’t figure it out, but she suspected there was more than just that spirit barrier breaking their communication.
Ora’s mind was painfully clear, but they were giving her a drug that prevented her from moving objects telekinetically. She kept testing her binding straps, but to no avail. Whatever they were injecting her with, it was serving the purpose of keeping her a prisoner.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the jingle of keys on the other side of the door. Ora quickly shut down her mind and closed her eyes. It was better to feign sleep, safer somehow. And, strapped down to a bed, she had no other protection left.
She couldn’t help the silly little hope-flutter that started up in her chest, the little-girl wish that this time it would be her father.
But it wasn’t her father, who carried with him the unmistakable scent of oats and horses. It permeated his skin, even after a shower. It also wasn’t the heavy tread of Father Palidor or the nervous shuffle of Father Gabriel, there to bring her food or help her to the toilet.
Whoever it was had entered silently. Her breath caught in her throat. Was she finally going to be questioned? Would she feel the prick of the needle next?
Was it Father Barnabas?
This thought sent shock waves of terror through her, and she couldn’t help it; she cracked open an eyelid.
Oh, hell. She let out her breath and dropped her head back onto the pillow. “Ashlyn! What are you doing here?”
The girl’s red hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she had a smudge of dirt across one pale cheek. She’d grown since Ora had last seen her, and the tiny buds of her breasts were poking out against the thin fabric of her shirt.
“Phoenix sent me.” Even the mention of his name was enough to make the girl blush.
“Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. He’s being held the same way you are.”
“Ashlyn, you shouldn’t be here; you’ll get in trouble!”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Let me worry about that.”
“It’s not a joke. There’s some seriously bad sh—uh, stuff going down. I don’t want you getting mixed up in it.”
“I’m old enough to make my own decisions,” she said with a belligerent pout, and Ora rolled her eyes. She remembered what it was like to be twelve.
“All right. Hurry up and give me his message, then. One of the Fathers could be in at any minute.”
The girl smiled. “I doubt that.”
Ora eyed her. “Ashlyn, what did you do?”
“Let’s just say they’ve got their hands full with some plumbing issues right now.”
“You flooded the toilets again?”
“Only the ones in the Priests’ quarters.” She smiled in satisfaction, and Ora had to laugh.
“How did you get in to see Phoenix?”
“How do you think?”
“They put you on fire patrol?” Obviously they hadn’t found a drug that could stop Phoenix from lighting fires. Ora was perversely pleased.
“Yeah. He’s really mad. They’re keeping me nearby in case he decides to start burning stuff.” She shrugged. “Guess I’m useful for some things.”
Ora watched her carefully, an idea forming. Ashlyn was smart and powerful, but more importantly, she loved Phoenix. She would risk a lot for him. Was it right to involve her? But apparently Phoenix had already made that decision.
Ashlyn said, “Phoenix thinks he knows where the boy is being hidden.”
“You know about that?”
Ashlyn nodded. “He says you guys need to get him off The Ranch.” Her small chest puffed with pride. “I’m going to help. We’ve worked out a plan. And Phoenix promised I can go with you when you leave.”
Shit! What the hell was Phoenix thinking? Ora bit her cheek until she was under better control. “All right. So what’s the plan?”
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