by Mallory Kane
Darwin smiled sadly, and Kristen's heart turned over again. What else could there be? How much more could she take if Rider left her too?
"Actually, I do. Although it's going to get me in even bigger trouble than I am in already," she muttered, as if to herself. Then she pointed a finger at Kristen. "Don't forget what Skipper told you when your parents died. Every word."
She turned to Rider. "You have to make your own decision, Rider Savage. I pray it's the right one." She disappeared before their eyes.
"No, wait! Darwin! How did you know what—" Kristen stopped. She was talking to air. Darwin's words echoed in her ears. How did Darwin know what Skipper had told her? Kristen's heart contracted and tears burned her eyes as she recalled what her brother had said that awful day when they'd buried their parents.
Rider stared at the spot where Darwin had stood until Kristen laid her hand on his arm. When he looked at her, his eyes were opaque and dull as unpolished turquoise.
Through his arm she felt the regret, the doubt. "I know what you're thinking," she whispered.
"No," he said flatly, shrugging off her hand. "You don't. Let's get out of here before our friend catches up with us."
He grabbed her arm and pulled her with him toward the faint light that indicated an opening to the outside. "Is there one more place in this fair city where we can hide? Or have we used them all up?"
Kristen didn't like his hard-bitten tone. It was as if he had changed, in the past few minutes. Changed into the killing machine they'd tried to make him. His hand gripping her wrist didn't give her anything. No emotion at all. It was the first time she hadn't been able to glean his emotions from him through his touch. She was bereft.
"Doc? Got any ideas?"
She tried to think, to pull her thoughts away from the void she sensed within him. Where could they go? The clinic had been blown up. Her apartment had been blown up. For all she knew Skipper's house had been blown up by now. Skipper. "We could go to the boat," she said.
"Boat? What boat?"
"Skipper's. He had a boat. Skipper always had a boat." And it had cost a lot to keep the house and the boat these two years, but she had. She had never wanted to confront the reality of his death enough to get rid of his things. Now, it seemed, it was a good thing she'd kept them. "It's a sailboat. A thirty-foot sloop, I think is what he called it. It's at the city marina."
Kristen squinted as bright sunlight assaulted her dark-adapted eyes. Had they really crawled through that tunnel all night long? When she'd looked at the clock in the morgue office, it had been eight in the evening. Now, it was broad daylight. Monday morning. Her arms and legs quivered with exhaustion. How much longer could they last?
They were in one of the big viaducts that ran under the city. Above them were the hospital and the Medical Arts Building. She could hear the rush of morning traffic on the streets.
"The marina's about fifteen miles from here. We need money."
Rider laughed harshly. "Ever done any begging, Doc?"
She put her hands on her hips, and encountered the belt pack that held Skipper's little computer. "This is a real long shot," she muttered, "but Skip was always stuffing his change wherever he could find a place. He was so careless."
Suddenly, she was inundated by thoughts of her brother. Frowning at her when she'd admonished him to take better care with his money. Irritated when she wouldn't join him and his buddies on the boat. Intense as he concentrated on his project, bent over the computer. Sad and strong as he took her arm the day their parents were buried. Her throat closed up, tears clogging the back of it. She missed her brother more than she ever had before. So much reminded her of him. His house, his boat, the little computer case.
"Doc?"
She blinked hard, angrily dashing away the couple of tears that fell, and unzipped the pocket on the front of the case, groping around inside. She found two pens, a notepad, and a small vial of dark red liquid labeled K SKIPWORTH.
"Yuk, Skipper," she muttered.
"What?"
Kristen held up the vial. "He's got a vial of my blood in here." She kept digging. "Bless you," she whispered as she came up with two dollars and thirteen cents in change.
She grinned through her tears at Rider, who was surveying the vast concrete riverbed in which they stood. "We can ride the bus," she announced triumphantly, holding out her hand.
"Great," he said without conviction. "Where's the bus?"
"There's a bus stop right in front of the Medical Arts building, if we could just get up there."
Rider looked around. "Down that way." Just as they were about to climb up the metal spikes that served as steps in the concrete wall, Darwin materialized in front of them, brandishing a handful of twenty dollar bills.
"Don't take the bus. You won't make it. Here. Live high. Take a cab." She stuffed the bills into Rider's hand and disappeared again.
Rider scowled at the shimmering air where she'd been standing just a split second before. "I don't like her," he muttered.
"Rider," Kristen admonished. "She saved our lives."
"Yeah, well. I don't trust her." He frowned at the bills in his hand. "These are probably fake. We don't use money in the twenty-fifth century. Why would they, even further in the future?"
Kristen laughed and tugged on his arm. "Come on, they're not fake. And even if they are, they're probably good enough to fool a cab driver. Let's climb up to the street and hail a cab."
As they climbed out of the viaduct, a mottled gray cat ran across the street in front of them.
Kristen's heart turned over. "Sam! I forgot Sam! How could I do that!" The big yellow tomcat who'd shared her apartment ever since Skipper died had given her something to focus on, someone to care for, to talk to. How could she have just left him there to fend for himself after her apartment exploded?
She grabbed Rider's arm. "We've got to go get Sam!" Poor thing, he was probably starving.
Rider stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Sam? You mean that damned cat?" He shuddered and Kristen felt the ripple all the way through him. She still didn't understand his aversion to cats.
"No way! Come on." He twisted his arm out of her grasp and took firm hold of her elbow.
"Rider, please. He's been out there, lost and alone, ever since the apartment blew up. I can't leave him!" Suddenly, her cat was the most important thing she could think of. He was her responsibility. She was supposed to protect him.
"Listen to me, Doc." He jerked her around and grabbed her shoulders, his hands transmitting cold bleakness to her. She shivered, hating his new control that kept her from knowing his feelings. It was almost as if he were already gone.
"We are not risking our lives for a goddamned cat—" His breath caught and he coughed dryly, his fingers digging into her arms.
Unable to stand his desolation, she wrenched away. "I've got to," she said, beseeching him with her gaze. "Please. It won't take but a few minutes."
"No!" he thundered, his face inches from hers, his eyes black with rage. "He's a cat. He's not worth your life. Now shut up and come on. We've got to get out of here!" He grabbed her arm again and pushed her toward the curb. "Call the cab."
"No. You're so determined to leave Sam to starve in the street, you figure it out."
Rider stared at his stubborn, maddening angel-doctor, fury churning in his gut. He wanted to grab her up and shake sense into her. He wanted to hold her so close she'd think she was him. He wanted to forget cats and blasters and the stink of death, just for a few minutes.
"I said no. The goddamned cat is not worth your life," he gritted between clenched teeth, swallowing against the bile that choked him. He glanced around, trying to figure out which of the hundreds of smelly gas-burning cars were cabs.
His eye caught a bright white figure down past the hospital, walking deliberately, stiffly. He held his right arm against his side, and his left hand was in a pocket of the jacket.
"Crap! There he is, Doc! Come on!"
Kristen
shot him a terrified glance, then pointed toward a garishly painted car.
A ribbon of green light whirred past Rider's head as she opened the car door. He pushed her in and dove in behind her.
"What the f—" the sleepy driver exclaimed as Rider righted himself and pulled the door closed. A blast shattered the back window of the car and burned a neat hole in the front window.
"Go!" Rider shouted, pulling Kristen's head down below the level of the window, unsure of why he thought being out of sight would protect her against blaster fire. It could go through plastic. "Get the hell out of here!"
"Hey, mister—" the driver started, but Rider grabbed his neck with one hand.
"Let's go for a nice drive, what do you say? Or I'll snap your spinal cord—" he said conversationally.
"Shit! Damn!" The driver's neck immediately slicked with sweat, but he pulled on a lever and they shot forward just as another green ribbon of light flashed through the window, putting a smoking hole next to the first one.
Rider looked back and saw their pursuer hailing another cab.
"Wh-where?" the driver stuttered in between curses.
"Just drive very fast," he said, then turned to Kristen. "Doc? Where to?"
She lifted her head from his lap and peered out the back window. "Is he following us?"
"Yeah. Now quick. Where to?"
She shot him a sharp glance then looked back behind them. "Gable," she said to the driver. "Forty-four hundred block."
The traffic was closing in behind them, and Rider couldn't see whether the tank had gotten a cab yet. "Turn here!" he shouted at the driver. "Take the side streets. We've got to lose somebody."
"Look man, who's gonna pay for my cab?" the driver whined. "I got all my savings tied up in this car, and I just had it washed."
Rider touched the driver's neck again. "You just drive, mister, and hope you're insured against blaster damage."
"B-blaster damage—?" The driver's wide eyes caught Rider's in the mirror.
Rider knew what he was thinking. One for the dogcatchers. He turned back to look behind them. Lots of traffic, several other yellow cars, but he didn't think he saw the one the tank had been waving at.
Kristen had been tucked up against his side, shivering, but now she sat up and moved away, tension gripping her. When he touched her arm she cringed. Not much. Barely enough for him to notice.
"Doc? You okay?" He glanced at her quickly, but she was watching the road ahead. He looked around. "Is this the way to the marina?"
The driver's gaze caught his again in the mirror. "Heck, no," he said. "Gable's downtown."
Rider grabbed Kristen and shook her. "What the hell are you doing?" he growled. "You're going to get us killed."
She wouldn't look at him, kept her gaze averted, even when he pulled her up close. "Damn you, Doc!"
He thrust her away, disgusted with her deceit. He swallowed hard against the nausea that crept into the back of his throat. She was still trying to go get that damned cat! How could she be so stupid? How could she throw their lives away for a dumb animal?
Just like Mari! He shivered. She'd gone back for the cat and they'd killed her. With a great effort, he clenched his jaw and relaxed, pushing thoughts of Mari and the cat out of his mind, concentrating on saving Kristen, despite her determination to get them killed.
He touched the driver's neck and was rewarded with a moan and a terrified glance in the rear view mirror. "The marina," he whispered. The driver nodded.
"Marina. You got it."
Kristen took a quick breath like a sob, but Rider didn't care. He'd be damned if he'd let her get herself killed for a cat. He'd kill her himself first. He saw the water long before they reached it. It stretched out all the way to the horizon, blue and endless, meeting the sky in the hazy distance, far beyond his imaginings. He'd never seen the ocean, although he'd heard about it. But what he'd heard in his time, what he'd seen on vidlink couldn't compare with the beauty stretched out in front of him. He could smell it, too. A fresh, salty smell, like nothing that had ever been in his nostrils before. Maybe out there on that endless stretch of water he could keep her safe.
If only they could escape into time. What had Darwin said? He could go, but Kristen couldn't. He could be safe but his angel doctor never could. As long as she lived, her life was in danger. Her life and the life of all the skipworths down through time.
The car rolled to a stop, startling Rider out of his reverie. He blinked, and discovered that the cab driver and Kristen were both watching him, the driver with wide-eyed terror, his angel-doctor with an expression that was at once pensive and sad.
He hoped to hell she couldn't read his mind. If she could, she'd know how damned scared he was, how cowardly he felt. She'd know he didn't think he had a chance in hell of keeping her safe. He averted his gaze from hers, wiping his brain of terrifying thoughts, not only because he was afraid she could glean them from him, but also because too much thinking brought on the emotions, and emotions kept him from acting logically.
He thrust two of the bills at the driver. "Is that enough?" he asked him.
The other man barely glanced at them. "Yeah, yeah! Just get out of my car," he pleaded.
Rider grabbed Kristen's wrist and pulled her out with him. "Where's the boat?" he asked.
She lifted her chin and stared defiantly at him. He twisted her arm up behind her. "Have we got to go through this again, Doc?"
"I'll scream," she gasped.
"Go ahead. Then we can both be locked up by the dog catchers and wait for him to knock us off like targets in a vidgame." He shrugged and let go of her arm, thinking how tired he was of the game. Of life in general.
It was complicated, as Darwin had said. He thought, for a brief instant, he might actually be better off if he'd not hesitated back in the clinic when he could have killed Kristen Skipworth with a flick of his wrist. His life would have been much easier. Empty, damned, but easier. The familiar nausea flickered in his throat. He had hesitated. He'd given his brain a split-second, and that had been enough to change his life forever.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rider looked at Kristen, and saw the sadness in her face again. It hurt him deep inside. If he gave his brain a split-second now, he'd know why she was sad. He'd know he hadn't been fair to her, hadn't told her everything. If he thought about it, he'd know she had the wrong idea. But they didn't have time right now, and he had to keep himself rational so he could do the things he needed to do to protect her.
"Come on, Doc! What's it going to be?" He grabbed her again, deriving a grim satisfaction when she yielded. "Where is the boat?"
She pointed vaguely with her free hand. "Down there," she said. "It's the Whale Song."
"Let's go." He gave her a little shove and let go of her arm. Standing behind her, he watched to see what she would do.
Her shoulders slumped a little under the grimy cotton of the scrubs. The curve of her neck drew his gaze. He longed to touch it, not threateningly, as he'd done so many times, but lovingly. He wanted to put his mouth there, right where her hair curled. He wanted to bury his nose there and breathe in her scent. The scent of life. His gaze traveled down her back to the seat of her pants, filthy where she'd sat on the cold earth inside the tunnel. Down her long legs to her feet, then back up. Her hands were clenched into small fists at her sides, but she walked resolutely down the pier, and he followed her.
She stopped at a sleek blue boat with blue canvas covers and the name Whale Song stenciled on its side, along with a stylized curving shape of the sea creature Rider had studied in a mythology class he'd once taken. She'd promised him she'd show him whales one day. He wondered if they'd have the chance.
“Well, here it is,” she said, a falsely bright ring in her voice. Grief shone from her eyes, grief tinged with fear.
“You can do it, Doc,” he murmured, and touched her shoulder. With a little wince, she pulled away. He knew her so well. He was trying to shield his thoughts, his emotions from h
er, and that wince told him he’d succeeded. Well, it was for her own good, her own safety.
Kristen didn’t want Rider touching her. She was confused, tired and sad. And Rider was holding himself apart, somehow shielding his feelings from her. Feeling more alone than she’d ever felt, she climbed onto the boat, her heart aching as she surveyed Skipper’s pride and joy. It was so neglected. Skipper would kill her if he knew she'd let the Whale Song go like this. Just like his house, she'd avoided the boat since his death—pretended it didn't exist, in fact.
Now, as she stepped aboard, a faint echo of her brother roiled deep inside her. Was it real, or just her battered emotions commingled with the memory of him laughing, tossing his head in the wind as he shouted at her to cast off? Kristen shivered at the vividness of the image.
She stopped and Rider bumped into her from behind, grabbing her and a halyard at the same time to keep them from tumbling off the deck.
"Hey Doc, come on. What is it?" He urged her forward, but she resisted. “Are you all right?”
She shook her head at his dumb question. “No,” she said in a small voice. “I’m not all right. I don’t want to be here. I never came to Skipper’s boat for a very good reason—so I wouldn’t be bombarded by the essence he left behind. Oh God, I miss him so much.” She wanted to cry, to turn around and jump off the boat. “I can’t believe they murdered him, but I have to believe it, don’t I?” She lifted her chin and looked Rider straight in the eye. He looked away.
“Who am I, who was Skipper, that people would hunt us down like animals and kill us? I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to know this.” Her voice cracked and she pushed her fingers through her hair.
Rider turned her around. "Doc?"
She stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, still caught in her nightmare memories and bewildering questions. Then the intensity of his blue eyes burned past her thoughts and she focused on him. "I’m tired, Rider," she whispered, hating herself for her weakness.
She understood the gravity of their situation. How could she not? She had blisters on her hand, scrapes and scratches all over her. Rider had a seared shoulder, bruised ribs. They both were exhausted. And they both were still in danger. She knew it. She just couldn't handle it any more.