by Mallory Kane
"I'm so tired. I don't know if I can stay here, where he was. I can feel him already, just standing here on deck. I could almost believe he was still alive. No! I can't do it!"
She pushed against Rider, desperate to get away from the feelings, desperate to jump off the boat and just run, anywhere. Anywhere to get away from the whale songs.
Rider held onto her, though, and pulled her with him as he made his careful way down the deck into the cockpit. He held her around the waist, and Kristen couldn't even fight him, because with him touching her, she was under a double assault from the two of them. Skipper, his life snuffed out, but his essence lingering, eating away at the wall she'd built around her grief in the past two years. And Rider, open to her again, stronger than her brother, because Rider was right here, touching her, transmitting his anger, his fear, his sorrow to her in waves. And with it, the other feelings, those overwhelming yearnings he'd built in her, the longing she knew she'd never again be able to live without, now that he'd kindled them.
So she yielded, letting him drag her into the cabin and deposit her on the forward bunk. She was barely aware of his words as he pulled a blanket over her.
"Maybe your little detour threw our buddy off, Doc. I hope so, because I don't think either one of us is able to do any more fighting today. With him or with each other. I'll go up on deck and keep an eye out. You rest. I think you need it more than me right now." He pushed a strand of hair back from her forehead, his fingers lingering, then he disappeared.
She heard him go up on deck, and sighed in relief as the distance dulled his emotions inside her a little bit. As she pumped water into the tiny sink in the head and sponged off her sweaty body, she fought the sense of Skipper that was so strong here. Why here so much more than at his house?
Even as she asked herself the question she knew the answer. Skipper had loved the boat, ever since their dad had given it to him when they were twelve. Skip had been fascinated with boats all his life. He always said the sea itself was the ultimate whale song, calling to those who would listen, ready to nurture, to keep safe anyone who trusted her. The sea was his first love. And that love, as much as the coincidence of his surname, was what had earned him his nickname.
She grabbed a towel from the cabinet and dried her hair and face and body, turning her nose up at the faintly mildewed smell of the cotton. Then she walked naked into the front berth, looking in the drawers for something she could wear. She found a pair of white shorts that would do for Rider—they were much too big for her. She held them for a moment, savoring a snapshot memory of her brother tanned and sleek, scrubbing the bilges and cursing boats.
"They're just a hole in the water into which all your money pours," he'd said more than once, but Kristen wasn't fooled. He loved the boat and the sea.
Her eyes hazed with tears as she searched deeper in the drawer and pulled out an old, faded I that said "Save The Whale Songs." She'd given it to him the same day he'd gotten the name painted on his boat. She slipped the soft shirt over her head.
"No matter what happens, Krissy. I swear, I'll take care of you.”
With a cry, she sank to the bunk, hugging the I around herself. He could be right in the room with her, as real as the voice had been. She squeezed her head between her hands. "Get out of my head, Skipper,' she muttered, pressing harder on her temples with the heels of her hands. "I can't stand it!"
"No matter what…to the end of time."
Oh, God!
"Stop!" She bit her lip, her own cry startling her. She hoped Rider hadn't heard her. Letting go of her head, she sat motionless for a few moments, listening. No. He hadn't heard her, or he didn't care enough to check on her. Either way, it was fine with her.
She had to think about what just happened. It was what Darwin had told her to remember. She could see Skipper, thin and gangly, pathetically grown-up looking in his somber suit. And herself. She'd had on a navy blue dress with white piping, and black patent leather shoes with little heels and her first pantyhose.
They'd been twelve when their parents died. Twelve years old, not even in puberty, and left totally alone when their father's private jet had crashed in the South Pacific. Wealthy, but alone.
Kristen had just been entering puberty and their death had left her devastated. For days she couldn’t speak, and Skipper had hovered around her like a mother hen, protecting her from the friends and acquaintances and business associates. As they had walked back to the limousine from the gravesite, he'd put his arm around her shoulders, even though she was two inches taller than him then, and said the words that echoed now in her ears.
"To the end of time, Kris. Don't worry! I'm starting a stash, as soon as I get the trust fund. It will always be there, always. In Daddy's Bible, okay? We'll never touch it, unless our lives are in danger."
She nodded, just like she had back then, and a poignant amusement rippled through her breast. That had been the beginning of Skipper’s conviction that people were out to get them. He was positive enemy agents had killed their parents.
With the knowledge of the last few days, Kristen wondered if he'd been closer to the truth than either of them could have ever imagined. She shivered. Until Darwin mentioned it, she had forgotten their conversation, but now she realized Skipper had kept his promise for as long as he could.
She stuffed her knuckles between her teeth to keep from crying aloud. Wrapped in his I, curled up in his boat, she sobbed quietly. He'd kept her, protected her, through all the bad times, through the good times, until his song had died. Now she had no one. Everyone who'd loved her had died, except Sam.
Brushing tears off her face, she sat up. Sam. He was probably starving, and scared to death. She pictured him going back to her apartment—where her apartment had been. She wondered what his little cat brain had thought when there was no apartment there. She had to get Sam and get back before Rider woke up.
She jumped up, running her fingers through her hair and dashing away the last of the tears. Closing her eyes, she searched for Rider with her senses. Not much. Maybe he was asleep. He had to sleep sometime. Or he'd withdrawn again, out of her reach. She dug a pair of swim trunks out of a drawer and pulled them on, drawing the drawstring tight around her waist and pulling the tail of the I over them. Pretty baggy, but not awful. At least she was covered.
Daddy's Bible. Where would Skipper have put it? She glanced around the forward berth. "Please let it be here," she whispered. "Come on, Skipper. Where?"
In the main saloon, she searched the shelves over the berths where his collection of sailing books and science fiction were. Then she knelt down to look in the drawer under the centerline table.
There it was, the big family Bible that had always sat on their parents' coffee table. She opened it. There, nestled in the hollowed-out pages, was more cash than she'd ever seen in her life. A huge roll of thousand dollar bills. Rolls of hundreds. And a stack of twenties.
Not stopping to count it, she just grabbed a handful of twenties and stuffed them into the pocket of the I before putting the Bible back in its drawer.
Nor did she stop to wonder how Darwin had known about it either. Those thoughts were too bewildering, too distracting, and Kristen had to go get Sam.
She tiptoed up the companionway ladder and stepped into the cockpit, her sneakers making no noise on the boat's slick surface. She'd seen some canned food in the galley, and her plan, if Rider was awake, was to pretend she'd come up to ask if he was hungry. But he was leaning back against the mast, sound asleep. For a moment, she was stopped by his vulnerable beauty. He'd washed, too. She wondered when, then she saw that the scrubs were damp. He'd probably dunked himself in the bay, clothes and all.
Carefully, trying not to rock the boat at all, but knowing her weight was enough to set it undulating on its lines, she stepped off the side onto the pier.
Rider didn't move. From within him she felt the exhaustion, sensed the disturbing thoughts that were trying to sort themselves out in his battered brain. She wi
shed him a good sleep, and crept up the pier toward the marina offices to call a cab.
#
Rider jerked and bumped the back of his head on something extremely hard. He jumped up, trying to expel the last of the sleepiness, and quickly glanced around. He was on a boat—Skipper's boat.
Damn, he'd been exhausted. He never should have slept. It could have been fatal to sleep that deeply. He was going to have to arrange watch with Kristen, until they decided what to do.
A twinge of fear deep in gut reminded him that they didn't have much time. He shook his head to dispel the last dregs of drowsiness. He had to figure out what to do. What the best way was to keep his angel doctor safe. The fear inside him turned into anger. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with it, burning with it. Anger at the government, at the skipworths, at everybody.
Whose bloody brilliant idea had it been anyway to wipe out the skipworths? "Damn the bastards and their TAINCC," he whispered. And damn Kristen, for starting it all. No. How could he blame her? Even when he'd thought she was the enemy, he'd never really been able to blame her, or hate her. In fact, if he were completely honest with himself—
"Crap!" he said aloud, running his fingers through his hair. He couldn't love her. His damned emotions were getting in the way too much. He had to stop them. They came, though, so hard and fast they doubled him over. He was sickeningly afraid of those thoughts. He pressed his palms against his temples, trying to squeeze them out. If he loved Kristen, how would he protect her?
He'd thought they could escape to the future or the past, but according to Darwin, that was impossible. And if they stayed here, they'd never be safe. They'd both be scared to death all the time, and Rider knew how fear and love played hell with logic and cold resolve.
Deliberately pushing away his disturbing thoughts, he stood and stretched, his skin tight and hot where the sun had dried the salt water. He flexed the awful burn on his shoulder. It even felt better, although he didn't think he'd dunk it in salt water again, not now that he knew what salt did to a blaster burn.
He shuddered. Still, it was good to be clean, even salty clean. He'd take a real shower later. Right now he needed to check on her. His stomach rumbled. And get some food.
Even before he got down the stairs into the cabin, he knew there was something wrong. Something was missing. Something that had been with him ever since he'd wrapped his fingers around her ankle in the alley. His heart slammed against his chest wall. She was gone! He refused to believe it, he tore through the whole boat looking for her, tried to tell himself she'd walked to the marina store to buy juice or something, but he knew.
As much as it scared him to admit it, he knew if she was close he'd feel her. It was something else he hadn't acknowledged until now. He knew, as surely as he knew she sensed his emotions, that he could sense her as well. Not as strongly, but it was there. A link between them, like a silver thread binding them together. His pulse pounded as his brain acknowledged what his heart already knew.
He couldn't stand the idea of something happening to her. Where could she have gone? Nothing could have happened to her. The tank would never have killed her and left him alive. No, if he could just get his brain to working, shake off the exhaustion that was fuzzing his mind, he could figure it out. He looked around the cabin, searching for a clue to tell him what she'd done. Had she just run away?
He didn't think so. As he'd told her often enough, he was her only chance—her only protection. And he was sure she believed that as much as he did.
Also, this was her brother's boat. It was the last safe haven she had. Everything else had been destroyed. The clinic, her apartment—
Her apartment!
"The stupid, fucking cat!" He grabbed gratefully onto the anger to tamp down the paralyzing fear. She'd defied him and gone after the cat. The fear that rocked him was worse than anything he'd ever experienced. He was sure his heart would burst inside his chest. Be safe, Doc, he begged. Please don't get yourself killed over a stupid cat.
If he found her alive, he'd kill her. He slammed his fist down on the first available surface.
When he hit the table, a drawer rattled and gaped open. Rider slid the drawer wider and saw a Bible. A Bible with several green bills sticking out of it. He opened the cover, and gaped at the sight that greeted him. Judging by the numbers on the bills, there was a considerable fortune rolled up and stuffed inside the hollow book.
"You never give up, do you Doc?" he muttered as he stuffed several of the smaller denomination bills into the pocket of the scrubs. He pushed the drawer shut with his foot and took off to find a cab to take him back to Lombard Street.
By the time the cab pulled up in front of her apartment building, Rider was fuming, and terrified. If the tank had followed them and missed their detour, he would have ended up right here. They knew where her apartment was. After all, they'd blown it up.
He leaned in the window and waved some bills at the driver. "Another twenty if you wait," he said, then took off to find Kristen. As he rounded the corner of the building, he saw her sitting on the ground, her head in her hands. Seeing her unhurt almost undid him. Love, aching awful wonderful love, rushed through him, leaving his eyes wet and his limbs shaky. Oh, God, he loved her.
He clamped his jaw until his neck hurt. They were doomed if he couldn't get control of his emotions. Blinking away the foolish stinging in his eyes, he ran up to her and grabbed her shoulders, jerking her to her feet, furious and weak with relief.
He shook her. "Doc! What the hell do you think you're doing? Don't you have any damned sense?"
She lolled limply in his hands, not even resisting him. He pulled her close. "God, you gave me a scare." His hands were trembling so he pulled her tighter to stop them. Her head rested under his chin, and her tears were damp against his neck.
"Listen to me," he whispered to her. "You can't go running around like this. You can't ever take anything for granted again. One of them could be anywhere. Understand?" He cradled her skull and turned his face into her hair, burying his nose in the clean, dark strands, breathing deeply. He clenched his jaw against the emotions that churned inside him. "God, Doc. I was so afraid I’d lost you."
"I can't find him, Rider."
"I know," he said absently, glancing around the street, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. "Come on, we've got to get out of here. I've got a cab waiting."
"No!" She pushed away from him. He held her fast, though, so all she could do was strain her neck back to look at him. "I'm not leaving without Sam."
"Doc, it's a cat! You're being an idiot. Leave it alone." He shuddered inwardly at the thought of the animal. Cats! He'd like to kill them all! He wiped his brain of the image of the smoking pile of flesh that had been Mari's cat, and the limp body he'd held in his arms that had been his traitorous wife as he urged Kristen toward the cab.
"No!" she shouted and hit at him, her eyes glowed amber. "I'm not leaving without him!" She twisted and writhed, trying to escape his grip, so he grabbed her shoulders again and shook her. Her chin rose defiantly and if the colored lights in her eyes had been lasers, he'd be dead, cut in two by their beam.
"I'll carry you bodily."
"I'll scream."
"What the hell is it about that damned cat?" he grated, his fingers tightening on her arms. He started to shake her again, wanting to shake the notion of saving the stupid cat out of her, wanting to shake into her the understanding of how dangerous it was for them to be standing there, unprotected, in the alley, wanting to pick her up and carry her over his shoulder, kicking and screaming, back to the boat.
But when he met her gaze he saw the anguish there, and he hesitated, waiting to hear what she said, knowing it was going to rip another layer of skin away from him. He was so vulnerable now to her every mood that it scared him to his toes. He tried to find the detachment inside him but it was gone, and in its place was enough love and fear to drown him, enough to get them both killed.
"I couldn't save Skipper," s
he said brokenly, tears running unchecked down her face.
“Damn it, Doc.” Her grief suffused him. He let her go. He couldn’t stand to feel her emotions as if they were his own. When he did, he saw the red marks on her arms where his fingers had pressed.
"I didn't get the chance to try. I can't let it happen again. I can't leave Sam without even trying." Her eyes pleaded with him to understand.
He turned away. He did understand. He understood too well. He still harbored a deep regret inside him that he hadn't been able to save Mari. Traitor or not, she'd still been his wife and he hadn't saved her. Maybe that was part of his obsession with Kristen. That he was trying to do it right this time.
But no. Kristen was much, much more important to him than Mari had ever been. He loved his angel doctor more than his own life. He'd realized it when he'd seen her, sitting unhurt and safe on the curb.
But even if he weren't in love with her, she was still the Mother of All the Deviants, and he still had an obligation to save her. "Doc, I swear I'll come back after the cat. Right now, we've got to get you to someplace safe." He grabbed her, just as he heard something. "What was that?" he whispered.
Kristen stiffened in his grasp. "Sam!" she shouted. Her face transformed so suddenly, so totally, it almost knocked him backwards.
He thought about the first time he'd seen her, when he'd thought she was an angel. Then later, when he'd decided she was older than he'd first thought. Right now, with her face tear streaked, with her hair tangled where she'd run her fingers through it, with red fingerprints slowly turning blue on her arms, he thought his first assessment must have been right. She was an angel, and she'd definitely rescued him from hell.
As he watched, she strained her eyes upward, shading them with one hand. "Sam? Is that you? Oh, look, Rider. He's sitting in the window—well, what used to be the window of my apartment." She clicked her fingers. "Come on, big guy. Look at you."