He hadn’t intimidated her as Dr. Cans and he sure wouldn’t as Quincy. “Oh, they’re gone.” She laughed airily, waving a hand as if it were no big deal. “Put their fingers on the trigger and squeezed. So whatever you’re looking for in this basement better be worth it, because it is literally the only thing you have left.”
He lunged at her, hands reaching for her neck, but Quincy was no longer there. She sidestepped to the right and slammed her elbow into his face, smiling as the bones of his nose collapsed beneath her arm. Breaking Anderson’s nose was so much more satisfying then breaking Logan’s.
Anderson bellowed, his hands coming up to grasp his face. He spun, glaring at Quincy as blood rushed between his fingers, and she grimaced. As much pleasure as she found in a woman knocking Anderson off his high horse, even a little bit, she should have been more careful. She should have gone left instead of right. Now she was even further from the exit, and a raging bull stood between her and freedom.
The hands dropped from his face, fury barely contained behind a strained mask. “Who are you?” he asked again, menace quietly streaking his voice.
Nathan Anderson had been dangerous as a pompous, easily-provoked man. Easily-provoked men were predictable, but this quiet rage was dark, and it was determined to kill her. Logan had trained her to fight, but it had never been real until this very moment.
She wished Logan were here. He’d always made her feel, if not safe, at least secure in the fact that she wouldn’t have to fight alone. He was fading from her memory a little more every day, sometimes every hour, and it was terrifying. Even now, his name was watery, all fluid inside her head. There one minute and gone the next.
The sirens cut off abruptly, leaving them surrounded by the rushing sounds of the fire and the crackling building crumbling around them. It was just her and Anderson now. And if she survived, she suspected it would be just her. Or whatever was left of her. Which was why she needed to focus.
Logan and…and…and the others would find her. She had to believe they would find her, even when she didn’t remember she needed to be found. If she died in this basement, there would be nothing left to find.
There’s nothing left to find, anyway.
She shook her head. She had no time for the voice right now. At that moment Anderson came at her, the fury replaced by grim determination, and she let go of conscious thought.
He was a big guy but not very fast. She dropped to the ground and rolled under his arms. As he turned, she slammed her foot back into his knee, feeling the joint shift backward under her tennis shoe, off balance but still on his feet.
She jumped back to her feet and turned as he surged forward, his rage more than compensating for the pain she’d caused to his leg as his momentum and weight carried him forward. She danced to the side but not quickly enough. He crushed them both against the wall where his hidden entrance had been, the force of them slamming against it enough to shift it off its hinges slightly. The edge of the door dug into her back and she brought her legs up, trying to wedge them between their bodies.
“Who are you?” he screamed again, inches from her face. His fingers were grappling to wrap around her neck and she pushed for all she was worth.
He stumbled back and she dropped heavily to her feet, hunching forward against the pain in her back. Her breath whistled in her chest, the rib that felt broken fighting against her efforts to fill her lungs.
“I already-told you-who I am,” she wheezed, fighting to stay conscious. It wasn’t just dying in this basement she was afraid of, but going to sleep and losing what was left of herself.
“Dr. Allison Cans is a fake,” he thundered.
“Yes, she is.” She managed to straighten and gave him the biggest smile she could muster. The smoke was thick now, flames escaping through the seams around the door. The pressure would be building inside the room. If she could time it just right, if she could maneuver him to her side of the hallway, she might be able to…
His eyes darted to the fire burning mere feet away, then to the opening behind her. Whatever he had come down here for was behind her, through the wall. She had run out of time to try to figure out what that was. No matter what it was, it wasn’t worth her life, but he obviously didn’t feel the same way. His hatred of her was vying with his realization that time was running out to save whatever he’d come down here for. Moving him where she needed him wouldn’t be difficult.
“If you had bothered to learn anything-about your employees or your patients-you would have known that both Claire and I-both speak Italian.” Breathing was becoming more difficult as the smoke swirled and rose around them. “And ‘Cans’ is an Italian name.”
Any second now…
The man whose name she could no longer recall tipped his head to one side. “Italian for what?”
The girl smiled one last time. “Impostor.”
It took a second, but the horror that slowly blossomed across the man’s face was satisfying. “No,” he whispered. “Patient Zero…this whole time…”
A wall of flame and smoke exploded through the door.
And then there was nothing more.
Epilogue
“The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the road has gone, and I must follow, if I can…” J.R.R. Tolkien
***
A fire burned somewhere nearby; a big one, by the looks of it.
She could see it in the distance, coarse, black smoke arcing to the sky from behind a thick line of trees. Ash, aspen, beech - they layered around each other for miles, hiding the source of the fire but not the evidence. A stiff breeze floated a cloud of soot past the window she was looking through and she wrinkled her nose. Even behind feet of aluminum and tin, the cloying odor of burning wood hung thick around her.
“Next,” the man behind the counter called. She turned and took a step forward.
“Quite a day,” he said, nodding back towards the smoke in the distance. “We don’t usually get this much excitement in our sleepy little town.”
“Any idea what’s burning?” she asked curiously.
“Our officer on duty heard it come in over the radio early this morning,” he said. He seemed in the mood to talk, and the bus station was all but deserted at this hour.
“There’s a corporate retreat up in those hills.” The depot clerk leaned in and she copied him automatically, although the physical proximity to this unknown man made her shift her shoulders uncomfortably. “Real fancy place, like. Tennis courts, swimming pools, spas. That sort of thing.”
Sounded fishy to her. Who put a corporate retreat in the middle of some nowhere town in the middle of Wisconsin?
“Something not quite right up there, to hear us locals talk,” he said with a laugh, coming eerily close to what she had just been thinking. His laugh was loud, and she leaned away, her skin practically crawling from the heat of his body.
“For an expensive retreat in the middle of nowhere, it doesn’t seem to do a big business. Leastwise, not that my buddy can tell.” He gave her a conspiratorial wink. Did he think she was conspiring with him? “He’s on the newspaper, you know.”
She nodded her head as though she understood when really, she just wanted to get on a bus. She wanted away from that fire. Which made sense. Fires were dangerous. But she had a strange feeling about that fire. And about that expensive retreat, out there in the middle of nowhere, shrouded by miles of trees and dirt roads that led to nowhere.
Her mind unconciously pushed back, protecting itself from thoughts that wanted to linger on that image. She didn’t like it. Not at all.
“Where would you like to go, Miss?”
Nowhere.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m sorry?” she asked shakily, jerking herself back to the present and away from the thick cover of trees and the suffocating feel of utilitarian buildings and guards with guns.
“I asked where you’d like to go?” Her one-time conspirator was now looking at her with
something akin to concern. So she smiled.
“I don’t know for sure,” she said, skimming her finger down the list of destinations. “You have so many options.”
“Ah,” he said knowingly. “Out to explore the world, are you?” He pulled the laminated list of non-stop destinations out from under her hand and replaced it with a much larger list. “These are all multi-stop routes. Something with a little more scenery.”
Now she smiled in earnest. Multi-stop meant an unlimited number of places she could get off. No one would ever be able to follow her.
Was someone following her? The thought gave her pause. Why would she think that?
She shook her head as her fingers began to trail down this new list. She didn’t want to think about it. “So many choices. How could I ever -”
Her eyes caught on a word and her finger slid to a stop. “Here,” she said, tapping the rough, stained plastic under her finger. “I’d like a one-way ticket here.”
The station clerk pulled the list around and started typing in her order on his computer.
“Excellent choice,” he said, “although I might have thought you’d choose somewhere warmer this time of year.”
He handed her the ticket. Her bus, the first of many stops along the way, would leave in less than 30 minutes.
“I hear it’s a beautiful state. Have you been to Arkansas before?”
She took the ticket and tucked it securely into her pocket. She smiled.
“I think I would remember if I had.”
***
Far from the bus station, a small gravel lot stood empty, save the metal lean-to and fence, long since abandoned, and a white truck with dark windows. The rain had begun in earnest since the gathering had broken up, driving slowly away in three different directions.
For people who have been through war together, it is difficult to go separate ways. No less so when your future is unknown. There were promises to stay safe, to keep in touch. But that’s what everyone says, at the time. It makes the end seem less final, somehow. But few do.
Only time will tell.
The rain was cold and, but for a few degrees, would be ice instead.
The rain was worse. It drowned everything it touched. It drenched the shrubs clinging to life beside the lean-to. It submerged the last of the winter frogs, burying them in mud to sleep until the winter was over.
And it soaked the single sheet of paper, blown from a limp hand and forgotten, trapped against the windshield of the truck, ink running with every drop.
But it didn’t matter what the letter said, anyway. The gist could be wrapped up in one word, the last word, written in a scrawling, looping hand, the last word to fade from the paper. Long after they had all driven away, that one word would still be echoing in their heads.
…gone
Acknowledgements
Finishing the first book felt like a dream fulfilled. Finishing the second feels like “two down, one to go”. It’s old hat, suddenly. Status quo. Why yes, I do write and publish books, thank you for noticing. Definitely not easy, but doable. And now that I know I can, I don’t think I’ll ever be done. Because how do you ever run out of stories to tell? I have to jot ideas down as they come, because I know I need to finish Quincy’s story before I move on to someone else’s. But thankfully, I have people who prod me on and keep me on track.
My publishing partner (and brother), who does all the cool stuff that I can’t - how great is this cover?
My beta team, whose advice and opinions I trust and value.
My parents, every time they tell me that so and so asked when the next book would be out. You keep me going, keep me trucking along, and keep me anxiously trying to beat my speed from the last time. Because if Hathcocks are one thing, we’re competitive.
So until next time…
About the Author
A native of the Midwestern United States, Tara N. Hathcock spent 16 years in the healthcare field as a radiologic technologist, where the inkling of her first book, Shattered Highways, was born. Having since made the jump to academics, Tara now works as full-time staff for an area community college and teaches anatomy on the side while she continues to write stories that blend elements of science fiction with everyday life.
Burning Bridges is the second novel in the Shattered Highways series.
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Also by Tara N. Hathcock
Shattered Highways
https://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Highways-Tara-N-Hathcock-ebook/dp/B07ZJTJVD7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=6VPEM0IPQS0M&dchild=1&keywords=shattered+highways+tara+hathcock&qid=1614026015&sprefix=shattered+highways+tara+,stripbooks,163&sr=8-1
Quincy O’Connell blows through identities as quickly as she creates them. She has to, to stay alive.
They’ve been following her for years. Watching her. Trying to get close. She doesn’t know why and she doesn’t know who, but she knows she has to stay one step ahead. So she becomes nobody. A loner with no roots, no paper trail, no friends. And no home.
It’s lonely living one life to the next but she’s safe as long as she’s invisible. After all, she’s survived this way for as long as she can remember. But what if her memory isn’t what she thinks it is? What if nothing is what she thinks it is? And what if her memory is exactly what they’re looking for?
What you don’t know can’t hurt you. So if you don’t know you’re broken, are you?
Burning Bridges (Shattered Highways Book 2) Page 32