Owl barely had time to try to ask what was wrong when the little girl's hand clamped across her mouth, and she was whispering, Croaks]
Seconds later they appeared. Three of the walking dead, slouching out of the darkness of an alleyway, casting baleful glances right and left as they passed through the square and continued down a side street. Had Sarah not gotten Owl out of sight, they would have been discovered. Owl braced the little girl by her shoulders. How had she known about the Croaks? Sarah shook her head, not wanting to say, but this time Owl persisted, telling her that it was all right, whatever it was, but that she had to know, it was important.
The little girl said it was the voices.
She said it was the voices inside her head, the ones that came to her both in dreams and in waking, warning her of danger. They were always there, always watching out for her.
Owl didn't understand. Sarah had voices that spoke to her, that could tell when danger threatened? The little girl nodded, suddenly looking very ashamed.
Owl still didn't understand. Why wouldn't she talk about it with the other members of the family? Why did she keep this to herself?
That was when Sarah told her that some people didn't believe in the voices, that some people thought the voices were bad. Which, in turn, made Sarah bad, and she didn't want to be bad. But she couldn't help it that she heard the voices and believed in them. She couldn't help it that sometimes people didn't listen to the voices and they died.
Like her mommy and daddy.
Owl left it alone right there, but she told Hawk the story later, and they took Candle aside and told her that the voices were important and that she must always tell them what the voices said. The voices weren't bad and neither was Sarah. Both were just trying to help, and it was only when you didn't try to help that you were being bad.
Hawk wasn't quite sure himself that he believed in the voices at first.
But after a few months of watching Sarah, he changed his mind, especially after taking her with him on foraging expeditions where she repeatedly warned him of unseen dangers, keeping him from harm. Keeping all of them from harm. There was no rational explanation for how she could see these things or where the voices came from, but that didn't change the facts. Sarah was quickly renamed Candle, and she became their light in the darkest of places.
He let the memory drift back into the past, turning his thoughts to the present as he emerged from the building above their hideout into the square and the onset of twilight. He would have to hurry to make his meeting with Tessa, and he needed to make the meeting in order to keep his promise to Tiger about the pleneten. Cheney padded on ahead of him, big head lowered, sniffing at the pavement and casting sharp glances at the darkened doorways and windows of the buildings they passed. The city was quiet, its few sounds distant and muffled, lost in the darkness and the haze. The smells of decay and pollution drifted up from the waterfront, but Hawk had grown so used to them he barely noticed.
Sometimes he thought about a world in which the smells were all sweet and fragrant, like the wild–flower fields and woodlands he remembered from his Oregon childhood. Sometimes he imagined he would take the Ghosts one day to a place that smelled like that.
He moved down First Avenue through the derelict vehicles and piles of trash, through the grass and weeds growing up through cracks in the pavement, and then turned north while still on his side of the compound and made his way toward the old entry to the light rail station. He was thinking again of Candle's vision and her admonition to him that they must flee the city. He was thinking that everything that had happened lately was telling him that he should listen to her. The dead Croaks, the dead Lizard, this afternoon's experience in the warehouse basement, and his own sense of things changing around him all contributed to his growing certainty that Candle's voices were a warning he could not ignore.
But he also knew that he would never leave without Tessa. Even at the cost of his own life, he would never leave her. It wasn't a rational decision, wasn't even a decision he had consciously arrived at. He simply knew it. Maybe he had always known deep in his heart and hadn't wanted to acknowledge it. It really didn't matter. Somewhere along the way, at some point during their time together, he had made the commitment and it was too late even to try to change it. His feelings for her were so strong and so deeply ingrained that he could no longer imagine life without her. He was wedded to her in the only way that mattered–in his heart, in the strength of his affection, and in his determination to be with her forever.
So before he could fulfill what he believed to be his destiny–to save the Ghosts, to take his family away from the city and the danger that threatened–he must convince Tessa to come with them. She had steadfastly refused to leave her parents, but he must find a way to change her mind and he must do so quickly.
He thought of this as he came up to the station entrance and went down the steps, leaving Cheney to prowl the ruins outside. The light was so poor by now that he could barely see the walls of the compound. By the time he was finished here, it would be completely dark on a night in which there were no breaks in the clouds and no light from moon or stars.
But he brushed his concerns aside, worries for another time, and rapped hard on the steel door that led down into the tunnels, using the prearranged signal, twice hard and once soft.
Seconds later the locks on the other side released, the door swung open, and Tessa slipped through and was in his arms, hugging him close. "Why do you do this to me?" she breathed in his ear, kissing him, then burying her face in his neck.
"I had a long afternoon uptown. I didn't get back until late." He hugged and kissed her back. "Sorry."
"It's okay,' she said. "But I worry. Every time, I think that you're not coming, that something's happened. I don't know how to handle it."
She broke away, holding him at arm's length and staring at him as if she had never seen him before, or never would again. Her eyes were black pools in the dim light, and her brown skin was smoothed and darkened by the shadows. "Did you miss me?"
He laughed. "Only enough that I gave up dinner to come see you."
"That's all? Only dinner?"
"That's all I had time to give up. What else do you want?"
She stared at him. "I don't know. Everything, I guess." She smiled self–consciously and reached into her jacket pocket. "I brought the pleneten. Six doses wrapped in cold packs. It should be enough for Persia. Keep them cold until she takes them. Have Tiger do the same while they're stored."
He nodded, accepting the packs and sticking them deep into his side pocket. The pleneten came in tablets that were easily transported. He would take them to Tiger tomorrow at midday, as promised.
She took his hands and led him over to the bench where they liked to sit during their visits. He wrapped one arm about her shoulders and cradled her against him. "Thanks for doing this."
She nodded, but didn't say anything.
He sensed something. "It went okay, didn't it?"
"I might have been seen."
He felt himself grow cold inside, and for a moment he didn't say anything in response. "Seen by whom?" he managed finally.
She sighed and lifted her head from his shoulder. "There was another girl working in the medical supply room. She caught me in the refrigeration cabinet where they store the pleneten. I made up a story about doing an inventory, but everyone knows that inventories are only done by assignment and at certain times."
"Do you think she might tell someone?"
"She might."
"Then you shouldn't go back." Because you know what will happen if you do and they find out you've been stealing medical supplies, he wanted to add, but didn't. "You should come with me."