No. It was nothing.
The voice drifted through Cole’s mind like a gnat skittering into his ear, and was already gone before he had a chance to swat at the thing responsible for it.
“Yeah,” he said. “He got to me. Maybe you should give me some more of that antidote.”
Paige looked over at him once more and then pulled the wheel toward the right shoulder of the interstate. The tires screeched, skidded on the loose dirt on the shoulder, then the car came to a stop without a major incident. She got a few honks from some of the people who’d been directly behind her but ignored them.
“If you just tell me where the stuff is, I can inject myself,” Cole said. “No need for all of this.”
“What do you hear?”
“It wants me to tell you I’m fine.”
“Do me a favor, Cole. Imagine telling me you’re fine. Focus on it really hard.”
He let out a deep breath and then thought about saying those words. He imagined saying them to Paige and then shook his head. “I can’t focus.”
Still studying him, Paige said, “Think about what you’d say as if you were singing a song in your head. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah. Actually I do.” At first he started to sing those words. He stopped himself and then used that same inner voice to repeat them.
“When you imagine saying them to me, it doesn’t matter if it’s one hundred percent accurate,” she said. “Just make sure the basics are in there and imagine it in a way that’ll make it really vivid. It doesn’t matter what you focus on, but it’s got to be something you can truly hold onto. Think about it like you’d picture one of those games you design. Once you’re locked in, let the words go through your mind.”
Although he started off taking Paige’s advice, the imagery wasn’t sticking. It came and went like scrambled porn on a channel he hadn’t paid for. The more he tried to zero in on it, the fuzzier it got. Then, perhaps drawing inspiration from the comparison he’d just made, he imagined Paige sitting there beside him in her sweats and halter top. He added a bit of water to her hair and beads of moisture running along those sexy freckles that were scattered over her chest and the image became clearer. Once he lost her clothes altogether and added more water running down her body, he was in business.
“I’m all right, baby,” he said in his inner voice to the Paige that was naked and smiling back at him.
“Is it working?” the real Paige asked.
When he heard her voice, Cole realized it was working a bit too well. He shifted in his seat, thanked the god of denim that his jeans were loosely cut, then nodded. “I think so.”
It’s all right, he thought. I’m just fine, baby.
Very good.
Paige smiled in his mind, and when Cole focused on the real world, he found her smiling there as well. She nodded and placed her hands back on the wheel so she could pull onto the road and bring the car back up to speed.
“Misonyk is powerful,” Paige said. “I’ve never heard of a Nymar getting this kind of range with any sort of mind control before.”
“Aw, hell.”
“Don’t worry and don’t think too hard about it,” Paige said quickly. “It’s tricky, but we can work with it. For the most part, a Nymar that’s linked to someone can make out more of what that person is seeing than what they’re thinking. He got to your eyes, remember?”
“Yeah,” Cole said as he began squirming for a very different reason.
“He can read your thoughts, but only the ones you’re broadcasting. You know, the ones you’re really concentrating on? The kind of stuff a really good poker player might be able to read on your face if they looked at you hard enough.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t give you any more antidote for a while, since you’ve already had some not too long ago. We don’t want too much of that in your system. In the meantime, if Misonyk is tracking us through you, you can steer him away for a while.”
“How do I do that?” Cole asked.
“First of all, don’t look out the window anymore. Look down or at me or just close your eyes. I’m going to tell you directions that we want Misonyk to hear, and I want you to take in everything I say. Think about it really hard and try to put those thoughts out there.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
Paige shrugged and smiled at him. “At best, it’ll keep your brain busy enough that Misonyk won’t get anything but static from you. At the very least, you should keep him away long enough for us to conduct our business with Prophet.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah…well…sort of.” She cut herself short and reached over to rub Cole’s knee. “Just trust me, okay?”
Cole nodded and focused on the touch of her hand upon his knee. It helped feed his reserves when he imagined her hand drifting a bit higher up along his thigh. “Okay.”
“We’ll be heading north on 94 all the way up through Milwaukee,” she said as if telling him a story that she thought was enthralling. “Around Milwaukee, things get sort of crazy, but we’ll catch I–43 toward Fox Point. From there…”
While listening to her go on about interstates, turnoffs, and rest stops, Cole imagined that map in his head and the creeping red line that came along with it. Oddly enough, that red line calmed his nerves just as it had when he’d been flying over Canada. Paige’s voice was soothing and she went into more than enough detail to add some texture to his mental map. His focus remained on that map thanks to the naked version of Paige he imagined pointing to it while bending at the waist or arching her back like a naughty meteorologist.
He wouldn’t be able to watch the evening news the same way again, but at least he was finally able to relax.
Chapter 16
By late afternoon Cole and Paige were driving on a gray stretch of highway, beneath a gray sky surrounded by drab grasslands. Every now and then they would cross a grayish blue river and then it was back to more greenish gray. At least, that’s what Cole caught from the reflected light that came through the window.
Once Paige ran out of steam in her storytelling, she trusted Cole to occupy himself and not give Misonyk anything worth looking at. He’d never been more thankful to have Tetris on his cell phone. Since he couldn’t get a signal, his expensive device was reduced to making him swear out loud for a long block instead of a crooked one. He swore even louder when he accidentally looked up to give his eyes a rest and found himself staring at a sign announcing the river they were about to cross. It was some sixteen syllable Native American name that he couldn’t pronounce, but he figured Misonyk might have seen it too.
“What’s the matter?” Paige asked.
“I looked out the window. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. We’re not supposed to meet Prophet for a while, so I’ve been tooling around in a big circle. You want to get something to eat?”
Rubbing his eyes, Cole grumbled, “I want a double burger with fries. If they don’t have that, I’ll have a chicken sandwich. But not grilled chicken. I want skin on there. If they have something spicy, I’ll—”
He was cut off by the quick jab of a needle in his neck. “Damn!” he grunted. “Did it have to be in the same spot as last time?”
“Stop whining. Do you feel any better?”
After a few seconds Cole touched his eyes and then blinked. “Actually, yeah. There’s no more itching or burning.”
“You should be a spokesman for this stuff,” Paige replied. “Side effects may include drowsiness, nausea, and diarrhea.”