She stood there, and for a moment closed her eyes to make sure the surface of her mind was still calm and without ripples. Remarkably, it was. She opened her eyes then, looked around to get her bearings—and wanted to burst into tears.
Nothing looked familiar. Absolutely nothing. There was no sign of a cabin, much less a house. No sign of a shed. Trails crisscrossed through the woods all around her, but she couldn’t see anything wide enough to show that a car had passed this way, or a horse, or a bike.
Even worse, there were evergreen trees all around, filling in for the hardwood trees only now beginning to green out, and because of them, Nessa could only catch glimpses of the sky. The darkening sky.
And, faintly, she could hear thunder rumble.
Damn. She didn’t dare say it out loud, and not only because that black snake of a him was still back there, and maybe by now knew she was gone.
There was a lot of forest around Serenity. Back when she’d really liked to ride her pony, her father had taken her along a lot of the old trails that wound all through the forest, and Chief Riggs had made sure they were clearly marked, especially for Sunday riders.
But she hadn’t ridden in a long time, and nothing she was looking at looked familiar.
Worse, it was getting darker. And if it stormed . . . even if she found some kind of shelter, what if he came after her? What if he found her?
With a choked-back sob, Nessa picked a direction and struck out, trying to listen in case he was behind her, scanning in front of her to see where she was going as long as she could see. And wishing she could just stand and scream and scream and scream until somebody heard her and came to save her.
SIXTEEN
“Well?” Sam asked.
“It was nothing heroic,” he told them. “Nessa used to ride all the time, first ponies and then the bigger horse her dad, Matt, got for her. She was a really good rider, so more than ready for a well-trained horse. That one was. They don’t have pasture, so he boarded the horse at one of the outlying farms. She wasn’t allowed to ride alone, none of the kids were, but they’d form groups just about every Sunday and ride most of the day exploring the trails through the woods.
“I got the ranger service out here to clearly mark the trails that were suitable for riding, made sure every rider had a map and a compass in their saddlebags, and put the fear of God into them about not leaving the marked trails. The forest can get dense as hell, and we’ve lost hikers in years past. I wasn’t about to lose any of those kids in those woods.”
Sam said, “What happened?”
“The kind of freak thing that can happen whenever you’re riding a horse in the woods. They weren’t going faster than a trot; that’s what the kids swore, and I believed them. Nessa’s horse somehow got his hoof wedged in under one of those big roots and fell. Maybe if Nessa had been older or more experienced, she would have had the quick reactions to push herself clear of the horse. But she didn’t. And when he fell, he came down on top of her.”
“Jesus,” Sam muttered.
“Yeah. I counted it lucky she was riding with an English saddle that day and not Western like the others; the saddle horn probably would have killed her. As it was, she had a broken arm and a couple of broken ribs. Worse, she also had internal injuries.
“The oldest boy knew enough first aid that he was able to splint the broken arm, and two of the others set off for town to get help.” Jonah shook his head. “She was out cold, and he had sense enough to know both that she shouldn’t be jostled and that he needed to at least start heading back for town. So he and one of the other boys fashioned a litter they could carry on foot between them, holding her as level as possible.”
“Smart kid.”
“The real hero.” Jonah smiled. “He’s in college now. Pre-med.”
Lucas smiled, but his eyes were still intent. “What happened?”
“They managed to get her nearly to the road, where the EMS unit met them. The unit got her to the hospital.”
“And?” Luke prompted.
Jonah sighed. “Most people think they know what the rarest blood types are, but scientists are discovering new variations all the time. The rarest blood type, one most people have never heard of, is Rh-null. A patient with that blood type can give to some other Rh patients, but if you’ve got it, that’s what you have to get if you need a transfusion. Nessa has Rh-null blood.”
“And so do you,” Sam said.
Jonah nodded. “There was none in the clinic’s blood bank, and even with a chopper it’d be a good two hours or more getting some here. Doc knew I had it, so he called me. And I came.”
After a moment, Jonah said, “I give blood at the clinic as often as Doc will let me. Nessa gives about once a year. With a little luck, we’ve got enough stockpiled for both of us in case of any future need. Now.”
Sam looked at the evidence board, and then under Nessa’s name slowly wrote: BLOOD TRANSFUSION.
“Nothing heroic,” Jonah repeated. “I happened to have the right blood and I was here. So Nessa survived.”
“She would have died without your blood,” Luke said, and it wasn’t a question.
Jonah half shrugged. “Doc said so later. I asked him to downplay what the risk had been to Nessa, but her dad, Matt, can be a persistent bastard, and he found out. Honestly, I think that’s one of the reasons he isn’t totally batshit crazy about Nessa missing. He’s convinced I can find her and bring her home. Thinks of me as her guardian angel.”
Samantha looked at him steadily for a moment, then said, “And can you?”
Jonah gave her a look. “Why, because we have the same blood type? Jesus.”
“No. Because you’re a latent empath—and you gave her some of your blood.”
Lucas said to his wife, “It’s a stretch.”
“Maybe not. Maybe not if I help.”
Jonah could see Lucas stiffen a bit, but the other man’s voice was calm. “You’ve never tried that before. As far as I know, no one has tried that before.”
“That’s why we practice in the field, according to Bishop. Trying things we’ve never done before. And the blood type being so rare, plus Jonah’s latent abilities, makes this something unique.”
Lucas was silent, frowning.
“Have you been able to sense any of them?” Samantha asked, clearly knowing the answer.
“No,” Luke replied, still frowning. “I don’t know if it’s the energy he doesn’t really control or what, but every time I’ve tried, all I’ve heard in my head was something like static. And I haven’t felt anything at all.”
“Then we need to try something else.” Samantha sighed. “Look, we’ve still got a day’s work or more going through files trying to figure out why these people, indebted to Jonah for their lives, are now targets apparently because of it, since that’s the only similarity we’ve found. We don’t have any clues. We don’t have anything to send us in the right direction, unless we can somehow find out where Nessa’s being held.”
“The somehow meaning me?” Jonah asked warily.
Sam gestured over her shoulder to a table against the wall, where boxes held the personal effects of some of the missing people. “I can touch that. All of it, probably. And maybe, maybe I’ll catch a glimpse of something useful. But as far as we know, he didn’t touch any of the missing people then. Not when and where he abducted them.”
“The energy bubbles,” Jonah protested.
“Were probably excess energy from when he was initially establishing control over them psychically. That’s why there was so much of it, why so much of it was diffused. Even why it seems to be blocking Luke. Whoever this guy is, he’s powerful, but I think we’re right in believing he isn’t in control of his abilities. He’s leaving too much around him whenever he uses them. For now, at least. But the more time that passes, the more likely it is that he’ll learn better control, better focus. And once that happens, we might end up facing a weapon we can’t fight.”