The forest tried to close against us, but I didn’t pause; the Earth Warden back in the compound didn’t have time to grow the barricade with any degree of care, and plants forced to cycle into maturity at that rate were naturally fragile. The jeep crushed the saplings trying to block our path, and we sped on.
“Watch for more children!” I snapped, intent on guiding the increasingly loosely steering jeep through the turns. I missed my motorcycle. I wondered if they’d simply abandon it in the woods, leave it to rust. It was a sad end for such a beautiful thing.
If they planned to send the rejected children against us as shock troops, they were unable to get them ahead of us.
We rocketed out of the forest and skidded onto clean, black pavement.
Free.
I looked back as I sped along, going as fast as I dared; there was no sign of pursuit.
No sign at all.
Relief began to creep through my body, slow as poison. I began to feel all the hurts, all the cuts, the bullet wounds that disfigured parts of my body. I was battered, but alive.
Luis was alive.
One of the children I’d promised to retrieve was alive. The other . . .
I drew in a ragged breath, startled by a burn of tears in my eyes. Why am I crying?
Luis was still holding my hand, though I was not drawing any power from him. It was merely comfort. Human touch.
“Cassie,” he said. His touch moved from my palm up my arm, stroked my shoulder, and trailed along my cheeks where tears spilled down. “Big Djinn don’t cry.”
I laughed madly. “Cassiel,” I said. “Cassiel is my name.”
And I heard the Voice in my ears, blocking out the world, whisper, I know your name, Cassiel. I have your heart now, and you will come back to me. You must.
Chapter 15
OFFICER STYLES MET us just outside of LakeCity. I told him to come alone, and not to tell his wife.
He disobeyed both instructions.
Luis had helped with the worst of my injuries—again—but I was bitterly tired now and aching and afraid. Pain, I had discovered, tends to make one afraid, once adrenaline fades. I had never truly understood that before. We sat on a fallen log, in the shadow of a pine tree. C.T. was still unconscious, but sleeping normally. Luis had wrapped him in a blanket he’d found in the back of the jeep.
We were drinking cold bottles of water when the Colorado State Highway Patrol car pulled into the rest stop near our stolen vehicle.
“Heads up,” Luis said. “He brought company.”
The second person in the car was not, as I’d have assumed, Officer Styles’s partner. It was his wife, a fragile little blonde who seemed genuinely relieved and overjoyed to see her sleeping little boy. Officer Styles was grateful, but wary.
I held out my hand to stop Mrs. Styles from approaching, and pointed at the policeman. “You,” I said. “Take the boy.”
He didn’t understand, but he stepped forward and scooped up his son, blanket and all. C.T. murmured sleepily and nestled closer to his father’s chest. I felt Luis relax as the last of the control he’d been exerting slipped away.
“We’re in your debt,” Officer Styles said. He didn’t look happy about it, but that might have been an overload of emotion in a face not equipped to process such extremes. “I can’t believe you found him.”
“You should know,” I said, “that your wife was aware of his location the entire time.”
For a second, neither of them moved, and then a breeze shifted the pine tree behind us and skirled up dust from the road, and Officer Styles shifted to stare at his wife. “Leona?”
The pretty little blonde beside him was hardening before my eyes. Her eyes took on a bitter shine, and her smile curdled into something toxic.
She showed that only to me, and only for an instant, before turning toward her husband with a look of wounded innocence. “I don’t know what she’s talking about! Here, let me hold him.”
“Don’t,” I said, “if you want to see him again. She’ll take him. She intends to take him.”
Whether he believed me or not, Officer Styles backed up a step as his wife came toward him. “Hold on. Are you saying Leona had something to do with this?”
“I’m saying your wife knows about the compound in the forest,” I said. “The Ranch. Isn’t that right, Leona? The Ranch, where they collect and train the children.”
Luis stirred when the woman cast us a poisonous look. “Cassiel’s right,” he said. “I saw it myself, man. We were barely able to get C.T. out, and if you let her get her hands on him, I can’t swear she won’t take him right back. It’s some kind of cult thing.”
Officer Styles was looking at his wife as if she had turned into an alien creature. “Leona?”
“Give him to me.” She held out her arms.
“Answer me. Did you have something to do with this?”
“He’s my son!”
“He’s my son, too!” Styles burst out, and when she tried to grab him, he avoided her rush. “Leona, stop! What the hell is wrong with you? How could you—”
“How could I?” Leona’s face was alive now, alight with utter fury. “How could I? After what happened to me? My child isn’t going to be mutilated like that. My child isn’t going to be twisted by some group of superior bastards that thinks it knows what’s best for the world. No, Randy, dammit, I will not let that happen to my son!”
“But—it doesn’t have to—Lee, he’s not even six yet!”
“He’s already started showing signs. Soon enough, they’d come looking for him. They’d give us a choice, Randy: let them take him away and put him in their special schools, raise him up to be one of them, or cut away everything that makes him who he is!” Leona’s eyes were mad, I thought. Anguished and mad. “I’ve lived like that, with half of myself sliced off. It’s horrible. It’s worse than dying. I won’t let it happen to C.T.”
“You never said—”
“No, I never said! You never asked!” Leona made another grab at the sleeping child, which Randy fended off with his elbow. “This is better for him. I swear it! They’ll care for him. They’ll train him. He’ll serve a higher purpose.”
“Yeah,” Luis agreed soberly. “News flash, lady: They decided he wasn’t good enough for whatever little meritocracy they’re running inside that place, so he got to be King of the Rejects, which is like Oliver Twist meets Lord of the Flies. They were going to kill him, amiga. Or at least, they didn’t care if he died. One thing about cults: It’s all about them, not you.”
That stopped Leona’s rush, but only for a minute. “You just don’t understand. I’ve seen the future. She showed it to me. I know how things will be. Should be.”
“You’re right,” I said, and stood up. I ached all over, and watching this travesty of a reunion had turned my heart black. “I don’t understand. And I don’t care. You took him there, Leona. Why? What did they promise you would happen?”
“They promised me that he’d get to kill Djinn,” she said. “Lots of Djinn. All the Djinn.” She smiled thinly. “That’s worth dying for.”
I looked at my partner, who seemed not only surprised by this, but more than a little alarmed.
It only confirmed for me what I had sensed within the compound.
I stood up, nodded to Luis, and we walked to the jeep. It had clearly been through a firefight, as had we, and Officer Styles began to realize that now that his son was safely in his arms. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“Things to do,” Luis said. He took the driver’s seat. “My niece is still in there.”
“You’re going alone?” Styles clearly thought we were crazy. As we probably were.