A Perfect Darkness (25 page)

The place was quiet, though she knew the guards were still making their rounds. She cracked open the door and peered out. No one in sight. Leaving the sanctuary of the medical room, she edged down to the reception area. That was the trickiest part, as it opened to the right, where their “star Offspring” was trying to find her. To the left was the front entrance, which might be locked.

She craned her neck to see to the right. No one. Another step and she would be able to see the entrance. Her heart leapt. A guard stood at the door looking out.
Breathe, stay calm
. She walked calmly past the desk and toward the hall opposite it. A door opened to a darkened cafeteria on the right.

The tingling was becoming persistent. Pushing harder.
Go away!
She ducked into the cafeteria, overwhelmed. He could see her now. Hopefully he wouldn't see much with the darkness, just as Eric couldn't with Lucas. She imagined the ball and sent it up. The tingling vanished. For now.

She glanced out in the hall again, which led to
what looked like a lounge. Three doors on either side indicated that these offices were large. She walked down the hall, her chest hurting from lack of breath. The windows in the offices had curtains. She heard a woman talking in one of them but didn't focus on her words.

The tingling started again. She picked up her pace and was nearly running as she reached the lounge: two couches, a coffee table, and a table and television in a room painted a dark orange color. She was only interested in the exterior door. She looked out the window and saw the parking lot beyond. Could she make it over the fence before the enemy Offspring finally broke through?

The tingling pressed against her and swept down her spine. He could see her. She heard running footsteps and a man shout, “She's here, in the lounge!”

She slammed against the door, praying it wasn't locked. It opened into the cool morning sunshine. She tore across the asphalt toward the fence.
How did I do this last night?
She wasn't out of breath and scared to death then. Amy's voice filled her head.
I have to be optimistic. I have no choice.

She could do this. She crashed into the fence and started scrambling up it. Men shouted behind her. One of the outside guards ran toward her. Her foot slipped. She jammed it back into the hole in the fencing and kept climbing. The fence began to shake as someone else climbed up behind her.

Petra reached the top and saw one man just below her and two more running toward the fence. She dropped to the ground on the other side with a thud and then dashed toward the woods. She knew them
from their reconnaissance the night before. Once she hit the shaded area she turned to the left, toward the highway. She had to get far enough away to call Eric with her position.

She heard people running through the woods behind her. Their shouted directives clashed in her brain. She changed her course. Changed it again. She could hear the sound of traffic in the distance and aimed for that. The way she figured, it was better to get hit by a car than caught by these animals. The highway noise grew louder.
Almost there.
Her chest hurt, her legs hurt.
I promise if…no, when I make it out of here, I'm going to use the gym at the shelter!

Louder than her heartbeat, louder than the cars on the highway, she heard footsteps to her right. She saw a blur of movement. Turned. One of the guards broke into view, his gun aimed at her.

I
n the shower, Lucas closed his eyes and let the water wash over him. He still couldn't believe he was here. Safe. With Amy. He was relieved, furious, and elated all at once. A wave of dizziness seized him.

Her arms wrapped around his waist. “Are you all right?”

“Light-headed.”

“I told you we should have eaten first.”

“I'll be fine.” He needed to wash off the sweat and the musty smell of the asylum that seemed to cling to his skin.

When he turned to her, she held a round gauzy thing loaded with bubbles. She was studying him, probably looking for some sign that he was going to drop.

“I'm fine,” he said again, touching her chin. “Stop worrying.”

“You were nearly dead a day ago, and I'm supposed to just stop worrying about you? Forget it.”

He had to admit he liked this sassy and confident side of her. She ran the gauzy thing over him, gently, slowly, focusing on every part of his body. He was hard
again. Well, that part of him wasn't screwed up. The rest…he didn't know. Watching her cleaning him, something shifted in his chest. Her words about loving him generated more conflicting feelings. Yeah, he loved her. He'd always loved her. It seemed she'd been living inside him nearly all his life. All he'd wanted to do was protect her, from this Offspring business, and now…from him. From what he was and what he'd become.

She stood, catching him with who-knows-what expression on his face. “What's wrong?”

“You're beautiful.”

He loved the way her face transformed from worry to a mix of disbelief and love. He looked at the freckles on her face, her dark green eyes and thick eyelashes beaded with water. They reminded him of the tears he'd seen her cry in their dreams. He ached that he'd caused her pain, that he would probably cause her more.

She had an intriguing mouth, lush and pink, her lower lip with its square corners. He'd loved this face for so long. He drank her in, her throat, the swell of her breasts and hardened nipples, pale skin with more freckles, nest of dark hair that was also beaded with water.

“Turn around,” she said. “You're making me feel funny.”

“Why?” he asked, but allowed her to turn him.

She scrubbed his back, long strokes from his neck all the way down over his buttocks. “I've never had anyone look at me like that.”

He turned his head. “I don't believe you.”

She laughed, a sweet sound that was nonetheless filled with cynicism. “I'm not beautiful. And until our
dreams, which I don't know if that actually counted, I was celibate.”

He selfishly liked that idea. “I bet that drove the guys crazy.”

“There
were
no guys. I didn't date.”

He turned back around to look at her. Even before their encounters, she hadn't dated, so it wasn't his fault. “Why?”

She grabbed the shampoo bottle, squirted some into her palm, and reached up to wash his hair. Her fingers felt heavenly massaging his scalp. He leaned forward to accommodate her.

“I didn't want to be hurt,” she said. “I lost my dad and my mom. I never wanted to lose someone I loved again. So I didn't want to love anyone.”

At the emotion in her voice, he looked up.

“Until you,” she added.

Damn. That made his mind up. He had to keep his distance from her to keep her heart safe. How the hell was he going to do that now? He leaned back into the water to rinse out the shampoo.

“Lucas, don't you dare close down. I'm not going to lose you.”

“Amy, I—”

She pressed her finger over his mouth. “I made the decision to stop hiding in my cocoon even when I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again. Seeing your sketch of you dead…that didn't change my mind. I'm sure not going to back away now that you're here, and neither are you.”

He released a breath. In his mind he saw Amy through the years, as a shy, sweet girl, with her frown, her tears, and her happiness. How could he turn away
from her? “Come here, your turn.” He reached for the shampoo.

“You're going to be all right, Lucas.”

There was so much he hadn't told her. She wasn't going to like the one thing he had to say.

Pain ripped through his head. Electricity crackled through the darkness he now saw. He grabbed onto the shower head. It was happening again. In the far distance he heard her call his name, fear in her voice. He thought she was touching him but couldn't be sure.

Images crashed into his mind, each separated by a blinding light that he swore tore into the tissues of his brain. The boy in their childhood group, then the man, fighting the straps on a bed like the one he'd been strapped to…now Petra, scared, running, being chased through the woods. Amy falling with a scream. Hitting the floor. Blood.

“Lucas!”

Her voice broke through. He opened his eyes. He was on his knees gripping the shower head that was no longer attached to the wall. The shower was off. She was crouched beside him, holding onto his arms. He dropped the shower head, and it clanged loudly.

“What happened?” she asked.

He pressed the heel of his hands against his temples to push away the residual pain. “The Booster…” It was hard to get his tongue around words. “Different.”

She turned him toward her, staring into his eyes. “What's different?”

“I used to get the dreams…the sketches. I could do something then. But now I get…it's like a slide show, one after the other. Too fast to see much. To do anything. And it feels like someone tasering my brain.”
He grabbed her shoulders. “Petra's in trouble. You said they were all right.”

“I said no one got caught.” She chewed her lower lip. “I didn't want to worry you. Petra didn't get out of the building last night. She
is
all right. She called and was hiding. They didn't know she was there.”

He stood, willing his legs to stop wobbling. “She's not all right now. Or won't be.”

“Lucas, I don't understand.”

“The sketches were always the future. I don't know if these visions are future or something that's happening now.”

“Eric went back to the asylum—”

“The asylum?”

“That's what the hospital was once. He went back to be nearby. She's supposed to call when she can get out.”

He stepped out of the tub. “We've got to get over there.”

“Eric has the only car, and that place is an hour away from here. Besides, you're in no condition. You can hardly get your clothes on. We have to trust that Eric will handle it. If she's running, she hasn't been caught.”

He dried off. “But they know she's there. They're after her.”

Amy dried off, too, fear in her expression. “She'll be all right.”

“You don't know Petra. She wigs, panics. She's not good under stress.”

“She's gotten stronger. Come on, let's get some food into you. I'll tell you all about it.”

He was going to need his strength, and he had to
admit that his stomach actually hurt with hunger. He let her lead him to the kitchen and watched her put ham and cheese sandwiches together. She kept looking at him with a worried expression. He wasn't going to let her pretend he was all right.

“Tell me everything that's happened since they took me from your apartment.”

She brought the sandwiches to the table and they ate as she told him. He felt a swell of pride at what she'd done, how she'd escaped, how she'd kneed Spy Guy in the nuts. That he didn't remember anything about the rescue itself bothered him. He barely remembered the woman, of particular interest to Amy, but not the last time he'd been in the tub.

She said in a soft voice, “The funny thing was, I wasn't as scared for myself as I was for you. None of that compared to seeing you unconscious.” She smiled. “And nothing compares to seeing you sitting here now.”

“Did you fall?”

She looked up in thought. “I don't remember falling. Why?” When he didn't answer right away, she said, “You saw me falling, didn't you?”

He dropped the crust of his second sandwich on the plate. “So that hasn't happened yet.”

“And it won't. You changed the future when you saved me from that creep at the marina. What you see doesn't always happen.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I found the sketches.”

He turned away and rubbed his temples. That time, he knew enough about the event to prevent it. With the images flashing so fast, he couldn't see the
events leading up to it. He had a bad feeling it was connected to what he had to tell her when Eric and Petra returned.

 

Petra stopped, her breathing heavy. The man slowed, too, eyeing her warily. He was one of the outside guards. She couldn't take her gaze from the gun he pointed at her. He hollered, “She's over here!” To her, he said, “Don't move. I don't know what you all are, but you give me the creeps. I don't mind shooting you, even if you are a pretty gal.”

She didn't doubt that he would shoot her. This couldn't happen. She couldn't let them capture her. Footsteps sounded from several directions. She still had a minute before they arrived. She dove for the ground and rolled. A shot rang out, hitting the dirt and spewing it up. She zigzagged toward the highway. He wouldn't shoot her in front of witnesses, would he?

Almost there. She could see the road through the last of the trees. Cars whizzed by. As soon as she ran into the open she'd wave her arms.
Thwang.
Another bullet flew past. She glanced back. He was trying to run and shoot at the same time, which skewed his aim. As she turned ahead, something grabbed her and threw her backward. She landed with a thump, dizzy from the sudden change in motion.

Her eyes focused. She'd run into a fence separating the forest from the highway. The guard ran up, his gun trained on her. He was gasping for breath as much as she was. Worse, she heard footsteps coming up on her right.

“Now I'm…going to have to…hurt you.” He lowered the gun to her legs.

She heard a shot. Flinched. A scream of pain. Not her scream. Not her pain. His gun flew out of his hand. Blood spurted from his wrist.

Footsteps near her head. A hand reaching toward her. “Come on.”

She jerked around to find Eric standing there. She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. “How did you—”

“No time. Let's go.”

She followed him along the fence line. The man's screams covered the sound of their footsteps but also blocked her from hearing where their enemies were. Several yards away Eric climbed over a place where the fence had been torn away from the post and bent down. She saw the Camry parked along the side of the highway. Both doors were open.

Sometimes she really loved her pain-in-the-ass brother.

They jumped into the car and he pulled onto the highway. She slunk down in the seat and watched the woods to see if anyone had spotted them. She saw two men running toward the fence. Eric drove at a calm pace, glancing at the woods only briefly, his hand still gripping a gun.

“Did they see our car?” he asked.

“I don't think so.” She pressed her face against the glass to look back. One man had jumped over the fence and was looking around, but not at their car. “I think we're okay…Yes, we're okay.” She allowed herself to collapse completely, her head on his thigh. “Thankyou thankyouthankyouthankyou,” she said on one breath.

He tucked the gun beneath his seat and stroked her forehead. “I remote-viewed you. I could see the woods
around the facility. I saw you running. I was already in the area, ready to pick you up. Or bust you out of there.”

She gathered the strength to sit up. “How's Lucas?”

“He woke up last night for a few minutes. Amy said he seemed good.”

“The men at the asylum kept talking about him not being around much longer.”

Eric handed her his cell phone. “Let Amy know you're all right.”

Her fingers were still shaky as she dialed the numbers. Amy answered on the second ring, her voice breathless. “Eric!”

“It's Petra.”

“Thank God! You're with Eric?”

“He got there in the nick of time.” It warmed her to hear Amy's relief at her safety. “How's Lucas?” She so badly needed to hear that he was all right.

“Here, ask him yourself.”

Her heart lifted when she heard his voice. They both said simultaneously, in a rush of relief, “You're all right.”

“Petra, were you running in the woods?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“I saw you.”

“In one of your sketches?”

“No, a flash of you running. In danger. Tell Eric to drive carefully. Get back here safe.”

“We will.” Her voice got soft when she said goodbye. She slumped back in the seat with a sigh.

Eric's fingers tightened on the wheel. “You're going to have to give him up.” At her questioning look, he added, “He's got Amy now.”

“What are you talking about?”

He kept his gaze straight ahead. “I know you're in love with him. I'm just warning you that you're going to have to let that go. He's loved Amy for a long time. And she loves him just as much. Whatever they've got—and I don't understand it—is stronger than that damn bomb shelter.”

“Was I obvious?”

His mouth quirked in a half smile. “I'm intuitive, remember?”

It was strange that he had even noticed, stranger that he'd never mentioned it until now. And strangest yet that he was trying to ease her into the harsh reality that she would never have the only man she'd ever romantically loved. “You don't think he knows? Oh, jeez, I hope he doesn't.”

“I don't think so.”

“Thanks,” she whispered. She rubbed the dirt from her arms, wincing at a red mark. “I knew as soon as Amy joined us that I'd lose him. The truth is, I never had him. All I ever had was hope. Now that's gone.”