Children of Evolution (The Gateway Series Book 2) (43 page)

She shouldered her bag and headed for the second bedroom. Turned out it wasn't hard to find. She stepped through the darkened doorway into a short hall with the bedroom at one end and the kitchen at the other, just like Sam had said. She was confident the two doors in between were pantry and bathroom, also just like Sam had said. She walked to the dark bedroom, and after a minute of fumbling, two curses, and a crash, she managed to switch on a lamp.

The furniture in the bedroom definitely belonged in the same family as the rest—polished logs, blankets that looked handmade, dream catcher hanging over the bed—but with a kid's touch. A lacrosse stick hung on the wall by the closet door next to a couple of posters for bands Nikki didn't recognize but liked the looks of.
 

She'd always wanted to try lacrosse. It looked like her kind of sport. In the free zones, finding games that required so much equipment was next to impossible. Soccer and football were the easy ones to get into. Football was too stop-and-start though. Too much resetting and plan-making for Nikki's taste. Soccer though, that was her speed—all out, free-flowing, made for people with stamina, speed, and the ability to act and react on the fly. She excelled at it, just like she imagined she would at lacrosse. Same idea as soccer, but with sticks. How could it not be fun?

She dropped her bag on the bed and knelt to examine the thing she'd knocked off the dresser. Getting closer didn't help her identify what it was. It looked like a kid's sculpture of a dog, or a deer—something four-legged, anyway—made out of horn or bone of some kind. It was also broken. The fall had cost it a leg.
 

Nikki carefully picked up both pieces and stood. She turned the pieces this way and that, trying to see if there was a trick to fitting the pieces together with the tiny metal posts, or if it was just a jam-and-hope job. Up close, the thing was a little unsettling. The tapering cone shape of the horn gave the head and the limbs a sharp, pointed look that reminded Nikki of the creatures hunting her.
 

What the hell was this place?

"That's Charlie," Sam said from the doorway.
 

Nikki looked up with a start. She hadn't heard him approach.

"What?"

Sam's gaze stayed on the…Charlie. "It was supposed to be a deer." He looked up at her and shrugged. "I was nine."

"You were—" Nikki closed her mouth. She studied Charlie for another few seconds then took a more careful look around the room, the other pieces of the puzzle clicking into place. Sam hadn't scouted at super speed in the dark. He'd known the layout already.

"This is your place."

Sam nodded. "My grandfather's, but when he passed, he left it to me. I grew up here, for the most part."
 

He looked around the room, his expression more at ease than she was used to seeing. "I stay here when I'm not at the base."

Nikki looked back at the broken sculpture, trying to blend this place into her picture of Sam. It was a little much for her tired brain. "Sorry about your… Why Charlie?"

He laughed softly. "My grandfather started teaching me about his people the first day I came to live here," Sam said. "Medicine, the power of names, honoring every kill—but I was a kid. An angry, hurt kid. I didn't take it seriously for a long time."

Nikki nodded and held up the creepy sculpture. "Gotcha. Charlie."

Sam nodded. "Charlie."

They looked at each other for a minute without saying anything, then Sam held out his hand. A tiny over-the-ear com unit rested on his palm, the pricey kind the team used on special missions.

"What did you name that one?" she asked.

He smiled again and even gave one of his silent laughs before he nodded for her to take it. "Elias wants you to keep this with you at all times while we're here."

"Really?"

"Really," Sam replied. "Major's orders."

"Great," she grumbled. She set the broken sculpture back on the dresser and took the com. She studied it for a minute, rolling it around on her hand. It was actually pretty slick, and the fact that she'd been issued real gear for this "op" made her feel like part of the team—a real part of the team. But no need to tell them that.

"Is it weird that I'm sleeping in your bed?" she asked instead, surprising both of them. Her heart double-stepped, her eyes widening as she realized how that sounded. She was way too tired. And way too citified now if she thought of beds as private possessions. She'd slept in shared beds her whole life.
 

She couldn't think of anything to say for a minute.
 

Sam did a better job of recovering. "Should be comfortable enough. And the bedding is fresh. A family in town looks after the place. I let them know I was coming."

Nikki ducked her head and flopped onto the bed to test it out, not to cover an unfamiliar blush. Not at all. The bed was pretty nice. Maybe a little soft compared to what she was used to, but her body wasn't complaining. Already her eyes were trying to drift closed.
 

"Get some rest," Sam said. He clicked off the lamp. At least she assumed that's what the click was. She didn't open her eyes to check.

"You're safe here, Nikki," he said a few seconds later, his voice sounding farther away. "I have the watch."
 

That felt nice. She mumbled a response and rolled over to nestle deeper into the pillow. The bed smelled like Sam. The whole room did. Or maybe he smelled like it. Maybe this was where he got the smell that was him. Sweet pine, leather, dried herbs, a memory of wood smoke and warmth.

She could get used to this place.

Nikki

Nikki slept through the first few beeps. She was sleeping hard, so hard she wasn't even dreaming. Hard enough to ignore the million little sounds the cabin seemed to make throughout the night. Hard enough to block out any short-lived noise.

The beeping kept going though. Over and over. Like it was testing her.
 

She tried convincing herself it was a bird or a cricket, but if that was the case, it was the dumbest, most repetitive creature that ever lived. It had to be man-made. Only a man could be that annoying.

She opened her eyes just enough to see the earpiece flashing on the nightstand.
 

"Seriously?" she groaned, closing her eyes. The cabin wasn't that big. "Can't Elias just walk in and say what he wants?" Or better yet, not?

The beeping didn't answer her, nor did it stop.

She fumbled for the com with one eye half open. Morning light glowed around the edges of the curtain covering Sam's single small window, but not enough to warrant the pain it was causing. Squeezing her eyes shut, she opted for a blind search instead of a painful one. She finally found the com and dragged her hand back to her head, eyes still firmly closed. As soon as she got the tiny loop over her ear, a cheery voice greeted her.

"About time, kiddo," Ace said. "I was beginning to think you were comatose."

Well, maybe not cheery. Nikki blinked her eyes open slowly. Ace? She tried again, out loud this time.

"Good morning to you too," Ace replied. She sounded like she was enjoying herself. That made one of them.

"What time is it?"

"Past time for you to be on the trail," Ace answered.

Nikki couldn't settle on the right words to respond to that. Too many choice options were swirling about.

"I know what you're thinking," Ace said, proving she didn't by continuing to talk. "You're thinking you wore yourself out last night—"

She was right so far.

"You're thinking you barely got any sleep—"

On a roll.

"You're thinking only a fool would jump right back in—"

Nikki was thinking more along the lines of masochist, but Ace's word worked too.

"Well, kiddo, today you are that fool."

"I don't like you," Nikki said.
 

Ace laughed, her voice rich and rolling. How could she sound so positive and energetic after what they'd been through just a few hours ago? The woman was a machine.

"Out of bed, Nikki," Ace commanded, even though Nikki could tell by her voice she was still smiling. "Unless you're giving up. Fine if you are, but I didn't take you for a quitter."

Like that was going to work. How naive did she think Nikki was?
 

After a nice long stretch of silence, Nikki climbed out of the bed to get dressed. Not because of Ace. Just…because.
 

She opened her pack and pulled out the tight, moisture-wicking long-sleeved top and shorts Ace had picked up for her. Then she dug through her pack for the new shoes at the bottom, under her worn pink sneakers, of course. She didn't want any trail gunk she might have gotten on the new kicks dirtying up her babies.

Once she was laced up and as ready as she was going to be, Nikki swung open the creaky door and stepped out into the hall. From the kitchen at the other end, Sam looked up from a tablet on the table in front of him. He put a finger to his lips and cut his eyes toward the big living room through the door halfway down the hall between them.

Sure, she could be quiet. Wouldn't want to wake up somebody who'd been up all night traveling. That would be a dick move.

"Everything OK, kiddo?" Ace asked.

"Give me a minute," Nikki whispered. "Sam's worried about somebody's beauty sleep."

Sam gave her a questioning look as she crossed the hall and stepped into the kitchen. Then his eyes cut to her ear and he nodded with that knowing smile of his.

Nikki shrugged and made a face.
 

Sam slid the cup in front of him toward Nikki with two fingers. It was half full of coffee. She took the cup with a mouthed "thank you" and downed the lukewarm liquid in two gulps.

"Take your time, kiddo," Ace said. "It's not like I'm just sitting around waiting on you."

Nikki made another face as she returned the cup to Sam and stepped past him toward the back door. "Keep your pants on," she whispered. "I'm going."

The morning air was cold enough to cause an involuntary grunt Nikki failed to stop as she eased the kitchen door shut behind her. The sound she heard through the com might have been a chuckle, but Ace didn't say anything. Wise of her.

"I'm seeing seven degrees C where you are, kiddo," Ace said. "So you should be waking up nicely."

Nikki responded with another grunt. She wasn't about to complain though. She could be a machine too.
 

"OK," Ace said. "Let's get some heat in those muscles."
 

"Sweet," Nikki said. "You mean hot coffee and food, right?"

"I mean running. Get to it," Ace commanded. "The map Padre left me shows two trails into the woods off the back porch. Take the left one."

"What if I told you I just drank coffee?" Nikki tried. "It's bad for me to run after that, right? I'm sure I heard that somewhere."

Ace didn't miss a beat. "Actually, no. The caffeine will help you push harder than usual. You'll get a little more out of this workout. Good to know. I'll adjust the plan accordingly."

Nikki had no response to that. She really was starting to dislike Ace.

"Did that work out the way you thought it would?" Ace asked.

"What do you think?"

"Didn't think so," Ace said. "Now run."

"I am," Nikki lied, the obvious solution to this problem finally popping into her head. She filled the ensuing silence with some fake labored breathing to really sell it.

"You know, Kate's really good at what she does, kiddo," Ace said, her tone telling Nikki just how bad her performance had been. "Your com sends me your pulse rate, among other things. Then there's the GPS."

Oh.

"You want to try anything else?"

"Fine, I'm going," Nikki said, breaking into a jog.

Ace didn't let the jog last long. True to her word, she worked Nikki hard, but not all that much harder than usual. In fact, when Ace called a break to stretch, Nikki wasn't breathing as heavily as she should have been. Either Ace was showing a little mercy or this exercise nonsense was paying off. It looked like she was getting some of her stamina back.

From the ridge lookout where she stopped, Nikki had an impressive view of a wide forested valley and a clear blue body of water glimmering in the distance. Sam's granddad sure had picked an idyllic spot for his cabin, if an uninhabited one. Nikki hadn't seen the first sign of life on her run, not the human kind at least.

As soon as that thought passed, movement caught her eye in the valley, a dark form streaking across the open field on the valley floor. Nikki's breath caught, but logic quickly reined in her imagination. The pale spot on top of the form, the way it moved, the unbelievable speed it was reaching—it was Impact. Had to be.
 

"You all right?" Ace asked.
 

Nikki nodded, then remembered to speak. She laughed at herself, wondering how many times she'd forgotten to respond out loud this morning. Having a com was going to take some getting used to. "Fine. Just got spooked by a streaking bald guy."

"Aha," Ace said. "Impact is hard at it already, is he?" She didn't sound any more pleased than she did surprised. In fact, she sounded concerned.

Nikki stood, giving up on the stretching, and watched Impact race toward the lake. She'd noticed his obsession, but she'd been so wrapped up in her own issues she hadn't stopped to consider the reason behind it. She hadn't considered how much his fight with Savior had affected Impact, how much it must have messed with his head.

"Way to be a self-absorbed dick, again," she mumbled to herself.

"Excuse me?"

"Me, not you," Nikki clarified.
 

"Right," Ace said. "So we're sure you're not crazy?"

"We're sure I'm about to smash this com," Nikki retorted, but she did so around a smile.

Ace laughed. "Tell you what, kiddo. You beat Impact back to the cabin and I'll go easy on you tomorrow."

Nikki smiled as she lost sight of Impact in the distance. "Done."

"Done," Ace said, sounding pleased with herself.