Nightfall (3 page)

Mason closed his eyes briefly. No choice. She wasn't far from the truth.

He glanced down, realizing he dwarfed her just like that massive chair. “Look at me, Jenna. If I wanted to hurt you, I could've done it already. Can you admit that too?”

“That doesn't mean you won't.”

Easing the pressure from those slender wrists, Mason lowered their arms and tugged her away from the wall. She stumbled and steadied herself with a palm against his chest. Her nostrils flared, animal-like. Full lips the color of a ripe peach fell open.

He quickly unzipped her down coat and stripped it off. Like a soldier sizing up the enemy, he took in her athletic build, the swell of her breasts beneath a thin T-shirt, and jeans that fit like a glove.

“Now you have no coat either. Sit here,” he said, pushing her shoulders until she sat on a bench at the kitchen table. He ran his palms over the thistle of his cropped hair, scrubbing the tension from his scalp, and sat across from her. “Go ahead, if you want. Ask.”

“Ask what? I don't even know where to start.”

“Ask me if I intend to hurt you.”

Her clear eyes turned cloudy. She glanced at the open window. Her shoulder muscles tensed, as if preparing for flight. But she swallowed. The fear faded. She appraised him with a coolness that reminded him of her father—curious but detached, two steps removed from this world. Late in life, Mitch had possessed a shaman's eyes, and he had carried that weight in bowed shoulders. His glimpses of what was to come had nearly broken him.

“Fine,” she said, tight and clipped. “Do you plan to hurt me?”

“ No.”

“Good. Can I go now?”

“ No.”

“Why not?”

“It's not safe out there.”

Eyebrows two shades darker than her blond ponytail pulled into a frown. “Probably because someone disabled my car and took my coat.”

“We're safer here.”

“From what, kidnapping psychos?”

“No, you already have one of those,” he said with a tight grin.

Her lips quirked. She slanted her gaze to the floor.

Mason wasn't used to sitting, no matter her obvious need for something as normal as conversation. It dug under his skin. So he gave up on stillness. After removing the magazine from his rifle and stashing it in his pants pocket, he walked to the toolbox beneath the window.

Jenna gasped. He spun, looking for what had surprised her. But nothing in the cabin had changed. Instead she stared at the sixteenpound hammer in his hands.

His exhalation sounded more tired than he wanted to admit. “Relax. I'm just going to fix the window. And then dinner.” He pulled the window shut, speaking past the two galvanized nails clutched between his teeth. “You're hungry, right?”

“I can't eat nails,” she muttered.

She crossed bare arms around her middle, which pushed her breasts front and center. Suddenly Mason had no taste for food, especially not a winter's worth of generic canned goods. Jenna's body, both lush and tight, would be feast enough for any man. He hadn't indulged in sex for months, and she made him all too aware of that fact. An unwelcome distraction.

He pounded the nail with two sharp strikes and replaced the tar paper. “I had tuna in mind,” he said at last. “We have lots of tuna.”

So he wasn't the raving brand of crazy. Good to know.

Huddled in her chair, Jenna watched him put together a rudimentary tuna casserole. He hadn't added enough water to the cream of mushroom soup, so it would turn out gluey, but he probably wasn't the kind to take criticism well. Not that it mattered. She wasn't going to stick around long enough to eat.

He'd said she could ask questions. Time to test that.

“Where are we?” Location would shape her escape plans. Too long of a walk would be impossible without survival gear.

Jenna didn't expect him to answer. Honestly, it would be stupid if he meant to keep her.

“North of Culver,” he said readily. “Several hours, halfway to the Washington state line.”

She tried to bring up a mental map of Oregon, but either her geography was lacking, or she was too shaken to concentrate. “What do you want with me?”

Mason glanced up from the casserole dish. “Me personally? Nothing. I'm just keeping a promise, like I said.”

At the second reference to her father, Jenna's heart sank.
Christ, Mitch ... what've you done?

Now she knew what flavor of crazy he favored: the same as her dad. Before he'd died, Mitch Barclay kept a basement full of old newspaper clippings—prognostications of some cataclysmic event. When Jenna was nine, he'd joined some group chock-full of crackpots and conspiracy theorists. They'd obsessed over portents and signs, discussed magic theory, and tried to talk to spirits. For obvious reasons, they took the troubles in the east as proof of their convictions. But that was years ago. Since the calamity hadn't yet pushed west, the New U.S. government insisted it had run its course.

Mitch had preached the coming of a bleak age of destructive magic. If he had lived in a city instead of a compound in the woods, he would be the crazy guy on the corner, holding a hand-lettered THE END IS NIGH sign. Even until recently, his followers would turn up at the house from time to time, generally content with a bowl of soup. None had ever stuffed her in a trunk.

“Here,” Mason said, digging into a pocket of his jacket. “He left this for you.”

Jenna eyed the trifolded paper. A letter from Mitch from beyond the grave. As if she needed more reasons to freak out.

But strangely enough, she needed
something
familiar, even if it was just Mitch being himself. She snatched the letter and retreated to a corner by the fireplace.

Jenna wiped at her eyes, fighting to keep from crying out of sheer anger. How dare he? After all these years. Forget Mitch. Forget dire portents and doom. She'd heard that same song since she was a toddler. What she really needed was to get the hell out of this cabin and back to town.

“Have you read it?” she asked her captor.

He seemed offended by the possibility. “No, but I have a good guess about what's in it.”

Jenna kept her face and voice neutral. “What do you think's going to happen in Culver?”

“You might need to see it for yourself.”

“Try me.” She worked on making her expression inviting when she really wanted to scream and keep screaming until somebody came to help. But like every other time in her life, she knew that wasn't going to happen. She'd have to save herself.

“I know you have a cell phone in your pocket,” he said.

Jenna froze, wondering why he hadn't taken it away. With Mason out sabotaging her car, she had dialed but found no signal. She'd cursed the thickness of the woods and the remote area. Still, she might get a bar somewhere. Then the New U.S. Rangers could go all Big Brother on her ass. Sometimes it was
good
when people could find you.

Her voice quavered—and she hated that weakness—as she asked, “Do you want it?”

He shook his head. “It won't do you any good.”

Relief swamped her. Maybe he didn't know the area as well as he thought. If she went up one of those trees, she might get enough altitude for a signal.

“And why is that?” she asked.

Mason put the finishing touches on the casserole and popped it into the wood-burning stove—an incongruous scene because he still wore the camouflage jacket. He'd taken off the knit cap. His dark, skull-cut hair accentuated the hard lines of his face and thick muscles along his neck and shoulders. Not the kind of guy Jenna would imagine in a kitchen. Ever. Between the warmth and the smell of food, the cabin had gained an unsettlingly cozy air. But she didn't want to be snug and toasty here with him; she wanted to go home.

“By now, all cell signals have gone down,” he said, his eyes grave and dark like a night unbroken by the moon. “Even here.”

Jenna shrugged. “Big deal. They already failed once, remember? And then the new government built new towers.”

“That was just a portent, not the real deal.” Then he went on as if she hadn't interrupted. “Television stations will fail next. Only old analog radios will play, and most likely, by this time next week, we'll be blanketed in complete radio silence as well ... because there won't be people to man the controls. You wouldn't believe what it's like out east right now.”

That sounded like more of her dad's paranoid apocalypse fantasies, but hearing it from Mason frightened her more than Mitch's most vehement rants. The New Media Coalition chose not to cover events beyond their borders, preaching self-sufficiency and isolationism.

“How do you know what happens there?”

Mason didn't reply. Probably he had nothing true to say.

A shiver rolled through her. They were so secluded out here. Jenna almost believed they could be the last people on earth. Doubtless that was how he wanted her to feel, helpless and dependent on him for her survival. He wouldn't break her with cruelty. Instead he used ominous whispers.

Jenna extrapolated one significant fact from his doom-and-gloom prediction. “So, you don't care if I call my friend and let her know I won't be joining her for drinks?”

The sudden warmth of his smile struck her like a fist in the solar plexus. “Not at all.”

Still, she wouldn't let the opportunity go to waste. She dug her cell out of her pocket and dialed. Nothing. Weirder than that, the phone read “network failure” instead of “out of network” or “no signal.” Alarm rose up in her throat, threatening to choke her.

Jenna kept an eye on him as she slipped from her chair and moved around the cabin, but no change in location fixed the signal. She shook it, while Mason watched her with an inscrutable look. The display shimmered and went black—even though she'd just charged the thing. She mashed buttons, trying to get the menu back, but the phone became an inert piece of carbon in her palm.

“Digital electronics won't work anymore,” he told her. “Already your car won't start. The computer circuitry won't survive this, so it's useless. I'm sorry.”

“You must've done something to my phone.” Her voice shook.

Mason's brows rose in gentle derision. “While it was in your pocket in the trunk? Or while you were in the cabin alone?”

“Maybe you have some kind of damping device in here.”

“Feel free to look around.” His amused expression said she was the loony one.

Clenching her hands into fists, she fought the urge to go shrill. She needed to keep a level head. Antagonizing him would only get her hurt.

Jenna took several deep breaths until she could control her tone. “I don't know
how
, but you're doing something.”

“I'm baking a tuna casserole.” For the first time, he sounded tired. “I don't have anything to do with the rest. I'm just trying to weather it.”

“What's causing this?”

At that, he propped his elbows on the counter. “What's the point? The government has filled your head with promises they can't keep.”

“Indulge me.”

“You don't have to understand why someone stabbed you to die from it. All I know is what I've seen working with Mitch. And judging from what's out there now, the change will be dangerous and chaotic, and it'll cull the hell out of the human populace.”

“Oh?” She tried to look encouraging. Maybe he'd elaborate. With a beginning like that, the rest was bound to be entertaining.

“I'm sure Mitch tried to explain in his letter. There's nothing more I can add. I'm not a prophecy guy.”