’Til the World Ends (25 page)

Chapter Nine

The sun was high in the sky as it approached noon. Cool air poured from the Trooper’s vents, and I angled my head to bathe my neck in pure refreshment.

“Keep your eyes on the road,” Ian said. “Or would you rather I drive?”

Actually, I would. For one thing, it would prove that I trusted him. For another, I was so tired, my eyelids felt weighted with bags of sand. I hadn’t slept today. “The only reason I’m not handing you the reins is because I know where we’re going and you don’t.”

He harrumphed. “Have it your way, but I’m a great driver.”

“I’m sure you are.” I glanced at his bouncing knee, an obvious sign of his anxiety. I wished I knew how to settle him down. Did I dare touch him? I let one hand fall from the wheel and reached over to pat his arm. I didn’t tell him not to worry. He had every right to do so. I just wanted him to know I had his back.

He turned his head slightly to peer at me from the corner of his eye. Without speaking, his hand gently covered mine, his warmth seeping into me and making
me
feel safe rather than the other way around. Maybe it was mutual. At any rate, I didn’t experience the overwhelming charge between us that had happened before. Heightened emotions must trigger the surge. Good to know.

The highway snaked through the foothills that had once been lush with majestic pine trees and myriad wildlife. Now it was a blackened thicket of destruction.

I hadn’t been to Black Hawk since before the storms, so I remembered it as a popular mountain community with several gambling casinos and historical attractions like a steam locomotive and museums. Tourists used to love the old mining town where they could pan the creek for gold. But now there was no creek, and not much of a town to speak of. Just empty streets with gutted buildings and old signs that didn’t mean anything anymore.

I searched for the sculpture of the giant black hawk where I’d told Nichol to meet us, but it was no longer there. I stopped on the bridge connecting the highway to the road leading into town. “I wonder what happened to it,” I said.

Ian got out of the SUV and peered over the railing. Turning to look at me, he said, “It flew off its perch.” He pointed down at the dry creek bed. “It’s down there.”

Flown? More like hurled. Seeing the gaping cracks in the pavement, I guessed one or more earthquakes had sent the fourteen-foot iron hawk over the edge. The location where we had agreed to meet remained the same, so even without a hawk, Nichol would have no trouble finding us.

I parked the Trooper and gathered the few props we’d need to put on our show. Ian had found a comfortable spot to pose for our ruse in the shade of a demolished building. He’d put himself far enough from the road that Nichol would have to walk a hundred feet or more from wherever he parked. That would draw him out into the open.

We’d arrived early so that we could set up. I unwound a length of rope and began tying Ian’s ankles.

“Do you have to?” he asked, sounding annoyed, and I didn’t blame him.

“Yes, but I’ll keep it loose. You can easily kick free.” The plan was for Nichol to think Ian was incapacitated; an easy capture. When the storm started, he’d panic and agree to anything we asked if we promised to save him from exposure. Ian would trap him in a cyclone until the sparks passed, then we’d tie him up and take him with us to the base in Cheyenne Mountain. I’d threaten to throw him under the sparks of the next storm if he gave us any trouble.

I wrapped duct tape around Ian’s wrists, but left a large gap that Nichol wouldn’t see. The bond was so flimsy a toddler could have broken free. Even so, I could tell the sweat beading on Ian’s forehead wasn’t just from the heat. “You can do this,” I told him.

“Never said I couldn’t.” He glared up at me, then leaned his head back against the broken slab of concrete holding up what was left of the building.

I’d grabbed a syringe from the hospital’s drug supply and planned to jab our captive with a strong sedative once we caught him. I was just filling it up when I spotted a black SUV. It was shiny with solar wafers that covered its hood, trunk and roof, and it rolled slowly over the bridge before stopping behind the Trooper.

Every nerve in my body snapped to attention as adrenaline pumped through me faster than I could blink. Nichol finally emerged from the car and stood at the edge of the bridge wearing a slick black raincoat, a driver’s cap made from the same shiny material and glasses with moderately tinted lenses. “It’s so hard to find a good parking place these days.” Flashing a grin, he added, “Where’d you get the solar mobile?”

Getting chummy to soften me up would never work. “None of your business.”

“Is that any way to talk to your new ‘friend’?” he asked, faking disappointment.

I tossed a quick look at the sky and clapped my hands. “Chop-chop, Nichol. I don’t have all day. Give me the money, and you can take your prize.”

He frowned. “A girl of so few words. I like your style, uh...You never told me your name.”

“Sarah.” I didn’t see the harm in telling him. “Sarah Daggot.”

His eyes squinted in thought. “Now I recognize the rig. Your dad is George Daggot, right? The storm chaser?”

I swallowed. How the hell would he know who my dad was? “Okay, time’s up. My prisoner and I are leaving.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. My solar car is modeled after your dad’s design. That jalopy there,” he said, sweeping his hand at my Trooper, “is the original prototype?”

“Going once,” I said, edging over to Ian and crouching down as if to drag him to his feet. “Going twice—”

“You young people have no patience.” He trudged down the hill toward us.

When he got halfway, I said, “Stop right there. You have the money?” I flicked a glance at the sky and saw brilliant red glitter floating slowly toward us. Just another minute or two. “Let me see it.”

“Or what?”

I showed him the syringe. “Or I kill him.”

“You’re one cold bitch.” He tossed an envelope on the ground at my feet. “How do I know he’s not already dead?”

I nudged Ian with my foot, and he groaned. “See? He’s not dead. Not yet, anyway.” I picked up the envelope and thumbed through the bills. Wow. Money could still buy a lot of stuff, like food and medicine. Lodgepole would put this to good use.

Nichol glared at Ian. “You have him trussed up a bit tight, don’t you think?”

“Had to,” I said. “He’s a Kinetic with the power to make weather. I can’t be careful enough.”

He frowned at me. “You keep checking the sky. What do you see up there, huh? I haven’t seen a wild bird in—” Nichol shot a look above him and bent backward to look higher. His hat fell to the ground, unveiling his shiny, hairless scalp. “Holy shit! Sparks!” He twisted around and ran for his vehicle.

Ian whipped his hands free of the tape, and they became a blur of motion as he made circles in the air. A gust of wind spun a dust cloud tight around Nichol’s ankles, holding him in place. The sparks were closing in.

Nichol couldn’t break out of the cyclone that spun around him the way cotton candy twists around a paper cone. His eyes widened as he stared at me. “You planned this. You’re a Kinetic like him.”

“Not quite like him, but the sparks can’t hurt me.”

“You knew when and where this storm would hit. That makes you...” He laughed. The crazy bastard laughed while lethal radiation was about to sprinkle down on his head. “You’re the one. The two of you together, that’s what’s supposed to do it.”

I was dying to ask
do what?
but the sparks were dangerously close to him now. “Ian, close up the cyclone. We got his attention.”

“Do you think so?” Ian asked. “I’m not so sure. He doesn’t look compliant to me. Are you compliant, Agent Nichol?”

Nichol smirked and stood perfectly relaxed, as if his life didn’t teeter on the brink.

“Ian, seriously. We didn’t come here to murder the man.” I stared hard at Ian, whose expression held rigid determination. “Ian? Don’t do it.”

“Why not? This asshole treated me lower than dirt. He abused me. Give me one good reason not to let the sparks have him.”

“That’s not up to you,” I said, hoping my words sank in. I understood Ian’s desire for revenge, but I hadn’t believed he would act on it. If he killed the agent, Ian would be signing his own death warrant.

Ian’s shoulders heaved with a sigh, and he nodded. The cyclone, thick with spinning dirt and small rocks, grew taller around Nichol, and was now up to his waist. Once it encircled him from head to toe, the sparks couldn’t touch him.

Nichol’s raincoat flashed open, and his hand dove into an inside pocket. He yanked out a square pistol and pointed it at Ian. Then fired.

The bullet hit Ian square in the chest. The cyclone evaporated in an instant. I screamed and ran to Ian, ignoring the fleeing agent, but Nichol’s shouts jerked my focus back to him. He’d hardly taken two steps when a blanket of red sun sparks coated his body.

Agent Sam Nichol rolled on the ground as if trying to rub off the miniscule sparks that glommed onto him like fleas on a dog. His thrashing didn’t last long. Within seconds, the storm ended, and the remaining sparks vanished into the ground. He lay unconscious.

The electric bullet stuck to Ian’s chest like a wasp with an embedded stinger. It pumped him with current, and the voltage twisted his muscles, forcing him to convulse. I yanked the bullet free and tossed it away as far as I could.

“Dead?” Ian asked, the word like a harsh whisper.

“You? No. Nichol? Not yet, but he will be in a matter of days.” How could our plan have gone so wrong? As much as I disliked Nichol, I didn’t want him dead. It was apparent, however, that Ian did. “Were you
trying
to kill him?”

“No,” Ian said, but his denial sounded fuzzy around the edges. “I was mad enough to kill him, but I’ve never taken a life and don’t intend to start with a bottom-feeder like Nichol.”

We locked eyes, and I saw the truth there, and the regret. “Why did you wait so long to close the cyclone?”

“I wanted him to feel as helpless and trapped as I was when he used me as his personal weather-maker.”

“But he never tried to kill you, did he?” I asked.

“He needed me alive, but there were times I’d wished I was dead.” He stood over Nichol and stared down at the unconscious man. A purple-veined rash covered Nichol’s face and scalp. “He drugged me, starved me, even withheld water when I didn’t do what I was told. He’s a monster.”

I gazed down at the sick agent, whose exposure was acute. He wouldn’t last a week. “We have to take him with us.”

Ian jutted out his chin and clenched his jaw. I knew bringing the agent along was the last thing he wanted, but we couldn’t leave the man here in the middle of nowhere. He was a dead man walking, but it would be inhumane to make him suffer any more than he had to.

Ian rubbed his chest. “That bullet was set to kill,” he said. “If you hadn’t yanked it out when you did, it would have juiced me with enough current to stop my heart.”

So I guessed Nichol hadn’t wanted Ian as badly as we thought he had. Or, more likely, the shooting had been a desperate act of last resort. If Nichol couldn’t have him, no one would.

“We’ll take him to the hospital,” I said. “The staff there will make him comfortable as possible until he slips into a coma.”

Ian eyed the black solar car. “That’s mine now.”

“As it should be.” After what Nichol had put him through, Ian deserved compensation. “We’ll sedate him and tie his hands, just in case. Irrational behavior often comes with the fever, and from what you told me, he’s crazy enough as it is.”

“What happens to us once he’s taken care of?” Ian asked.

“We head south to Colorado Springs.” We might as well join our fellow Kinetics and get the answer to what Nichol was babbling about.
You’re the one. The two of you together, that’s what’s supposed to do it.
The one to do what? I really wanted to know.

I followed Ian back to Lodgepole and tried not to worry about him driving off to parts unknown, then dumping the agent in a ditch along the way. We hadn’t known each other long, and he’d deceived me once, but since then he’d proven to be a man of his word. He wouldn’t try to trick me again. In an odd sort of way, Ian and I were partners.

He pulled the agent’s solar car into the hospital’s emergency entrance and parked it there while he went inside for a wheelchair and to alert staff of their new patient. While he did that, I checked on Nichol, who was now semiconscious.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, knowing full well he felt like shit. He was at stage one of the illness, his fever only starting, and the rash must have been itching like crazy. But he didn’t scratch. He grimaced as if he wanted to, but some apparent deep-seated determination helped him resist the urge. His tolerance was impressive.

“Not good,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Thanks to you.”

I shook my head. “If you’d stood down, we could have protected you from the sparks.”

Eyes narrowed with suspicion, he said, “Matthews wants me dead.”

“Can you blame him?’

Nichol glared at me.

I started to walk away, but he reached out to grab my arm, his fingers pinching me hard enough to bruise. “It’s been scrubbed.”

“What’s been scrubbed?” He was talking nonsense now, a symptom of the disease. I peeled his fingers off and shoved his hand away.

“Kinetic program. Hundreds of them.” He paused to take a breath. “Need only a weather Kinetic. And a storm forecaster. Stop the storms.”

He was making no sense. “What do you mean
stop
the storms?”

A medical technician came out to help Nichol into a wheelchair.

Completely bewildered, I followed behind the tech as he wheeled Nichol into the hospital. “Agent Nichol, I don’t understand. Are you talking about the base in Cheyenne Mountain? The plan for the Kinetics there?”

He was weak and had trouble holding his head up, but he managed to look at me sideways. He smiled. “If they only knew. About you.”

I wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t as if there was any kind of mass media anymore. I was tabloid news, and the tabloids had been extinct for some time. A freak in a dying world wasn’t much of a
real
news headline. “Then maybe I should tell them.”