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“He’s fine. He’s tied up in the trunk,” Patrick said. “I need to buy you clothes. ”
“Car?”
“Stolen from a campsite,” he said. “Nobody there. Some hikers are going to have a bad day. Bryn—”
“Am okay,” she said, and attempted a smile. It must not have been convincing. “Drive. ”
He nodded. “We need to get the fuck out of here and someplace safe. ”
She had no idea where that would be, now. They were far from Manny’s bunker. They’d lost their allies. They’d even lost Thorpe, ripped apart in an instant. Reynolds was all they had, and Jane was not going to let them have him. Not without one hell of a fight.
It didn’t look good.
Luckily, she was too exhausted to fully enjoy the landscape of how much their situation sucked.
She left it to Patrick to fully consider it, and fell back into a deep, dreamless rest, broken by flashes of pain, fire, and blood.
What had she done, there in the water?
She could only remember it in nightmares, after.
Chapter 16
They bought her clothing at an ancient camping stop up in the mountains; she’d managed to tell him to head north, and that took them farther into the wilderness. The clothes weren’t exactly stylish, but they were tough—granny panties and sports bras, flannel shirts and thick khaki pants. Her boots had survived, somehow, though she traded out for fresh socks that hadn’t been through a day of exertion and a dunking in the river.
Her skin looked pink now, more like a sunburn. It hurt all over but at least it was intact. The hair, on the other hand, was an unmitigated disaster.
It looked like someone had taken a blowtorch to her head. Some of it was completely gone, down to the pink, unnaturally healing scalp; some of it was still there, but charred. She asked Patrick for a razor and, using the bathroom’s sink and soap, hacked off what remained, then gave herself a smooth shave.
The result was appalling, but she topped it with a 1950s-era scarf Patrick had bought, and a big pair of sunglasses. Retro chic. The hair would grow back, but not quickly; she had to be prepared to rock the bald look for at least a few days, and then a super-short cut after that, for weeks most likely. Hair was something that didn’t regenerate so fast. Nonessential, according to the nanite programming.
Well, she thought, I’d wanted to change my look. That made her want to laugh, in a dark kind of way. She somehow choked it back, just barely.
Then it was Patrick’s turn. He’d escaped direct contact with the flames, but his clothing was saturated with smoke, and that definitely wouldn’t do; if it came to stealth, the smell of him would announce his presence far too well. He shopped the men’s aisle, and when he was changed he could have posed for an L. L. Bean catalog photo, except for the scabbed wound on his head up close to the hairline, and the bruises. They were turning sickly yellow now, but she had no doubt he had a lot more under the clothing. Fresh ones. New wounds.
“Feeling okay?” he asked her, and took a moment to really look at her. She nodded slowly. She did, and she knew it was because—because of what she’d done. A thing she couldn’t even look closely into, for fear of what she’d see looking back. Water and blood. Thrashing. Food.
“We need to get back on the road,” Bryn said. “Did you get camping gear?”
“We’re set,” he said. “I’ll pay. You go on to the car. He didn’t see you. ”
He meaning the proprietor, an ancient man who had decorated his store in American flags and signs. There was a sticker on the door for the John Birch Society, and a Tea Party symbol, and she had the distinct impression that the crusty old man wouldn’t give information about anybody who shopped here to anyone he perceived as government.
Bad luck for Jane, since she was going to look like his worst black helicopter nightmares come to life. If she managed to trace them this far, Bryn doubted that it would get her too much.
Once Patrick was in the car, they headed up a winding mountain road, and he took a turn to the east, veering off.
“Where are we going?” she asked him. She was in
the front passenger seat now.
“Someplace you won’t like much,” Patrick said, “but I’ve got a cover there, from way back. Just play along with me, whatever I do. It’s our best possible chance to make this work and get resupplied. ”
“Is it worse than a Russian spy station?”
“It isn’t better. ”
Lovely. She sighed, relaxed, and looked out the window. At least she was fairly certain Jane would be furious over the way things had gone; she’d brought her A game, had set a very good trap, and still, they’d managed to wiggle out of it (not without leaving skin behind) and taken the bait with them, to add insult to injury. “I hate to say it, but you know what? Stabbing your ex felt really good, Pat. ”
