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She never, ever wanted to hurt him, but she knew . . . she knew that she would. Eventually. Just like Jane. She could remember that cold, detached feeling inside her—the sense that she was standing apart from the world, from people. That none of it really meant anything.
That detachment wasn’t distance, it was sociopathy, and she was slowly, surely contracting it. What would happen when she couldn’t connect anymore? When Patrick’s feelings didn’t matter? When even the trusting sweetness of Mr. French no longer had any impact? It would mean the end of her as a person. Worse, it would be the beginning of her as a monster. She already ate flesh, when desperate. If she tipped over the edge, lost everything that had ever mattered . . . then hunger would be all that was left. Not Bryn.
He didn’t understand that being that . . . being so empty . . . would be worse than dying.
Fine. She couldn’t ask Patrick to do it, then, but Manny wouldn’t hesitate. He was ruthless enough, and he’d understand why she asked. He’d seen all this as an abomination from the beginning—a great scientific achievement, but nonetheless, something to be feared, not praised. Pansy might object, but in the end . . . in the end, she’d understand, too. Even Joe would.
Not Annie, though. Even now, not her sister.
Bryn closed her eyes against a sudden shudder of turbulence, and concentrated on the gentle, warm weight of Mr. French in her lap until she drifted off to sleep.
She woke up with the extremely sharp-edged alertness that comes with too many crises, and found, to her shock, that what she’d felt was the plane touching down on the icy runway.
They’d made it to Barrow.
And now she had to find Thorpe’s mysterious scientist and grab that last sample of the cure . . . before Jane got it first.
Chapter 22
A public access computer terminal in the airport’s private lounge turned up a Kiera Johannsen’s blog. She had about fifty followers, and she generally talked about dense science that Bryn didn’t even attempt to follow. The photo on the blog showed a fortysomething woman with close-cropped red hair and a ready smile; she had the tan of someone who enjoyed the outdoors, and a hiker’s lean build. Not pretty, but she had an attractive strength in her face. Compelling, Bryn thought.
She didn’t look like someone who’d give up without a fight.
Kiera Johannsen’s research station was more of a cabin, and global positioning showed it was pretty much out on the fringes of everything . . . which was evidently where she liked to live. Getting out there was going to be a challenge; roads weren’t a priority out that far, though there must hav
e been some kind of rudimentary trail leading up to the research station. Johannsen did come into town from time to time, according to the blog; she had an addiction to mint chocolate chip ice cream, and the store in town ordered it special for her by the gallon. Couldn’t be lucky enough to be a day the woman made an ice-cream run, though—and sure enough, when Bryn dropped into the small shop, asking casually after Kiera yielded a fountain of mostly useless info about the woman’s habits and schedules. Mostly useless because she’d been in four days before to pick up her monthly order, and wasn’t due back for a while. The clerk did point out the best way to get to the research station, though, and marked it on the map.
Back at the airport, Bryn showed it to the others, and Joe and Patrick and Riley all geared up to accompany her. “I don’t think we need SEAL Team Six,” she protested. “C’mon, she’s a scientist. Manny could take her. ”
“Probably,” Manny agreed. He was working another crossword—and, she realized, that was probably to deal with general anxiety. This was hard for him, being on the move without any good way to seek solid cover. Even the plane probably gave him bad feelings of exposure. But he was hanging in there, and playing it as cool as she’d ever seen him, except in the middle of a crisis. Pansy was being a helicopter girlfriend, though—hovering. Obviously worried about him, and just as obviously hoping nobody would notice.
Manny looked up over his glasses, straight at Bryn, and said, “Take the firepower, you idiot. We’re not playing for pickup sticks. You know what’s at stake. ”
She did, and she bowed her head to acknowledge it. “I rented a truck,” she said. “It should get us out there and back in about two hours, maybe less. Keep the pilot close, we might have to leave fast. ”
“We’ll be ready,” Liam promised. He, she noticed, was conspicuously armed with what looked like a nine millimeter pistol tucked snugly in a shoulder harness. It gave him a dangerously piratical edge. Annie, on the other hand, was looking stormy; she was sitting on the edge of her seat, elbows on the table, and frowning. Liam, not too subtly, had his hand on her shoulder, pinning her in place. He smiled and said, “Don’t worry, we won’t eat all the snacks before you return. ”
“There were snacks? Damn,” Bryn sighed, and she was only half kidding. “Okay, let’s roll if we’re rolling. ”
The SUV was a monster of a thing, not too late-model but it had the look of a truck well suited to its surroundings. If vehicles could evolve, this one definitely had, and as she set out from the airport down a partly muddy, partly snow-clogged road, it seemed to handle the terrain easily, if not comfortably. That was probably the springs in the seats, which had long ago given up the fight.
Patrick was hanging on to the strap, which was probably wise, considering the bouncing, and simultaneously studying the map she’d marked, though how he could do it and not be motion-sick she couldn’t imagine. The town of Barrow fell away within minutes, and the Alaskan tundra stretched on in a blotched, mostly white expanse. “Glad it isn’t winter,” he said. “The snow would be impassible without plowing paths. ”
On Bryn’s left was the distant curve of the bay, and beyond that, straight north, would be . . . well, she supposed, a pole. Strange to think that this shore here was, in a way, what people liked to mark as the end of civilization . . . at least until you crossed the pole and came down on the other side. She’d put on her sunglasses, so the sun’s glitter on the snow wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but within just a few miles she understood why it would blind people. The constant, unyielding glitter . . . beautiful, but deadly.
“Slow down,” Patrick finally said, and released the safety strap to point to the left. “Should be some kind of trail that way—yeah, right there. Turn. ”
If he hadn’t directed her, she would have missed it, because it was less a road than a vague depression in the landscape. Snow had covered it for about a foot, and buried all traces it existed . . . except for a snow-covered mailbox burdened by another layer of white. Beneath, it was painted a shocking Day-Glo yellow, probably because it would have otherwise been regularly missed.
Bryn slowed, and without being asked, Joe bailed out of the back, jogged over, and checked the mailbox. Empty. He got back in the SUV, and Bryn followed the barely visible curves of the trail up a hill . . . and at the top, she spotted a snowy roof.
She stopped. Joe and Riley exited to check the perimeter, and to keep watch; she and Patrick then drove the rest of the way up. The chill was penetrating through the windows, and she hadn’t really noticed until now. “Is it getting colder out there?”
“Yeah,” Patrick said. “Getting on toward sundown in the next couple of hours, and we need to be back in Barrow before it’s dark or we’ll have hell finding our way. This isn’t country for tourists. ”
No kidding. She couldn’t imagine how dark it would be out here, and how forbidding. Getting stuck or stranded could be a death sentence.
“Got an approach planned?” he asked her. Bryn shook her head and brought the SUV to a stop in the dirty packed snow of the cabin’s front yard, such as it was.
