found each other.” This floors me. “That can't be.”
“Twenty-nine days. I'm counting.”
I think back. It's not possible that it has been only twenty-nine days since Jared changed our lives. It seems like Jamie and I have been with Jared every bit as long as we were alone. Two or three years, maybe.
“We've got time,” Jared says again.
An abrupt panic, like a warning premonition, makes it impossible for me to speak for a long moment. He watches the change on my face with worried eyes.
“You don't know that.” The despair that softened when he found me strikes like the lash of a whip. “You can't know how much time we'll have. You don't know if we should be counting in months or days or hours.”
He laughs a warm laugh, touching his lips to the tense place where my eyebrows pull together.
“Don't worry, Mel. Miracles don't work that way. I'll never lose you. I'll never let you get away from me.”
She brought me back to the present–to the thin ribbon of the highway winding through the Arizona wasteland, baking under the fierce noon sun–without my choosing to return. I stared at the empty place ahead and felt the empty place inside.
Her thought sighed faintly in my head: You never know how much time you'll have.
The tears I was crying belonged to both of us.
CHAPTER 9
Discovered
Idrove quickly through the I-10 junction as the sun fell behind me. I didn't see much besides the white and yellow lines on the pavement, and the occasional big green sign pointing me farther east. I was in a hurry now.
I wasn't sure exactly what I was in a hurry for, though. To be out of this, I supposed. Out of pain, out of sadness, out of aching for lost and hopeless loves. Did that mean out of this body? I couldn't think of any other answer. I would still ask my questions of the Healer, but it felt as though the decision was made. Skipper. Quitter. I tested the words in my head, trying to come to terms with them.
If I could find a way, I would keep Melanie out of the Seeker's hands. It would be very hard.
No, it would be impossible.
I would try.
I promised her this, but she wasn't listening. She was still dreaming. Giving up, I thought, now that it was too late for giving up to help.
I tried to stay clear of the red canyon in her head, but I was there, too. No matter how hard I tried to see the cars zooming beside me, the shuttles gliding in toward the port, the few, fine clouds drifting overhead, I couldn't pull completely free of her dreams. I memorized Jared's face from a thousand different angles. I watched Jamie shoot up in a sudden growth spurt, always skin and bones. My arms ached for them both–no, the feeling was sharper than an ache, blade-edged and violent. It was intolerable. I had to get out.
I drove almost blindly along the narrow two-lane freeway. The desert was, if anything, more monotonous and dead than before. Flatter, more colorless. I would make it to Tucson long before dinnertime. Dinner. I hadn't eaten yet today, and my stomach rumbled as I realized that.
The Seeker would be waiting for me there. My stomach rolled then, hunger momentarily replaced with nausea. Automatically, my foot eased off the gas.
I checked the map on the passenger seat. Soon I would reach a little pit stop at a place called Picacho Peak. Maybe I would stop to eat something there. Put off seeing the Seeker a few precious moments.
As I thought of this unfamiliar name–Picacho Peak–there was a strange, stifled reaction from Melanie. I couldn't make it out. Had she been here before? I searched for a memory, a sight or a smell that corresponded, but found nothing. Picacho Peak. Again, there was that spike of interest that Melanie repressed. What did the words mean to her? She retreated into faraway memories, avoiding me.
This made me curious. I drove a little faster, wondering if the sight of the place would trigger something.
A solitary mountain peak–not massive by normal standards, but towering above the low,
“Twenty-nine days. I'm counting.”
I think back. It's not possible that it has been only twenty-nine days since Jared changed our lives. It seems like Jamie and I have been with Jared every bit as long as we were alone. Two or three years, maybe.
“We've got time,” Jared says again.
An abrupt panic, like a warning premonition, makes it impossible for me to speak for a long moment. He watches the change on my face with worried eyes.
“You don't know that.” The despair that softened when he found me strikes like the lash of a whip. “You can't know how much time we'll have. You don't know if we should be counting in months or days or hours.”
He laughs a warm laugh, touching his lips to the tense place where my eyebrows pull together.
“Don't worry, Mel. Miracles don't work that way. I'll never lose you. I'll never let you get away from me.”
She brought me back to the present–to the thin ribbon of the highway winding through the Arizona wasteland, baking under the fierce noon sun–without my choosing to return. I stared at the empty place ahead and felt the empty place inside.
Her thought sighed faintly in my head: You never know how much time you'll have.
The tears I was crying belonged to both of us.
CHAPTER 9
Discovered
Idrove quickly through the I-10 junction as the sun fell behind me. I didn't see much besides the white and yellow lines on the pavement, and the occasional big green sign pointing me farther east. I was in a hurry now.
I wasn't sure exactly what I was in a hurry for, though. To be out of this, I supposed. Out of pain, out of sadness, out of aching for lost and hopeless loves. Did that mean out of this body? I couldn't think of any other answer. I would still ask my questions of the Healer, but it felt as though the decision was made. Skipper. Quitter. I tested the words in my head, trying to come to terms with them.
If I could find a way, I would keep Melanie out of the Seeker's hands. It would be very hard.
No, it would be impossible.
I would try.
I promised her this, but she wasn't listening. She was still dreaming. Giving up, I thought, now that it was too late for giving up to help.
I tried to stay clear of the red canyon in her head, but I was there, too. No matter how hard I tried to see the cars zooming beside me, the shuttles gliding in toward the port, the few, fine clouds drifting overhead, I couldn't pull completely free of her dreams. I memorized Jared's face from a thousand different angles. I watched Jamie shoot up in a sudden growth spurt, always skin and bones. My arms ached for them both–no, the feeling was sharper than an ache, blade-edged and violent. It was intolerable. I had to get out.
I drove almost blindly along the narrow two-lane freeway. The desert was, if anything, more monotonous and dead than before. Flatter, more colorless. I would make it to Tucson long before dinnertime. Dinner. I hadn't eaten yet today, and my stomach rumbled as I realized that.
The Seeker would be waiting for me there. My stomach rolled then, hunger momentarily replaced with nausea. Automatically, my foot eased off the gas.
I checked the map on the passenger seat. Soon I would reach a little pit stop at a place called Picacho Peak. Maybe I would stop to eat something there. Put off seeing the Seeker a few precious moments.
As I thought of this unfamiliar name–Picacho Peak–there was a strange, stifled reaction from Melanie. I couldn't make it out. Had she been here before? I searched for a memory, a sight or a smell that corresponded, but found nothing. Picacho Peak. Again, there was that spike of interest that Melanie repressed. What did the words mean to her? She retreated into faraway memories, avoiding me.
This made me curious. I drove a little faster, wondering if the sight of the place would trigger something.
A solitary mountain peak–not massive by normal standards, but towering above the low,
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