Skin Heat (40 page)

Gillie stumbled beside him and he turned to her, shoring her up. “We need to stop soon, huh? You’re not used to this.”

She didn’t deny being tired, but she didn’t complain. “I can go on.”

“No need.” He pointed. “There’s a barn. Just a little farther and we’ll get some rest.”

The red outbuilding was well kept and had been shoveled recently, so the smell wasn’t overwhelming. In the stalls, the landowner kept cows, who lowed at the intrusion. Taye ignored them and scrambled up the ramp to the hayloft. There was enough straw to mound for a bed and if someone came to investigate the restless animals, they should be able to hide behind the bales. Good enough.

“It’ll get better,” he told Gillie. “You’ll have your own place. We’ll find work.”

“But we don’t have any identification.”

“That just means we’ll have to do the jobs nobody else wants for a while. Just until I figure out a better way.”

She didn’t argue. Instead she helped him arrange a make-shift bed. Though he wasn’t crazy about the idea of sleeping together—even like this—he couldn’t leave her unprotected. He’d just have to tamp down the unwelcome desire she roused in him; thinking about Gillie that way made him feel dirty and wrong, almost as bad as that bastard Rowan.

They ate some of the bread and peanut butter he’d lifted from the house a ways back and washed it down with tap water. It wasn’t gourmet fare, but he could tell she enjoyed it by the way she smiled at him; that look made him feel ten feet tall.

“My first meal as a free woman,” she said.

“The first of many.”

Then he lay down and tried to sleep, but as the temperature dropped and she lay shivering in her thin polyester pantsuit, he turned with a reluctant growl. “Come here.”

Just sharing body heat, that’s all. Don’t think about that kiss. You can’t have her. Not now. Not ever.
He gazed up at the slats above his head and tried to resign himself to that. The straw prickled, and they lacked both covers and pillow.
Not an auspicious start, genius.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“I should’ve grabbed a blanket, too. I wasn’t thinking about sleeping rough.”

“I’m glad we didn’t take more than we had to from those people. They had nothing to do with what happened to us.”

“You’re too nice.”

Gillie didn’t reply right then. Instead, she nestled into his arms. God, why did she have to feel so good, feminine without being fragile. Her small frame possessed a tensile strength; he knew she’d worked out in captivity to stay strong. Some days when he came to visit her, he’d found her running on the treadmill, as if she could outpace Rowan and his cameras, artificial lights, and doors that didn’t lock.

Eventually she asked, “Do you want to split up?”

He understood the reason behind the question. After all, they’d decided as a group that it made sense to go their separate ways. That would be the smart thing. He sensed her tension as she awaited his reply; she wasn’t ready to be alone. Which guaranteed his response.

“No. I broke out of there for you, Gillie-girl. I’m not going anywhere without you.”

 

The world seemed
so fucking big. Gillie had all but forgotten the feel of the wind on her face; today it didn’t matter if it smelled of exhaust, not as fresh as she remembered. There wasn’t much sun today, either, a gray day threatening rain that hadn’t materialized yet. But the hint of it hung in the air, a touch of damp that charmed her. She remembered rain and she’d seen it on TV, but the visceral feel of the droplets hitting her skin . . . not so much. Would it hit lightly or sting her skin? She so looked forward to finding out.

Though her feet hurt and her thighs burned from the long walk, the fact that she was free made all the difference. She wanted to dance and spin, but people would stare, and that’d piss Taye off for sure. He had been muttering about staying under the radar all morning.

They had passed through the shabby downtown area and headed off. She hoped he knew where he was going. Apparently he did, because he stopped outside a bank.

Gillie watched as Taye strode up to an ATM machine. He touched his fingers to the screen and sent a gentle jolt of power. To her astonishment, the machine spat out a number of bills. He palmed them smoothly and hurried away, tucking the money into his pocket.

She followed. They’d hiked all the way to Altoona, across the Pennsylvania state line. He’d turned down two offers of rides even on the back roads, and she was wary enough to appreciate his caution; she knew their value to the Foundation well enough. They couldn’t risk trusting strangers right now.

He eyed all the storefronts as they passed, until she felt compelled to ask, “What are you looking for?”

“Thrift shop.”

“I guess we do need some things.”

Eventually they found a secondhand store in a shopping plaza that had clearly seen better days; they bought jackets, jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers, as well as battered backpacks to put the clean things in. Since the place also sold irregular socks and underwear, it set them up to keep moving, blending in on the lower edge of normal. Taye tucked the food he’d stolen at the house in Virginia into his pack; they hadn’t eaten since the day before because she’d been worried about buying more. After that ATM trick, maybe she didn’t need to fret quite as much.

Still, she didn’t feel right about it; the money had to come from somewhere. The bank would pass the loss on its customers, and that wasn’t fair. But Gillie would do whatever it took to keep from going back.

God, sometimes it seemed crazy—the idea that she could function in the real world. She’d never stood on her own two feet. Things other people took for granted—milestones like dates, job interviews, and boring birthday parties—she’d never known any of it, and she hungered for the normalcy she had watched on TV with great longing.

“I watched a movie,” she said to Taye’s back. “About a man who was in prison so long, he forgot how to be free. He couldn’t survive without someone telling him what to do.
Shawshank Redemption
, I think it was.”

“That’s not you,” he said roughly.

She didn’t argue. He clearly wasn’t in the mood to bolster her insecurity, so it was better to ask, “Where are we headed?”

“Right now? The bus station, if I can find it.” He stopped at a graffiti-covered pay phone then. This wasn’t a nice neighborhood and the directory had been chained to the pedestal to keep people from running off with it. Many of the pages had been torn out, probably people without pens who needed to take an address with them.

Fortunately, Taye found what he was looking for in the yellow pages under transportation. He didn’t pull the page, just read it aloud. “1231 Eleventh Avenue.”

“I don’t think that’s far.”

He glanced at the addresses on the nearby buildings and nodded. “Just a little longer. You can rest on the bus.”

Taye has a maddening tendency to think I’m made of spun glass.
But surely if they spent enough time together, he’d get over that. He would see she wasn’t an ornament.

“I’m fine,” she said.

The rain began halfway into their walk. Delighted, she turned her face up; it was cool and soft, dropping lightly on her skin. Other people hurried all around her, heads down and jackets pulled up. Annoyance radiated from those caught without umbrellas. They couldn’t possibly know what a miracle this was.

When Taye glanced at her, his aspect warmed. “First time in a while, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Go on.” At her questioning look, he added, “Spin. I know you’re dying to.”

In response, she twirled, arms out, and belted the chorus to “Singin’ in the Rain.” He laughed quietly, ignoring the looks they received from passersby. A little dizzy, she stumbled as they walked on, but the distance didn’t seem as daunting anymore. When they approached the terminal, she was shivering, and they were both soaking wet. He paused to tug her hood up. That seemed counterintuitive because she was already damp from head to toe. Gillie arched a brow.

“There are cameras inside,” he explained. “Since 9/11, they track people more.”

From his grave expression, that ought to mean something to her. She hunched her shoulders, feeling ignorant and debating whether she should admit as much. “What’s 9/11?”

Rain trickled down his pale face, tangling in his lashes. His stillness told her nothing at all, but she felt sure he thought she was an idiot. But then his mouth softened, and he cupped her cheek in his hand. That was actually worse because she glimpsed sympathy:
poor little thing. She’s a little lost lamb in the big bad world.

Gillie bit him.

He pulled his fingers away, as if
that
was why, like he thought she didn’t want him touching her. Men could be such impossible boneheads.

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” she warned him. “I mean it. Next time, I do worse. I used to fantasize about biting Rowan’s pecker off, if he should ever push my head in that direction.”

Taye eyed her, his expression mingled incredulity, astonished appreciation, and masculine horror. “Dear God.”

“I know, right? I only look harmless. If you hadn’t gotten me out of there, I was biding my time. We both know he was escalating.”

“Yeah.” Then he addressed her initial question. “About 9/11 . . . the situation is tense in the Middle East. There have been wars off and on for years or military engagements, whatever the current buzz word.”

“So . . . we’re at war?”

“Kind of. It’s more complex than that, though. Terrorists who work for enemy factions will target civilian sites. War’s not just for armies anymore.”

She thought back. “I remember bombings in other countries, something about an American embassy. But I didn’t watch the news much as a kid, and that never happened here.”

America was safe. That had to be true. At least . . . it
used
to be. Chills washed over her, coupled with a dire sense of loss, as if a way of life had ended before she had a chance to appreciate it.

“It does now,” he said.

“And 9/11?”

“The Twin Towers in NYC aren’t there anymore. Terrorists hijacked a plane on September 11, 2001 and crashed into them. The death toll was astonishing. Since then, life in this country has changed a lot.”

“Like putting cameras in bus stations.”

He nodded and pulled his own hood up. “Let’s find out where we can both afford to go.”

Gillie wondered in frozen silence what other events she’d missed, how else the world had changed while she was confined. Children’s TV networks had given her some idea about changing fashion and how people talked, though she never knew how realistic it was, but she’d never gotten news channels. Rowan had locked almost all stations, controlling her entertainment as fully as he did every other aspect of her life. Even the DVDs she’d watched passed through his controlling hands. As she got older, she had to request the things she really wanted to watch and he would decide whether to grant her wish with a DVD.

And he might be out there somewhere, looking for you. He’ll never stop. As long as he’s alive, he will
never
stop.
She refused to let that hateful voice take root in her head. With grim determination, she dug it out and cast those thoughts away.

Once inside the station, they didn’t look any different from the other folks waiting to catch a bus somewhere. Most had backpacks, like them. Wore jeans and sneakers.
He’s right. This is the perfect way to travel. Provided we can keep out of sight of those cameras.

They had to stop somewhere, of course. But not so close to the facility; Gillie was with him on that point. She wanted to put miles behind them as fast as they could.

Rowan’s face loomed up in her mind’s eye—the too minty yet anodyne taste of his mouth on hers—and she caught her breath, trembling with the fear that she’d find him one step behind her. Taye didn’t notice, thank God, because he already thought she was breakable. If he knew how frightened she was of this enormous world with its brand-new rules, he’d never look on her as more than a child.

He moved toward the counter. “How much for two tickets to Pittsburgh?”

The cashier tapped on the computer, which didn’t look anything like the ones she remembered. Its monitor was thin and sleek, and the printer was so small. Most likely, they all ran on different systems, not that she had spent much time using her dad’s PC as a kid.
Something else I need to learn.
But she could, no question.

“Seventy dollars.”

“We’ll take them.” He counted out the cash.

“All right. Passenger names?”

“Steve Mills and Clare Smith.” Taye spoke the lies so smoothly that even she was impressed.

Luckily for them, the attendant didn’t care about the rules; her bored face said she was only half here. The woman typed and then printed tickets. “Your bus leaves in an hour and a half. Listen for us to announce the terminal.”

Since the building was small, that was probably unnecessary, but Taye thanked her and scooped up the tickets. He swept the room and picked out two seats away from the cameras. With innate wariness, he set his backpack between his knees and looped the strap around his ankle. The gesture fascinated her because it wasn’t something she would have thought to do; it was a remnant of a homeless man, who only owned what he could carry and defend.

“Hey,” she said softly.

“Yeah?”

“How is it you can remember stuff like 9/11, but—”

“Nothing about myself?” he supplied in a low growl.

She nodded.

His knuckles whitened as he curled his hands into fists, studying them with unnecessary care. “I have echoes. Empty space. Sometimes I think they burned certain things out of me. They ran a lot of voltage through me, and that doesn’t factor the experimental drugs.”