’Til the World Ends (26 page)

His broad grin revealed bloody teeth. That was just the beginning of his hemorrhaging. There would be more. “Go ahead,” he croaked. “They’ll take you apart just like the others. See what makes you tick.” He chuckled and began to cough.

“Sarah,” the staff doc said. “He needs rest.”

That was the doc’s polite way of telling me to leave. “Okay, I’m going, but this man is a criminal and needs to be restrained.”

“This man has Sun Fever. He’s not strong enough to be dangerous to anyone.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” I told the doc. “He’s sly and he’s smart. You’ll need to strap him to his bed.”

“I’m not strapping down a dying man.” The middle-aged doc looked down at me through glasses perched on the middle of his nose. “We’ll sedate him for his own comfort. He’s not going anywhere.”

Sedation would have to do, but I doubted it would be enough. Nichol wasn’t the type to give up.

After parking the Trooper in the ambulance bay, I saw Ian walking circles around Nichol’s SUV, rag in hand, as he wiped road dirt from the rig’s solid steel body.

“Nichol has been admitted.”

He grunted. “That psycho should be
committed
.”

“Probably, but this will have to do.” I walked around the shiny black solar car, admiring its sleek design. So this was fashioned after my father’s storm-chaser. I never would have guessed. I hadn’t paid attention to the interior while focused on Nichol, so now I took the time to gaze through the tinted windows and get a closer look.

When I glanced up at Ian, he melted my heart with his lopsided smile. “Want to sit inside?”

How could I resist? “Sure do.”

He opened the passenger side door for me to slide in. The upholstery was black leather with thick cushioned seats, and the dashboard had more dials and buttons than a jet cockpit. “Wow.”

Ian got in on the driver’s side. He slipped a key into the ignition and the engine whirred to life. Cool air poured from the vents in the dash. I could live in this car.

“What do you say we give your dad’s vehicle a rest and take this one instead?”

“Sounds good to me. Where are we going?”

“Where you suggested we go, the military base in Cheyenne Mountain.”

I immediately thought of what Nichol had told me just now. If there was a thread of truth to what the agent had said, going there could be a mistake.

After I told Ian what Nichol had told me, he said, “Sarah, you should know better than to believe him. He’s a chronic liar.”

“I didn’t say I believed him, but it got me to thinking. I’d rather not take a chance of getting captured and used as a guinea pig for a government experiment. Or worse.” And getting locked up at a secure base inside a mountain would keep me from chasing storms. I’d go mad.

“We should at least go to Colorado Springs, maybe ask the locals what they know about the base. Couldn’t hurt,” Ian said. I could tell by the look of determination on his face that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He was a stubborn man. “We won’t get caught. I promise.”

I sighed. “Deal. But if a storm pops up in the meantime, I’m chasing it.” I gave him a piercing look to let him know I meant business. “Since you’ll be driving, you have to take me to wherever the storm hits.”

He nodded, his eyes gentle with understanding. It felt good not to have to go into long explanations with him. We were on the same page.

He tapped one of the glass-domed gauges. “The level of juice is above the green line, so I imagine the solar tank is full. I have no idea how long it will last in a rig this size.”

“There’s no shortage on fuel,” I said, squinting out at the cloudless blue sky on the horizon. “Recharging won’t be a problem, but Nichol’s SUV is larger than mine. It may require more power than what we’re used to.”

He shrugged. “We’ll take our chances.”

We retrieved our supplies, including the alert siren, from the Trooper and packed them in the agent’s car, which now belonged to Ian. It felt odd to be traveling in a strange vehicle, and odder still not to be the one driving.

We’d barely driven through the alley behind the hospital when the heat of warning from a coming storm sizzled inside my skull. My heartbeat picked up speed along with the car as we headed out of town. The energy felt amazing, and my body lapped it up like a cat lapping up milk. My hands shook from my premonition, and I gazed down at the red smoke curling from my fingertips. I couldn’t stop it, and I couldn’t excuse it to Ian or anyone else. This was who I was and if Ian had a problem with that, well...

“You okay?” he asked, giving me a sideways stare that showed curiosity rather than horror. The light of understanding shone in his eyes. “Ah, I see. You’re forecasting.”

As soon as I was physically able to speak, I said, “A typical day in my own personal freakdom.”

He chuckled and returned his attention to the road.

“It doesn’t bother you? My transformation?”

Shaking his head, he said, “Nope. I think it’s hot.”

My smile widened. He thought I was hot. Still flushed from my premonition, I don’t think he noticed my blush. His compliment flustered me, but my forecast took priority over everything else I was feeling. “The storm will strike in Morrison.” I consulted my mental map that showed grid lines and topography, as if it was imprinted on the inside of my eyelids. I knew the area well. It was on the way to where we were going. “It’s a small town just south of here. Maybe ten miles at most. The storm won’t hit for another three hours, so we have plenty of time.”

“I know where it is,” Ian said. “I stayed there a few weeks before moving on to Lodgepole.”

“I haven’t been to Morrison since my mom was alive. What’s it like now?”

He hesitated. “Dirty. Broken. Mostly empty.”

I figured as much, which meant the people there must be warned about the coming storm. “But someone lives there, right?”

Tilting his head from one side to the other, he said, “Not sure I’d call it living.” He coughed and jerked his chin toward the backseat. “Can I get a water?”

I turned around to grab a couple bottles from a case on the floor. There was also a plastic basket with a lid. After handing Ian his water, I turned back around to investigate the basket. “Berserkers, huh?”

“Yeah. Quite a few.” He took a swig from his bottle.

There were apples in the basket. Real apples! And ham sandwiches made with white bread and green lettuce, wrapped in plastic. Nichol had packed himself a lunch. He must have had connections. I wiped drool from my lips as I turned back around to sit with my treasure in my lap.

Ian slowed the car while turning down a wide street I recognized. It led through a suburban neighborhood on the way to the outlet mall. I remembered hearing about the homes here having suffered a severe fire. It didn’t look like the same suburb. Husks of houses with charred frames and exposed plumbing poked up from the blackened earth like rows of broken teeth rotted with decay. A child’s plastic tricycle sat in the middle of the street, its melted wheels fused to the asphalt.

I gazed, horrified, at the devastation that went on block after block. “Ian,” I said weakly, my mouth dry even after taking a sip of water. “Tell me about the people here.”

His attention remained on the road ahead. “The few I’ve seen may look like people, but I’d hardly call them human. They were closer to being animals.”

Berserkers to the extreme. I’d never seen them that rabid. The ones I’d encountered had a mob mentality, but I hadn’t considered them especially dangerous.

Ian steered the car down another deserted street that was as burned out as all the others. I got a view of the mall at the other end. “I’ve seen it before, in other towns I’ve passed through.” He twirled his finger beside his head. “Their brains are scrambled worse than Nichol’s. Some people just snap.”

I thought of my father, who hadn’t snapped, but his mind had been adversely affected by the storms. I think having me with him kept him sane. “I wonder why news of the Berserkers never hit the monthly newspaper.”

“My guess is that our government wants to avoid national panic.”

I was stunned it had been kept secret from the public for so long. “It could have been prevented if someone cared enough to do something for these poor people.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” He angled the car toward a deserted gas station on the corner. “But from what I’ve seen, it’s too widespread to stop. Some cities have even rounded them up to segregate them from the rest of the community. The hordes of Berserkers either killed each other or starved to death.”

I stared down at the basket of food in my lap and no longer felt hungry. “I had no idea.”

“I didn’t think you did. Few people do.” Ian drove into the open garage bay and parked the car over a hydraulic lift, its engine still running. “I need to check something.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The brakes feel mushy. Could be the pads.”

The last thing we needed was for the brakes to fail and cause a crash that totaled the car. I’d be screwed without transportation. “Can you fix it?”

“If the parts are in this garage I can.”

I peered out the window, expecting a crowd of Berserkers to storm the car. We were tucked into the shadows, not visible from the street. Even so, I didn’t feel safe.

Ian must have noticed my tension. “They have enough sense to stay out of the sun. We’re okay for now.”

I blinked over eyes that felt covered by sandpaper. “Good, because I’m not sure I can keep my eyes open much longer.” I yawned and added, “I just need a short nap until the storm comes. My energy is way low. Can we keep the air going?”

He patted the dashboard and checked the voltage meter. “The dial is still in the green. We should be fine running the engine for a couple more hours.” He grabbed an apple and a sandwich from the container in my lap.

My stomach growled, begging for food, but the call to dreamland was much stronger. The hum of the fan blowing cool air in my face was like a lullaby that soothed away all conscious thought.

I heard ringing, like a phone, and figured I must be dreaming. I roused from my doze with the instinctive need to make it stop. Where was it coming from?

Ian’s hand grabbed a black, rectangular object from a cubby in the console.

“Satphone.” He turned the ringing phone over in his hands.

Someone was trying to reach Nichol. “You should answer it.”

He stared at the tiny screen that lit up with a name. “Charles Jaginski.”

I blinked as adrenaline chased away my need for sleep. Widening my eyes, I said. “Maybe he’s a friend of Nichol’s.”

“Let’s find out.” Ian pressed a button with his thumb. “Yeah,” he said into the phone, his voice sounding generic and a touch higher than normal for him. I tried to remember what Nichol sounded like. I think Ian got pretty close.

“Nichol, I’m in.” The curt male voice spoke through a speaker in the car’s dash.

Ian looked at me and shrugged, so I motioned for him to keep going. “Yeah?”

There was a brief pause, and then, “I know you’ve gone rogue, man. The scene at the base is bullshit. I’d rather do business with you than with these jarheads. I have a bead on some Kinetics here in Wyoming we can nab and sell. Deal?”

So Nichol wasn’t the only scum in the bottom-feeding pool.

Ian paused, his disgust palpable. “Yeah.”

“What’s wrong with you? You never talked much when we were partners, but I need more of an answer than ‘yeah.’ I’m putting my ass on the line for you.”

Ian coughed but didn’t reply.

Jaginski sighed. “Every time we talk you’re like a different guy. I think you’re touched in the head, becoming one of those Berserkers. Maybe doing business with you isn’t such a good idea. I’ll wrangle these Kinetics on my own.”

Ian hesitated before finally grunting something I couldn’t make out.

The man on the other end said through gritted teeth, “That’s how you wanna play it? Fine. I’m juicin’ up my rig and keepin’ these Kinetics for myself. One’s a geokinetic and the other is pyro. What do you think of that, asshole?”

If anyone could tell us about the Kinetic program, it would be this guy. I grabbed the phone from Ian, but he wrestled it out of my hands. He looked furious, his scowl pinching his brows so close together they’d become a single ridge. Shaking his head so hard I was afraid he’d break his neck, he mouthed the words, “Don’t speak. He’s a slaver.” I bit my lip to stop myself from talking.

“Nichol? What the hell’s goin’ on?” Jaginski sounded suspicious. He was no idiot. It took him barely a second to figure it out. “Shit!” Then came a click followed by dead silence.

“Damn it,” Ian said, a sneer curling his lip. “If Nichol’s SUV has a GPS tracking device, it’s only a matter of time before his ex-partner finds this car and discovers us.” Ian rolled the window down to toss out his apple core. A blast of hot air shot inside before he got the window closed again. It smelled like dust and metal and old motor oil. “If the GPS is here, I’ll find it.”

“Charles Jaginski and Sam Nichol are anything but friends. You heard what he just said. He thinks Nichol is crazy. It’s possible Jaginski’s nothing like his partner.”

“Come on, Sarah. He’s a slaver like Nichol. He just said so himself.”

“Not necessarily. Could be extortion.”

Ian snorted. “And that’s better? I’ve never met the guy, never heard a word about him from Nichol. But birds of a feather...”

“The enemy of our enemy is our friend.”

“At least he’s in Wyoming, which means he’s five or six hours away.” He twisted in his seat to look at me. “Where does this Suzie-Sunshine-who-loves-everyone attitude come from?”

“I don’t
love
everyone.” And I certainly wasn’t feeling much love for him at the moment. “My mother raised me to see the good in people and to think of my glass as half full, not half empty.” I wanted to add something about how his pessimism made him so lonely, but that would hit a nerve that was better left untouched. “You’re missing out on getting to know people who can help you.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Yet you offer it all the time.”

He hadn’t shifted his gaze away from me since we’d started this conversation, and even now he gave me a look so intense it felt as though he read every thought inside my head.