’Til the World Ends (27 page)

“Can I ask you something?”

He broke eye contact and made a show of rechecking the gauges on the dash. After a few seconds, he said, “Okay. Shoot.”

“You could have taken Nichol’s car and left town, gone anywhere you wanted.” I watched him for a change of expression, but he switched his attention to the sandwich he was unwrapping. “Why didn’t you?”

Laying the uneaten sandwich in his lap, he sighed and peered out the window at a rack of dirty tools mounted on the wall. “Maybe I finally found what I was looking for.”

“And that is?”

He focused on me again. “A place to call home.”

Chapter Ten

Why had Ian turned the engine off? The heat inside the car woke me from my nap. I opened heavy eyelids to gaze at Ian, who leaned back against the seat with his eyes closed. His chest rose and fell in the slow rhythm of deep sleep, and his profile revealed a straight nose with nostrils slightly flared, full lips relaxed and chin angled downward. Such a peaceful picture, and yet I sensed the tense soul inside him that longed for the normal life he must have once had. I wished he could have it back. I wished we all could.

The clock on the dash said thirty minutes had passed. A bundle of nerves at the base of my spine let me know the sun storm was close. I could almost taste the sparks. I grasped the door handle with one hand and reached for Ian with the other. As much as I hated to disturb him, I didn’t want him waking up to the blaring scream of my alarm.

“Hey, it’s time,” I told him as I pushed open the door. Just as I swung my legs out, Ian yelled, “Stop!”

Instead of solid ground, my feet met empty space.

When I slipped off the seat, my legs kicked the air and one arm flailed as the other clutched the door handle. Looking down, I realized the car had been raised by the hydraulic lift and was now poised about ten feet up in the air. I could drop without hurting myself, but when I glanced up again, I saw Ian’s hand reach for mine. My fingers sought his and just as we were about to touch, someone’s hand grabbed my ankle.

Bony fingers dug into my skin and tugged, but the effort was too weak to dislodge me. Ian got hold of my forearm and pulled. Another pair of hands gripped my other leg. I felt like a rope in a game of tug of war.

“Ian!” I yelled.

“Damn it.” His grip tightened. “I was afraid this might happen. That’s why I lifted the car.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did, but you must not have been as awake as I thought you were.”

I kicked at the feeble hands holding me. Glancing down, I saw two dangerously thin women covered in grime from head to toe. Their skin was so burned that their eyes seemed overly bright within the dark circles that haloed their sockets.
Berserkers
.

“You took my Johnny!” one of them screeched.

“No!” I kicked at their hands, which briefly fell away only to latch right back on. Who the hell was Johnny? “I didn’t take anyone. Let go!”

“You burned down my house,” the other one said.

My heart went out to them. These confused, wretched creatures were mad with grief. What would they do to me if I fell? Maybe I could outrun them. I considered releasing the car door, but just as I began to relax my hold, there was a sharp pain on my heel. One of them had bitten me!

Panic scrambled up my spine, and I kicked even more forcefully now. A breeze stirred beneath me, gathering in strength and sucking at the air around the women. I heard shouting nearby and guessed reinforcements were on the way. I could hold out against these two, but add a couple more and I’d be done for.

I gazed up at Ian, who was holding my hand, his eyes bright with the power he used to create the mini cyclone. Little by little, he siphoned strength from me to grow the weapon he was creating. The two women screamed in frustration as the cyclone pulled them away from me and carried them outside the garage. Three more Berserkers on their way in stopped when the human pinwheel tumbled past them. They turned and ran as if the hounds of hell nipped at their ankles.

Ian released me, and I fell to the floor.

He dropped down from the other side of the car. “Sarah!”

After helping me to my feet, he wrapped an arm around me to hold me up, his hand sliding up my rib cage and settling just beneath my breast. I could feel his warm skin through the thin fabric of my shirt. If it had been anyone else, I’d have slapped his hand away. But not Ian. I’d come to trust him too much to think he’d want anything other than to help me.

“Will they come back?” I asked.

“Probably.” He held me close, and I leaned into him, comforted by how safe he made me feel. “But not right away. The cyclone scared them enough for now.”

“What do they want?”

“I don’t know, and I’m not sure they know, either. They have little left of themselves but their instinct to survive.”

“We can help them do at least that much,” I said, grabbing up the siren that had fallen out of the SUV with me. I trudged outside, seeing the sun lower in the sky as it prepared to set, but its radiance wasn’t diminished by the late hour. If anything, it was stronger because of the descending storm.

I cranked the siren, not sure if I was warning the Berserkers of danger or calling them out of hiding. If they had the sense to stay under cover during the day, they surely knew the significance of an alert. I gazed up at the blanket of flashing red sparks falling toward us.

I wanted the sparks to touch me, but I also wanted to try something. With Ian.

He stood beside me, watching the sky. I turned to him and said, “Make the wind blow.”

His eyes lit up at the suggestion. “Of course,” he said, his tone deep with wonder. He knew what I was asking without me having to say it aloud. That’s how connected we were. “I’ve wanted to try it before, but I was always too late because the sparks had already fallen.”

“Now you won’t be.” I held out my hand, and he folded his around mine, his fingers warm and rough with calluses. Vines of energy twined where our flesh touched, and I felt their power travel up my arms, across my shoulders and up the back of my neck.

A wind began to form, one that was like the gale that had attacked Lodgepole just the other night. Only this wind was completely under Ian’s control. It felt warm and billowed like silk that wrapped loosely around us. Ian sent it upward, high enough to reach the sparks fifty feet above our heads.

The invisible shield Ian created was also a battering ram that pushed the sparks back to where they came from. We watched as the sparks grew smaller and smaller while returning to the sun that spawned them.

“How high will they go?” I asked.

“Beyond the bubble of Earth’s atmosphere. The vacuum of space will take them from there.”

“I wish you could do this to every storm.” Then no one would ever have to fear exposure to sun sparks.

“I would if you could tell me when they were coming.”

“I can’t foresee them all, though I wish I could.”

“I know.”

Our team approach might be the answer to stopping the deadly sparks for good. My thoughts wound back to what Nichol had said in Black Hawk. Was he telling the truth? I supposed we’d find out once we arrived in Colorado Springs.

My knees felt weak, and I held on to Ian for support.

Anxiety made his dark eyes even darker. “You needed those sparks.”

I smiled. “Actually, the energy you gave me works almost as well. I’m always a bit shaky after a storm. I worry about taking too much from you.”

“You won’t. I have plenty to give, and I always get it back.”

He did. Time was all he needed to replenish himself. I had to rely on the sun for that.

It was approaching twilight, and if Berserkers lay low in the heat of day, they’d be out in the relative cool of night. I’d rather not confront more than the two I already had. “We have to find a new hiding place.” I wasn’t all that crazy about this dark and stinky garage anyway. “Lower the car and let’s go.”

He hesitated. “About that.” He stepped away from me while folding his arms across his chest. “We can’t take the car.”

Confused, I asked, “Why not? Couldn’t you fix the brakes?”

“Oh, I fixed them good as new, even found the tracking device, not that it matters now.” He looked guarded when he added, “There’s no voltage left. The air conditioner ate more energy than I thought it would.”

My heart dove into my empty stomach. “You mean we’re stuck here?”

“Only until we recharge the battery, but it takes sunlight to do that.”

I peered out at the darkening sky streaked with Night Rainbows. That would be hours from now. Hands held out to my sides and palms up in a pose of surrender, I said, “Fine. Just get the car down, and I’ll help you push it outside.”

He stepped over to the wall of tools and flipped a switch. “The lift is powered by a generator I found. We’re lucky it still works.”

The hydraulic motor hummed and creaked like an orchestra of tortured metal.

“Oh, no.” Ian pulled me away from the lift and backed us up a few steps.

“What’s wrong?”

“The generator’s working, but I think the compressor is faulty. It sounds like—”

The posts holding up the car suddenly dropped into the floor like a broken elevator. The car followed, crashing on the ground with such force it cracked the concrete under its popped tires. The solar panels on the vehicle’s roof shattered, spraying shards of glass in every direction. Ian pushed me to the ground and sheltered me with his body.

“Ian?” Heart pulsing in my ears, I slid carefully out from beneath him. He remained facedown on the concrete, and I could see why. The back of his shirt was a bloody mess from glass splinters that had sprayed from the crash.

“How bad is it?” I crouched beside him on the garage floor, my hands shaking as I gently touched his bloody shoulder. “Ian?”

“It just stings a little. I’m fine.”

My breathing quickened, and so did my worry. I checked his back, looking for gaping wounds, but didn’t see any. They all appeared superficial. “Don’t move.” I peered out the open door of the garage in search of lurking Berserkers. We were still alone. “Berserkers aren’t attracted to blood, are they?”

“Blood? Of course not. Why?”

Images from a dozen old horror movies flashed behind my eyes. One of those women had bitten me, so I couldn’t help conjuring up thoughts of zombies and vampires. “Just curious.” I walked through the broken glass toward the ruined solar car.

“There must be a first aid kit inside the car, and I need to get us water.” It took a few hard tugs on the door handle before it finally opened. I grabbed the case of water, then rummaged in the glove box until I found a kit that contained antiseptic, gauze, tape, tiny scissors and tweezers.

Shoved in a corner of the garage were some old packing blankets like the kind movers used to protect furniture. They were ripped and filthy, smelling strongly of motor oil, and also a bit chewed by rodents...or something. But they would serve my purposes. I folded one up to put under my knees, and the other I slid beneath Ian’s upper body. He lay facedown, his arms tucked tight against his sides. He may not have been in much pain now, but he would be. I had to tweeze the glass out of his skin.

I went back to the car and searched beneath the front seat. A man like Nichol impressed me as the self-entitled type, so I was fairly sure he kept his vices close at hand. My fingers encountered something cool and smooth. A bottle. I slid it out into the open and sure enough, a fifth of vodka. Ian would need this.

I twisted the cap off before handing it to him.

He shook his head. “I don’t drink. It slows the reflexes.”

“This isn’t drinking, Ian. It’s anesthetic.”

He grunted and accepted the bottle, then took a long pull. This obviously wasn’t the first time he’d ever indulged, though probably never under these circumstances.

“I used to drink too much,” he admitted. “After my family...”

After his wife and child died. I could see how such tragedy might motivate a person to drown his grief in alcohol. “That’s understandable.”

His lips relaxed in a soft smile. “Those memories don’t hurt as much now. Moving around brought me peace, and helping those who needed what I could do did a lot to ease my mind.”

“You have nothing to feel guilty about,” I told him. “You didn’t cause the storms.”

“But what if I could have stopped them?”

I shook my head. “Not then, but you might be able to now. After what we just did together, I’m willing to explore how far we can go. We’re strongest when we work as a team.”

Too distracted to consider much more than dulling his pain, he ignored me and guzzled more vodka.

Using scissors from the kit, I snipped away his shirt and gently peeled the fabric from his skin. He hissed in a lungful of air, and his whole body tightened like a coiled spring. Once I had the shirt off, he exhaled a slow breath of relief, his muscles going slack beneath my hands.

He didn’t squirm or yell, not even when I used a bottle of water to clean the blood away, and then antiseptic to sterilize his wounds. There had to have been more than a dozen cuts, but none were especially deep. The powerful muscles of his back rippled as I plucked the offending splinters from his tan skin. My fingers skimmed lightly over his flesh, and he shivered.

“Tickles,” he mumbled into the pad where his face was buried. He didn’t laugh. His tone was matter-of-fact, as if stating what time it was or pointing out the color of the sky. I liked that about him. Ian was a straight shooter, and despite his bitterness, he had a good heart. As my mom would say, a good heart trumped everything.

When I was finished tending to his back, I cocked my head to admire my work. Not bad. “How does that feel?” He answered me with a muffled snore.

Chapter Eleven

“Why did you let me drink so much?” Ian groaned as he sat holding his head.

“You were in pain. Then you passed out. I thought you would sleep it off,” I said, pacing the garage floor.

He smirked at me. “Do you know what a hangover’s like?”

“No.” And I hoped I’d never find out.

He shifted his position and winced. His back had too many puncture wounds to bandage properly, so I’d left them uncovered, allowing them to scab naturally. Only problem was that whenever he moved, the wounds split open and he’d start bleeding again.

My focus shifted to the heap of metal that had once been a powerful solar car. “We need another one of those.”

Ian snorted. “We walk back to Lodgepole to get your father’s SUV, or we use bicycles to get there. Two wheels are better than none.”

I jerked my head at the open doorway. “Let’s go find us some bikes.”

He grimaced. “We should wait until daylight when the Berserkers crawl back into their holes. We’ve had enough trouble from them for one day.”

Point taken. Besides, he was in no condition to fight off wild people. “Okay, but in the meantime I want to figure out a way to channel the power of the sun.”

Ian’s thoughtful scowl made the scar through his eyebrow more pronounced. “You’re looking for a way to end your addiction.”

He understood the feeling of helplessness that came with being out of control, so he knew what I needed. I seated myself on the floor beside him. “If I can tap into a direct source of power, I won’t have to siphon off yours, and I won’t have to depend so much on the sparks.”

“You want to use the sun itself?”

I nodded. “I can’t control my forecasts, but if I miss a storm, I shouldn’t have to go through withdrawals every time. I want kinetic energy when I need it and not be forced to accept a few paltry sparks that come and go on a whim.” I warmed up to my own conviction as I imagined how my life would change. I could choose which storms I chased. I could end my slavery to the sparks.

“And you need my help.”

“We’re far stronger together than we could ever be apart. Come with me.”

He frowned. “Where are we going?”

“To the surface of the sun.”

His snarly smile gave me goose bumps. “Do you have a supersonic, heat-resistant rocket ship I don’t know about?”

“Sort of.” I pointed at my head. “It’s in here.”

He laughed. “It must be, because you have quite an imagination.”

“Except that it’s not my imagination, Ian. When I forecast, I get visual messages from the sun inside my head: a time and a place. So why not visit the sender the same way?”

Looking puzzled, he asked, “With your mind? But I don’t receive messages from the sun.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re a powerful Kinetic who got your power from sun sparks. Whether you like it or not, you’re linked to the source of those sparks. You can join me.”

“Inside your head?” he asked, his tone incredulous.

“You and I have a bond. We’ve both felt the power working through us when we engage our emotions through physical touch. That’s what triggers it.” The thought of his consciousness merged with mine gave me an unexpected thrill. “With your weather ability, you may even discover a way to stop the storms. Trust me, okay?”

“Of course.” His grin told me he’d go along with whatever I wanted, but it didn’t necessarily say he believed me. I’d just have to prove to him, and to myself, that I was right.

We both sat Indian style, and I swiveled around to face him, motioning for him to turn his body so that our knees were touching. “I’ll let my mind touch the flares on the sun’s surface, extract their energy. Once you and I merge, you’ll be able to watch.”

He whistled. “That’s a tall order for something you’ve never done before.”

I shrugged. “Who says it’s never been done? It’s just never been done by me. Or by you.” We both knew there were other Kinetics, so it wasn’t a stretch to believe that one or more of them had tried tapping energy from the sun. And possibly succeeded. “Ready?”

I closed my eyes and held my hands out to him. He laced his fingers with mine, the heels of our palms pressed together. The sensation was electric, and not just because of our abilities. It went further than that. I was connected to him in a way that went beyond the twining of kinetic energy. I sensed his heartbeat through my hands, and it thrummed in rhythm with my own. It felt good. It felt right.

I opened my eyes for a split second, just to see his face. He stared at me, his eyes smiling, though his lips were not. There was a liquid sheen to his gaze that gave my heart a jolt. He felt what I did. And best of all, I saw the joy it gave him.

My eyes closed again as I summoned calm to my quickening heart. I focused on the sun, saw it as a place rather than a symbol of death. Its purpose was to give life, not take it away, and I sought the positive energy that had given me the gift to forecast its storms.

Ian’s power flowed into me like water from a faucet. A hum of energy slithered over my skin and tingled down my spine as it tugged my consciousness upward, through the ceiling, above the building, hurtling me high into the sky toward outer space. The feeling of weightlessness was unlike anything I’d ever experienced: Free from my body and from the baked planet that died little by little every day. But I wasn’t free of my need for sparks.

As my consciousness approached the giant, flaming orb at the center of our solar system, I wasn’t afraid. It was as if part of the sun lived inside me and was returning home to visit. I felt no heat, no cold, no physical sensation of any kind. I was pure energy, and the sun embraced me like a mother embraces her child.

Ian was there with me. I could feel him settle calmly inside my head, watching everything I saw. I sensed his wonder but also his acceptance of what was happening. He shared in my experience and had the same sense of familiarity as I did. The sun was inside us both because it had made us what we’d become.

Giant flares shot from the sun’s surface like graceful fountains of fire. It reminded me of volcanic eruptions.

This incredible journey fed me what I needed. My soul gobbled up the sun’s fire like a treat I couldn’t get enough of. I felt Ian reach out beyond our link to explore the fiery surface, testing the limits of his power, but he must have gone too close. He yanked back, and our link snapped like a rubber band.

My consciousness plummeted back to earth. The force of my return jolted me loose from Ian, and I sensed something wrong. One look at Ian’s hands and I nearly screamed. He had blisters on his fingers.

“Oh, my God! Did the sun do that?” I asked, knowing it couldn’t have happened any other way. “I had no idea...”

He grimaced and held his hands out, palms up. “I shouldn’t have gone so close.”

“This is all my fault.” I grabbed the first aid cream from the kit and started applying it to his hands. “I didn’t think this would happen.”

“My power isn’t strong enough to stop the storms, even combined with yours. I need more...” He seemed to struggle for the right words, but I wasn’t sure there were any. “Juju? Mojo? Hell, I don’t know. Just...more.”

I blew on his fingers. “How does that feel?”

He grinned. “Better. Don’t stop.”

The smile I gave him was a half-hearted one. I should have known this wouldn’t be easy. It was mind over matter, and I had no clue how that worked. I understood, though, what he meant when he said he needed
more
. For the two of us to take on stopping a sun storm, we needed backup. We needed
more
people like us. And there was only one place that could provide them.

That clinched it. We couldn’t afford to wait until daylight to find bicycles for peddling the ten miles back to Lodgepole. We had to step it up and find the bikes now. Had tapping into the sun cured my addiction to sun sparks? Probably not. I felt stronger, yes, but my energy was already starting to drain. If I got hit with a premonition for a new storm, I no longer had the means to chase it. Getting the Trooper was my only hope.