Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

“Copy that.” There wasn’t much else Miranda could say.

“We were watching Main Street.” Roxanne’s voice was grim now. “Saw what happened. Gabe’s guess of the trajectory is that the bastard was on the roof of that two-story building by the library at the south end of Main Street. But it’s just a guess. We’re headed there now.”

“Watch yourself.”

“Copy that.”

The cameraman was whimpering louder.

Ignoring him, Miranda raised her voice to say, “Tony, can you get Jaylene to the command center?”

“Yeah, I think so. Can you move?”

“Well, since I don’t intend to lie here all day, I’m damn well going to try.” It had been, she realized, no more than five minutes since the sniper’s bullet had killed the reporter.

The sky was lightening as night edged toward dawn; it wouldn’t be long before the people who worked in the downtown restaurants showed up to begin cooking breakfast. And following soon after would be the townsfolk who normally ate breakfast at their favorite spots before beginning their own busy days.

Normal days.

I wonder if this town will ever be normal again .

“Come on,” she said to the cameraman.

“I—I don’t—”

“I don’t either,” she said grimly. “But I think a moving target will be harder to hit than a stationary one, don’t you?”

He gave a choked gasp and then turned onto his belly and scurried like a crab toward the building.

He left his camera. Miranda picked it up and followed him, not scurrying but keeping low. When they were pressed up against the building, she led the way north toward the command center.

Although why I don’t think he’d shoot some kind of explosive shell in there is beyond me .

Because it looked as if someone had definitely declared war in this once-peaceful little town.

The question was, who?

Hollis started awake, emerging from a nightmare filled with blood and fire and screams, her heart pounding.

DeMarco’s arms tightened around her. “Go back to sleep.”

Confused, she realized that they were in bed together. Well, not in bed together, but on a bed together. Not under the covers, certainly, but only their clothing separated them. She was on her side and he was behind her—close behind her, so that she could feel just about every inch of him—with his arms around her.

She was very conscious of his heart beating steadily against her back and his breath stirring her hair.

Okay, how did this happen?

“Your attempt to heal Diana wiped you out,” he said.

“Will you stop that?” Despite her best efforts, her voice was a bit unsteady.

“It was logical that would be your question.”

“Yeah, you always say something like that. I don’t believe you.” She realized they were in a tiny bare room lit only by a dim lamp on a low nightstand in one corner. And the bed was… not large. Still in the hospital? If so, not in a typical patient’s room. Maybe a room where interns and residents napped when on call?

“How did I—how did we—get here?”

“I carried you.”

Carried me?

“Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say about that.

“Go back to sleep,” he repeated. “It isn’t even seven-thirty, so you barely got in a nap. And you really need to rest.”

“What about Diana? Did I help her at all?”

“I think so. The nurse who ran us out said Diana’s vital signs were more stable than they’d been all night.”

“We were run out?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

She waited a moment, then prompted, “Why were we run out?” It wasn’t the only detail about which she was fuzzy. She remembered making the attempt to help Diana heal, remembered the hot pulse of energy that seemed to well up inside her own body, and then… nothing. It was as if she’d fallen into a deep black hole of silence.

DeMarco said, “Visiting an ICU patient without permission at five in the morning generally raises the ire of the nursing staff.”

“Oh.” She seemed to keep falling back on that useful syllable.

There was a big part of Hollis that wanted to just relax and enjoy the warmth and odd sense of security she felt lying there with him, but another part of her felt wary to the point of having to fight not to stiffen up. The battle was a rather subdued one, however, since she was so tired she could hardly think straight anyway.

“You need to rest,” he repeated.

“I’ve been resting. Apparently.”

“You’ve been unconscious. Big difference.”

“I feel fine,” she lied.

“Hollis. You need to sleep.”

She hesitated and then, because it was easier when she wasn’t looking at him, said, “I think I’m afraid to sleep. Afraid I might get drawn into the gray time when I’m not strong enough to pull myself back out again.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“No?”

“No.”

“I think I had one foot in there earlier. Or… something a lot like it.”

“And I think you’re in a hospital holding a lot of pain, where a lot of people have died, and you’re a medium. They looked more real to you because that sense was wide open, and your other ones were all but shut down from exhaustion.”

Hollis thought about that and decided she liked his explanation better than her own. Because his explanation enabled her to give way to the weariness and begin to relax again. And once she began to relax… “Or it could be my eyes,” she said, blinking sleepily, trying to keep the little lamp in focus.

“Your eyes?”

“Well… these eyes. They aren’t mine, you know.”

“Of course they’re yours.”

“I mean I wasn’t born with them.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Do you? Did you read my file or my mind?”

“Go to sleep, Hollis.”

She closed her eyes finally but murmured, “I see differently with them, you know. Through them.”

“Do you?”

“Uh-huh. Hard to explain. Colors are different. Sometimes… my depth perception is … off. And there are… lions. I mean lines. Extra lines around things. Some things. Sometimes. Plus … the auras… around… living things. It’s… weird. I think… I’m weird….”

DeMarco waited a moment longer, but her even breathing told him she was finally asleep again. He didn’t relax but instead concentrated—as he had been concentrating during the last couple of hours—on keeping his shield extended just far enough to enclose Hollis as well as himself.

It was something of an experiment, since he’d never attempted to use his shield this way before, but he knew it was possible: Miranda could do it, and some of the SCU guardians, like Bailey, could too. And since he was able to project some of his energy outward to dampen the strength of other psychics, he figured—as Hollis had in her attempt to heal Diana—that it was worth a try.

Something he had to try, since he knew damn well that Hollis didn’t have the energy or strength right now to wander around in the gray time. And if that was where Diana’s spirit had gone, if she had opened that door, then Hollis would most certainly be drawn there when she slept and what few guards she could claim—virtually all of them emotional ones—came down.

She was completely defenseless when she slept. He actually had to concentrate to avoid reading her, and even when he did so he could still hear the distant whispers of her thoughts, her dreams.

She was not going to like that. At all.

He wasn’t entirely certain he liked it himself. Not, at least, as it stood now. Just as she had felt she had one foot in the gray time, he felt he had only a partial connection to her, and that one very elusive and uncertain. Not so surprising, considering that they had met only a few months ago and both had been too active in investigations since to have much of a personal life. Still, he knew what he wanted.