Rachel Caine - Thin Air

“She’s lying!” David’s grip on my hair tightened. I squeaked faintly, sure my neck was on the verge of separating from my shoulders. That would be a real mess.

“Then go and check.” Lewis sounded awfully calm. Almost offhand about it. “She’s not going anywhere. It’s a short trip for you to Sedona and back.”

The pressure on my head relaxed so suddenly it was all I could do to keep my face from bouncing off the road. The push of his hand on my back went away at the same time. I struggled up to my knees, trying to put my shoulders at some angle that didn’t hurt like hell, trying to ignore the cutting ache of the zip-ties on my wrists, and looked around. The other Wardens were standing silently around. Nobody was shifting attention, including Lewis.

David vanished with an audible pop of air.

I let my head drop. Sweat ran down my cheeks, funneled to the point of my chin, and pattered on the stained fabric of my blue jeans.

I had no idea what he was going to find, or believe. But at least I had five minutes.

“If you try anything-” Lewis began.

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll kill me,” I finished in a tired mumble. “Save your breath.” What if Imara didn’t appear to David? I hadn’t even considered that maybe he wouldn’t be able to see her, or that she might not want to see him. It had seemed like my only shot, and now that I thought about it, it was thinner than a Hollywood starlet on diuretics. “I am so kicking your ass later, Lewis.”

He smiled. Cynically. “Always possible,” he said. “Shut up before I seal your mouth.”

He could do it, too. I shut up and concentrated on breathing, and wondering where the hell my Djinn cavalry had ridden off to. Venna had just left me. Cut her losses and skipped. I didn’t know if Ashan was dead in the wreck, or if she’d taken him with her; either way, nobody was stepping up for me when I needed it.

My fingers were tingling. I tried adjusting my wrists, and to my shock I found that the zip-ties were softening. Stretching like rubber bands. I stopped moving after the first second, holding my breath and praying that Lewis-or the other Wardens-hadn’t noticed. It didn’t look like they had. “How’s Marion?” I asked. “I didn’t hurt her, did I?”

“Marion’s fine.” Lewis’s tone said the subject was not only closed but locked. “Last warning. Shut up.”

I’d blurted out the question only to keep him from noticing that I was working my hands free, but the Warden behind me, some young brown-haired surfer dude, yelled a warning. “She’s getting loose!”

Narc.

I abandoned any pretense of trying to keep it low-key, snapped the zip-ties, pushed myself up from the road, and ran for the nearest fallen tree. I dove behind it just as a firebolt zipped toward me, and the wood exploded into splinters and flame. I didn’t stop. I crawled, frantic to find some way, any way, to defend myself, but it was a useless effort. Lewis was blocking me on the aetheric. The other Wardens weren’t as powerful, but they were competent enough, and when I rolled for the shelter of another pile of brush it went up in flame, driving me back. A gust of wind hit me full in the chest and knocked me back, staggering, and I tripped over a sudden profusion of wildly growing tree roots erupting out of the ground to wrap around my feet.

It was over that fast.

The Earth Warden-the young girl of Chinese ancestry, I guessed, who was standing nearest to me-fastened me down with more whipping roots, saw-edged grasses, vines…anything that would hold. I wrestled futilely, then relaxed as a vine wrapped three times around my throat and squeezed.

“Right,” I choked out, and shut my eyes. “I’ll wait here, then.”

The minutes ticked by, each one both torturously slow and unbelievably fast. I could almost see the sand running out in the hourglass-or, more appropriately, the blood dripping out of my veins.

I wondered whether I was going to end up dead at David’s hands, or some crazed, Demon-infected Djinn’s. Either way, my prospects looked none too shiny.

I sensed the disturbance of air that accompanied David’s arrival, and opened my eyes as he formed, already striding out of the air. He was wearing his coat again, the long olive-drab military coat, and under it his shirt was black, as were his pants. He looked ready for battle, and the look on his face was fierce and focused.

Shit. I’d thrown my last set of dice, and I’d lost.

“Well?” Lewis asked. David didn’t pause, and he didn’t answer. He kept walking, past Lewis, right to me.

Then he ripped the roots out of the ground that held me down, unwrapped the vine from around my neck, and collapsed to a kneeling position to gather me in his arms and rock me slowly back and forth. His hands stroked my back, up and down, then moved up to cup the back of my head. I felt a burst of heat move through me, sealing cuts, healing strained and herniated muscles, infusing me with a warm glow of safety.

He felt so incredibly warm, real, and solid against me.

“Oh,” I said faintly, and met his eyes. “You found her, right?”

He didn’t speak at all. He traced his thumbs down the line of my chin, and there was a light in him that made me kindle in response. I kissed him, breathless with relief, and he responded so ardently I felt faintly embarrassed to be doing this in public view. The kiss was a promise, intimate and gentle, of a lot more to come. When I pulled back his hands continued to move over me, restless and frantic, silently assuring me that he knew. He knew.

The Wardens were all looking at Lewis. Lewis, in turn, was staring at the two of us with a stone-hard expression and dark, impenetrable eyes.

And then he smiled, and there was a trace of bitterness in it, but just a trace. The rest was pure satisfaction. “Well, that was close,” Lewis said, and jerked his head at the other Wardens. “Glad to be right. Back off. Give them some air.”

The Wardens clustered together, murmuring in low voices. Lewis didn’t join them. He took a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed, said a few words, and sat down on a log to wait.

I focused back on David. “You really thought that bitch was me?” He flinched. “Oh, come on. You didn’t.”

His hands stroked through my hair, combing out tangles and curls. It fell in a shining black silk curtain over my shoulders and his hands. “I love your hair,” he whispered. “Did I ever tell you that?”

“Can’t remember,” I said, and smiled just a little. “Sorry. Nothing personal. The other one’s got my memories. I’m still brain-damaged.”

He sighed and rested his forehead against mine, a gesture of trust more intimate than a kiss. “The morning after we got you to the clinic, you-went crazy. Tried to kill the staff and escape,” he said. “We found you and restrained you, and when you woke up, you…remembered. You were all right again.” Shadows flickered in his eyes. “Except you weren’t. And it wasn’t you. It was her .” He swallowed hard. “But she remembered , Jo. She remembered Imara . She knew your past, she knew me-I had no reason to doubt it. She felt…”

“Real,” I supplied soberly. “I know. It’s not your fault. She knew what you wanted, what you needed, and she played right to it. I can’t blame you. I wouldn’t have believed me, either. She set me up good. Pretty stiff competition.”

“She’s not competition,” he said, and kissed me, fast and hard. “She’s been voted off the island.”

I didn’t know why that was funny, but it was, and I felt giggles bubbling up inside me, hot and giddy. “Speaking of islands, I’d really like to be on one. A deserted one, with sandy beaches and warm breezes and-”