The Chemist Part 35

"I think I could channel some caveman."

"Perfect. Once you trade cars with the McKinleys, start heading up here." He switched to his library voice, but Daniel was so close it was a wasted effort. "Danny going to give you trouble about staying behind?"

She tilted her face up toward Daniel's. It was easy to read his reaction.

"Yeah. I'm not so sure it's a good idea anyway. Call me paranoid, but I don't believe in safe houses anymore."

Daniel bent down to press his lips hard against her forehead, which made it difficult to pay attention to what Kevin was saying.

"...figure a place for Lola. How bad is your face? Oleander?"

"Huh?"

"Your face. What does it look like?"

"Big bandage across my left jaw and ear." As she spoke, Daniel leaned closer to examine her wounds and then drew in a sharp breath. "Plus all the original fun."

"That could play," Kevin said. "Lola's injured, too. I'll feed them a story that will keep them satisfied."

"Who?"

"The dog-boarding place for Lola. d.a.m.n, Ollie, you need some sleep. You're getting dumber by the second."

"Maybe I'll write your e-mail now, while I'm in the right frame of mind."

"Call me when you're on the road again." Kevin hung up.

"You're bleeding through the bandage," Daniel said anxiously.

She handed him the phone. "It's fine. I should have glued it last night."

"Let's take care of it now."

She looked up at his face-the panic and ferocity in his eyes had dimmed to simple concern. His chest was still slick with sweat, but his breathing was regular. She wasn't sure she had reached a similar state of calm.

"Right now?" she asked.

He gave her a measured look. "Yes, right now."

"Is it bleeding that much?" She touched the gauze gingerly but felt only a bit of warm wet. From his expression, she'd expected blood to be gus.h.i.+ng out in a torrent.

"It's bleeding; that's enough. Where is the first-aid kit?"

With a sigh, she turned to the piled duffels. The wrong one was on top, so she had to readjust. While she dug, she felt his fingers cautiously brus.h.i.+ng along her left shoulder blade.

"You're all over bruises," he murmured. His fingers followed the line of her arm. "These look fresh."

"I got tackled," she admitted as she pulled out the kit and turned around.

"You never told me what happened in the house," he commented.

"You don't want to know."

"Maybe I do."

"Okay. I don't want you to know."

Daniel took the first-aid kit from her hands and then crossed his legs and set it between them. She followed suit with a heavy sigh, angling the left side of her face toward him.

Gently, he started easing the tape from her skin.

"You can do that faster," she told him.

"I'll do it my way."

They sat in silence for a moment while he worked. The stillness allowed her body to remind her how exhausted she was.

"Why don't you want me to know?" he asked as he dabbed a medicated wipe against her skin. "Do you think I can't handle it?"

"No, I just..."

"What?"

"The way you look at me now. I don't want that to change."

From the corner of her eye, she saw him smile. "You don't have to worry about that."

She shrugged in response.

"How do I do this?" he asked, pulling her superglue from the case.

"Push the edges of the cut together, draw a line of glue across the top, then hold it till the glue dries. About a minute."

She suppressed a wince as he pressed his fingertips firmly against her skin. The familiar smell of the adhesive filled the s.p.a.ce between them.

"Does this hurt?"

"It's fine."

"Do you ever get tired of being tough?"

She rolled her eyes. "The pain is manageable, thank you."

He leaned away to examine his work. "It looks messy," he told her. "You should have saved the life of an EMT."

She took the glue from him and screwed the cap back on. She didn't want it to dry out. Who knew how soon she might need it again, the way this trip was going.

"I'm sure it will do the job," she said. "Just hold it for a little longer."

"Alex, I'm sorry about just now." His voice was quiet, apologetic.

She wished she could turn her head and look at him straight on.

"I don't know what that was," he continued. "I can't believe I was so rough with you."

"I wasn't exactly pulling my punches."

"But I'm not injured," he reminded her sourly. "Not a scratch on me, as you put it."

"I don't think that's entirely true anymore," she told him, brus.h.i.+ng her fingers against the skin of his chest. She could feel the faint welts her nails had left.

He inhaled sharply, both of them caught for one second in the memory, and her stomach contracted. She tried to turn her head, but he held her face still.

"Wait," he cautioned.

They sat motionless in the charged silence while she counted to sixty in her head twice.

"It's dry," she insisted.

Slowly, he lifted his fingers from her jaw. She turned to him, but his face was down as he searched the kit. He found the antibacterial spray and applied it liberally to her wound. Then he pulled out the roll of gauze and tape. Gently-and without looking her in the eye-he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and repositioned her head. He taped the gauze in place.

"We should sleep now," he said as he pressed the last piece tight to her skin. "We're both overwrought and not thinking clearly. We can reopen this... discussion when we're rational."

She wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. They weren't acting like themselves. They were acting like animals-responding to a near-death experience with a subconscious imperative to continue the species. It was primitive biology rather than responsible adult behavior.

She still wanted to argue.

His fingers rested against the side of her neck, and she could feel her pulse begin to jump under his touch. He could, too.

"Sleep," he repeated.

"You're right, you're right," she grumbled, flopping back against the rumpled sleeping bag. She really was bone-weary.

"Here." He handed her his T-s.h.i.+rt.

"Where's mine?"

"In pieces. Sorry."

It was already too warm and stuffy inside the Humvee. She tossed his s.h.i.+rt aside and grinned remorsefully, feeling the glue pull. "For people with quite limited resources, we are not being very careful with our things."

He must have noticed the lack of air circulation as well. He leaned over and opened the back hatch again. "Like I said-we're overwrought."

He lay down next to her, and she curled into his chest, wondering if it would really be possible to sleep with him half naked beside her. She closed her eyes, trying to will herself into unconsciousness. His arms wrapped around her, tentatively at first and then, after a few seconds, more securely, almost like he was testing his resolve.

If she'd been any less tired, she might have made the test harder for him. But despite her heightened awareness of his body and all the little volts of electricity that sparked where her nerve endings met his bare skin, she quickly drifted. As she surrendered to oblivion, one strange word circled through her head.

Mine, her brain insisted as her thoughts faded to black. Mine.

WHEN ALEX WOKE, the sun was still bright in the west, and the sleeping bag underneath her was damp with sweat. The shadows had s.h.i.+fted, and a shaft of light was. .h.i.tting her full in the face, albeit through the tinted window. She blinked sleepily for a minute, waiting for her brain to wake up.

Then she came to with a jolt as she realized she was alone. She sat up too quickly, making her head ache and spin. The back hatch of the Humvee was still open, and the warm, humid air sat heavily on her skin. Daniel was nowhere in sight. Neither was his T-s.h.i.+rt, so she had to swiftly and silently dig into her things to find something to wear before she could look for him. It was stupid, but if she was about to run into another team of a.s.sa.s.sins, she didn't want to do it in no more than a worn tan bra. She threw on her thin, oversize gray sweater because it was the first thing her fingers touched, not because it was weather-appropriate. She pulled the PPK out of her bag and tucked it into the small of her back. As she was climbing out the open hatch, she heard the crinkle of paper under her knee.

It was the receipt she'd written the e-mail address on. Underneath that was another neatly printed note.

Taking Einstein for a walk. Back soon.

She shoved the note in her pocket. Still moving quietly, she climbed out of the Humvee. Lola was sprawled out in a patch of shade beside the water and food Daniel had left. Her tail started thumping against the gra.s.s when she saw Alex.

Well, at least with Lola there, Alex knew that there was no one else around. Alex gulped down some water, wiped the sweat from her face with the sleeves of the sweater, then shoved them up as high as they could go.

"I don't even know which direction they went," she complained to Lola, scratching her ears. "And you're in no shape to track them down, are you, girl? Though I bet you could pretty fast if you were on your feet."

Lola licked her hand.

Alex was very hungry. She explored the small stash of food Daniel had brought and settled for a bag of pretzels. She would definitely need to replenish their stores tonight, but she so hated leaving a trail. Of course, there were hundreds of possible routes they could have taken to any number of destinations. But if someone were persistent enough and had a little luck on his side, he might be able to put together a pattern. She was out of carefully prepared traps and well-thought-out plans, let alone Batcaves. Her a.s.sets were money, guns, ammo, grenades, knives, a variety of venoms and chemical incapacitators, an a.s.sault vehicle, and one brilliant attack dog. Her physical liabilities included that same attention-demanding a.s.sault vehicle, one lame dog, her own somewhat lame body, one conspicuous face, one face off a wanted poster-more or less-and a lack of food, shelter, and options. Her emotional liabilities were even worse. She couldn't believe how much trouble she'd brought on herself in such a limited time. Part of her wanted nothing more than to rewind, to go back to her cozy little bathtub, her unbroken face, and her safety nets. To choose differently in that distant library and delete the e-mail.

But if she could turn back the clock, would she? Was that life of daily terror and loneliness really such a better option? She'd been safer, yes, but still hunted. In so many ways, wasn't her new, more endangered life a fuller existence?

She was sitting next to Lola, slowly stroking her back, when she heard Daniel's voice approaching. After the first shock of alarm, she didn't panic that he was talking to someone else. There was a special edge in his voice that appeared only when he was speaking with Kevin.

Einstein arrived first. He ran excitedly to Alex and touched his wet nose to her hand. He exchanged a snuffly greeting with Lola, then went to get a drink.

Daniel walked into view, striding quickly down the center of the unkempt dirt road. He had the bulletproof hat on. Beneath it, his brows were furrowed. He held the phone half an inch from his ear.

"I'm back now," he was saying. "I'll see if she's awake... No, I will not wake her if she's still sleeping."

Alex got to her feet, brus.h.i.+ng debris from her backside and stretching. The movement caught Daniel's eye, and his expression s.h.i.+fted from annoyance to a slow, wide smile. Though she was a little exasperated, she couldn't help grinning back.

"She's right here. Just one more second of patience, brother dear."

Rather than hand her the phone, Daniel pulled her close for a lingering hug. With her face hidden in his chest, breathing in his smell, she smiled. But when he finally leaned away, she was shaking her head, her eyebrows raised in disbelief.

"Sorry," he said. "Wasn't thinking."

She blew out a frustrated breath, then held her hand out for the phone. He gave it to her with a sheepish grin, his other arm still loosely around her.

"Don't mind me, I'm just trying to keep us alive," she muttered, then spoke into the phone. "h.e.l.lo."

"Good morning. I see my idiot brother hasn't learned anything from his mistakes."

"What's happened?"

"Not much. A flurry of phone calls, but no one else has implicated himself at this point."

"Then why are you calling?"