27. On the Streets, Love
Alec hesitated in the doorway, shielding his eyes with the back of his hand. She put on a burst of speed, and managed to get some distance between them. She ran down an alley, and little stones and bits of glass pricked her feet. She hopped a sagging backyard fence. The grass was overgrown and littered with cheap children's toys. She stepped on a plastic car, saying, "Ow--shit!"
She saw an open basement window and dove in headfirst, rolling so she ended up on her feet. She hugged the wall, breathing hard and feeling hopeless. She couldn't take much more of this. She was way too weak. She tried to catch her breath, standing still and listening, her face tilted up toward the window. Had she lost him?
She was in a laundry room. She smelled soap and mildew. She usually didn't like to steal from people this poor, but she needed something to wear. In a basket she found a clean, dark sweatshirt with a hood. It was way too big, but it would do for now. She pulled the sweater of some strange man she would never meet over her head, bitting her lip as she tucked her sore shoulder into the sleeve. Her heart--and even now she thought of it as Zack's heart--squished in her ears, making a shush, shush, shush sound, while her scattered thoughts stuttered in counterpoint. She couldn't stay here. She had to find a phone. She couldn't remember when she had last seen Logan. She had a gap in her memory. She had to make sure he was okay. She was afraid Alec had hurt him, or worse.
She wiped her eyes, and her hand was shaking. She felt a depressing rush of self-pity. She wasn't strong enough to get on top of this situation. She was sick! She was really sick, and Alec was crazy. He was totally crazy, she knew that now. Like his twin before him, he'd gone out too far on thin ice. He'd fallen through, and as with any drowning man, was capable of taking everybody with him.
Where was Logan?
She had to find a way to stop Alec. She had to stay out of his clutches. She shivered, feeling sick to her stomach. That tussle back at the house had obviously been his nasty idea of foreplay. He wasn't thinking right. OC had said he was obsessed with her. Maybe the idea that Manticore had assigned them to be breeding partners was ricocheting around in his mixed up mind.
Where was Logan?
She had to get to a phone. That was manageable. She crawled back out the window, grunting as her feet scraped the wall, and sneaked out of the yard. The sky had grown dark. The air was heavy. It was pressing down on her, collapsing her lungs. She heard a rumble. There was an enormous crack of lightening, and it began to rain.
Leaving her bolt hole had been a mistake. She went around the corner, and there he was. She ran right into his chest. "Oh, no," she moaned.
There was more lightening; she saw it reflected in his eyes. Tiny pinpricks flashed in his pupils, then his face was lost to shadow. "Hey, Max," he said conversationally, grabbing her by the collar. "Why are you running away?"
She didn't bother answering. There was no reasoning with an irrational person. He struck her once sharply with the back of his fist, turning out the lights.
They weren't at Max's place. They weren't at Alec's. Neither of them were answering their phones. Logan made a quick stop at an S1W safe-house. Max was in real danger. He had to find them before something terrible happened. Where the hell were they? He picked up a package, forestalling Asha's questions with a wave of his hand. He went down to the street. He opened the car door.
Logan groaned as realization socked him like a fist in the gut. He looked up, swearing. Partially obscured by cloud was the city's insensate, hulking guardian, the Space Needle. Where else would they be? They were like cats. Wacky, fucked-up cats. They liked to be up high. When he had been shot, he had nothing to read in hospital. A nurse brought him a dog-eared, watermarked copy of Reader's Digest, thinking she was being kind. He took the vocabulary test, and then he'd had nothing better to do than read the articles. He remembered a story about a cat that went up a tree, and never came down. An elderly man had climbed a ladder every day to feed it. Logan slid into his car and began to drive, fuming. Eight hundred and forty-eight stairs!
To be continued. . .