Headlights(78)

Pressure. That strange vibration—

VOOM.

Happy Inn.

Afghanistan.

Every crime scene.

I suck in a breath. I try to take a step, to move away from Theo Wharton, from this room, from whatever any of this is. But I can’t. I can’t move. I’m— “LISTEN.” it says. “YOU. WANT. REACH.”

Outside the window, behind Hannah, there’s movement. I can’t turn my head, but I can just move my eyes enough to see red and blue flashing lights.

“TRYING. NEED.”

Through the drugged haze and the confusion and the music growing in volume and the man before us and the congregation of shadows at our backs, information synthesizes all at once.

They’ve arrived. Jack’s here, probably with backup. I don’t know what’s happening in front of us, can’t begin to understand it.

But I called Jack here, and if there’s any chance of Hannah and me getting out of this, of Theo Wharton being apprehended, I need to be able to move somehow. I need control.

I close my eyes, and I remember my body, the way it moves, the way it runs and fights and lives. I know it so well, know sweat and pain and speed and breath more than anyone. It is the place I go when nothing makes sense, when this world feels too painful to spend another second in. I know this. I can do this.

Even as I think it, I move my left foot, slowly, sliding it over the floor, just inches. Psychochemical warfare. They taught us how to do this, how to move through it. How to convince our brains that it isn’t happening, that we do know ourselves and our bodies and our thoughts, even if it feels the furthest thing from the truth. I can do this. Whatever he drugged me with, however he fucked with the connection between my brain and body, whatever this circus sideshow is, my brain knows how to move. My body does. I do.

It’s all in my mind. I tell myself it’s all in my mind. I push harder, feel sweat beading on my forehead. I push. It’s all— I snap back to awareness, and my body is mine once again.

Father Sky opens his mouth to say more. And I turn around to face the doors.

Just in time to see them burst open.





6



Josie, in the doorway. Her gun trained on me. Garcia and two male agents I don’t know.

My ex-wife holds up her radio and says, “I have Stansfield, Lawrence, and Wharton. Daniel,” she says to me. “You two are coming in, and we’re gonna talk. Okay? Don’t make this hard.”

She doesn’t see the congregation of shadows. None of them do. Because the shadows aren’t real. Because none of them have been in here long enough to be affected by the drugs. I glance to the incense on either side of the entrance. We only passed through it, got whatever of it fills the room now. But they’re standing right next to it.

I can feel Hannah about to run beside me, feel the tension in her. I don’t know if she’s still frozen.

A voice cuts through my thoughts.

Behind us, Father Sky—not Father Sky—says in that other voice, “ASK. HER.”

Josie and the other agents flinch at the voice, the awful sound, the reverberation of it through the chapel, try to find the source of it. Garcia furrows her brow. One of the male agents swears, the other says, What the— Again, that uncanny, terrifying voice behind me says, “SHE. KNOWS.”

I turn, just for a moment, to see Father Sky—Theo Wharton, whoever the fuck we’re talking to—staring right at Hannah.

Flute music, in the chapel. Tension filling every breath, every bit of air in here choked and thick with it, with the incense. The agents at the front, here to arrest Hannah and me. Theo Wharton on the dais, Hannah Lawrence, terrified beside me.

What does that mean?

She knows.

That other voice, those thousand terrible voices in one, echoes through the chapel, sliding against the walls and falling down back to us from the ceiling.

SHE KNOWS.

SHE KNOWS.

SHE—

We don’t have time. I don’t have time to parse this out. I look at Josie, think if there’s any way out for us from this. I know the look there. I made a mistake, a major one, telling Jack our location. They don’t trust me anymore, and maybe I don’t trust them now either.

We have to get out of here. I turn back to Josie and open my mouth, start to try and stall them just long enough for the incense to affect them. It shouldn’t be long now.

The voice behind me rasps one more time. “HELP. THEM.”

A twitch, in the shadow congregation. A ripple, a wave. Heads turning, if the shadows do have heads. This imaginary congregation, starting to move, as a whole.

I hear a clatter and a bang, and I turn back once more to see Father Sky passed out on the ground, fallen back on top of the singing bowls and cushions. The music still plays. The echoes of the crash. I turn back to the agents.

At the front of the chapel, Josie says, “Daniel, you’re coming with us, and you’re not going to put up any kind of fight. It’s good you texted. We’re gonna figure this out.”

Hannah’s eyes shoot to me. Disbelief, confusion.

Betrayal.

Josie jerks her head, and the two male agents start to walk around either side of the dome, around the shadow congregation. All four agents with guns out, trained on us. The shadows …

“Josie,” I say. And it’s a warning, because I don’t know what’s real.