The agents wouldn’t pursue her into occupied Kewa territory. As a friend of the Nations, she could only be taken if there were no tribal witnesses. The Council of Nine had long since begged peace with the Native Nations.
Her feet pounded on the arroyo bottom, carrying her closer to sanctuary. Every impact sent a spike up her spine and into her head, a reminder of how close she was to burn out. She risked a pause to turn back, looking for signs of pursuit. The twisted trees protected her from discovery, but they limited her vision. And she couldn’t hear anything over the sound of her own heartbeat and panting breath. She turned back from the direction of home to run on.
Movement flickered through the branches to her side.
Lena snapped her head around, breath caught in her throat. A young agent paced through the desert a hundred yards away. His head swung as he searched for her. She bent at the knees, intending to sink below the arroyo edge. Her movement caught his attention. Their gazes locked.
She spun and exploded up the shallow arroyo wall behind her. The compacted sand crumbled beneath her scrabbling fingers and feet. When she made the top, she clawed through the tearing thorns of the scrubby trees and bushes to reach the desert on the other side. She flew then, running flat out, desperate. He crashed through the brush only moments later as he made it down and then up the arroyo again. His footsteps pounded behind her as the ground rose ahead.
A drop-off loomed on the other side, leading down to the remnants of a cracked and pitted caliche road. A quarter mile to the west and just across the road, Santo Domingo rose from the desert.
Except the sound of breath sawing loud in her ears wasn’t only her own. He caught her at the crest of the rise, yanking at her shirt to pull her back. The momentum of her leap pulled him down with her, and they tumbled together down the steep, eroded, red sand.
She hit the hard caliche, and her breath exploded out of her. Even as she gasped, she rolled to her side. She’d pull herself across the road if she had to. His hand caught her ankle, fingers like an iron band, and he dragged her back toward himself. She tried to pull away, her fingertips clawing in vain at the dry top of the road.
She flipped and looked down her body. He held tight to her ankle, pinning it to the road as he reached for a weapon at his side with his other hand. A gun? Or a Taser?
She kicked out with her free foot, desperate and vicious. Her heel made contact with his nose, and she was free. She rolled back over, scrambling to her knees and then her feet. If she could catch her breath, she could run the last stretch to safety.
Wheezing, she made it ten unsteady steps before she blinked the sand from her eyes. She froze.
Across the road from the single turn into Santo Domingo, Reyes leaned against the hood of the Volt, ankles crossed in front of him, hands in pockets. He’d lost the sunglasses, and his dark glare burned across the distance. The heat of it belied his relaxed slouch. Sometime in the hour it must have been since she’d run from him, Reyes had recovered. He wasn’t happy.
Lena’s breath hissed out of her. She started to reach out to the Dust in his body again before remembering her overloaded brain might well stroke out. She was on her own.
She side-stepped away from the agent scraping the ground behind her. The town was right there, on the other side of a thick earth wall. If she started running now, would either of them catch her before she made it?
Reyes might be slouched against the car, weakened and in pain from her attack. Maybe he wasn’t able to run.
Doesn’t seem hurt. Seems like a coiled rattler.
Where he’d positioned himself, he’d only have to intercept her.
The agent behind her coughed and got to his feet, spitting blood.
“Enough,” Reyes called out as the younger man made to reach for her. He jerked his head in a sharp gesture for the man to head back through the desert. “It’s done.”
She could feel them now—the Natives gathering in the town. Reyes was right. The Kewa wouldn’t allow these Councilmen to lay hands on her now.
Lena let her head fall back for a moment. Gooseflesh rose as a breeze sighed across her skin and cooled the rivulets of sweat. Her hands went up to her hair, smoothing the damp, dark red strands back behind her ears. She crossed her arms tight over her chest and walked right up the middle of the crumbled road. She could see a faint energy bloom hazing the air around him.
Reyes is a Spark, too?
He must have grounded and then abstained in order to fool her with the employer/employee act they’d used to gain access to her. For some irrational reason, that pissed her off even more.
She didn’t stop until she was in front of him. If he’d wanted to, he could reach out and grab her. She didn’t say anything, just stared right back into those dark, angry eyes. She’d be damned if she’d apologize for hurting him. It wasn’t she who had come to his house looking for trouble.