We’d followed Interstate 35 to Albert Lea, Minnesota, and then headed west on I-90 over the flat plains. We made great time, zooming through the night with Harry at the wheel, not a word spoken between us. My mind was on spin cycle, trying to digest everything that had happened; the fights with Stepane and his fear of Revelen, of the info that Warren Quincy had given me about the threats that still remained with the law on my ass …
Oh, and there was a nagging doubt or twelve about exactly how long ‘a good long while’ meant to Harry.
Plus … this one other question that had yet to be answered.
“You didn’t actually need my help at all, did you?” I asked as the sun started to rise in our rearview mirror. It was glinting outside my window, the reflection bright orange and beautiful over a cloudless winter morning. I could feel the chill seeping through the van’s window and into my arm, against the glass as I stared at Harry.
He was smiling. Damn him. It was handsome, too, as per usual. “Not this time, sweetheart,” he said, in a way that might have seemed patronizing from anyone else.
Harry Graves, though? He pulled it off and actually made it sound …
Nice.
“You were here for me?” I asked. He nodded. “Why not just say so, then?”
“Well, I don’t know if you remember how you were feeling a few days ago,” he said, ambling along in his explanation, “but if I’d said, ‘Sienna—I’m predicting a ninety-nine point nine nine percent certainty you’re going to die in the next few days,’ how do you think you would have responded?”
“Reasonably, I would hope—”
“You’d be hoping wrong,” he said with a shake of the head. “Where you were, mentally … you were going to tell me to take a walk. Or try to ditch me at the first opportunity. But bring a girl a bottle of scotch to warm her up, and present this—this selfless lady with a chance to once again save a soul in need—”
“Oh, screw you,” I said, surly. Then, after a brief pause. “But thanks, I guess.” That came a little more abashed. “How’d you know it was you who could help me?”
He furrowed his brow at me. “Oh, you mean because I can’t see my own future. Well, funny story about that … I can’t, obviously. But what I can see is that Sienna Nealon has a 99.9% probability of death impending, and there’s no visible factor that can save her. But there’s still some … rogue, random element of chance, unrelated to you or anyone around you …” He grew quiet for a second. “And I looked again, and it was still there, gleaming in the possibilities … but I couldn’t see anything related to it. I tried to look closer, to dive into it, did everything I could to figure out what the hell it was …” He shrugged. “I’m ashamed to say how long it took me to recall that I can’t see myself or the probabilities related to my future.”
“So by elimination, the only factor that could save me was you,” I said. “Sounds dicey, Harry. What if you have other blind spots, other people you can’t see?”
He smiled, and it was dazzling. “Then you got the benefit of my company for absolutely free. What a deal, huh?”
“So … how did you save me?” I asked. “You know, to get past that probability of 99.9%?”
“Well,” he said, “first you have to understand … that probability, the 99.9%? It was that this ‘Terminator’ as you call him … was going to kill you back there at Deltan. If you’d fought him again, alone …” He shook his head. “There was no way out for you.”
“Damn,” I whispered. “But I kicked his ass on 94.”
“You still had to limp away from that one, as you’ll recall,” he said. “No … he had a trick up his sleeve, something he’d been saving. You were going to put him in an impossible position … and that was going to be the end of you.” He said it with quiet certainty. “Just the same, if Eilish had intervened in your fight the way you suggested before the battle—”
“You said she’d die.” I looked at him and he nodded, once. “That Stepane would kill her before she got control of him.”
“Without doubt,” he said. “One hundred percent. But the moment he was out of the picture—”
“You told Eilish to come in,” I said, working through it. “You came with her, directed her right to me.”
“And I knew I was doing the right thing, because the probability of your death started to drop as we headed in that direction,” he said. “See, that’s how I know to guide myself. I don’t know how my fate will unfold … but I figure if your odds improve …” He smiled again. “… Well, I’m heading in the right direction. I take care of you, you take care of me.”
“‘For a good long while’?” I asked.
His smiled faded a bit. “If you don’t mind some company on the road. I could help, after all. Keep you a few steps ahead of trouble. Maybe … provide a little company.” He didn’t arch his eyebrows enough to be lascivious, but the suggestion was there, if subtle.
I stared at Harry Graves, who’d somehow come back to me after a year of just … being gone, and now … he’d saved my life. Again.
And he was handsome.
And he was decent.
And oh, it had been forever. I could tell by the way my heart was beating, my pulse quickening and my breath catching in my chest.
“It might be nice to … have some company for a while,” I said, trying to play it cool even though I knew he knew. The smile gave it away. I figured he’d seen a certain sexy probability in my future grow exponentially in the last thirty seconds, and that was just fine with me. I reached over, and brushed his arm, my bare fingers running over his sleeve.
“Oh, I brought you these,” he said, and reached down into the pocket in his door. He tossed something at me, and I caught them.
Gloves.
“All the way from Florida?” I asked, staring at them.
He actually blushed. “Well … I held onto them until I, uhm … knew you might need them for … something.”
“Hm,” I said, favoring him with a crooked smile, then slipping them on one by one. They were leather, smooth, comfortable. “What do you get for the succubus who has it all?”
His smile matched mine. “You’re on the run from the law. Do you really think you ‘have it all’?”
I smiled again, this time more mischievous. “No, but … considering where I am and what I’ve been through … I think I’m doing okay. Now …” I touched his face. “Take your eyes off the road for a second, Harry. Because I see something in your future that you don’t.” And I kissed him for just a couple seconds.
We broke, and he said, “Whew,” and then swerved slightly before getting the van back under control and back on the road. “Yeah. I did not see that coming.”
I settled back in my seat, but reached out with my left hand and took his right, interlacing our fingers. “Wait ‘til you see what happens next,” I said, and smiled at him as he smiled at me, the infinite possibility of the future ahead of us on the horizon. I couldn’t see it, but …
I had a feeling it was going to be good.
46.
The White House
Washington, DC