Release Me (Stark Trilogy, #1)(158)

Chase has been thinking long and hard these past few days. If he only did things himself—if he didn’t simply tell others what to do—this could be a good line of business, a rewarding job. As it was, he only talked, never did anything. He needed to do something, and now something could be done. He thinks of all that land—those mountains rolling into hills that then leveled into sage flats gouged out by irrigation canals, Central Oregon a patchwork of brown cheatgrass and bright green alfalfa corralled by barbed wire, the bent-back skin-burned stage of his former life, his father’s life before him, and his grandfather’s before them both, a stage upon which they shot antelope and counted stars and raised horses and cattle and family, all of that stolen by the lycans, gone, nothing left but old wigs of sagebrush, fences kicked over and rotting into the ground. By returning there, he sees a chance to reclaim that part of his life, that part of him. And to own up to what people thought they were voting for. He has sworn the oath and invoked the name of God, but they were just words, spoken too soon, and words do not make someone a leader. People need to be reassured—they need him to instill the confidence he has lost. They need to see him doing a job to believe in him as president. He isn’t sure, until now, that the title has been anything more than a costume.

Buffalo still stares at the lamp when he says, “Surely you’re joking?”

“I am not joking.”

“You’re serious?”

“I’m seriously serious.”

Buffalo compresses his lips and bows his head and then something seems to overtake him. He leaps out of the chair. When Chase moves to block him, Buffalo shoves him back a step. “You’re not going. Of course you’re not going. You think you’re some rough rider. You’re not. This is ridiculous and purposeless and dangerous. You’re such a fool sometimes. A goddamned fool.”

Chase shoves him. Buffalo’s back cracks against the wall. He lets out a whimper. His glasses hang crookedly on his nose. He runs a hand through what little hair he has and it stands on end. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with you. Something is wrong with you.”

Chase stalks toward him. He feels as if his heart has experienced an electrical short and the heat of it is still deciding whether to die or catch flame. “I’m going to go find that boy. I’m going to find this magic bullet. I’m going to go get my hands dirty. That’s my decision. Not yours.”

“You’re not listening to me!”

“I don’t have to listen. I’m the goddamn president.”

Buffalo slaps him then. The noise like a popped balloon.

Chase’s cheek smarts and he puts a hand to it. He staggers away and crouches on the floor as if to contain the anger springing in his chest that will not go away. He can only fight it so long.

Buffalo reaches for him with arms like weak lassos. “Oh my. Oh no. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, old friend.” The same hand that slapped Chase now strokes the bare skin of his back. “I’m sorry.”

He pulls his hand away when hair begins to prickle beneath it. He has time to run. He has time to cry out. But he does not. He seems to trust that Chase, his friend, his old friend, will contain himself, will be able to hold back, even when he rises slowly from his crouch and starts toward him with his mouth open as if to kiss.





Chapter 65



NIGHT FALLS. Shadows deepen between the trunks of trees, firs and cedars and hemlocks, their branches fingering together overhead in a thick canopy that makes Patrick feel safe from any drones or choppers that might pass overhead. The Mexicans dig a shallow pit and gather wood and arrange it into a flaming pyramid to keep the night at bay. Bats and owls swoop through the sparks. The Mexicans sit upon rocks or the misshapen roots that wrestle the ground. They eat jerky and dried fruit. They sharpen their knives and clean their rifles and pistols. The air grows spicy with smoke.

Claire makes a fire of her own, smaller, separate from them, twenty yards away. She sits next to it in a ball, her arms wrapped around her legs. Patrick watches her for a long time. He wants to be near her. More than that, he wants to embrace her, has wanted to since the moment he first saw her earlier that day, but it has seemed impossible. Because they have been on the run, confined to different vehicles as they drove at a perilous speed from the site of the crash—into the asphalt maze of Portland—and then parked on a service road in the Hoyt Arboretum, with five miles of thick woods between them and the mansion, their plan to attack in the morning. And because, these past few hours, whenever Patrick drew near, she stiffened and offered him clipped answers. “I thought you were dead,” he said, and she said, “I might as well have been.” He tried to get her talking, but she wouldn’t give him anything, always turning the question back on him: what exactly are you doing here?

To which he could only say, “Recon.” He was grateful she did not press him further. To tell her anything more would confirm his betrayal.

In his backpack was the inoculation: the vial that made possible her erasure. Only twenty-four hours ago he felt so certain of himself, so positive he had made the right decision. Twenty-four hours seemed now like twenty-four years, his frame of mind so distant, his resolve rotted through with questions.

Above her, through the trees, he can see the moon, a silver sliver brightening the edge of a giant black ball. Sometimes you can see more of what isn’t than what is, and this is one of those times.