Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(87)
They’d covered this, but the separation still twinged. She needed to get on the vids, get her voice out there, force Medina to stop. And he needed to get to the Pentarc as fast as possible. He needed to find his people. They both had promises to keep.
And it wasn’t like he and Angela hadn’t spent most of the last decade apart. Only something had changed there in the com room on the submarine. Neither of them had spoken a promise out loud, but he felt like one had been made. His soul had sealed itself to her, whether she wanted it or not.
What he felt wasn’t even want anymore. He needed her. Here, with him.
There wasn’t a psych-emitter on board the plane, but Kellen looked down and tapped a quick darknet message: By our superior energies and strict affiance in each other, we will kick their asses.
Yoink nuzzled his wrist, directing his hand over her wee head. She didn’t purr, just pushed herself into his palm. He did like his gals bossy.
Pentarc gone. Friends, family trapped in the dark, underground. God. This plane could not travel fast enough to chase all the horror from its path.
He wanted to weep. He wanted to grab up that sweet little kitty, hold her against his face, and cry like a baby.
His com vibrated, and he looked down. She’d replied: You quote for shit, pretty boy. We’re the good guys.
He would have grinned if his soul weren’t so damn sore. Still, the words were exactly what he needed. He could hear her voice saying them. It was almost like she was here. Space apart was physical, and their relationship was bigger than that.
He huffed out a hot breath. “I got a change of clothes in one of these footlockers, gramps. Best you clear out unless you wanna watch me get all the way nekkid.”
Vallejo rose, slowly, the book of Mexican poetry in his hands. Probably not his book. More likely Heron’s. Jesus.
“Gramps,” Vallejo repeated, tasting the word. “I had always hoped, thought maybe…a-and I know she’s not Mari, not really. I know she loathes me as I have loathed her. But if you find her… Just find her. Please.”
Tears in his dark eyes, he scurried from the racks, out into the corridor crammed with equipment and memory.
Chapter 17
Digging. They’d been digging all day, in the cold acrid dust. Kellen had hollered until he didn’t have any voice left, and his eyes burned. Probably had particulates lodged in there. Things that eddied in this air ought never be breathed. Ought never touch tears. The world smelled like drywall and burnt hair, and the digging, the searching, the hoping—the sick encroachment of despair—would never end.
At first it was just the three of them—Kellen, Garrett, and Vallejo—on the pile. Chloe was off doing something important and terrifying. They pulled and hauled, unceasing. Kellen caught a look at Garrett’s hands at one point, bleeding from every knuckle, with antibac cotton rounds and medical tape binding his fists, but his face was set, his gold eyes swimming, and there wasn’t any deterring him.
Kellen didn’t have much thought for his own comfort or safety, either. He’d told Yoink to stay back on the plane, though, coordinate from there. She had a facility for cataloging and deploying assets, and she could let him know if anything big happened in the outside world.
She could relay Angela’s voice into his earpiece, which comforted him way more than it ought.
When they’d gotten here, both wild and augmented animals had been at the pile already for a long half day. Yoink sorted them according to skills, put them where they’d do most good. As she said, those javelinas sure could dig.
There weren’t any towns nearby, not for miles, but somehow, within hours of their plane’s touchdown, people around here learned of the hit. And they came. Strangers, with food and kind words and strong silence. Strangers who tied bio-filtering scarves over their faces, checked in with General Yoink. And dug.
Mostly they didn’t talk, but sometimes he’d hear a word or two, scraps of conversation making its way down a bucket brigade. Recollections, and some thanks. Some of these strangers had come through the Pentarc and had moved on once they got their legs beneath them, steady. They came back now, out of gratitude. Maybe a hundred of them, and all before sunset, dressed for the desert night this side of winter. They weren’t leaving. Somebody drove a ratty RV out onto the sand, and somebody else arranged a row of grills, fired them up, heated water in pots. Campfires sprang up like twilight wildflowers, but the atmosphere wasn’t a party. Nobody sang.
They needed more shovels.
The dust and debris were so thick in the air, and with the sun on its way down, he didn’t notice a flurry or the one that followed. And when the temblor of voices arrived at his back, he paid it no mind. He was so tired, worn down like old shoes. Hope thinned as daylight died.
“No, his name is Kellen. Kellen Hockley. About so tall, gold hair? He’s been here all day.”
A surge of movement among the others. He turned.
There, striding across the desert, dressed in plain, serviceable clothes and—hot damn, were those cowboy boots? On her feet?—was his woman. His angel.
She saw him right about the same time he saw her, and she lit out across the desert in his direction. Bless her, he hoped she didn’t mean for him to run as well. He stood there, and she barreled into him, pushed her slight body against him, buried her face in the hollow below his throat. Which might have been why he found it so hard to swallow.