Page 46 of Agent Zero
If he did, though, what might she be reduced to just to stay fed?Or to get home?
And what might be waiting for her there?
TWENTY-NINE
Reese paidfor the overcooked coffee and was pleasant enough, but every nerve in him was a wire brush standing straight up.Her distress was still ringing in his head, that acrid yellowish undertone laden with fear and adrenaline all over again.He knew the man was in the bathroom, maybe taking another hit of whatever metallic drug he jacked himself on to stay awake on the road.The reek was too harsh to be bennies, so probably meth.
What are you thinking, soldier?
Except he wasn’t, not clearly or calmly.He was very far indeed from either, running on nerves and the raw need to keep her protected.
He couldn’t let Holly out of his sight for thirty seconds, for God’s sake.Maybe it was the vulnerability on her drawing predators to the water hole.It was more likely his fault, bringing her here.They stuck out like sore thumbs, her more than him, and the hag waitress’s knowing little smile mounted his fury another notch.
He palmed the bathroom door open, found himself in a sorry hole with three urinals and a boxed-in stall, its walls and door cut off at ankle instead of knee height.The entire box could be hosed down with little trouble, and the half-formed idea in the back of his head subsumed under a hum of alertness.
The stall was closed, but he could smell the man through a reek made up of every other nastiness crawling through this room.A silver box attached to the tiled wall promised condoms and cologne, for just a few quarters per.
She definitely didn’t belong here, and he’d put her squarely in harm’s way.
Again.
There was a sniff, a guttural cough, a sound like a lowing cow, and the stall door swung open.
The man in the blue baseball cap blinked at him, rolling down his sleeve.He’d develop track marks before long if he was shooting instead of snorting, and lose a lot of that pudge.Reese’s lips pulled back from his teeth.
It took so little.Weight dropping, his booted foot flicking forward to hook behind the trucker’s knee and yanked forward just enough, a blurted sound from the man’s wet shapeless mouth lost under the formless thump of a nearby jukebox.Another light strike, open palm on the chest, to get the target to fall correctly.Backward, the angle gauged just right, and the target’s head hit sturdy porcelain with a sickening crack.Another snap-sound was the shearing of a neck snapping, and the drug-fueled kicking of the empty body was easily avoided.
Death by toilet.Fitting.
Reese pushed the stall door closed with a toe-tip.The diner outside continued its usual, normal hum.
He ran his hands through his hair, checked himself in the mirror.Just fine.The next person to come in here would assume the trucker had slipped and fallen, if they noticed him at all.Autopsy would chalk it up to a drug-fueled accident.Clean, untraceable and proof positive that he was still functioning at peak.
Good work, agent.Now collect your civvie and get out of here.
When Holly came out of the little girls’, pale and huge eyed, Reese had his thumbs hooked in his pockets and turned from the rack of newspapers near the door.Winter Storm Approaching, the headlines screamed, and wasn’t that the truth.They might outpace the bad weather, but the smell of impending snow outside was thick enough to cut with a plastic spoon.
“Let’s go.”He got close enough to put an arm over her shoulders, and the hag smirked behind the counter.For a moment the urge to step over, fold his hand just right and give the old woman a knuckle strike to the throat drifted through him.
Holly sniffed, as if she’d been crying in the bathroom, and the small sound cut through everything else.
You’re safe now, he wanted to tell her.
Even if it was a lie.
* * *
Two hours later she pulled back the covers, staring at the hotel bed as if she couldn’t quite figure out what to do with it.This place—on the other side of the damn city, found almost by touch as he navigated—was much nicer.There had even been mints on the plump pillows.
Holly had carefully set the candy aside on the nightstand, then just froze, looking down at crisp white sheets.
She was exhausted even after napping in the car, and he was starting to get foggy after being painfully, hurtfully awake for too goddamn long.Even the little bastards in his blood couldn’t keep him going much longer, not with this sort of stress.He was now reasonably sure they hadn’t been killed off by the gas, whatever it had been.
Lucky him.Once she fell asleep he could settle.
She stared at the pillow for a long moment, and when she spoke, the words didn’t immediately make sense.Soft and flat, her pretty voice a monotone.
“I can’t do this.”
