He pulled his jeans on and grabbed a T-shirt on his way out of his room, but didn’t pull it on until he was in the elevator heading to the bunker.
His fast stride rapidly moved him out of the weapons room and into ops. The room’s fans and the quiet whirring sounds coming from the servers were a balm to his ravaged senses. He sat in one of the wheeled office chairs and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees so he could hold his head.
Safe in the presence of comforting technology, he let his mind replay his dream.
Was Sally dead? Or was her death only imminent? Geez, was the ghost he’d been seeing Sally, too? She seemed scared of her parents in the dream, but hadn’t been in real life. The woodcutter had said she was an orphan. What was the truth? After talking to Doc Beck about the bench they left in payment for Sally’s care, and then seeing the homespun clothes they’d dressed Sally in, Greer hadn’t been surprised to see their black buggy ride off into the night, taking her back to the Friendship Community.
Fuck. That should have set off alarms right there. Forty miles separated Wolf Creek Bend from the Friendship Community. And while they did sometimes come into town—or traveled even farther down to Cheyenne—that long of a trip would have been spread over a few days when done by horse and buggy. They would have had to camp somewhere along the way, unless they had a place to change out horses…or someone had helped them, someone with a couple of trailers, one for the horse and one for the buggy.
For them to make it down so quickly, they had to have been told Sally failed in her mission to kill Kit. Sally hadn’t been alone the night she came into Winchester’s to kill Kit.
Greer felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see the girl of his nightmares standing right there, with real eyes now. She wasn’t a ghost. She was corporeal. Relief washed through him. She smiled at him, then walked away. He followed her into the hallway. She opened one of the heavy steel doors that led to the delivery tunnel.
He hollered at her to wait, but she didn’t. She stepped through the door and into the absolute darkness beyond.
Greer rushed after her, but before he could get to the door, someone slammed him back against the wall between the bunkroom and the kitchen.
“What the hell are you doing, bro?” Max frowned at him.
Greer blinked, surprised by Max’s sudden appearance. “It’s Sally. She’s here.”
“No one’s here but us.”
“No, she was here. She just went out—” He looked over Max’s shoulder to the steel doors, both of which were closed. “She went into the tunnel.”
“That door hasn’t been opened in a couple of days. Check the logs.” Max’s eyes narrowed. “You’re sleepwalking, Greer.”
Greer sighed and leaned his back against the wall. Hell. Maybe he was. Maybe he’d been asleep the whole night. Was he still asleep? It felt so real, all of it. Seeing Sally just now. His nightmare before. “How do I know I’m not still asleep?”
Max slapped the flat of his palm against Greer’s forehead, banging his head against the wall. “Feel that?”
“Ouch.”
“I’d pinch you, but you’re not my type.”
Greer shoved free of Max’s hold. Stepping away, he set his hands on his hips and lowered his head, forcing himself to take a few long breaths.
“C’mon. You need some joe.” Max went into the kitchen.
Greer followed him, taking the mug of black coffee he was handed. “When did you make this?”
“While you were snoring in ops. I walked right past you.”
“What are you doing down here?” Greer asked.
“I was curious. We have a visitor in the house. I don’t like anyone making midnight trips to the bunker.” They both sipped the coffee. “What the fuck’s going on, Greer?”
“Sally’s haunting me.”
“She the ghost you were talking about when we were in the WKB silo?”
Greer nodded. “Yeah, but I didn’t know it then. You saw her on the satellite feed the night we met with the woodcutter.”
“No. I saw a glitch.”
“Whatever. She was there. I’ve seen her several times. I was chasing her through the woods when I met Remi. She was on the roof at Remi’s hideaway. She was here tonight.”
Max set his mug down on the counter and folded his arms. “Okay. Whether it’s your own brain trying to get a message to you or her ghost is actually talking to you, I’ll play along. What does she want from you?”
“I think she’s dead.”
“And how does this help us?”
He shook his head, shoving his fingers through his hair. “There’s something we’re not seeing.”
Max gave a humorless chuckle. “There’s a whole lot we’re not seeing.”
Greer started to pace the small area of the bunker’s kitchen. “The woodcutter said she was doing her tithe when she came to kill Kit.” He looked at Max. “The people who took her out of the hospital weren’t her parents.”
“Sorry, G. I don’t see her as a threat. She isn’t where our focus needs to be.”
“Except that every time shit’s going down, she pops in.” He looked at Max. “She has a message. An important one. I have to find out what it is.”
*
Greer came up the stairs through the secret access in the den. He could smell the delicious breakfast Kathy was making. He sniffed the air, catching a hint of cinnamon and coffee. His stomach growled. He almost made a detour to get the first taste of whatever that was, but he didn’t. He desperately needed a shower to wash away the strange night he’d spent.
He walked down the main hall on his way to the stairs in the south bedroom wing. Remi was coming down. She paused on the bottom step. Even a step up, she was a little shorter than him.