26
HE LEFT THE HIGHWAY, cutting through open fields, crossing lonely country lanes, pausing to refill his canteen with water from an icy stream, navigating as the ancients did, by the North Star. His injuries forced him to rest often, and each time he saw Grace in the distance. She didn’t bother to hide. She wanted him to know she was there, just outside the range of the rifle. By dawn he had reached Highway 68, the major artery connecting Huber Heights and Urbana. In a small stand of trees bordering the road, he gathered wood for a fire. His hands were shaking. He felt feverish. He worried the burns had become infected. His bodily systems had been augmented, but an enhanced body could reach a tipping point from which there was no return. His ankle was swollen to twice its normal size, the skin hot to the touch, and the wound throbbed with each beat of his heart. He decided to spend a day here, maybe two, and keep the fire burning.
A beacon to draw them into the trap. If they were out there. If they could be drawn.
The road before him. The woods behind him. He would remain in the open. Grace would stay in the woods. She would wait with him. Out of her assigned territory, fully committed now, no going back.
He warmed himself by the fire. Grace made no fire. His the light and warmth. Hers the dark and cold. He shrugged out of the jacket, pulled off the sweater, slipped off the shirt. Already the burns were scabbing over, but they had begun to itch horribly. To distract himself, he whittled a new crutch from a tree branch salvaged from the woods.
He wondered if Grace would risk sleep. She knew his strength grew with each passing hour and every hour she delayed, her chances of success waned.
He saw her at midafternoon on the second day, a shadow among shadows, as he gathered more wood for the fire. Fifty yards into the trees, holding a high-powered sniper’s rifle, a bloody bandage wrapped around her hand, another around her neck. In the subzero air, her voice seemed to carry into the infinite.
“Why didn’t you finish me, Evan?”
He didn’t answer at first. He continued gathering kindling for the beacon. Then he said, “I thought I did.”
“No. You couldn’t have thought that.”
“Maybe I’m sick of murder.”
“What does that mean?”
He shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Who is Cassiopeia?”
He rose to his full height. The light was weak in the trees beneath a sheet of iron-gray clouds. Even so, he could see the cynical set of her lips and the pale blue fire of her eyes.
“The one who stood up when anyone else would have stayed down,” Evan said. “The one I couldn’t stop thinking about before I even knew her. The last one, Grace. The last human being on Earth.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time. He remained. She remained.
“You’re in love with a human.” Her voice was full of wonder. And then the obvious: “That’s not possible.”
“We used to think the same about immortality.”
“It would be like one of them falling in love with a sea slug.” Smiling now. “You’re mad. You’ve gone insane.”
“Yes.”
He turned his back to her, inviting the bullet. He was mad, after all, and madness came with its own armor.
“It can’t be that!” she shouted after him. “Why won’t you tell me what’s really going on?”
He stopped. The kindling clattered to the frozen ground. The crutch toppled from his side. He turned his head but did not turn around.
“Take cover, Grace,” he said softly.
Her finger twitched on the trigger. Normal human eyes might have missed it. Evan’s did not. “Or—what?” she demanded. “You’ll attack me again?”
He shook his head. “I’m not going to attack you, Grace. They are.”
She cocked her head at him, like the bird in the tree when he awakened in her camp.
“They’re here,” Evan said.
The first bullet struck her upper thigh. She rocked backward but remained upright. The next round punched into her left shoulder and the rifle slipped from her hand. The third round, most likely from a second shooter, exploded in the tree directly beside him, missing his head by millimeters.
Grace dove to the ground.
Evan ran.
27
RAN WAS AN EXAGGERATION. More like a frantic hop, swinging his bad leg wide to keep most of his weight on the good one, and each time his heel hit the ground, pinwheels of bright light exploded in his vision. Past the smoldering campfire, the beacon that had burned for two days, the sign he’d hung in the woods, Here we are! Snatching the rifle from the ground in stride; he had no intention of standing his ground. Grace would draw their fire—a patrol of at least two recruits, perhaps more. He hoped more. More would keep Grace busy for a while.