He tugged the battered and sweat-stained Zombie Card from his shirt pocket and looked at the Lost Girl. A dagger of guilt stabbed him beneath the breastbone, and he quickly glanced down at Nix. He could see her eyes move under her closed lids and knew that she was dreaming. A soft cry escaped her parted lips, and it was filled with jagged pieces of emotion. Hurt and loss, despair and terror, but also rage and defiance.
Benny brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek.
His stomach churned with confusion and conflict. Even now, even after that incredible kiss he and Nix had shared, when he looked at the picture of the Lost Girl, he felt an almost physical impact. The desire to find and protect Lilah was every bit as strong now as it was when he’d first turned over her card on the porch at Lafferty’s General Store, and that made as little sense to him now as it did then. He didn’t know this girl. Even Sacchetto and Tom hadn’t really known her. Even if she was still out here somewhere, she was nothing and no one to him. And yet …
And yet.
He studied the card for a long time, even as exhaustion dragged on his eyelids. Nix groaned again in the private hell of her troubled sleep. Benny looked from Nix to the Lost Girl and back to Nix.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Then he stretched out his other hand, and for the second time, he opened his fingers and let the wind take the card. It blew high into the air, tumbling over and over again, its pasteboard face flashing with silver starlight, and then it dropped into the darkness below.
Benny bent and kissed Nix’s cheek. He leaned back against the wall and stared at the night and drifted off into a sea of stars.
41
“NOW AIN’T THIS JUST ADORABLE.”
Benny and Nix jerked awake at the sound of the voice, blinking in the harsh dawn light, struggling to disentangle themselves from each other and understand where on Earth they were.
Two men stood on the metal catwalk that ran around the outside of the deserted ranger station. Both men had guns holstered on their hips, shotguns slung over their shoulders, and ugly smiles on their mouths.
Skins and Turk.
“Ain’t nothing like young love,” said Turk.
“Warms the cockles of my heart,” agreed Skins.
Benny instinctively spread his arms, like a barrier between the bounty hunters and Nix.
“Charlie’s going to like this,” said Skins. “He was pretty smoked about the little witch skipping out like that.”
“Leave us alone,” Benny said with a growl.
“Yeah.” Turk laughed. “That’s gonna happen. We spent the whole damn night searching these freaking woods and then climbed this big mother of a tower, just to go away ’cause you asked. Yessir, we’ll be on our way, so sorry to bother your beauty sleep.”
Skins tapped his palm on his thigh, like he was calling in the dogs. “C’mon … get your butts over here.”
Benny and Nix slowly got to their feet, but they made no move toward the bounty hunters. Turk went into the ranger station and came out with the bokken. “Look,” he said. “Kid has a toy sword.”
He raised it over his head and brought it down in a powerful two-hand swing onto the metal rail. The hard wood rebounded from the hit, but did not break. Turk cursed and turned it sideways and slammed the flat of the blade onto the rail, and with a sharp crack the sword snapped in half. The long end went spinning off into the canopy of trees far below. Turk laughed and tossed the broken handle onto the catwalk.
“They have anything else in there?” Skins asked.
“Nah.”
“Then let’s haul it,” snapped Skins to Benny and Nix. “C’mon, kids, Charlie is going to have a lot of stuff to talk to you two about. Should be a pretty interesting chat.”
“A heart-to-heart.” Turk laughed.
“A meaningful discussion,” agreed Skins.
“Let us go,” said Nix. “You can do that. You can just tell Charlie that you didn’t find us.”
Skins looked genuinely confused. “Now why on Earth would we want to do that?”
Benny took a step forward. “Do you know what Charlie did last night?”
“None of my business.”
“You’re with him. You’re helping him do this stuff.”
Skins looked bored. “Is this where you try to appeal to my better nature, kid?”
Behind him Turk cracked up. “Good luck with that.”
“Please …,” Benny said. “We didn’t do anything to you.”