So she stayed. He lowered both palms to her shoulders then raised them to frame her face, his hands smearing Pete’s blood. He leaned his head down until their foreheads touched, his gaze locked with hers.
“What you did. To him.” He inhaled, and she braced herself for the worst. “For me. That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
She waited so long it was painful. Not as painful as the expression on his face. Poor Micah, she hoped he never, ever tried to play poker.
“But…” She prompted.
He hung his head. Looked away—not at Pete’s body, barely moving, not at her, anywhere else.
“But nothing.” Not his real voice, a suddenly fake one she’d never heard from him before. “We need to get out of here.” He was all business, jogging over to where their coats were piled in the corner and searching through his pockets. “Damn, they took our phones. I heard that kid, Gibson, talking while you were drugged. He’s crazy. Wants to blow up a bunch of people.”
“Where are Gibson and the others?” Now that her adrenaline had ebbed, her tongue felt thick and her mouth parched. Damn drugs.
“I don’t know. They said something about that one’s brother and meeting your father.” He didn’t say Pete’s name or look in his direction. Instead, he grabbed his coat and shoved the barn door open without waiting for her. It was getting dark outside. The sun set early this time of year. Probably not quite five, she guessed.
She hugged herself, shivering as the cold air blustered through the barn, bringing with it the smell of fresh blood. Her stomach lurched—the drugs still working their way through her system. “Did they say where? Where are they going? Where are the bombs?”
He stood in the doorway; hands braced against the wood timbers silvered by age, looking out into the gathering night, away from her, and shook his head. “No. Nothing.”
She lurched across the barn’s uneven floor and found her coat—now with straw and mud smearing its pink wool—and pulled it on while his words finally made their way from her ears to the front of her mind. Damn it, she needed to clear her head. She was useless to anyone like this. A smear of blood on her hand caught her eye. Useless for anything except killing.
She wiped it on her coat, too numb to care. Couldn’t blame that on the drugs. It was Micah’s reaction, the knowledge that if he could, he’d leave her right here, right now with a body on the floor cooling in the winter night. She pushed herself to catch up with him, her teeth chattering as she stepped into the cold night air. “Micah, are you all right? Did they do anything to you while I was knocked out?”
Even in the dark, his pale eyes blazed, but for once she could not read the emotions on his face. There were too many of them, colliding, a hit-and-run conflagration of fear, anger, resentment, disgust…
“No. I’m fine. We need to call the cops.”
The wind shifted, spinning around her in a maelstrom that shredded his words, made it hard to breathe, and suddenly she was falling, falling…but Micah didn’t catch her.
Chapter 21
IT TOOK ALMOST two hours for the bomb squad to examine and render the IED in the school safe. Afterwards, the lead bomb tech came to the command center RV to shed his heavy bomb disposal jacket and helmet and rehydrate after his long hours sweating in the heat of the protective gear.
“What’s your call, Olsen?” Liz asked. Jenna inched closer, listening in. Not like she had anything else to do—Andre and Oshiro were analyzing the data from Gibson’s gaming console for the third time, but they had nothing new.
“Let’s just say, I’d be very happy if this was a one and done.”
“Sorry to say, kid has plenty of supplies. His house clear?”
“My team’s been through it twice, both with the e-sniffer and the dogs. Even let the city guys give their K-9 a try. It’s clean.” He hesitated, shifting his helmet to his other hip. “I’d stand my guys down, but…”
“Yeah. I feel the same. This is building to something.”
“This kid knows we’ve limited resources. He wants us chasing our tails, getting tired, frustrated, sloppy. Thanks to the media, he’s probably watching our response, learning more about us than we are about him, sad to say.”
“Problem with playing defense. We’ve no choice but to react to whatever card he plays.” She straightened, met Jenna’s gaze as if she’d known all along that Jenna was eavesdropping. “Good thing not everyone has to play defense, right?”
He followed her gaze, obviously not following her line of thought, then shrugged and left her and Jenna alone.
“Not everyone has to play by the rules, that’s what you really mean?” Jenna said. She kept her voice low. Andre and Oshiro were head to head a few feet away.
Liz’s eyes went wide. “Of course not, Ms. Galloway. I’m a professional. Would never suggest that any civilian make use of their freedom to take action outside the constraints that law enforcement is bound by. I’m shocked that you would think such a thing.”