They were likely the only reasons she had been able to get closer to him than anyone else had. Once upon a time.
She wondered, as she had wondered silently more than once, if he even realized that the sheer raw power of his abilities, unshielded, made any sensitive person anywhere near him completely aware of the hot fury of his constant wordless rage. She doubted it, even though he had spent time with empaths and telepaths who could certainly have explained it to him.
Being a pure receiver herself, she could most certainly have explained it to him. Which might have been another reason he had bolted from Chicago.
“No,” he said finally. “No luck building a shield.” He stepped past her, automatically keeping an obvious distance between them that might have discouraged most women, and sank down in what looked like a comfortable leather chair at right angles to a long leather sofa.
She moved far enough to sit down on the end of the sofa nearest his chair, respecting his personal space and knowing better than to wait for an invitation. “Bishop says it’s the sort of thing that tends to happen in the field,” she reminded him.
“I know what Bishop says,” he snapped, but more quietly.
“Then why not try it,” she said practically. “Trying to do the thing on your own hasn’t worked. Obviously. Being a hermit hasn’t done anything except make you more angry and, if possible, more ill-mannered. What’ve you got to lose?”
“My mind,” he said grimly. “What’s left of it, anyway.”
Reno considered briefly, then said, “Well, if my vision was accurate, and they mostly are, you may not have to worry about that much longer.” She stopped there and waited. Patiently.
Dalton glared at her again, clearly unwilling to ask. But she merely smiled and waited. Patiently. And finally he swore at her and added, “You are the most maddening woman I’ve ever known.”
“Yeah, I’d be flattered by that except I know most of the women you’ve known have been doctors and nurses and therapists.”
He stiffened.
Reno held his angry gaze, smiling faintly now. “It is what it is, Dalton. We’ve all done time on shrinks’ couches, in clinics, even in jail and locked up in other . . . facilities . . . occasionally. Most of us have been on too many meds and forced into way too many programs of one kind or another designed to fix what mainstream doctors insist is broken. You had it rougher than most on that score, and for longer than most, but a lot of psychics went through a dozen different kinds of hell that make yours look like a party. Stop being so touchy. Get over it.”
Dalton smiled, though few would have recognized the expression. “You were always the psychic in the center, weren’t you, Reno? You and your collection of freaks.”
With a chuckle, she said, “As a general rule, I like psychics better than the so-called normal people. So, yeah, I keep in touch with a few other freaks like us.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t join that FBI unit of Bishop’s.”
“Somebody had to stay out here in the world and keep an eye on the freaks who wouldn’t or couldn’t be cops.”
Dalton shifted slightly in his chair and frowned. “All right, you can stop using that word.”
“What, freaks? Thought it was your preferred label for us.” Her faint smile remained.
“I don’t like labels,” he snapped.
“Doesn’t matter what you like. The world’s full of them. Something else that is what it is.” Changing subjects smoothly, she said, “I don’t see any little womanly touches about the place. Still determined to go it solo?”
An indefinable emotion passed over his angry face and was gone. “Some people should be alone. You know that.”
“I know you believe that. I should think you’ve scared away most women you’ve encountered here without much effort whether you could read them or not,” she said in an agreeable tone. “Just the way you did in Chicago. But I don’t scare so easily.”
“No?”
“No. Enough apocalyptic visions tend to put all kinds of other things into their proper perspective.”
His frown deepened. “That’s twice you’ve hinted something bad is coming. Either explain it or cut it out.”
“I doubt I have to explain much. You were never a stupid man, Dalton—about anything except people, at least—so I’m sure you’ve figured out for yourself that the threat we were warned about is something way, way beyond bad.”
His mouth tightened. “So what if it is. I plan to stay here and mind my own business, and if you’re as smart as you think you are you’ll do the same thing.”
“Stay here?”
Dalton glared at her.
With a soft laugh, Reno shook her head. “Such an angry man. That hasn’t changed. Well, to be honest, neither have I. Much. Except that I’ve decided I sort of like this world the way it is, flaws and all. Not really ready for an apocalypse of any kind, not if there’s a chance we can stop it.”
“We?”
“Mmm. We weren’t the only ones summoned. I understand there are six of us outside Bishop’s unit plus two SCU agents who were called and one more coming along for reasons of his own. We should make up a highly unusual team, to say the least. I left Chicago earlier today on the jet. Stopped briefly in Montana to pick up Sully Maitland. I’m sure you remember him. He and the jet are here waiting on the mainland. After we leave Alaska, we fly down to San Francisco to pick up Logan Alexander, who you also remember, and then head cross country to North Carolina to meet up with the rest.”
He was still frowning. “Long trip.”
“Yeah, even if I manage a nap on the leg back, jet lag doesn’t begin to describe the way I’ll feel by the time we finally get to North Carolina.”
“To Prosperity?”
“Eventually. First, the plan is to gather at what Bishop describes as our command center not very far from Prosperity.”
“That place of his in the mountains?”
“I believe so. I’m told there’ll be technical people staying there for the duration, plus Bishop and Miranda, standing ready to support our efforts in any and every way they can. So we can basically call on FBI resources plus just about anything else in order to do whatever we have to do.”
“Reno—”
“And at Quantico, they’re already forming up a second line of defense. In case we fail.” She got to her feet. “Not that I mean to fail, and I doubt anyone else does. But you never know, after all. It’ll be the first team effort for us, so we’ll have to wait and see. Go pack a bag, Dalton. We need to get going.”
“I’m not coming.”
“Of course you’re coming.”
“No.”
“No?”
“You heard me. No.”
Reno was not Bishop’s “perfect psychic,” which meant she could not control her abilities a hundred percent of the time. But like all psychics she had at least one quality unique to her: Pulling someone else into a vision with her was one of those unique qualities. Another was that she could, at least for a relatively short while afterward, remain connected to one of her visions.
And experience it a second time.
Without warning, she leaned over and grasped Dalton’s wrist. And pulled him into that seared and blasted hell with her.
FOUR
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7
Victoria Stark leaned back against the front of her white Chevy Cruze and watched as excellent artificial lighting held back the night and allowed her to see the sleek private jet touch down on the single long runway of this small private airstrip. She wondered idly who the airstrip belonged to. There was, as far as she could tell, no name posted anywhere; Bishop had given her turn-by-turn directions from the nearest main highway but hadn’t referred to her destination as anything other than “the airstrip.”