Drifters (Stars Edge: Nel Bently Book 2) Read online

  A tall woman emerged from the student union, black hair a sail in the wind and rain. Business casual looked that good on only one woman.

  “Lin?” Nel broke into a jog, the movement awkward with her bag. “Lin!”

  The woman disappeared into the science center. Nel pushed through the gleaming double doors a moment later. The wide halls were deserted. No footsteps clacked on the tiles. She slumped against the glass with a sigh. I’m seeing things now. Thunder muttered in the distance.

  She glanced at her phone. Fifteen minutes—just enough time to collect herself and drop things at her desk. Every thought grew both heavy and frantic as Nel jogged across the quad to her building. Six months ago, the only goal left on her career list was attaining a tenured position. Working with a smaller university that focused more on published papers and teaching ability than seniority brought her goal that much closer. It hurt that she might not achieve it now, depending on the meeting. What hurt worse, though, was a large part of her no longer cared. It was the same part that howled into the void in her chest where Mikey used to be.

  She strode through the History wing and into the breezeway between the original part of the building and the first addition. She tugged the package from her bag with a sigh. Reading the details of her permit revocation was depressing, but she should be up-to-date for the meeting.

  Multiple seals and stamps decorated the heavy bubble-pack. None were of her local post office.

  Dr. Annalise Bently

  C/o Lin Nalawangsa

  IDH Atlantic Headquarters,

  4 Endeavour Ln

  Oromocto, NB, E2V4T9

  Nel whirled to peer at the science center across the way. It was her. She can drop a package on my stoop but can’t respond to a text?

  She tugged the tab, expecting a thick document. Instead, a cheap cell phone dropped into her hand. It was new, and off-brand, the kind box-stores sold minute cards for. Frowning, she flipped it open and held down the power button. The chime was tinny. It was fully charged and had prepaid minutes through the end of the month. A cartoon UFO decorated the background. What the fuck?

  She thumbed to the message box. There was only one, from a contact titled “Mothership.” She rolled her eyes and looked at the message:

  Text 'Received' and your surname when this arrives.

  It was a joke, and a sick one at that, but she couldn’t ignore her curiosity. She did as it asked, and trotted up the stairs to the lobby of the Anthropology wing.

  “Dr. Annalise Bently?”

  Nel glanced up. Two campus security officers blocked the doorway to her department. A suited white man stood a step in front, holding up his FBI badge. “Dr. Bently is fine,” she replied, stopping several steps away. Fear flashed through her veins.

  “Ma'am, I'm Special Agent Pheters. You oversaw the Los Cerros Esperando VII this past summer, correct?” A thick Maine accent pulled at his clipped words

  “Yes, I did.” Nerves screamed at her.

  “The Chilean police found a body yesterday.” He glanced at the few research assistants and aides milling around. “You need to come with us.”

  “I haven't been on site for over a month.” The new phone buzzed in her hand. Her fingers tightened around it.

  “The body has your DNA on it,” Pheters explained. “We need to bring you in.”

  “For arrest?”

  “Don't make a scene in front of your students.” Condescension belied the kindness of the man’s words.

  Adrenaline exploded through her body. The wet grind of her trowel through flesh filled her mind. Lin said there were no bodies. She said I'd be safe. Her eyes flicked up to the agent before glancing at the phone. An incoming text opened on the screen.

  RUN

  And she did.

  THREE

  Nel didn’t know what she was doing. She only knew she wasn't a killer, and the only person who understood what was going on just told her to run.

  Like all university buildings, this one had a multitude of exits in case of emergency. Nel dashed back down the hall and into a back stairwell. She half-slid down, weight supported by the handrails. feet barely touching. Another security officer stood outside the door at the bottom, taking a smoke break.

  No, no, no!

  She burst onto the quad, ignoring his startled shout. The campus was almost deserted. “Fuck.” It'd be easier if there were a butt load of students to hide in. She crossed campus at a run, bag clutched to her chest like her firstborn. Key-fob in hand, she hammered on the unlock button. She jumped into her truck, peeling out of the parking lot while shutting her door. A Prius meandered down the street and she pulled out in front to swing across two lanes, heading toward the highway.

  There was no time to stop at home. It was a matter of minutes before they caught up to the bright blue truck. OK, Bently, what’s in the back? She downshifted and roared up the entrance ramp onto 91 North. Her field pack was tucked in the toolbox in the bed. Other than that, she was shit out of luck. The phone tucked between her thighs pinged insistently. She fumbled it open, ignoring the voice telling her not to text and drive.

  Move north toward Atlantic Headquarters

  “To Oromocto? Are you fucking kidding me? You want me to cross a border while on the run. And it’s like a day away at least. You people are idiots.” She snapped the phone closed and threw it in her cup holder before pulling out her own cell. The suggestion was ridiculous, but her mind already whirled. The border wasn't all fences and checkpoints, but she certainly couldn't drive there, or even hitchhike. Her shaking hand thumbed to her mother's speed dial and pressed the speakerphone.

  “Hey, you've reached Mindi. I'm off doing something awesome, but I'll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  Nel swallowed hard. “Hey, mom. Something's come up. I didn't make it to my meeting, and I won't be able to call you later. Or for a while, really. I love you, please don't worry. I'm sorry. I love you.” She hung up and flicked on airplane mode, then turned the phone off for good measure. Maybe they couldn’t track her through the GPS, but she wasn't going to risk it.

  Exits crawled by, despite her steady 75 MPH. Another minute brought her across the border into Vermont. She exited onto Rt 9 and headed west, toward Wilmington. Fury and grief gripped her throat. State troopers might not know it well enough to go 45, but she did. Besides, Samus can take the ruts. Rattling ahead, she popped it into four-wheel drive.

  Another turn took her on the winding back road toward Mikey’s house. This is so stupid. I should have just let them take me in. It's not like I'm guilty.

  The shed had been chaos. I can't be guilty, right?

  She spun the wheel, pointing the car north. Still-summer air buffeted her through the open window, bringing the squeal of distant police sirens. Just because she was far from America's Most Wanted didn’t mean she could risk stopping yet. Overhead, power lines looped like ugly party streamers. Her eyes traced the line of structures marching up the swath cut through the trees. No one's on power line corridors. At least not often. She hiked her fair share doing CRM after undergrad.

  Sirens grew closer.

  Dirt rose from her spinning wheels as she peeled to a stop just past a bridge. Apparently, forty minutes was enough time for them to catch up with her. The river meandered toward the Connecticut, passing under power lines before curling back toward the border. “Fuck it.” She trundled onto the shoulder, tucking her truck into a pull off by a run-down park bench. She thrust the package into her field pack and scooped the mess of forgotten things from her center console into one of the pockets. Her new cell phone slid into a grimy plastic bag from an old lunch. Then she tossed the keys under the seat and manually locked the doors.

  The first cruiser slid onto the road after her as she sprinted toward the river. She slung her pack across her chest and scrambled into the shallows. Her first instinct was to hide under the bridge, but she already lost her head start. If they saw her truck and she was anywhere nearby the game would be up. How many? It was impossible to count sirens. Just because she was far from dangerous, didn’t mean they knew that. She edged into the deep channel in the center and her feet were pulled from under her.

  Cold gripped her heaving chest and she forced herself to take several deep breaths. With a last gasp, she forced air from her lungs and sank. The current swept her away. Silty water burned her eyes, but she saw glaring light replace the shadow of the bridge. Thankfully the current, though strong, wasn't violent. She stayed under until her lungs burned, until her body could take no more. Then another fifteen seconds.

  She burst to the surface. Don’t gasp. Air billowed into her lungs. Her bag and feet tangled in a submerged tree, the broken, rotted wound gouging her arm. Tucked in the camouflage of the gnarled branches, she clung to the trunk.

  The cruiser stopped. Pagers crackled faintly, followed by glass shattering. She groaned. Not my fucking truck. She hoped locking it would slow them down, even for a minute. Clearly, I was wrong. She dragged herself along the tree to the bank.

  Movement made her freeze. A cop stalked the length of the bridge, eyes trained on the churning water. She inched deeper. He paused, peering at the cluster of rocks to Nel’s left, and the dark trees on the other bank. She could swear his eyes lingered on her own for a minute before he turned back to where his partner searched her truck.

  Guardrails hid the pull off. She moved slowly, wincing each time water sluiced from her jeans. The corridor was another hundred meters downstream. She tucked herself into the woods, avoiding as many dead branches as she could. Waterlogged denim dragged at her legs, tripping her usual purposeful strides. Finally, she emerged onto the corridor and crossed to the opposite tree line. Keep moving. If anyone saw her now it w
ouldn't be a stretch to figure out she was a fugitive.

  Fugitive? Was that what she was now? She could tell herself she ran without thinking, she panicked. There was enough adrenaline in her body to almost believe the latter. But I did think. Her understanding of the world ended with Mikey. But now there was this impossible woman who seemed too young and too old at once. Nel's mind may be spinning, but so was she and with the chaos around her, Lin was the only thing Nel saw clearly. So when her people tell me to run, I just do it?

  Daylight was precious. So was a plan. Shouts echoed between the trees as the cops scoured the woods and road. Moving in wet jeans was almost impossible. She hoped they would call for backup when they failed to find her in the woods surrounding her car. I have a few seconds to regroup. Tugging off her sodden boots, she stripped down to boxers and tank top. Wet clothes shoved into one of the waterproof pockets in her pack. She hated to wear wet socks and boots, but her feet weren't tough enough for the road fill and broken glass of the access road.

  “What do you think, Mikey? Deer blind or party spot?” It was a favorite game from when they did walkovers, each betting which modern evidence of human inhabitants they would find first. She usually went for the party spots.

  “Deer blind sure would do you more good now.”

  She shrugged on her pack and found the access road. No homes abutted the corridor another few miles, and loose gravel hid footprints better than any soft forest loam. After another forty minutes her heart to stopped pounding. Curiosity gnawed at her stomach, but she refused to look at the phone. Deciphering the Institute's convoluted message would be her task later when she was able to rest. She didn't think about how many miles she had left to hike, only that she had another step to take, and then another.

  By 2:00 her stomach was loud enough the cops could surely hear it. She could go a few days, but not without a plan. The few pounds she put on that summer with Chilean beer and Emilio’s food would only serve her so long. Wild raspberries and blackberries littered most corridors, but they required a healthy scrub before Nel would eat them. Last thing I need is the nasty defoliant all over this place. She passed a teenagers' fire pit, complete with a destroyed couch and smashed beer bottles. After a few cursory kicks to the dirt, it yielded nothing of use.

  Despite having worked all summer, her legs ached. I’m not twenty-year-old Nel anymore. Walking the corridor was alien, though she knew the surrounding roads almost by heart. Seeing everything from another side threw off her sense of direction. Damp and aching, she needed to find somewhere—anywhere—to gather herself. Sirens had long faded. Besides the firepit, the last sign of civilization was a farmhouse just before noon. The corridor swept upwards along a high ridge bordering a reservoir to the west. Huge boulders spilled down the slope, both glacial erratics and the results of a more recent push-pile. Rock shelters worked for paleo-folk. They'll work for me, too.

  One larger rock sat at the base of the pile. Years of ice broke it asunder, half beginning a slow slide downhill. This left two walls perfect for building a temporary shelter. Smoke smudged the stone from use in the past few years, and several beer bottles decorated the mossy granite. Nel plopped down at the fire pit. Ash was faint and the soot marring the rocks more grey than black. They won't be back tonight, at any rate. It took a moment to pile the leaves and sticks from around the pit in the center of the bowl of rocks. As much as lighting a fire was a dangerous option, hiking mostly naked or wet was worse, even at the end of summer. With any luck, the rocks would shield the brightest of the firelight.

  A sapling served as a rack to hang her pants and shirt. Nel erected a few dry pieces of wood in a pyramid around the tinder. Another sweep of the surrounding ground made sure she wouldn’t start a brush fire. A lighter hid in the sodden front pocket of her pack and a minute’s clicking finally dried the igniter enough to light her campfire. Flames tested the wood with their orange tongues, rolling the taste of lichen and several seasons of death before gnawing in earnest. She sank her head in her hands.

  “How did I get here?” The last hours seemed like days, Chile, and the school a decade away. She couldn’t believe she ran from the police, and Martos’s concern nagged at her. “Are they dangerous?”

  She shoved the thought away. Even with her small shelter set up, she couldn’t rest. Her body was jelly, but her life depended on getting dry and regrouping.

  Settling into the crevice of the rock, she upended her pack at her feet. After a few weeks out of the field, her kit was sparse. Dull tools, a compass, and a water bottle set her heart at ease. Her hastily raided center console provided a handful of hot sauce packets, someone's melted eyeliner, several wads of chewed gum, and a few crumpled dollar bills. Honey packets and expired peanut butter were tucked in the smallest pocket of her pack. Between that and the hot sauce, she might make it a week at least.

  Now onto the hard part. Chuckling at her morbid sarcasm, she fished the burner phone from its baggie and flipped it open. The list of who “Mothership” could be was very short, in Nel's mind. It was either the Institute or Lin. However they left things, she was fairly certain Lin's messages would be friendlier. If the Institute wanted her to go to Oromocto—or anywhere, really—they should send someone. She could stay out of the way of the cops for a while, but certainly not forever. The phone buzzed in her hand.

  Bently:

  Confirm location.

  She rolled her eyes and typed a response, grateful they couldn't hear her snarky tone.

  Safe and in hiding. Not many supplies

  The response was immediate:

  Hiding?

  “Christ you folk don’t pay attention.”

  Two officers tailed me north, I had to leave my car. On foot. You don’t have cable in your spaceship?

  She erased the last line after a few minutes deliberation. It wouldn’t do to antagonize her only hope at a ride or allies. Hopefully, the news hadn’t made it to local stations, let alone national TV.

  Make your way north, we need you to be at Fort Apajiaq in Oromocto.

  She sighed at the reiteration. “Can’t you just beam me up, you alien freaks? How am I going to go almost 600 miles on foot with half a dozen condiment packets and one pair of underwear?” Instead, she responded that she would try.

  Either that was enough, or they were tired of dealing with her. Her phone stayed silent for the rest of the evening.

  Warming stone pressed against her back and dry leaves served to keep the echoes of warmth close to her skin. It was going to be cold, but the fire helped. A long howl cut through the quiet dark. She straightened, head tilted as she waited. The coyote’s second howl was no closer than the first. Far enough for the threat to be replaced with melancholy. When nothing answered, the howls faded and Nel settled back against the rock. Exhaustion dragged at her limbs, but her mind raced laps around her skull. Why did they think she did it? Hadn’t Lin promised to take care of everything?

  Did I actually do it?

  FOUR

  Morning could not come soon enough. Nel’s back was one solid cramp and she balled herself into as small a shape as possible to stay warm. That's the last time I sleep naked out here. Still, a dozen cops hadn’t exploded from the woods in the middle of the night, and that was something. Shoving out of her leafy bed, she winced at the number of bug bites already rising from her skin. Funky smells and dampness still clung to her jeans, but they were vastly better than the night before, and her shirts were dry. Sullen fire still smoldered, not hot enough to cast any real warmth aside from comfort. She repacked her still-damp bag, arranging things in order of necessity.

  Next, she checked the phone’s battery. Almost full, but that wouldn't last long, especially with the spotty signal on most corridors. Texting drained the battery less than a phone call. Besides, if it was safe to call, wouldn’t they have done so already? Turning it on once a day to check her messages was probably as much as she could manage. No more than that, she commanded herself.

  Saving battery. Will turn phone on around noon EST each day. Headed north. Wouldn't mind a ride.

  She copied the message and sent it to Lin, though she wasn’t sure if the number even worked. Then she powered the phone down. Somehow, the descending notes made her feel even more alone as the screen went black. Dull aching filled the pit inside her ribs, but she knew it would get worse before it got better. It wouldn't be safe to brave a town, even a small one used to hikers, for at least a week.