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Dave unsnapped his seatbelt and got on his knees, twisting around to peer at the man lying on the
backseat. Dan’s eyes were half-lidded, but when Dave spoke Abra’s name, they opened.
“No, Daddy, not now, I have to help . . . I have to try . . .” Dan’s body twisted. One hand came up,
wiped his mouth in a gesture Dave had seen a thousand times, then fell away. “Tell him I said not to
call me that. Tell him—”
Dan’s head cocked sideways until it was lying on his shoulder. He groaned. His hands twitched
aimlessly.
“What’s going on?” John shouted. “What do I do?”
“I don’t know,” Dave said. He reached between the seats, took one of the twitching hands, and held
it tight.
“Drive,” Dan said. “Just drive.”
Then the body on the backseat began to buck and twist. Abra began to scream with Dan’s voice.
5
He found the conduit between them by following the sluggish current of her thoughts. He saw the
stone wheel because Abra was visualizing it, but she was far too weak and disoriented to turn it. She
was using all the mental force she could muster just to keep her end of the link open. So he could
enter her mind and she could enter his. But he was still mostly in the Suburban, with the lights of the
cars headed in the other direction running across the padded roof. Light . . . dark . . . light . . . dark.
The wheel was so heavy.
There was a sudden hammering from somewhere, and a voice. “Come out, Abra. Time’s up. We
have to roll.”
That frightened her, and she found a little extra strength. The wheel began to move, pulling him
deeper into the umbilicus that connected them. It was the strangest sensation Dan had ever had in his
life, exhilarating even in the horror of the situation.
Somewhere, distant, he heard Abra say, “Just give me another minute, I have to change my
tampon!”
The roof of John’s Suburban was sliding away. Turning away. There was darkness, the sense of being
in a tunnel, and he had time to think, If I get lost in here, I’ll never be able to get back. I’ll wind up in a
mental hospital somewhere, labeled a hopeless catatonic.
But then the world was sliding back into place, only it wasn’t the same place. The Suburban was
gone. He was in a smelly bathroom with dingy blue tiles on the floor and a sign beside the washbasin
reading SORRY COLD WATER ONLY. He was sitting on the toilet.
Before he could even think about getting up, the door bammed open hard enough to crack some of
the old tiles, and a man strode in. He looked about thirty-five, his hair dead black and combed away
from his forehead, his face angular but handsome in a rough-hewn, bony way. In one hand he held a
pistol.
“Change your tampon, sure,” he said. “Where’d you have it, Goldilocks, in your pants pocket?
Must have been, because your backpack’s a long way from here.”
(tell him I said not to call me that)
Dan said, “I told you not to call me that.”
Crow paused, looking at the girl sitting on the toilet seat, swaying a little from side to side.
Swaying because of the dope. Sure. But what about the way she sounded? Was that because of the
dope?
“What happened to your voice? You don’t sound like yourself.”