Destroyer

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The black is short like before, a quick trip, but unlike the past several hops, when we arrive, we are no longer overlooking the large valley, but on a different slope surrounded by woods. And by we, I mean Scout, myself, and the Mongol soldier who grabbed my arm just as we winked out. Apparently a simple touch is more than enough to come along for the ride.

The soldier’s hand remains locked around my wrist until he realizes that everything around him is not as he thinks it should be. He backs away, his eyes wide, and then he draws his sword and starts reciting something that has a pattern like a poem or, more likely, a prayer. Scout and I are unable to hear the end of it, though, as Lidia jumps again, and we leave the soldier behind.

We are back in a pattern of short time hops, our position changing no more than twenty or so feet from the first to the last.

Finally we stop long enough to work our way to a nearby clearing. From there we can see a mountain pass below us, the same pass that started at the valley churned up by the Mongols. I know this for a fact because the army is below us, too. But though it’s barely midday, the mass of soldiers isn’t on the move. Instead, they seem to have made camp.

The slope between us and them is thankfully steeper than the one before, and in places almost vertical, and while I stay alert for the sound of soldiers on watch, I’m confident the terrain provides us relative safety.

This is as much as Lidia allows us to see before we travel backward twenty-four hours. We are in the same spot, but instead of thousands of camped soldiers below, there are only a few hundred, those in the lead milling around while the others gradually catch up.

Jump, ahead this time, eight hours.

The sun is getting low, and deep shadows cover the pass. But it’s not so dark that I can’t see that the number of soldiers has swelled.

Backward jump, ten hours. It’s late morning. There are no soldiers below us yet, but I can hear the rumble of the horses coming. Depending on how fast they’re moving, I think the head of the army could be anywhere from ten minutes to an hour away.

The tracking map shows me that Lidia is just a little more than a hundred yards from our position.

“We have to keep moving,” I say. I nod to my right. “That way.”

I’m surprised, though probably shouldn’t be, by the fact Scout isn’t bombarding me with questions. He’s obviously grasped the seriousness of the situation and has chosen to help instead of hinder. I’m strangely proud of this, like a parent of a deserving child.

Many of the trees around us are scarred, and the ground is covered by deadwood and new growth. A fire has moved through here in the last few years, and the rejuvenation is in full flourish. Unfortunately this slows our progress, as there’s no clear straight shot to Lidia’s position.

A small clearing, no more than thirty feet across, gives us another glimpse at the pass as the first soldiers are riding into view, their pace steady and unhurried, confident even. And why not? No one has defeated them since before Genghis Khan rose to power.

We are about to press on when I detect a flurry of activity coming up the pass. Half a dozen horsemen are riding fast along the edge of the advancing army, and don’t stop until they reach the soldiers at the forefront. Conversations are held and the force begins to stop.

This is the start of the camp of men we have already witnessed, I realize, so I’m not in the slightest bit shocked when the world disappears again.

Six jumps in all, each giving us a new vantage point, but we stayed nowhere long enough for Scout and me to get any closer to Lidia. When we finally arrive at a spot we don’t almost immediately jump from, I check the time and location. We’ve gone backward again, this time to 8:00 a.m. that same morning, and have retreated along the pass about a third of the way back in the direction of the valley.

Below us is the army again. From its appearance, I would guess we are near the back end of the mass of soldiers. Out of the dust that followed the Mongols emerge a couple dozen riders moving fast. I think at first they must be part of the group we just witnessed stopping those at the front of the parade, but instead of heading to the side, they gallop straight down the middle, the soldiers in front of them parting to let them through.

Clearly this is unusual. Though we are too far away to see the expression on anyone’s face, the way the men who have parted begin to cluster in small groups after the riders have gone by evokes a sense of confusion.

I pause as the reality of what I’m witnessing hits me. This must be it, the moment when the Mongol tide that’s poised to wash over Europe receives the news that stops it literally in its tracks. I’m positive these are the messengers who have come all the way from the Mongol homeland bearing the news of Ögedei’s death.

The riders stop when they come to a group of soldiers who stand their ground. My guess is that they have reached the leaders of the army. Minutes pass, minutes Scout and I could be using to gain ground on Lidia, but I can’t tear my gaze away, and neither can he. This is a monumentally historic moment.

Suddenly from the gathering, several mounted soldiers break from the group. They ride to the edge of the still-moving column and then take off along the side toward the front of the pack. They must be the riders we saw farther down the pass.

If I had any doubt before what we have been witnessing, it’s gone now.

After I nudge Scout, we move back into the woods and close to within a hundred feet of Lidia before we jump again.

We arrive all the way back at the familiar spot where the wide valley funnels into the pass, exactly an hour and a half earlier than the moment in time we had been at moments before. A small group of riders is in the valley no more than ten minutes from the pass’s entrance. From their clothing I recognize them as the messengers.

Barely ten seconds after I realize this, Lidia starts us on a series of jumps. It’s immediately clear that we’re following the riders farther and farther back into the valley — in a sense, watching a real-life movie in reverse.

Most major events in history are caused by many elements coming together at once. Remove one of these elements, and the outcome may not change at all. But on rare occasions, there is what Sir Gregory once referred to as a switch moment. A single event that, if either prevented or allowed, results in two massively divergent time lines. One is the Cahill switch I found in 1775. And in the valley below us, I realize, rides another even more devastating switch.

Lidia doesn’t need to contend with the whole Mongol army to keep them marching on. She need only stop the messengers from reaching them. If that happens, the Mongols will continue sweeping across Europe, and by the time their leaders back home send more messengers, it will likely be too late. This switch, though, will not be nearly as easy to flip as the one that allowed Iffy’s world to come into existence.

When we finally stop our quick jumps, it’s nighttime. A near-full moon provides more than enough illumination, however, to see that the valley is gone.

We seem to be in a group of rolling hills, dotted with trees. Scout and I are at the bottom of a slope just a few yards away from a rutted trail that could have just as easily been made by wild animals as by man. I can smell smoke in the air, coming from a campfire or fireplace, but as I take a quick look around, I’m unable to locate the source.

The chaser says it’s 11:00 p.m. I check Lidia’s position. She’s directly ahead of us, but on the move again. She’s traveling at an angle that roughly parallels the path, so we use it to follow her.

The smell of smoke grows stronger, and I worry that she’s going to walk us directly into the messengers’ camp. I have no desire to interact with the Mongols again.

“Horses,” Scout whispers.

We pause and then I hear them, too. A few snorts, but no running hooves. There are voices, also, low and a bit distant.

“We need to get off the trail,” I tell him.

The woods here are not nearly as dense as those near the mountain pass, which makes them easier to move through, but more difficult to find someplace to hide.

A glow of flames tickles the top of a rise just ahead. Pausing, I motion for Scout to take a look around while I check on Lidia again. She’s also stopped, but much closer to the camp.

We creep up the rise and then drop to the ground when we reach the crest. There’s a clearing just ahead, and in the center, a campfire with maybe four or five men sitting around it. In the light of the flames, I can see the lumps of at least a dozen other riders sleeping on the ground.

Scout taps me and points ahead at a spot just inside the trees. Another human shadow, this one kneeling behind a bush.

Lidia.

She is within thirty feet of the nearest Mongol, and it’ll be near impossible to grab her without drawing attention. While it’s a concern, it’s not a deterrent. All we need to do is get our arms around her, unslave my chaser, and then jump out of here.

Scout scans the area for anyone else who might be awake and walking around as I work out my plan. When I’m ready, I mime to him what I want to do. He looks dubious, but nods, deferring to me.

Slowly we push back to our feet, but remain in a crouch — well, for me, as best a crouch as my leg will allow — and move along an arc that puts us behind Lidia.

It’s weird. I’ve had a few glimpses of her here and there as we’ve jumped around, but this is the first good view of Lidia I’ve had since we were separated by the glass in the doorless cell she built, before we’d even gone to 1939 Germany.

As much as I know she’d hear me coming, it’s hard not to rush forward and try to grab her. Closer first, I caution myself. There’s still a good hundred feet between us. Twenty would be okay to stop worrying. Ten would be better.

As I pick my way over the ground, I see her reach toward a shadow sitting against a tree next to her. Her rucksack, I realize after a moment. Her hand clasps around a stick jutting out of the top, and pulls it out. Setting it on her lap, she fusses over it for a moment. Then I hear a metallic click, the same metallic click I heard in Kentucky, where a man named Abraham Lincoln and his son were killed.

The automatic rifle.

I had forgotten all about it.

I break from Scout and start to run toward her, my adrenaline drowning out any protest my leg might be making. But I’m not even halfway to her when she pulls the trigger.

The sound of automatic gunfire rolls across the clearing like a continuous thunderstorm. I stumble forward and fall to a knee as bullets fly.

The men by the campfire are the first to go down, not a single one of them able to get to his feet before being hit. Those who’d been asleep jump up among shouts of confusion and anger, but their bodies are no more bulletproof than their companions’ were. It is the most direct role Lidia has taken in affecting the time line that I have witnessed. Clearly she’s decided to take things more into her own hands than she has in the past. Why, I don’t know, but it’s a turn in events I don’t like at all.

“No!” I shout. “Stop!”

But Lidia doesn’t even flinch.

I’m up again and moving toward her when the shooting and the shouts suddenly stop.

Lidia twists around and points her rifle at me. “Not a foot closer, Denny.”

I halt.

At the sound of a footstep in the trees behind me, Lidia jerks her rifle a few inches to my left and sends three rounds flying into the darkness.

“Don’t shoot!”

Lidia looks at me, her eyes narrowing. Though the voice is mine, it didn’t come out of my mouth. At least not the mouth of this me.

“Lidia, please. Don’t,” I say.

She raises her voice. “Come out where I can see you.”

The look of disgust on her face tells me the exact moment Scout comes into view.

“That’s far enough,” she orders him.

She glances back and forth between Scout and me. It must be the bloodstains on my pants that give me away as the one who brought her grandson to 1952.

She sneers at me. “Picked up a little help, did you? Cute.”

Just then, several mounted soldiers ride into the clearing — sentries, no doubt, responding to a noise that they’ve never heard before.

Lidia takes a quick peek in their direction and then looks back at us and mouths, “Don’t move.”

She keeps her weapon trained on us until the sentries pull to a halt at the campfire and jump off their mounts. Once she has a clear shot at all three, she whips the rifle back around and fires a burst that takes down not only the sentries but their horses, too.

Even if I’d been able to move, I couldn’t have taken more than two steps before the weapon is pointing back on me. But the massacre before me in the meadow, the unimaginable deviation to the time line she’s caused, cements me in place.

Behind the rifle, Lidia smiles. “It’s been a fun time, hasn’t it, Denny?”

“Put the weapon down, Lidia.”

“I think not.” The hint of laughter. “Have you enjoyed the journey?”

“What’s next? You take down Rome? Maybe the Greeks?”

“Oooh. Good suggestions. But I’ll be honest. This has been exhausting. Fun, but I could use a little time off. Thinking I might find a deserted beach somewhere. Relax for a while. What do you think?”

“That sounds great. Let’s go.” At least she wouldn’t be able to do any harm there.

There’s no hiding her laughter this time. “Oh, Denny. Really? Do you think you’re going to piggyback with me forever? I’m glad you’ve been able to witness the work I’ve been doing, but it’s almost time for you to get off.”

I hear something, faint, beyond the field on the other side. At first I think it’s just the wind, but then it’s there again, loud enough this time that Lidia notices it, too. It’s the pounding hooves of a single horse heading our way.

“Almost?” I say, hoping to distract her.

But she’s having none of it. “On the ground, both of you.” Neither Scout nor I move. “I have no problem killing either of you.”

I believe her so I lower myself to the ground and nod to Scout to do the same.

“Good. Now stay,” she says.

The horse comes in fast from the other side of the meadow, but pulls up as soon as its rider sees his dead companions. In the split second before Lidia sends a burst of bullets flying in his direction, the sentry gives his horse a kick and they gallop off to the left. The shots miss their mark by only feet. The sound has terrified the rider, but instead of trying to figure out what has caused it, he veers his horse into the trees.

Lidia pulls the trigger again, but there’s only the click of the hammer closing on an empty chamber. With a frustrated growl, she throws the gun to the ground and rips her chaser out of her bag.

I brace myself, ready to jump again, but then realize I don’t have my device.

“Denny!” Scout yells.

He reaches out to me, and I throw myself at him, making contact just a second before everything disappears.

I hear a voice as soon as we come out of the jump. Lidia’s, but it’s coming from behind me, yet I can see her thirty feet in front of me. A quick scan reveals that physically we’ve only moved into the woods on the other side of the body-filled meadow, and I realize that the Lidia I hear is the one who’s about to tell me that our travels together are almost over.

A horse comes through the forest carrying the messenger Other Lidia will try to shoot but will miss in a few moments. The Now Lidia, the one in front of me, starts running for the clearing.

“Here,” Scout says, and hands me back the chaser. Though I’m sure he’d rather keep control of it, he knows I’m the only one with a handle on what’s really going on here.

Lidia is maybe a dozen feet from the meadow when the messenger and his horse emerge from the trees. As before, he pulls up the moment he sees his dead colleagues, but this time, just a few seconds before Other Lidia is about to shoot, Now Lidia begins shouting, “Over here! Over here! Over here!”

The messenger yanks his horse around and starts moving toward her voice, bringing him closer to the campfire. This time when Other Lidia pulls the trigger, she doesn’t miss.

Now Lidia laughs in triumph and then looks back at me in a way that tells me we are about to jump again.

I throw my hand behind me, my fingers spread wide, and feel the slap as Scout’s palm connects with mine just a few seconds before we vanish from the site of the Mongol massacre.

Momentum carries us forward a few steps as we come out of the jump. The pain, though, causes us to stop and cringe. A good-size jump. At least a hundred years, I think.

Through squinted eyes I check the chaser. Double what I thought. Two hundred exactly. 1442. And according to the map, we’re only thirty miles outside of London, England.

I force myself to look for Lidia. While she’s clearly in pain, she’s already running toward some smoke rising above the trees to our left.

I yank on Scout’s hand and we take off after her.

The smells of civilization hit me in waves of cooking meat and human sweat and waste of both man and animal as we near the town. Both coughing, Scout and I pull up our shirts over our mouths and noses to filter the air, but it’s a wasted effort as it only adds our own stink to the other scents.

“Lidia! Stop!” I yell.

She continues on without a break in her step. Though she hasn’t been able to add any more distance between us, we haven’t been able to gain any ground on her, either. Ahead and to the left, I spot a building through the trees maybe fifty yards away. Another appears to my right. Then more and more.

I know the smell is probably stronger now, but while my nose still feels as if it is under assault, my body has adjusted my tolerance levels enough that I can continue on without retching.

A road emerges from the forest, running right into the town. Lidia turns down it, and we follow. Though this doesn’t appear to be any kind of fortified village, the dirt road soon transitions into one of cobblestone. As the buildings begin to surround us, I notice something else strange, too. Maybe half the structures contain architectural elements that I’ve always associated with the Chinese Empire — upturned rooflines, ornate designs, and the use of bright colors. These are small things in the grand picture of the world, but they speak with the power of a god.

Kali, to be specific.

It’s all the proof I need to know that Lidia’s attempt to keep the Mongols on their march through Europe was successful.

It must be the adrenaline coursing through my veins because I’m not feeling any pain and am able to run almost as fast as I do when I’m not wounded. I feel like it’s now or never, that I can’t stop running until I capture Lidia.

Scout’s feet slap the cobblestones beside me. At the moment, we’re not currently in physical contact, but we’re both keeping a close eye on Lidia, and if she makes a move toward her chaser, I know Scout will grab on to me again.

The street grows more crowded with villagers the deeper into town we get. As our little parade races down the center of the road, we draw stares of confusion and even fear. Our clothes, our shoes, our hair, even the color of our skin stands out. These are not the Anglo-Saxons I have known. Their blood has been mixed with not just the Mongols but the other races the Mongols swept along in their move west — the Chinese, the Persians, the Arabs, the Moors.

A large Eurasian man in a gray cloak shouts words at us that — with the exception of maybe one or two — I don’t understand. Others begin doing the same, and I worry that a mob will form that will take Scout and me down before we can get to Lidia.

Thankfully the village is a small one, and I can see the buildings petering out ahead. But as we near, I spot several oxcarts entering the town and completely blocking the path.

Scout’s hand is on my shoulder before I realize Lidia is yanking up her chaser. We keep running, though, gaining a foot or two by the time she hits her go button.

We stumble over uneven ground as we come out of the jump, heads pounding with intense pain. While I’m able to stay on my feet, Scout hits the ground.

I look back, but he shouts, “Keep going. I’ll catch up.” So I do.

The reason for his fall is that we materialized in a field that has been recently plowed. Chunks of mud lie in lines that slow all of us.

Lidia glances back at me. At first, her eyes blaze with the same wild anger they have had since the chase began, but then something else creeps in, and she almost seems to smile. At that moment she whips up her chaser and starts inputting a new jump.

“Grab on!” I yell.

I thrust my hand behind me, but when I glance back, I see that Scout’s ten yards away.

“Hurry!”

Panic fills his eyes as he sprints across the field. To help, I reverse direction, and run toward him. Scout leaps the final few feet and hits me just as the jump takes hold.

Upon arrival we topple onto hard ground. More cobblestones, I realize. My shoulder aches where it’s slammed into the surface, but I can’t let that stop me.

I stagger to my feet more than spring and then help Scout up. If there is such a thing as fate, it has once more been working against us, and the gains we’ve been making on Lidia have been lost.

“Stay with me,” I say and then start running again.

Heavy gray clouds fill the sky. It hasn’t started to rain, but it won’t be long, which is probably the reason why there are only a handful of people about. As much as I’d like to, checking the chaser now to see when and where we are would just slow me down. A town somewhere, probably in Europe. It has that kind of feel, though who knows in this infinitely changed world? As for the time, it doesn’t matter.

Lidia turns a corner up ahead, momentarily disappearing from sight.

Without either of us saying anything, both Scout and I pick up our speed. From the dampness on the leg of my pants, I know that my wound has started to bleed again, but my adrenaline is still keeping me from feeling anything.

When we turn the corner I expect to see Lidia on the road ahead of us, but she’s not there. I have no choice but to consult the tracking map, which means we must slow to about half speed. The dot indicates she’s ahead and to the left, but when we get to the point where her path diverges from the road we are on, we find not an intersecting street but a building that’s been ravaged by a recent fire. The front door is missing, and much of the stone that surrounds the entrance is black with soot.

The signal from Lidia’s chaser is coming from deep inside the structure, but we enter cautiously nonetheless. The front portion of the building is open all the way to the sky. A stone stairway runs up one wall to the ghost of a second floor. What doesn’t still stick out from the walls lies before us in piles of ash and chunks of partially burned wood. A stone wall divides the building in half, making it impossible to see the back portion, where Lidia should be.

Two soot-encrusted doorways lead through the wall. We approach the one on the left, and look through. Another big room, though here, with the exception of a few burned-out holes, most of the second floor has survived. Several piles of debris scattered around give me the sense someone has started to clean this place up so it can be rebuilt.

A walled-off room sits in the back right corner, the door that once covered its entrance burned away. The map tells me that Lidia is inside it. Quietly we enter the big room and cross toward the corner. No movement from the dot. Is she waiting there for us? Why doesn’t she just jump if there’s no way out of there?

I hear a wet patter behind me, and jerk around, thinking maybe she’s sneaking up on us. But the sound is only raindrops falling unimpeded onto the floor of the front room.

I stop Scout no more than ten feet from the point the map tells me Lidia is. Finally, this is all but over. Whether she comes out or jumps, it doesn’t matter. We’re too close to her now. We will take her down, and then I’ll start mopping up her mess.

“Come on out,” I say. “It’s over, Lidia. There’s nowhere for you to go.”

Something skitters across the floor inside, small, like a pebble. This is Lidia’s only response, so we move into the doorway.

There aren’t any windows and the roof has escaped damage, so the only light getting in is what flows around Scout and me through the entrance. Someone has filled much of the space with what I’m guessing is the salvageable furniture from the fire — cabinets, both tall and short; a few chairs; and a long thin table turned on its end.

According to the tracker, Lidia should be just behind a tall cabinet directly in front of me.

“Enough, Lidia. Get out here!” My tone isn’t as neutral as it probably should be given her mental state, but I’m tired of playing hide-and-seek. I just want to go someplace where I can rest for a little bit before I start detangling the changes she’s made layer by miserable layer.

Another pebble, but not so much scooting across the floor as bouncing on it. I barely notice the difference, though, as I weave through singed furniture, and circle around the cabinet.

I stop dead and stare, surprised. The only things there are Lidia’s rucksack and beside it my satchel, the chaser clearly inside, both sitting on the floor against the wall.

I barely register this, though, before she jumps off the top of the cabinet and onto my back, tumbling us both to the floor. I try to push up, but she knocks me back down and grinds her knee into my kidney. She starts choking me with one hand while hitting me with the other.

“Get off him!” Scout yells.

I can’t see what’s going on behind me, but I can feel him pulling at her. She stops hitting me, and replaces the hand around my neck with her arm. I hear the two of them struggle, but unlike me and Lidia, Scout has never been in an actual fight before, and soon she’s yanked him to the ground. I twist left then right then left again, and at last succeed in turning enough so that I’m lying on my side instead of my stomach. This finally loosens her hold, and I’m able to suck in some precious oxygen.

With renewed strength, I slam my elbow into her ribs over and over and over until I’m able to roll away.

Lidia then turns her full fury on Scout. He covers his face with his arms to block her blows, but this opens his midsection to a brutal kick that sends him flying backward through the doorway.

My own breaths are still coming hard and fast, my wounds both old and new all screaming for attention, but I know I’m a helpless target if I stay on the ground. I pull myself up with the help of the tall cabinet and then turn to face her onslaught. Instead of coming at me, however, she dives past me.

I turn as she grabs my satchel and sticks her hand inside.

“No!” I yell. I whip back around and lock eyes with Scout. He’s on his elbows a good fifteen feet away. I’ll never get to him in time. “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “It’s my—”

Those are the only words he gets out before Lidia activates her chaser and she and I leave Scout Me behind.

Lidia clearly pre-entered the jump coordinates prior to setting the trap that would separate Scout and me, because she’s chosen our destination well. The trip has taken us to an empty desert that goes as far as the eye can see in every direction, on a journey that was at least as long as the two-century jump that took us away from the dead Mongol messengers.

I arrive a huddled mass of pain. When I hear movement, I pry open my eyelids to thin slits and see Lidia coming at me. The only defense I can mount is to turn my head away and hope I can weather her attack. But though I feel a tug at one of my arms, she doesn’t actually hit me.

I force myself to turn and look at her again. Instead of hovering over me, she’s moved back several dozen feet.

I get up, thinking the whole time she’s going to rush me, but she never moves.

Once I’m standing, she smiles and raises her hand. Dangling from it is the makeshift bag I created to carry the slaved chaser. Reflexively I look down, as if she couldn’t possibly have it, but mine is gone, and she is now in possession of both devices.

It’s a hot day, but the sweat seeping from my forehead is not caused by the sun. One push of the button, and I will be alone here forever.

I guess I should be grateful that if she does leave me, it will be only a matter of days until my death, because there is no way I’ll find water in time. But grateful is not what I feel.

As dire as the situation is, I can’t give up. I won’t give up.

“Don’t do this.”

She snorts. “Do what?”

“I know you have a problem with me. I know that I took the world you knew away. I can accept whatever personal punishment you decide, but everything else you’ve done, all the changes, you’ve been damning billions for the guilt of one person.” I tap my chest. “I’m the responsible party. Just me. I’m the only one who should pay the price.”

“You want to pay the price? Sure, good idea. Let’s start with this.”

She swings her arm so that the burlap bag flies high above her, and then she brings it quickly down again and smashes it into the ground. It’s impossible to miss the crunch of wood and metal. I take a step forward but stop as she swings it up again and repeats the maneuver. Though the machine is surely destroyed by now, she does it again and again and again. After she finally stops, she turns the bag over and dumps the contents on the desert floor. All that falls out are bits and pieces that can never be put back together again.

The only way out of here now is the chaser in my leather satchel, hanging at Lidia’s side.

I run at her without thinking. If she can get to the chaser and disappear before I reach her, so be it, but I’m not going to just stand around and let her wink away without a fight. She makes no play for the bag, though. Instead, she sets her feet and leans slightly forward, anticipating my arrival.

At the last second I duck to the right to go under her arms, but she’s anticipated this and steps farther to my left and shoves me on the back as I fly by.

I lock my knees and skid across the dirt to a stop. When I turn back, I half think she’ll already be gone, but she’s still standing there, grinning at me.

Fighting has always been Lidia’s thing, not mine, but having no other choice I charge again. This time she grabs me, and we twist around in a tense dance of shoving and wrestling as we each try to get the advantage.

“I can smell your desperation,” she whispers in my ear. “That’s the kind of odor you inherit from your parents.”

She flings me away.

“I have to admit, though, I thought you’d have given up jumps ago. All your gutter-dwelling friends would have. I guess I should be impressed, but I can’t seem to muster up the energy.”

I know she’s trying to goad me into a mindless attack, but I’m not that naïve anymore. I circle to the right, staying just out of her reach.

She raises an eyebrow as she pivots her head to match my movements. “Already taken your best shot? Now I’m really disappointed.”

I continue to move around her, saying nothing. Though I don’t look at it directly, my attention is really on my old satchel resting against her right hip. I just need to get it and run. Unfortunately, her arm rests over the top, her hand clutching the strap just above where it’s attached to the bag.

As I pass behind her, Lidia whips her head from one shoulder to the other, taunting me to attack her from the back. I have no intention of doing that, at least not yet, but her arrogance has caused her to make a mistake. In that moment when she’s moving her head and her eyes aren’t on me, I glance at the bag and see my opportunity.

Peeking out of the flap covering the smaller side pouch is the hilt of her grandson’s knife. If I can get it out, I can cut the strap like I did before and get away.

I circle around in front of her again, my eyes once more locked on hers.

“What are we playing at here, Denny?” she asks. “Ring around the rosies?”

I say nothing, and continue past her left shoulder. Like before, once her head has gone as far as it can, she starts to turn it back the other way. The moment her eyes are off me, I charge.

Sensing I’m up to something, she immediately drops into a crouch and tries to hurl me over her head. It’s a move we both learned during defensive training at the institute, but in this case it plays to my advantage. I jerk to the right as she reaches up for me, and slide across her back instead of flying over her head.

As my right arm rubs against the satchel’s strap, my hand is already searching for the pouch. Unfortunately, while I’m able to pull loose the tie holding the flap down, I’m moving too fast to grab the knife, and instead sweep past Lidia’s shoulder and onto the ground.

I quickly jump up before she has a chance to come after me.

“Nice try,” she says, grinning wider than ever. “But you’re going to have to do a lot more than—”

I launch at her again, throw my arms around her torso, and tackle her to the ground. I shove a hand over her neck to distract her and use my other to free the knife. I find the flap first, and move it out of the way so I can grab the blade. Only the pouch is empty.

A harsh, choked laugh escapes Lidia’s throat. “So predictable.”

I feel the blade cut through my shirt and slice the skin over my shoulder blade. Groaning in agony, I push myself away, but Lidia is having none of it. She jumps on top of me, her knees on my chest, and presses my newly sliced shoulder into the ground. As I yell in pain, she presses the knife against my throat, the blade nicking at my skin.

“This was fun and all, but it’s time we take one last trip together.” I must not be able to hide my confusion, because she then adds, “Someplace I’m sure we both would like to see. Well, I would, anyway.”

Since she has only the one free hand, it takes her a moment to pull the chaser out of the satchel and unlock the flap. She doesn’t input a destination, though.

I realize now that this desert was never to be my graveyard. That Lidia has had something else in mind all along.

That her mission won’t be complete until she’s shown me the hell she has wrought.