The green circle was still at the park, but not in the parking lot.Jem watched it for movement, but it stayed where it was: a little way north of him.
He got off the bike, carrying his helmet with him as he headed toward the paved walking trail.His sneakers made soft scuffing sounds against the pavement, and as he moved away from the cluster of security lights, their buzz began to fade.Ahead of him, the trail tunneled into the darkness.
Within twenty yards, the only sounds were the ones he made, and the ripple of the river.He couldn’t see it from the trail—hell, he couldn’t see anything except the chest-high prairie grasses on either side, and beyond them, like pencil doodles, the trees outlined against a sky full of light pollution.But the steady sound of running water, the occasional splash, that varying note like a musical instrument being tuned—it all told him the water was to his right, behind what were probably willows and cottonwoods.
Tean would know.Obviously.He’d know what the grass was too.That was the kind of thing Tean was good at: knowing the world in a way Jem didn’t know it at all.Most of the time, it was something that Jem liked about Tean.Loved about him.How smart Tean was.How educated.How passionate—
The thought stopped him.Because Teanwaspassionate about the world.About the plants and animals that were part of his job.About the soil, about the water, about the air.About people.About everything, really, because it was all connected.Tean cared so much about all of it, and caring meant it was easy to be hurt.And it wasn’t like any of that was exactlynewinformation to Jem; it was one of the reasons, maybe one of the earliest reasons, Jem had started to fall in love with the doc.And that stopped him too, because when was the last time he’d thought of Tean in that way, as the doc?And when was the last time Tean had given a speech about recycling?When was the last time he’d made a gruesome prediction based on Jem’s parking choices?When was the last time his face had lit up as he talked about something he’d seen at work, or on a hike, or after walking Scipio?
Something rustled in the grass, and Jem danced a few steps across the paved trail, gaze snapping toward the sound.A moment later, a small shape zipped out of the grass.Jem jumped—both feet left the ground—and whatever the little animal was, it made a loop and zipped right back into the grass, gone before Jem’s feet hit the ground again.
Heart pounding, Jem stared at where the little animal—fox?rat?—had gone.A little laugh didn’t quite work its way out of his chest.This was why he needed Tean.To tell him what had just happened.To explain it was fine, and that this little animal was more scared of Jem than Jem was of it.To make sense of the whole world.
The way, sometimes, Jem helped him.With people.With life.With all the things Tean found frustrating or annoying or incomprehensible.
Side-eying the tall grass, Jem started moving again.He was being ridiculous.He wasn’t trekking through a rainforest.He was in a city park, probably five minutes’ walk from a Knickerbockers, and he could see the dusty haze of strip mall lights above the trees.
But the thought didn’t make anything better.It didn’t help.Because it was one thing toknowthat there was a strip mall just over there.And it was another thing to be here, in the dark, with unknown things moving out there.This was another face to the world, one he didn’t know.
Which is why, he told himself, it’s so fucking stupid you came here without him.
Bouncing the helmet against his thigh, he took a deep breath, reminded himself he was bigger and badder than pretty much anything hiding out there in the dark, and tried not to think about snakes.
Another quick check showed that he was only a short distance from where Brennon’s phone was supposed to be.Jem did his best to balance speed with quiet.Whoever had Brennon’s phone, he didn’t think they’d be pleased to be found with it.Which was another reason, in hindsight, he probably should have brought Tean.
But this small, vicious part of him said, He goes out whenever he wants.The middle of the night.All the time.And he never tellsyou.
The grass on either side of him gave way to overgrown bushes and small trees, narrowing the path, swallowing the sounds of his steps.It was even darker with the dense growth filtering the ambient light, and although Jem thought he could still hear running water, it might have been his imagination.
Something rustled off to his right.The sound was frantic, and it grew faster, mixed with scuffing sounds and quiet thuds.It went on and on, the sounds growing more and more frenzied.
And then it stopped.
Jem’s heart was beating faster, and the tips of his fingers tingled like he’d hit his funny bone.But inside his head, everything had leveled off, and the world squared up again.He shook out the length of paracord wrapped around his wrist.He adjusted his grip on the helmet.He said, in his head, Please no fucking snakes.
He shouldered through the wall of brush into a clearing on the other side.Two men: one dressed all in black and straddling the other, who had his T-shirt pushed up around his neck and his shorts down around his thighs.For a heartbeat, embarrassment left Jem off-balance at having interrupted a hook-up.He was about to stumble back to the path, calling some dumbass mixture of apology and encouragement like,Saddle up, orRide ’im, cowboy, when his brain caught up with his body.
The half-naked young man was Daniel.
The man in black twisted at the waist.
Jem lunged forward.The paracord spun in his hand, and the hex nut weighting it at one end became a trail of smoke in the dark.
The other man threw himself off Daniel.He landed on his back, and it cost him precious seconds to roll into the movement and come up on his feet.But it saved him from Jem’s first attack, and it put Daniel between them.
Jem changed course, tracking the man in black, but as he swung the paracord again to build up speed and power, the man shook out the blade of a folding knife and darted in.Jem reacted instinctively: twisting to one side, and bringing the helmet around, half club, half shield.Instead of connecting with the man’s hand—and, hopefully breaking a few bones—the helmet glanced off the blade of the knife.It diverted the blow, sending it safely away from Jem’s body, but it didn’t change the math: the man still had a knife, and in a fight like this, whoever had the knife was going to win.
Jem snapped out the length of paracord, aiming for the face.The hex nut connected—the contact ran up the length of paracord into Jem’s hand, and a moment later, thethwackreached his ears.The man let out a sharp cry and dropped his chin toward his shoulder, but he charged at Jem again with the knife.
When Jem stepped back, his foot came down on something soft—Daniel—and his ankle turned under him.He landed on his ass.He tried to copy the man’s earlier movement, allowing his momentum to carry him into a somersault.But he wasn’t moving quickly enough, and instead, his back smacked against the ground.Grass tickling his neck.A weed poking him in the side of the face.The scent of freshly broken earth, and the dry, brittle smell of matted vegetation.
Steel glimmered as it arced down toward him.
Jem rolled.The man grunted.And then something blunt connected with Jem’s back, and pain exploded through him.He rolled again.Face in broken weeds.Dirt crushed into his cheek.Lungs hitching as his body tried to remember how to breathe.
Faces crowded around him on a blacktop playground
Screams.