Sage rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said, and turned, lifting up his jacket and shirt.
That was weird.
The scratches were gone.
Completely gone. There wasn’t even a mark.
But I’d dug in deep enough to make him bleed, hadn’t I?
I shook my head—I must have been swimmy from the fall and remembered it wrong. Nobody healed that completely that fast.
I gasped as I remembered someone who did—Sage himself. In my dream. When I was Anneline and he cut his hand on the rose thorns.
“What is it, Doctor?” Sage asked. “Gangrene set in?”
Should I tell him about the dreams? I opened my mouth to do it.…
“Got an itch?” Ben asked. There was a harsh edge to his voice, and both Sage and I swung around to see him glaring at us. I felt caught, even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Sage didn’t seem bothered.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Sage said.
Ben ignored him. He looked down at the drawing on the floor.
“Nice picture,” he said. “Doesn’t do her justice.”
Sage didn’t bother to correct him about the picture’s subject. “It’s dark. Let’s move. Ankle all better?” he asked me.
I rotated my foot. There was a twinge of pain, but not a lot. “I’m good.”
“Great.”
He led us to a small tunnel at the far end of the cave. This was a much larger passageway than the crawl space through which we had entered, and it soon fed us back out into the brush of Leme Hill. It was late at night, but the sky was bright and clear, aglow with the full moon and an unfathomable number of stars.
The minute we were out of the cave, my cell phone went crazy. “Rayna,” I said, checking the screen. “She called six times. And she texted six more. She must be freaking out that we haven’t checked in.”
Before I could call her back, Sage snatched the phone away and flung it far into the woods.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving us from being tracked. Remember what I said about going below the radar? No cell phones, no credit cards, no ATM cards.” Sage looked pointedly at Ben, but he shook his head.
“My cell’s already gone,” he said. “I lost it when we were jumped.”
“Good. That’s good. Let’s go.” We took a small path through the woods. Even though Sage believed the attackers were long gone, I kept jumping at every twig that cracked. I was grateful when we emerged onto the beach and walked back to the street. It was much quieter this Ash Wednesday night than it had been the night before, but it felt safer to be out in public.
Sage hailed a cab and climbed up front. Ben and I took the back.
“I don’t like this, Clea,” Ben said quietly. “This is textbook Bad Idea. We’re driving with a stranger, no one knows where we are, and we have no way of getting in touch
“I don’t like this, Clea,” Ben said quietly. “This is textbook Bad Idea. We’re driving with a stranger, no one knows where we are, and we have no way of getting in touch with anyone. This is exactly how people become statistics.”
“Exactly?” I asked, thinking of all the bizarre twists and turns that had led us to this place.
Ben ceded the point with a sideways shrug. “Maybe not exactly. But still …”
He let it go, and the cab eventually stopped at the edge of a remote, forested area. Sage got out and paid. “Everybody out!”
Ben looked at me, one eyebrow raised. He was leaving the choice to me. I gave his knee a quick squeeze before I opened the door and we piled out of the car.
Sage waited for the cab to drive away, then ducked onto a forest path, clearly assuming we’d follow.
The path through the thick foliage was stunning in the moonlight, and I automatically released my camera from its bag.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Sage said without turning around. “You know I’m not one for visitors.”
“I’ll refrain from selling the pictures to Travel and Leisure, then, “I said, already snapping away. “Besides, I need something to take my mind off my feet.” My shoes were still on the beach, where I’d kicked them off to dance.
“Hey, I offered to carry you,” Sage offered.
“No, thank you.”
I suppose I should have been able to move swiftly and silently without my shoes, but I only managed to stab myself on something with every other footfall, giving me a sideways, hopping gait. Every few minutes Sage would hold out his arms, offering to carry me again. I grimaced and denied him each time.
After what felt like about ten miles, even the photos weren’t distracting enough. “How much farther?” I asked.
“We’re here.”
There was nothing in front of us but more trees.
“Wow,” Ben said, and I followed his eyes upward to see that several of the tree trunks were actually stilts supporting a beautifully hidden wood-and-glass cabin, set high among the branches. I was immediately charmed.
“You live in a tree house,” I said. I aimed my camera at the facade, answering Sage’s objection before he even said it. “For me, not for Architectural Digest.”
“Thank you,” Sage said.
We followed him up the stairs and went inside. The cabin wasn’t large—the sloping, skylight-cut ceiling rose high over a single, large, wood-paneled living room and a very rustic kitchen. A large fireplace sat along one side wall, a few select framed pieces of art hung on the walls, and four bookshelves teemed neatly with both reading material and a choice few knickknacks. One long desk held Sage’s computers and paraphernalia, but it was unobtrusive, and the only nod to high-tech modernity. There was no television—all the couches and chairs instead faced the massive triangular floor-to-ceiling window that took up the entire back wall of the house, and looked out through the forest and over a beautifully secluded and pristine strip of beach. Ben and I walked to the window, openmouthed.
“This view …” I gaped. “I can’t believe you ever leave.”
“It takes a lot,” Sage admitted.
I tore my eyes from the rolling ocean waves and looked again around the room. It was cozy and intimate, and yet somehow not personal. It reminded me of vacation homes my family used to rent when I was little: tiny touches proved that the house belonged to someone else, but they were few and far between. I was so curious —where was Sage in this house? I was dying to snoop around and check it out.
“Do we get a tour?” I asked.
“No tour. We’re here only to get supplies.” He pulled a volume from the highest shelf of one of the bookcases. From the spine it looked like a fairly nondescript hardback, but when Sage set it down, I saw it was actually a small combination safe. He undid the lock and pulled open the cover to reveal a large stack of envelopes, each one labeled with a different name: Franklin Hobart, Brian Yancey, Everett Singer, Larry Steczynski … it was this last one he grabbed and pulled open, emptying its contents into his wallet and pockets.