Thin Air Page 0,10

ours? What's going on?"

"Not now."

"Yeah, now. Look, the way you reacted-"

"I can't talk about it now."

"But-"

He turned, and I stumbled to a halt, suddenly aware of just how tall he was. He wasn't especially broad, but I'd had my hands pressing against his chest, and I knew that there was muscle under that checked shirt. Plus, he'd thrown Lewis across the clearing like a plush toy.

"What do you want to know?" he asked, face taut, voice intense. "That we had a child? We did. Her name was Imara. She was part of our souls, Jo, and how do you think it feels for me to know that you don't even recognize her name?"

He turned, olive coat belling in a gust of cold wind, and followed Lewis up the slope. Lewis had paused at the top, looking down at us.

He didn't say anything, just plunged down the other side. I saved my breath and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

Imara. I kept repeating the name in my head, hoping for some kind of resonance, some spark of memory. I'd had a daughter, for God's sake. How could I remember the brand name of the shoes I was wearing and not remember my own child? Not remember carrying her, or holding her, or...

Or how she'd died. Because even though nobody had said it, that was what everybody meant. Imara had been born, and Imara had died, and I had no memory at all of any part of it.

And of everything I'd lost, that was the piece that made me feel desperately, horribly incomplete.

Lewis led us through what I could only guess was an old-growth forest of the Great Northwest. Oregon, Washington-somewhere in there. He set a brutal pace, moving fast to keep his body heat up. We didn't take breaks. When we finally stopped, I dropped my pack and staggered off into the woods to pee. When I came back, Lewis had another fire going, and he was wrapped in one of the unrolled sleeping bags, shivering.

His lips and eyelids had turned a delicate shade of lilac.

"Dammit, take the coat," I demanded.

"No. I'll be fine."

"Ask David to get you a jacket, then! Hell, he brought me shoes!"

Lewis's eyes flicked briefly past me, seeking out David, I was sure. "When I need one."

"Unless you're modeling the new fall line of lipstick, and this season's color is Corpse Blue, you'd better damn well tell him to get you one now!"

"I didn't know you cared." Shaky sarcasm. He was still strong enough to be putting up a good front, but it was all marshmallow and foam peanuts underneath.

"I don't. I care about getting stuck out here." I didn't move my eyes away from Lewis. "David, could you please get him a coat?" Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw David cross his arms and lean against a tree. The expression on his face might have been a smile.

"Of course," he said, and misted away.

Lewis took in a deep breath, and coughed until I was afraid he was going to spit up a lung. I did what any medically inarticulate person would do; I rubbed and pounded his back. Which probably didn't help at all, but he didn't seem to mind. When he'd stopped coughing, he leaned over, breathing in shallow gasps, face a dirty gray.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked. "And don't tell me you're tired, or you've been up for three days, or whatever bullshit you've been shoveling at David."

He pressed a hand to his ribs. "Took a little fall. Maybe you saw it."

Oh, shit. David had thrown him across the clearing. Since he'd climbed up again, I hadn't figured it was any big deal.

Wrong.

"Earth Wardens can't heal themselves real well," he said. "It's coming along. Couple of broken ribs. Bit of a punctured lung. Nothing to alert the National Guard over."

"Can't David just, you know, swoop us out of here? To wherever he goes to buy retail?"

Lewis shook his head. His breathing was easing up a little. "Free Djinn-well, I guess they're all Free Djinn now-can't take humans along with them when they do that. The times they've tried it, the results haven't been exactly encouraging."

"Meaning?"

"Dead people."

Great. So David could go in and out, but we had to hoof it. "What about a helicopter? Some kind of rescue service?"

"We're still a pretty far hike from the closest place a helicopter can touch down. Believe me, I'll call for help as soon as I can."

"Why the hell not