He took a breath, nodded twice. “This wasn’t my fault.” His lips thinned. He swallowed what felt like bile. “I can say it, but that will never make me believe it.”
“We have to get to the university, James. We’ll find what we need there, I know we will. The solution must be in the remaining pieces of the tablet. There are so many parts that have never been translated. One of them must explain how we can stop Utanapishtim.”
“I have to stop him from getting to Damien first.”
“But you don’t know how to stop him. What other powers might he have? What can kill him?”
“We know something can. He was killed once.”
“But he wasn’t!” she argued. “Not really. His body was destroyed, but his soul remained trapped, imprisoned—”
“Unable to do any harm. If that’s the best we can do, then—”
“We can’t return him to that. God, James, that would be inhuman.”
Her words rang in the air between them. He didn’t answer, but he knew they were at odds again. To him, the end—removing Utanapishtim from existence to protect his people—justified the means. Even if those means condemned a man to an eternity in a living hell. Buried alive.
To her, he knew, nothing justified that. Nothing. She lowered her head, closed her eyes, but tears wet her lashes all the same. “When we get to the mainland, I’m going home,” she said softly.
“You’re wanted, Lucy. They’ll arrest you.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to stay. I just…I need to go back there. One last time.” Then she met his eyes. “Besides, I’ve been taking care of myself for a lot of years now, so, you know…”
He had no business worrying about her. That was what she was saying. He got that. So he just nodded and said nothing more.
21
Lucy took a bus to Binghamton by way of Timbuktu, or so it seemed. It took most of a day to get there. But at least she’d been able to buy a ticket with what remained of her cash, using a false name and convincing the sales agent that she had lost her ID and was in a real jam. He’d taken pity on her.
She never would have thought herself capable of embarking on such a wild journey as the one she’d just been on. A journey that had left her life in ruins, her heart in pieces and was now coming to an end with absolutely nothing gained. And yet, she wasn’t finished. Not completely. She intended to see this through, to try to make right, in the only way she could, what she had done so very, very wrong.
She was going to the university, to the dusty, familiar basement, to find her beloved clay tablets, and she was going to sit there and translate until she either found an answer or ran out of shards.
Or ran out of time.
She didn’t know for sure if her house was being watched. She presumed it had been, at first, but maybe they’d given up after so many days of her not showing up. She hitched a ride from the bus station with a biker and had him drop her off several blocks from her house, and then she walked along a road that ran parallel to hers, cut through the woodlot in between and emerged on the edge of her own small backyard.
And then she stood there in the shelter of the trees, looking at what had been her haven. The tiny cracker-box house with its pristine white paint and neat black shutters. Its organized, color coordinated window boxes were sprouting weeds, and the once perfectly manicured lawn was shaggy. Newspapers had piled up on her front stoop, and the mailbox was overflowing. The place was a mess.
For just a moment she stood there, thinking it was an exact match for what had happened to her neat, organized, tightly controlled life. It, too, had got away from her. It had spiraled into chaos. She’d spent the past week scared to death, frantic, excited and…alive, she realized slowly. More alive than she had ever been. Awash in emotions and sensations she had never before allowed herself to experience. Emotions that included a blinding, dizzying passion for a man who was like no other she had ever known.
Or ever would.
He undoubtedly resented her now, maybe even hated her, for ruining his chance to save his people. Much more, for the lives that had been lost because of her