Capture (22 page)

“
What are you doing? They’re not here!” Steve was definitely panicking now, both hands buried in his hair as he bent over and braced his elbows on his knees.

I didn’t say anything as I slowed the truck to a crawl.

Suddenly, it was as if an invisibility curtain parted behind the bookstore, revealing Tarah’s
disembodied head then her floating hand as she cheerfully waved to us from several feet up in the air. What the...?

Steve seemed to understand
, though, tearing out of the truck before I even had it fully stopped. I followed a few seconds later as soon as I had the truck parked.

“
Pamela?” Steve called out.

Pamela’s head appeared beside Tarah’s.

Steve reached up and hugged his wife as best he could without the ability to see a bumper to climb onto. “God, you scared me!”

Well, at least we could agree on one thing.

Tarah bit her lower lip. “Sorry. There was a sheriff’s car that kept passing by out on the street. So we got Mike to do his cloaking spell on the trucks. Pretty good, huh?”

I choked down the insane urge to laugh.
“That’s an understatement. We thought...” I cleared the knot from my throat. “Never mind.” I told her about the latest developments with the bus driver. “I know it’s a risk hiring him, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Her smile flashed bright
, lighting up her eyes. “You followed your instincts?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Then you did the right thing. We’d better warn everyone about keeping our new cover story, though. Especially the kids.”

I nodded.
“I’m going to move my truck so it doesn’t draw attention before Bud gets here.” I hadn’t even left it in a parking space. It was still in the way of other drivers.

“
What’s he like?” she asked before I could turn away. “Bud, I mean.”

I paused, trying to think of how to describe him.
A farmer. An old man. Weathered, lonely and bored. A man I sure hoped I was right about hiring. “I think you’ll like him.” I turned away, then had to pause again. “We’re going to have to ditch these trucks somewhere after we get everyone loaded onto the bus. When you were looking up local bus rentals, did you happen to see—”

She held out a slip of paper with a cheeky grin.
“GPS coordinates for the nearest lake. It’s supposed to be a deep one too.”

I had to smile at that.
“You are a mastermind’s dream.”

“
I know. And speaking of which, I had another idea…”

Tarah had suggested we get walkie talkies so I could keep in contact with the bus for the rest of the trip.
She also thought at least one of the outcasts would be able to jam Bud’s cell phone signal if he tried to call his family and tell them our destination. So while she plotted with her truck’s half of the group, I ran back inside the superstore to do a little final shopping, returning with walkie talkies and batteries only minutes before Bud was supposed to arrive.

And that’s when I realized just how good Mike’s abilities were.
Even knowing their approximate location and slowly walking all the way around them, I still couldn’t see a single hint of the stolen vehicles. Now that I was on the receiving end of the illusion, I was blown away by the spell’s complexity. This had to be way harder than simply gathering your energy into an orb to throw at something or directing the wind or even creating fire on the palm of your hand. What Mike was doing with his mind was directly messing with other minds, making our own eyes lie to us.

“
Tarah,” I whispered, stopping a couple of feet short so I wouldn’t run into the invisible trucks face first and make a fool out of myself.

Her head popped into view.
“Is it time?”

I nodded.

She whispered something over her shoulder to her group then climbed down. We worked together with the tailgate till we managed to find and release the catches to lower it. Then we started the process of guiding everyone out of the truck.

“
Steve,” I hissed in the general direction of the other truck. “Time to get moving.”

He peeked out at us, then climbed down and dropped his truck’s tailgate.
I noticed he only helped his own family down from the cargo area, ignoring the others as they struggled to exit as well. Most of the adult passengers didn’t have too much trouble jumping down or else stepping onto the flat metal bumper and then hopping the rest of the way to the ground. But the younger kids and the elderly found the distance to the ground to be too much to manage on their own. Muttering a few choice names for Steve under my breath, I left Tarah and Mike to help their group while I went to assist Steve’s.

Once they were outside the trucks, everyone began to shiver as the wind cut through their thin wool blankets and their breath made puffs of fog in the air.
Thankfully Bud showed up right on time, so our group didn’t have to stand around in the cold for long. As soon as the charter bus pulled into the parking lot and stopped, Steve hurried his family over to it. The rest of the group trailed more slowly after them, with Mike and the trucks’ drivers hanging back to maintain the cloaking spell on the trucks till the last possible moment.

The bus’s door opened with a hydraulic whoosh, then Bud eased down the stairs.
“Ladies and gentlemen, your chariot awaits.”

Smiling so the wrinkles in his face turned into folds, he grandly swept out an arm, indicating the group should climb aboard.
Steve and his family eagerly took the first seats.

Tarah took a dazed elderly woman’s elbow and slowly helped her
up onto the bus. As they passed Bud, Tarah paused to tell him, “Thank you so much for helping us out on such short notice.”

Bud’s leathery cheeks turned pink.
“Well, that’s alright, little lady.” He must have been a John Wayne fan. He sounded just like The Duke.

Tarah and I worked as a team, me on the outside guiding the shell-shocked group onto the bus, while Tarah helped e
veryone find a seat inside. Most had no trouble getting settled in. However, the mother and child who brought up the last of the group didn’t seem so eager to board. It was the catatonic woman, the one who had lost her baby, and her little girl. The child clung to her mother’s seemingly unfeeling hand as they stood there, the child’s eyes darting from side to side in fear, the mother’s eyes open and unseeing.

I bit back a curse.
I’d thought for sure the mother would have come around by now and started taking care of her surviving child. From the look in the little girl’s eyes, I had to wonder if anyone had even explained to her what was going on.

I squatted down in front of the kid.
“Hey, sweetheart. I’m Hayden. What’s your name?”

“
Kristina.” She had a strong lisp. It came out as “Kwithina.”

“
Nice to meet you, Kristina. Listen, we’re all going to go on this bus together because it’s nice and warm and comfy. Doesn’t that sound much better than riding in the cold?”

Her big brown eyes blinked at me.
She didn’t respond.

Great.
She’d probably been told not to speak to strangers, and her mom wasn’t making any move to get on the bus on her own. I could just lead the mother on board and the kid would probably follow. But what if Kristina freaked out from confusion or fear at some point when her mother didn’t reassure her? I didn’t know much about people in shock, and there was no telling how long it might be before the mother came around. In the meantime, her daughter at least deserved to know she could rely on others in the group to help keep her safe.

“
What’s your mommy’s name?” I asked her.

One tiny shoulder lifted and fell.
“Mommy. She doesn’t talk anymore. Can she hear me?” Her voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear it under the wind as it whipped around us.

“
Yeah, kiddo, she still hears you. She’s just kinda sad and doesn’t really feel like talking much right now. But if you keep talking to her, I bet that will make her feel better soon.” Please, God, make it true.

Kristina nodded solemnly.
Straightening her shoulders, she took her mother’s hand in both of hers and tugged the woman towards the bus. “Come on, Mommy. Let’s get on the warm bus.”

Her mother shuffled along behind her, Kristina’s blanket dragging up the stairs after them.
I followed them onto the bus, picking up the tail end of the grungy fabric and handing it to Tarah at the top of the stairs so the mother wouldn’t trip over it. Tarah and I shared a look as the little girl led her mother to a pair of seats near the end of the bus.

“
Pamela and some of the other women are taking turns looking out for them,” Tarah murmured. “They’re making sure they both eat and drink and stay warm.”

“
Where’s the baby?” I’d noticed the woman wasn’t carrying the sheet-wrapped bundle anymore.

“
The others buried it outside the camp before we left.”

I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
Kristina couldn’t be more than four or five. She’d lost her baby brother or sister. And now she was surrounded by strangers and trying to take care of her mother.

Shaking my head, I exited the bus again, feeling the hours of stress starting to pile up on me.

Then I caught Bud still standing on the ground by the open door and frowning after the pair too, the questions clear on his face in the light spilling out from the bus’s interior. “They gonna be alright? They sure look shaken up for just a broken down bus.”

“
She lost a baby recently,” I murmured. “I’m hoping being with our group will help bring her out of it.”

He
sighed and slowly shook his head. “That’s a shame. Sure hope the momma pulls out of it. Little girls need their mommas.”

“
Yeah, I hope so too.” I took a deep breath. “Well, that should take care of most of the group. But I’ve still got a couple of guys who needed to get a few things for the road. They took off a while ago; I’ve got to go get them and bring them here. Shouldn’t take more than a half hour or so to round them up. Will everyone be okay on the bus in the meantime?”

Bud waved a hand.
“She’s got plenty of gas. We’ll just let her idle so they can stay warm while they wait. I just wish I’d gotten those newfangled DVD players installed like John’s been suggesting.”

I smiled and patted his shoulder.
“You’re already doing more for them than you realize. And the kids have coloring books to keep them busy for a while. Mostly they’ll probably just sleep, though. It’s been a rough trip so far.” I went to rest my hands on my hips and bumped into something. “Oh yeah, nearly forgot. We’ve got walkie talkies we can use to communicate. I thought they’d be easier to manage instead of trying to dial buttons on a phone while we drive.” I unclipped one from my waistband where I’d attached it earlier while waiting for Bud to show up. “I already put in fresh batteries, so you’re good to go for awhile.”

He took it with a slow nod.
“Good thinking.”

I turned towards my truck.

“You’re not riding with the others?” Bud asked me.

I silently muttered a curse.
Bud’s likeability made it way too easy to relax around him and forget the charade we were supposed to be maintaining here. It didn’t help that my liking this man also made me hate lying to him.

Tarah saved me as she came down the steps.
“Hayden joined us after we’d already gotten started on the trip. The goofball overslept and had to catch up in his own truck. He’s been tagging along ever since.”

Of course her story would involve my looking like an idiot.
I smiled my thanks at her. “All right, I’m off to get the guys. We’ll be back in a few.” I gave Tarah’s ponytail a tug, earning a quick flash of a grin from her in return. “Call me if you need me.”

I got back into my truck, waiting until Tarah and Bud were on the bus with the others before I slowly cruised back to the where the truck drivers were waiting.
Following the plan, Mike dropped the cloaking spell, leaving the trucks in full view. I was tempted to ask him to put it back on. Driving the trucks to the local lake would be a lot safer if no one could see them. But then I remembered how both Mike and Steve had said their abilities had limited range. Mike probably couldn’t even hide both trucks at the same time while we drove them down the road. Better just to get rid of the trucks as quickly as we could versus their suddenly popping into view in front of other drivers and really drawing attention. Or worse, causing a wreck when someone ran into the invisible vehicles.

Also according to plan,
we got another guy to replace Steve behind the wheel of one of the trucks. Without Steve’s volatile temper around, things went a lot more smoothly. Tarah’s researched coordinates and my truck’s GPS also made reaching the lake pretty easy. Unfortunately, finding a way through the trees to the water wasn’t so simple. Other than driveways to people’s lakehouses, the shoreline was surrounded by an unbroken forest that even a golf cart would have had a hard time squeezing through. We had to drive along a dirt road that skirted the lake for ten minutes until we found a break in the trees wide enough for the trucks. Then there was the small matter of how to get the trucks into the water without any of us having to go in with them. None of us knew any spells that would help. Thankfully the trees themselves gave me the idea of wedging branches between the seats and the gas pedals, a crude but effective method.