***
Twenty minutes later they were still jogging. When the path wound upward again, they left it, forging their own path through virgin woods. Maggie kept thinking she heard footsteps behind them, but her nerves were so frazzled that she knew she could be imagining it. Marcus made no sign that he’d heard anything, but every time she heard a noise, his pace quickened.
They came to a massive clearing. Maggie was vaguely reminded of a football field; only there wasn’t as much color. Or any hot guys in football gear.
A loud crunch came from behind them, and both Maggie and Marcus whipped around. The two men from before were standing not ten feet from them. The taller of the two glared at Marcus with a hateful, unforgiving stare; then his eyes shifted to Maggie. His mouth slid into a greasy grin, revealing crooked, yellow teeth.
“It is you.” His whisper was guttural enough to send a chill down Maggie’s spine.
This wasn’t the same man who attacked her in the parlor. How did he know what that man had said to her?
Marcus took her shoulders and turned her to face him.
“Maggie, there’s a huge boulder across the clearing. I want you to run toward it. I’ll be right behind you.”
“A rock? How is that going to save us?”
Marcus put his hand on the back of Maggie’s neck and pulled her face close to his. His fingers dug into the skin at the nape, though not painfully.
“Maggie, these are not decent men. Don’t let them touch you. Understand?”
Maggie nodded. The two men were talking to one another, but she couldn’t tell what they were saying.
Ready, Marcus mouthed.
She nodded.
“Go!”
She took off as fast as her legs could carry her. She’d never been a great runner, but she’d never had the motivation of raw fear before. As soon as she turned, she saw the boulder. It would be taller than her when she reached it and at least twelve feet in width. She wondered how a boulder would help them. Perhaps Marcus had guns hidden behind it? Or a car?
She still had her gun in her purse. When she reached the boulder, she would pull it out—to defend Marcus, if nothing else.
When she was halfway across the clearing, Maggie suddenly felt as if she were running in slow motion, pushing through jell-o instead of air. It was like a nightmare where she was being chased and her pursuers were running at normal speed, while she floundered at a snail’s pace.
Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie could see a dark, towering figure coming toward her, but whether to meet her or catch her, she couldn’t say. She tried to turn her head to see the figure more fully, but it was like trying to push her face through rock; it just wouldn’t turn that way.
Then an arm was wrapped tightly around her waist, and she couldn’t breathe. Or see. The meadow, the boulder, the mountain…it all fell away into opaqueness.
A flash of purple light. A rock formation. Brown boots walking across a room at eye level. A hand with an ugly black burn on it. A woman standing in front of a broken lighthouse. Blood on her hands. A whisper of a voice. Gasping, clawing for air.
With a painful inhalation of breath, Maggie opened her eyes and kicked viciously away from whoever had her. She was lying on the ground in the arms of a stranger she couldn’t see. She half rolled, half dragged, half clawed away before realizing it was Marcus.
He didn’t try to stop her. Rivulets of sweat were rolling down his face, and he was panting.
Maggie looked around. They were in the same place—the meadow on the mountain—but it was…different. Where the day had been bright and sunny, it was now dark and ominous. The sun had gone down when Maggie blinked, but it was more than that. Dark-gray clouds covered the sky all the way to the horizon.
Maggie swiveled around to see the boulder. At first she thought it was not there. Then she realized it was, but it was no longer one big boulder. It was in pieces. It looked like it had been struck by lightning and shattered.
A rock formation.
Maggie put a hand to her forehead. The flashes. One of them was a rock formation. Now, standing ten feet in front of the shattered boulder, under an overcast sky, she was seeing that formation.
So Jonah was right; they were memories. She’d been here before, and ever since Vegas she’d kept seeing this very spot, this very formation.
In her flash it was different, though. For some reason, she’d never realized before that there were people sitting on top of it. It was dark in the memory, and the people were merely darker silhouettes that blended in with the night. A light that struck Maggie as artificial illuminated them, and their eyes glowed when it hit them.
“You all right, Maggie?”
Maggie yelped and scrambled toward Marcus, for he was not the one who had asked her. Whirling around, Maggie came face to face with an enormous black man. His eyes were blue, which was striking in an African American, and he looked at her with concern.
The tall, dark figure who’d been running toward her before must have been him.
His eyes slid sideways to Marcus, who got to his feet.
“Maggie, this is Karl.”
Maggie didn’t know what to say. Karl was four times her size—simply gargantuan—and she knew nothing more about him than she did about Marcus.
When she didn’t answer, Karl addressed Marcus. “Mission accomplished?”
“Yes, but with more questions than answers,” Marcus said.
Karl let out a soft, rumbling chuckle. “Naturally.”
Maggie got to her feet. The earth felt different. The air smelled unusual. The wind felt strange. Marcus came up beside her. He peered down at her in that disconcerting way again, as though seeing into her thoughts.
“What just happened?”
“Everything’s all right now, Maggie. We have some time. I’ll explain everything.”
“Marcus, I swear if you say that to me one more time—”
He surprised her by laughing. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what this must be like for you.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “We just need to get over to that rock.”
Maggie dropped her head back in exasperation. “Why?”
“Because that’s where the rest of our team is.”
“What, like, inside the rock?”
His eyebrows went up, and his smile widened. “Precisely.”