"How could you?" Jessica cried. "To Rex's father?"
"It was easy," Melissa spat. "You should have seen what he was doing to Rex."
"Jesus," Dess said. "I know the guy was a bastard, but..."
Melissa shook her head slowly. "I'm not talking about the beatings, Dess. Hell, there are times I want to knock Rex around myself. But he couldn't take the tarantulas..."
"The what?" Dess whispered, but she remembered the terrarium, empty for the whole time she'd known Rex. She'd always thought the tarantulas had only existed in the old man's mind.
"The hairy spiders. Rex's father wanted to make him a man instead of some book-reading pussy. He used to force Rex to stand still while they crawled all over him." Melissa made a soft, strangled sound. "That's the first image I ever got from him, you know? The first time we ever touched, when Rex and I were eight years old. Tarantulas. His mind was rotten with it. That's why I never... That's why it took so long to touch him again."
It was silent in the car for a while. Even the dogs outside had settled down, as if they were listening.
"Rex wouldn't have survived if we hadn't done what we did," Melissa finally said.
"Jesus," Jessica said.
Dess's mind had gone blank. She couldn't bring herself to imagine it, didn't want to try. All that was left in her head was something thrumming again and again, blocking every other thought: Keep her talking. Don't let her touch you.
"And I was young," Melissa said. "I didn't know how to do it back then. I won't hurt you, Dess." Her voice was almost pleading.
"But I don't know anything." Dess turned to Jessica for help.
"Don't, Melissa," Jessica said. "She doesn't want you to. You can't."
"So we just let Rex die? Worse than die?" Melissa shook her head and seized Dess by the arm with her gloved hand. The other reached out toward her throat. "I'm sorry."
"Ada," Dess said, breathing hard, the name gushing up out of her. "Don't touch me."
"Melissa!" Jessica cried, but shrank farther away, pulling herself into her jacket, terrified now of the mindcaster's touch. "We'll go now. Whatever you want. We don't have to wait for Jonathan. Just don't..."
Melissa shook her head. "You know where Rex is."
Something huge rushed up inside Dess and jerked her limbs, made her flail like a puppet. "Ada, Ada..."
And then it happened: Melissa's cold hand grasped her chin, and a wave of emotion cascaded through her. Stomach-crushing panic and anxiety, the overwhelming fear that she would lose him - her Rex, her Loverboy - and be alone again, forever. Eight years of isolation rolled through Dess, alone against the invasion of ten thousand minds... the way Melissa had suffered before finally tracking Rex across the dark terrain of midnight, running the streets barefoot in cowgirl pajamas.
And inside herself Dess felt things crumbling, barriers bending under the weight of Melissa's mind - the run-down house and the empty attic, the old maps that showed Bixby's psychic currents. And finally Madeleine, her lined face forbidden to think of, bringing up the bitter taste of tea as sharp as stomach acid in her mouth... A jolt shook her body.
Here, cling to this, Dess.
Another wave flooded into her mind from Melissa, but this time there were numbers... blessed ranks of steady digits, that ran across like the precise coordinates of Geostationary, as wet as a cold washcloth pressed to her head in a fever. They wrapped themselves around an image of the emergency runway, carried on the name Angie. They began to dance, transformed by the math of minutes and seconds, the ripples and convolutions playing across Dess's hostage mind.
Good, find Loverboy. That's all that matters.
Dess trembled, stripped of her secrets and her will, until finally she raggedly said, "Lovelace," in surrender, and the last of the barriers fell away.
Seconds later the math was done...
Melissa's hand slipped from her face. The mindcaster fell away into the front seat, breathing hard.
Dess heaved, trying not to puke. Her stomach hurt and, much worse, her mind felt trashed, strewn with Melissa's fears and loneliness, all the debris of her rotten life.
"Man," Melissa said quietly from the front seat. "You've been busy."
"I hate you. That was mine, not yours."
Jessica's cool hands touched Dess's cheek. "Are you okay?"
She opened her eyes and looked into Jessica's. Despite how much she still hurt and how disgusting the whole thing had been, her head felt clearer than it had for days. All those barriers Madeleine had built inside her... Melissa had swept them away. Dess knew the secret history again, completely and without encumbrance.
"Mindcasters," she said. "They suck."
"You're telling me?" Melissa murmured softly from in front. "She left us alone all these years..."
"Dess, are you okay?" Jessica repeated.
The cool hands felt good against Dess's fevered skin. "Not great." She took a slow breath. "But I'll live. And I know where they've taken Rex. The exact spot was in Angie's head."
"I thought so," Melissa said softly.
Headlights swept through the car, turning the rearview mirror into a glaring, horizontal eye.
"Crap, it's just after curfew," Melissa muttered.
"Maybe it's Jonathan," Jessica said.
"Maybe," Melissa said. "If it's the cops, Rex is dead."
29
11:07 p.m.
DARK ROADS
The old Ford was stretched across the road like it had spun out. The lights were off and the engine silent. He couldn't see anyone through the windows.
"Christ," Jonathan said. He brought his father's car to a halt and jumped out, certain that he was too late. First there'd been no answer when he'd tapped on Dess's window. Then he'd spotted long skid marks on the gravel road, marking where a car had accelerated wildly away from the front of her house.
And now this. Melissa's car abandoned half a mile down the road.
The darkling groupies had gotten them all.
But when he reached the Ford, Jonathan saw shapes huddled inside. Melissa was splayed across the driver's seat, head listing to one side. Jessica and Dess were crouched halfway down in the back, holding each other.
And no Rex. Was he really gone?
"Hey, Flyboy," Melissa said, cranking her window down. Her face was as white as death. "Good to see you."
The back door opened, and Jessica tumbled out. She threw her arms around him, her face streaked with tears.
"What the hell happened?"
"Just a little navigation issue," Melissa said. Her voice was ragged. "But I think it's sorted out."
The other back door opened, and Dess stood and stared glassily at him across the roof of the Ford. "I know where Rex is. We've got to go." She walked toward his car, shaky on her feet.
All three of them looked terrible.
"Come on," Jessica said, slamming the door behind her and pulling him toward his father's car.
"Shouldn't someone ride with Melissa?" he asked. "She doesn't look so hot."
"Just get in the car and drive," Dess said.
They headed toward Aerospace Oklahoma, Melissa following and Dess in the front seat next to him, her eyes trained on the glowing GPS receiver. Jessica sat in the back, leaning forward to keep touching him, clinging to him as if she'd just been rescued from a burning house.
On the way, Dess told them about Madeleine, the old mindcaster she'd found hidden in Bixby three days before. Jonathan could hardly believe it - there'd been another midnighter in town all this time. The secret hour was almost too much sometimes. Flatland might be two-dimensional, but at least the rules didn't keep changing every ten seconds.
"She didn't leave her house for fifty years?" he asked, horrified at the thought. Having to stay inside for a week when he was sick drove him crazy.
"Forty-nine," Dess said. "She could go outside sometimes, as long as she was in disguise. If anyone recognized her, the Grayfoots might hear she'd shown up again. And then after Melissa was born, she only went out during school hours."
"What's going to happen now?" Jessica said.
"Now that the queen bitch knows?" Dess shook her head, her eyes never leaving the GPS receiver. "I don't want to think about it. As soon as we rescue Rex, we've got to warn Madeleine. Or maybe she'll taste it herself."
"But I thought the darklings couldn't find her because of where her house is," Jessica said.
"Yeah, but I know the exact spot, inside and out." Dess's voice was dry and exhausted. "Like Angie knew where to take Rex, you know?"
Jonathan glanced back at Jessica. "Um, not really."
"Coordinates mean something to me, something solid, like emotions have a taste for mindcasters," Dess said. "The location's in Melissa's mind now. She took it from me. The darklings will get it from her sooner or later."
Jonathan frowned. "Hopefully later."
"Well," Dess said, "if we bash Melissa's brains in before midnight, it won't be a problem."