Page 6

“Are you okay?” A man stood next to me, offering a hand.

I nodded and took the help, hoisting myself up all the way before hurrying along the path my attacker had taken.

“Hey!” the man who’d helped me said again.

The few seconds it took to stand were somehow enough for the other man to disappear down the side of the building that held the diner. I ran through and looked toward a road that led to more houses and a northerly view of the desert, different from the direction I’d been looking in just a few moments earlier.

The man who’d helped me stopped next to me and followed my gaze with his. I scanned the post office and then back at the desert again.

“I don’t see anybody,” he said a long moment later.

There wasn’t even any stirred-up dust.

“Damn it,” I said.

“Are you okay?”

I finally looked at him. I had no idea who he was, and when that happened, the person was either passing through on their way to or from Mexico, a visitor for the biodome, or someone who worked at The Institute. It was stereotyping, but this guy, his buttoned-up dress shirt, ironed khakis, black, thick-framed glasses, and short haircut told me he was from The Institute.

“Who are you?” I asked, suspicion lining my words, like it would with most any stranger, but even more so after the morning I’d had.

“I, uh, I’m Sonny Riley. I work at The Institute.” He put his hand out for me to shake.

I frowned at it and almost asked him where he’d been the past couple of nights. Except it wasn’t my place to question anyone regarding the skeleton sculpture, even strangers who seemed to appear out of nowhere when I was being attacked by someone who’d mentioned my father.

Things were layering uncomfortably, coincidentally. But sometimes, that’s just what happened.

Sonny pulled his hand back, seeming to see silent questions under my furrowed eyebrows. I had no idea where my hat had gone. I remembered that I’d left my gun in the museum and hadn’t tracked down my knife before leaving with Calloway. He offered what he probably thought were appropriate answers. “I was at the counter in the diner. I saw the guy come at you.”

I gave it another few beats before I said, “Do you have any idea who he was?”

He shook his head. “No clue. Are you okay? Hurt anywhere?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. Let’s go inside, grab you a glass of water or something.”

I needed to call the sheriff. I reached for my phone in my back pocket, but it wasn’t there. It must have fallen out in the struggle. “Shit.”

I stepped around Sonny and made my way back around the buildings.

I grabbed my phone from the walkway and swiped my finger over a screen that was now more cracked than it had been before, leaving a trail of blood as it came to life.

“You are hurt,” Sonny said as he stood next to me again.

I wanted him to go away. I tried to scroll to the sheriff’s phone number, but the blood that was coming from a gash on my finger was smearing the screen to opaque.

“Here, use mine.” Sonny fumbled in his pocket for his phone and handed it to me.

But before I could take it, he pulled it back a little. “Listen, you’re hurt, and we need to see how badly. Come on, let’s get inside.”

I looked up at his face, not sure if I wanted to punch it or take his phone and throw it as far as my arm could manage. If the twitch at his left eye was any indication, he was tracking my anger. He cleared his throat and said, “Please.”

I shook my head at the “magic word.”

I was twenty steps away from my home, but I didn’t want this stranger to know where I lived. So I stepped around him and made my way through the diner’s front door, lit with a neon “ner,” because the first two letters didn’t work.

Not surprisingly, Sonny followed.