He didn’t show up, though.Instead, she blinked again and found herself on her back.She wasn’t bound, but she still couldn’t move.She was stuck as surely as if Trammell had severed the tendons of her knees, heels, and elbows like he had when he caught her.
Trammell still wasn’t here.Neither was West.But she was.That bitch.The one who had poisoned Turk.
The Messenger.
The Messenger beamed down at Faith, her eyes bright and sick, her teeth bared like the fangs of a hyena.She straddled Faith’s hips in a sickeningly sexual pose, her thighs pressed to Faith’s sides like a lover.She giggled, perhaps guessing the reason for Faith’s discomfort.
She leaned forward until her lips were inches from Faith’s.Faith couldn’t even turn her head to avoid the faint puff of her breath against her nostrils.
“Hey there, slut,” the Messenger teased.“Looks like I got you right where I want you.”
Faith thought of Turk, and fear lanced through her spine.The Messenger giggled again."Oh, don't worry about your dog.I already took care of him.Look."
Faith didn’t want to look, but she wasn’t in control of her body anymore.Her head turned, and when she saw the stiff, maggot-ridden corpse of her dog, she shrieked.
The Messenger laughed again, this one loud and throaty, a cry of triumph.She leaned down to Faith, grabbed her jaw and forced her head back toward her own.She pressed her lips to Faith and kissed her lasciviously, sliding her tongue over her lips and causing nausea to join grief and fear.
***
“Faith!Faith!”
Faith woke with a gasp.That gasp allowed Turk’s tongue to slide in between her lips instead of over her face.She spluttered and shook her head, falling out of the bed and stumbling to her feet and to the bathroom.
She turned the water to the coldest setting and splashed water over her face until she was shivering.Turk whined next to her, and she shut the water off and managed a smile at him.He had his tail tucked in between his legs and a mournfully apologetic look in his eyes.She chuckled softly and ruffled his fur.“Sorry, boy.I’m all right.Maybe don’t lick my face to wake me up anymore, okay?”
“You sure you’re all right?”Michael asked.“That sounded like a bad one.”
He sat at the same chair he’d been sitting in when she went to sleep, his eyes red-rimmed but not too puffy considering he’d spent most of the night awake.Sunlight filtered through their room’s curtain and fell over Faith when she stepped out of the bathroom.She frowned.Apparently, he had spentallof the night awake.
“What time is it?”
“Six-thirty.”
She sighed.“Damn it.”
“Why damn it?You normally get up at six-thirty.”
She sighed.“Yeah, I know.I just… Whatever.Did you find something?”
Michael grinned.“Actually, I did.”
She raised an eyebrow.“Oh yeah?”
“Yep.”
He waved her over to look at his laptop.She followed him and leaned over his shoulder.“James Furlong,” she read.“He knew Paul?”
“I don’t know that for sure,” Michael said, “butthis guy was a veteranandan archaeologist.”
“At the same time?”
He rolled his eyes.“No.He’s a former Army Officer whose platoon was wiped out near Kabul in 2003.He left the Army as soon as his contract was up and went back to school.He got his doctorate in archaeology in 2015.He lives right up the road in Corbett, and he’s a colleague of our dear Dr.Anna Winters.”
“You don’t say?”
“I do say.Another fun fact: he was recently disciplined for remarks he made at a staff meeting suggesting that Dr.Winters earned leadership of her dig due to certain aspects of her female anatomy rather than her expertise or capability as an archaeologist.”
The wheels in Faith's head began to turn."So an unsuccessful Army Officer living near a well-liked successful Air Force NCO is jealous because his colleague gets the job he wanted.He probably feels a little bit like a failure, too.Maybe he remembers feeling like a failure after his unit died and he thinks about this asshole Paul Martinez."
