“Right. Like you loved me.” Carrie laughed, becoming for a moment the great, heartless creation he’d wanted her to be. He should have been careful what he’d wished for. “Listen, I’m not letting you run back to your undead girlfriend so you two can plot whatever you’ve got going.”

Undead? “No, you don’t understand.” But he couldn’t make her understand, either. He was drunk from…was it chloroform? A bitter trickle stung the back of his throat. “Please, I have to go back.”

She stepped closer, squinting at him as though she could see into his mind and detect an ulterior motive.

Let her search. She won’t find anything.

“Please.” He clenched his fists at his sides. There was some vital detail that would make her bend, he knew it. But his muddled brain wouldn’t seize on it. So he just repeated over and over, growing more frustrated by the minute, “Please.”

Something changed in her eyes. She was much harder, almost angry. “Get back in the van.”

“I won’t.” He realized he sounded like a petulant child, and must look ridiculous standing naked in the desert and refusing shelter. But he had to get to Mouse, before they knew he was gone. “I have to get back to her.”

“Get in the van, Cyrus,” Carrie repeated, pointing for emphasis.

There was nothing to be done. She was stronger than him, he knew. And he was still drunk from the chemical. So he fell into the back of the van, weeping like a child. They would kill Mouse, and he would be alone again.

As they pulled onto the road, a brown bottle wrapped in a scorched rag slid to him as if pushed by a divine hand. If he’d believed in God, he would have thanked him.

The front seats were partitioned from the back by heavy canvas drapes. He wet the rag with the chloroform and thrust his arm through the opening between the curtains.

She tried to push his hand away, and the van swerved, nearly tossing him back. He clutched at the drapes and tried again, this time managing to cover her face. She had the sense to put on the brakes, and the vehicle slowed to a crawl as she went limp. Then her foot fell from the pedal and they rolled to a stop.

“We have to go back for her, because she’s human,” he explained as he pulled Carrie’s rag doll body into the back. As he situated himself behind the wheel, he shook his head to clear it. “Human. That was the word I was searching for.”

Chapter 17
The Mouse

When I came to, I thought I was on a ship. In a storm. Then I recognized the van, and wondered who the hell was driving so badly.

And then I remembered Cyrus.