Angels Fall

kit. Those and the antidepressants, the antianx-iety medications were just a security blanket, she reminded herself. It had been months since she'd taken a sleeping pill, and she was tired enough tonight to sleep without help. Besides, if there was a fire and power failure, she'd be groggy and slow. End up burning to death or dying of smoke inhalation.
    And the idea of that had her sitting on the side of the bed with her head in her hands cursing herself for having an overactive and foolish imagination.
    "Just stop it, Recce. Stop it now and go to bed. You've got to get up early and perform basic functions like a normal human being."
    She made one more round with the locks before getting into bed. She lay very still, listening to her heart thud, listening for sounds from the next room, from the hallway, from outside the window.
    Safe, she told herself. She was perfectly safe. There wasn't going to be a fire. A bomb wasn't going to explode. No one was going to break into her room to murder her in her sleep.
    The sky was not going to tall.
    But she kept the TV on low and used the old black-and-white melodrama to lull her to sleep.
     
    THE PAIN WAS so shocking, so vicious, she couldn't scream over it. The black, the anvil of black plummeted onto her chest to trap her. It crushed her lungs so she couldn't breathe, couldn't move. The hammer beat on that anvil, pounding her head, her chest, slamming, slamming down on her. She tried to gasp for air, but the pain was too much, and the tear was beyond even the pain.
    They were out there, outside in the dark. She could hear them, hear the glass shattering, the explosions. And worse, the screaming.
    Worse than the screaming, the laughing.
    Ginny? Ginny?
    No, no. don't cry out. don't make a sound. Better to die here in the dark than for them to find her. But they were coming, they were coming for her, and she couldn't hold back the whimpers, couldn't stop her teeth from chattering.
    The sudden light was blinding, and the wild screams that burst in her head came out as feral growls.
    "We've got a live one."
    And she slapped and kicked weakly at hands that reached for her.
    Woke in a sweat, with those growls in her throat as she grabbed for the flashlight and gripped it like a weapon.
    Was someone there? Someone at the door? At the window?
    She sat shivering, shaking, ears straining for any sound.
    An hour later, when her alarms beeped, she was sitting up in bed, the flashlight still in her hand, and every light in the room burning.

Chapter 3
     
    AFTER THE GUT-SHOT of panic, it was hard to face the kitchen, the people, the pretense of being normal. But not only was she essentially broke, she'd given her word. Six o'clock sharp.
    Her only other choice was to go back, retreat, and all the months she'd been inching forward would be wiped away. One phone call, she knew, and she'd he rescued.
    And she'd be done.
    She took it a step at a time. Getting dressed was a victory, leaving the room another. Stepping outside and aiming her feet toward the diner was a small personal triumph. The air was cold—winter still had a few bites left—so her breath puffed out visibly in the shimmer of predawn. The mountains were dark and sturdy silhouettes against the sky now that the night's fat moon had sunk below the peaks. And she could see a long, low blanket of fog spread out at their feet. Fingers of mist rose from the lake and whisked around the leafless trees, thin as fairy wings.
    In the chilly dark, it all looked so fanciful, so still, so perfectly bal-anced. Her heart jumped once as something slid out of those mists. Then settled again as she saw it was just an animal.
    Moose, elk, deer, she couldn't be sure at this distance. But whatever it was seemed to glide, and the mists tattered around it as it moved closer to the lake.
    As it bent its head to drink. Recce heard the first chorus of birdsong. Part of her wanted to just sit down, right on the sidewalk, and be quietly alone to watch the sun rise.
    Soothed, she began to walk again. She'd have to face the kitchen, the people, the questions that always circled around the new tace in any job. She couldn't afford to be late, to be nervous, and God knew she didn't want to draw any more attention to herself than absolutely necessary.
    Stay calm, she ordered herself. Stay focused. To help her do just that she recited snatches of poetry in her head, concentrating on the rhythm of the words until she realized she was murmuring them out loud,