Chapter Text
Having learned her lesson, the first thing Amy did after getting into the car was search it, quick and methodical. Glove compartment, door pockets, a sweep of the nets behind the seats. Nothing. Not even a crumpled tissue. Someone had taken their time wiping the car clean. It did not inspire confidence.
She twisted in her seat and peered through the windshield. Beyond the glass, the world had collapsed into water and motion, rain hammering down hard enough to erase distance. She couldn’t see much of anything. Certainly not what was taking Adams so long.
Impatient, she leaned across and shoved the passenger door open.
“Hurry it up already!”
At last, movement. The trunk popped, the suitcase shoved inside. Adams slid into the car a moment later, soaked through, hair plastered to his forehead like he’d gone for a swim.
“And here I thought you might be melting out there,” she muttered, cranking up the heater. The vents coughed out a sour, chemical stink. She grimaced. “I hate this car.”
He chuckled, shrugging out of his drenched coat and tossing it onto the back seat.
Behind them, Jung’s car came to life. They watched the headlights drift away and dissolve into the rain.
“Where did you send our car-walker?” she asked.
“Canada. Scenic route.”
“Why not Mexico?”
“A little too convenient.”
She shot him a look.
“Double-bluffing?” she said. “Didn’t you tell me less than two hours ago that this sort of thing doesn’t work in real life?”
“It doesn’t,” he agreed, sounding faintly amused.
“Right.”
She reached for the console, then stopped, remembering she had an actual key now. It felt wrong in her hand. Culture shock over a damn car key. Unbelievable.
"La Crosse?" she suggested.
"Better to go smaller. And further down."
They headed south.
It should have been a short drive. Sixty-five miles, according to the map. But the weather slowed them to a crawl. On either side of the road, the land lay drowned. Fields had turned into shallow lakes, fence posts half swallowed by brown water.
Easy math. Rain since midnight, plus the Mississippi close enough to breathe damp into everything. Of course the water had backed up into access roads and low crossings.
Where the road dipped toward the river, water pooled thick and unmoving.
Less than an hour in, a barricade loomed ahead. Planks and cones dragged up from a ditch, blocking the way.
“This is not happening,” Amy groaned, rubbing her temple.
Beside her, Adams went very still.
“Headache?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Just stressed. I really don’t need this kind of hold-up.”
He slipped on the wraparound sunglasses she’d bought the day before. The effect was unsettling. Behind the dark glass, he looked alien, like a reptile slumming it in human skin. She stared a beat too long before forcing her attention back to the road.
Two patrol cars idled nearby. A makeshift plank bridge spanned the worst of the flooding, traffic waved through one vehicle at a time. An officer in a rain poncho moved from window to window, bending down to give instructions.
Amy felt her nerves ratchet tighter. Her gaze snagged on the man’s radio.
Adams’s hand found hers, firm and grounding.
“Breathe,” he murmured. “Nothing is going to happen.”
Her head disagreed. It wasn’t pain, exactly. More a prickling sense of déjà vu, the feeling of standing on the edge of a misstep.
She swallowed.
If she didn’t get a grip, she was going to give them away. The car itself felt like a ticking bomb. She hadn’t checked the plate. Hadn’t checked the trunk. There was his sword, hidden but very much there. And the gun in her purse. Being stopped by the police always made her feel like she’d forgotten something vital.
“Shit,” she whispered. “Where are they?”
The ravens hadn’t appeared since last night. Not surprising in this weather. But with the roadblock ahead, the thought struck her all at once: if they showed up now, they’d draw attention instantly.
A sharp knock on the window.
Amy fumbled it down.
“Officer,” Adams said smoothly, his accent gone. Replaced with something flat and American. “Bit of a morning, I take it?”
The man’s gaze lingered on the dark glasses, an odd choice in this weather, but he let it pass.
“You can say that again,” the officer said gruffly. “Season for it. You heading south?”
“Down toward Kansas City. How are the roads?”
“Getting worse.” He turned to Amy. “You familiar with the area?”
“We have a map.”
Her British accent sharpened his attention; she felt it immediately.
The officer studied her. Her attempt at a smile didn’t quite land.
“Everything alright, Miss?”
Sarcasm surged before her brain could stop it.
“Peachy. I’ve only been kidn—”
A hand clamped over her mouth.
The rest of the word died against Adams’s palm.
The realization hit a heartbeat later. What she’d almost said, to a police officer, at a roadblock, while on the run.
“My apologies,” Adams said quickly, mortified to perfection. “She has a truly appalling sense of humor.”
She shot him an incredulous look, stunned by how straight-faced he’d delivered it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the officer stiffen, his hand drifting a fraction closer to his radio.
Panic flared. Then everything collapsed in on itself. The absurdity. The danger. Adams’s flawless embarrassment. Her own horror at herself.
It wasn’t funny. It really wasn’t.
But corpsing was like that. Like a dam breaking, she couldn’t stop it. The words spilled out as if they’d been waiting for the chance.
“You’ll help me escape, won’t you?” she cackled, leaning into Adams, pressing her face into his shoulder. “Save me from my doomed fate!”
Even as laughter shook her, a thin thread of awareness told her this wasn’t right. She was out of control.
But it worked.
Kidnapping victims didn’t usually crack up like this.
The officer relaxed. He marked flooded sections on their map and waved them on. When she snickered again, he shook his head with an exasperated sigh.
When the fit finally ebbed, it left her light-headed, throat sore, her hands trembling faintly against her knees. And deeply unsettled.
She remembered the sense of drowning in a bowl of water two days ago. Hours later, the vision that had unfolded under shock of electricity. The sink, just that morning. And so many smaller incidents in between and leading up to it throughout the past week.
Whatever this was, it was a mess. And it was not allowed. She needed to break it.
So lost in her circling thoughts, she forgot entirely about Watchers, on the streets, or listening in on police radio traffic. Only as Prairie du Chien drew closer did she remember the more immediate trouble they were in.
Adams, silent since the roadblock, cleared his throat. Reality reasserted itself.
“Still raining cats and dogs,” she muttered. “That’s an advantage, right?”
“Yes,” he said. And sounded very much like he meant no.
She shot him a sharp look. He sat curled in on himself, arms wrapped tight, face turned away. She could almost hear the but forming.
“Spit it out.”
A wry smile tugged at his mouth.
“When did you become so perceptive?”
“I don’t know. When did you become so transparent?”
His snort suggested agreement.
“Bit of a snag ahead,” he admitted. Then, as if it were news: “I’m… blind.”
“Funnily enough, I noticed.”
“It’s the rain,” he said softly. “Too much white noise. Washes everything clean.”
Understanding hit like cold water.
“Less than ten meters,” she said. “You weren’t dawdling. You got lost. That’s why it took you so long to get into the car.”
It was obvious in hindsight. Painfully so.
“But you like the rain,” she protested. “I’ve seen you sitting outside with your eyes closed, headphones on.”
“It’s nice,” he said. “Very… quiet.”
“You’d better tell me you’re joking.”
How exactly was she supposed to smuggle a blind man through a port, onto a freight, and down the Mississippi?
“We’re leaving the suitcase,” she said flatly.
“About that…”
And then he finally mentioned the small detail that he was carrying contraband in their suitcase.
“Where did that even come from?” she hissed.
“Refuse bags.”
“Was it just lying around in the cabin? Another souvenir next to the swords?”
“Well, no. MacLeod handed it over. In the woods. When you were having a nice get-together with your fellow Watchers.”
Of course. Of course he’d been receiving mail while she was holding the line. Then the rest of it caught up with her.
“MacLeod?”
“Joe brought the cavalry,” he said mildly. “Not his first rodeo.”
Fantastic. She was going to break her neck if she wasn't careful. At least she wasn’t the only one having an interesting time.
One thing was painfully clear: none of this was coincidence. He’d been planning this. For how long, she didn’t even want to guess.
“Just how many smokescreens have you thrown up?” she demanded.
This wasn’t a skirmish. It wasn’t even a small war. It dragged her back to the witch. To the kind of obsession it took to warrant something like this.
And then—
“Where are the ravens?”
If her voice went shrill, she was entitled to it.