Kitabı oku: «Sentinels: Wolf Hunt», sayfa 3

Gausto had bought this bike expressly for her, and try as she might to treat it with the same disdain she applied to everything human he forced upon her, she couldn’t help that since her awakening to nonborn human, this one thing had restored to her the fleeting taste of running wild. Powerful on the road, quick with speed, sleekly responsive to the lean of her body…it floundered a little in this brief foray off-road, but she loved it no less for that.

So she patted it and she left it, jogging silently through the man-made belt of wooded overgrowth to where she’d left Carter—unharmed but incapacitated, and no doubt cursing her.

But Nick Carter was gone.

Instant panic assailed her. He can’t be gone. For she’d seen the results of this amulet—Gausto had shown her, using one of his own men, so she’d know what to expect. So she’d trust him.

Never that.

But she trusted the consistency of the amulet, and Nick Carter should be here. The same as tranked and bound. Gausto would blame her if he had escaped. And worse—as she stood there, staring at the place he’d been, the flattened foliage and scuffed sandy soil—worse—

She wouldn’t see him again.

That made her stop. Made her frown. For it wasn’t part of her world, that bereft feeling. He wasn’t part of her world.

Or he hadn’t been.

But now…

Now he was.

She gave a little shake—a stress-release shake, flowing through her neck and shoulders—and she put herself back in her wolf-thoughts. Letting her primal self take over, even in this form.

Her primal self saw clearly past the emotions and found the trail. Bent twigs, disturbed soil, crushed leaves in this place where so much was spiny and waxy and hard to damage at all. Her nose scented it; her eyes saw it.

And more. There was sickness here…a certain raw flavor of effort and distress.

It was a trail she could follow. But she did it with care, not assuming anything in this strange place with its many people, so close. One slow step at a time, confirming the sights, the sounds—checking out of this shadowed buffer zone and into the bright sunshine full of dogs and huge white tent canopies and people and noise, a loudspeaker announcing in the background about Sporting Group and Ring Five.

Busy people. No one looked at her, or noted her slow movement among the trees. And so she tracked.

Not that it took long.

He hadn’t gone far.

He shouldn’t have been able to move at all, but…

He wasn’t moving anymore.

Too late, too stupid.

He’d figured it out, all right. The amulet strung around his neck held a containment working, but…so much more.

The more Nick tried to break it, to fight it, the more it drove back at him, insinuating itself into his energies—replacing good with bad.

Poisoning him.

Realizing it—realizing how far it had already gone—he did the only thing left to him. He poured everything he had into one final effort. All his intent, all his focus—clawing his way across the ground, one excruciating inch after another, hind legs splayed out behind him. He had no thought for what he’d do if he was spotted or if he broke free, only that narrow little goal. Move. Break the working. Leave the amulet smoking.

Find the woman who’d left him here. The Core agent in wolf’s clothing. That, too.

Move.

But it occurred to him, finally, that he no longer made progress. That what felt like heart-bursting effort from within resulted in nothing without—only his head sinking toward the ground, lolling off slightly to the side with his mouth barely open to pant. Air puffed past his flews. Heavy sickness spread through his body, weighing it down.

The next panting breath brought an influx of scent, both ambrosia and anathema.

She was back.

He growled, a ridiculous and weak token—but an unforgiving noise. A statement.

She’d come in her human form, all black-clothed and lithe. She made a noise of dismay; she went to one knee beside him. With all the effort he had in him, he raised his growl to something distinctly audible.

It gave her not an instant’s hesitation. Her hand landed on his ruff, fingers kneading in. For a long moment, she said nothing—for that long moment, his growl hung between them. Unmistakable.

Until he had to break it off and resume panting, more heavily now, eyes slitting closed.

“I don’t understand,” she said, and frustration laced through her words. Frustration and more. Grief.

Nick didn’t think it was for him.

“He said you wouldn’t be hurt.” Her accent, whatever it was, came thick. Or no accent at all, perhaps—a difficulty in forming the words. A slight speech impediment, almost Castillian in nature. “He said he wanted only to talk.” Her fingers kneaded his fur, then smoothed it. “When he said you took the wolf, he made it sound…wrong. Stealing. Faking.” Nick growled at her again…but it came weaker. Barely there at all. “Yes,” she told him. “He was wrong about that. And this…I can see how it harms you.” She found the thong around his neck—the amulet strap she’d placed there herself—and her hand hesitated.

Nick tried to growl again. Somehow it came out as a faint whine.

“He said he wouldn’t hurt my pack.” She covered her face with her free hand—an unusual gesture, putting the back of her wrist against her nose, her hand loosely curled and oddly graceful. As if the hand itself wasn’t as familiar as the paw. “He said if I did this…”

Nick panted. The amulet worked on him, tugging at all the corners of his being. Fever washed over him.

She repeated, slowly, “He said if I brought you to him…”

Breathing suddenly seemed like too much effort. His lungs burned; he realized he’d let them lie fallow for long moments and dragged in a gulp of air.

Quite suddenly she bent over, laying her face against his—nuzzling him ever so slightly. Just as suddenly, she straightened again. “I think he lies,” she said. “He will do to my pack what suits him, no matter what I bring him.” A gentle lift of his head and a flick of her hand, and she removed the amulet thong. “No more do I heed him. You, I help. And my pack…I save on my own.”

Instantly, breathing seemed natural again. And if his body shuddered with waves of flame and ice, he nonetheless had his growl back.

She gave a little laugh, laying her head against his for a long, long moment. “Good,” she said. “That suits you. Now be the human again, and take yourself away from here. Gausto will not wait long before he comes for us.”

Chapter 4

Gausto.

Nick had known it, of course. Or guessed it, the moment that amulet went over his head. But to hear her say it…

A wave of dizziness swamped his thoughts.

She stood up and back, and made as if to fling away the amulet—stopping herself at the last moment. “No,” she said out loud, a lurking anger behind her words. “Someone else could find it.”

It shouldn’t matter. It had been triggered; it had connected with Nick. Separated from him, it was worthless.

Or should be. With Gausto, you never knew. The man seldom cared about consequences when he drove for power.

So yeah. Best not to take chances. As she tucked the amulet away in a tight front pocket, he lifted his head—wobbly at that, but still a significant improvement. Not for long—it thunked back to earth, a jarring thud.

In an instant, she was there beside him. “You have to take the human,” she said, cradling his head in her hands, lifting it to face him nose-to-nose. No fear, not even with his crazed eye and the snarl on his lips. She stroked his face from the muzzle back, awakening all the myriad nerves there, flattening his whiskers. Past his cheeks and the massive carnassials that could have sheared off her arm, firmly down his ears…tugging ever so slightly and waking those nerves, too. Bringing him back, even if his head still lolled in her hands. “Nick Carter,” she said, “I heard him talking. He wants you. He will hurt you. Do you understand this?”

He snarled for her.

“Be the human,” she told him, one more time, whiskey-gold gaze latched onto his with ferocity. “I must leave this place, too.”

Too many things gone unspoken there—too many pieces unknown.

But he heard her urgency. He believed it. Be the human.

Easier said than done. Took every fuzzied bit of concentration he had. He thought she’d back away, giving him space—but when humanity settled around him, there she was, still holding his head—turning it, gently, so he wouldn’t end up face-first in the goats’ head burrs and stiff ground cover—and then releasing him.

She did it like someone who’d been there.

He coughed, clearing his throat of weakness—or trying to. “What?” he rasped, and made it clear enough with an unyielding gaze that he referred to her. “Who?”

She shook her head. “I have to go.” Right. To help her people. Whatever that meant. “You have to go, too. He won’t wait long.” She shook her head again. “He almost sent men with me, but his prince spoke loudly of not being caught. I think, though, that they are not far behind. So go, now.”

“Not without you,” Nick said. He made it to his hands and knees, limbs shaking visibly, a feverish hot and cold chasing itself through his bones—but he didn’t take his gaze from her. Didn’t release her. “Who…” Too much going on in brevis these days to ignore that fact. “It matters…”

“It matters to me,” she told him. “But it is not yours to have.” She rose, a fluid motion, and strode away down the buffer zone. No looking back…but there, at the edge of the trees, the slightest of hesitations.

But then she moved on.

And Nick’s shaking arms gave way, and he plowed down into the dirt without grace. He spat an unequivocal curse and rolled over to his back, wiping dirt from beneath his lip with the careless and uncoordinated swipe of his wrist.

All right. Fine. He hadn’t intimidated her into sticking around. It had been a long shot. He tried Annorah again, got nowhere—his focus was too scrambled, his energies likewise. So he needed to get up on his feet and find his way across the fairground to his car. Or at the least, onto the agility grounds where someone would have a phone.

Because he had no doubt his mystery betrayer-and-savior was right. If Gausto was behind this, if he’d had any doubts of the outcome…he wasn’t far off. Or his people weren’t far. No matter how the Septs Prince had instructed him.

Get up. Walk. Stagger. Crawl, if he had to. To the phone, in the car. Across the show grounds. Gausto would seed these grounds with his people if he realized that Nick was here, loose and vulnerable. And unlike the Sentinels, the Core agents carried guns. Guns and amulets and no compunction about damaging their prey.

His fingers twitched; fever cold chased him. And he realized, some moments later, that he hadn’t moved at all.

Son of a bitch.

…no, still hadn’t moved at all.

He didn’t hear her coming.

There she was, standing over him, and in his mind he rolled up and sprang to his feet and he caught her—claiming every bit of the intimacy she’d established with her invitation to run in the desert, every bit of the conflicted tangle between them, driven into place with her four-footed romp and lighthearted play.

But no, he still hadn’t moved at all.

“You,” she said, glaring down at him. “Have. To. Go. Are these the wrong words?” She made a frustrated noise deep in her throat, something that probably hadn’t started out human. “He said it would not hurt you.”

Nick coughed out a laugh. He hunted words, found only another wry truly amused laugh, even if it turned into a groan of effort as he did, finally, roll back over to his elbows. “Honey, he lies.”

“Jet.” She leaned over to grasp his upper arm, hauling him halfway to his feet with one smooth effort. He staggered into her, but she took advantage of the movement, hauling him forward.

“Jet?” he asked, the word a gasp as she slipped under his arm, wiry strength in that lean frame. “Where—?”

“Can you drive to leave this place? No. Then you come with me.”

“Wait!” Still a gasp, but more emphatic—and when she hesitated, there on the edge of the desert, he managed to keep his own feet. “Compromise.” Because he’d gathered this much—she was on the run, as of now. Breaking away from Gausto, and lucky she’d be to survive more than a few hours of that defiance. “You have no place to go. I have no way to get there. Come with me. ”

She stared at him, the lowering sun slanting down to light whiskey-gold eyes into a glow. More of a glower, really—a demand. “Did that make sense?”

Nick waved off such details. “In fact,” he said, “it didn’t. But I think you understand me. Because I’m pretty sure I understand you.”

She snorted. “You understand nothing,” she told him. “But I will take you to your place, and then if it pleases me, I will consider staying.” She adjusted her grip on his arm as it draped over her shoulder, and turned back to the motorcycle propped up against the tree line, a blazing red Triumph Tiger for which he couldn’t help but make a sound of appreciation. Pride flashed across her face. “Even if they are near, they will not catch us,” she said—and then cast him a dare of a look. “As long as you don’t fall off.”

He didn’t fall off.

It was a tall bike, but she handled it ably on the desert caliche and once on the road, shifted smooth and fast up to speed. Good thing, that smoothness—the back suspension wasn’t adjusted for his weight, and it wallowed.

They managed the turn onto Houghton; he clamped his hands at her hips and lurched into her back. He sent her across the bridge to the access road and south, staying off the highway. They cruised down along the Pantano wash, and then onto the little side roads toward Pisto Hill and towering Rincon Peak. The developments fell away and turned into worn, distant homes, baked dry in the sun over the years. A country store and post office, a small farm supplies store, a mom-‘n’-pop grocery…

Nick didn’t truly see any of them, sidetracked by the tremendous effort of staying upright on the motorcycle, of hanging on. And his dimmed and fuzzy senses were otherwise full.

Of her. Jet. The scent of her, swirling around them with the billowing dust, settling into his pores. More wolf than anything he knew, the scent of fresh clean wild and honest effort and some edgy unknown element that came through as pure Jet.

Then again, that was the problem, wasn’t it? More wolf than anything he knew. Because far too much about her didn’t mesh with Sentinel blood. Not the scent, not the way she’d changed, not the way she spoke.

Not the way she worked with Gausto.

And here I am, bringing her home. Lurching and slumping against her until the strong, athletic lines of her body became familiar—until his hands took for granted what they would find when he adjusted his grip, and yet still that shape—the flex and stretch of steady muscle as she handled the tall bike, the neat curve of her ribs and the quiet tuck of her waist, the swell of her hips and the push of a gorgeously rounded ass against his thighs—made him greedy for more.

Dumb bastard. She’d poisoned him. She’d left him helpless for Gausto.

And then she pulled me out of there. Saved his wolf hide.

Dammit, I can’t think. He leaned his forehead against her shoulder, let it settle there.

Eventually, he realized they’d stopped again—that she needed direction. “Little,” he told her. “Adobe…Beagles.”

She turned her head; her voice came muffled by her helmet, full-face sport helmet in stark red and white against black. “I don’t understand.”

But Nick wasn’t going to be much help. The best he could do, as he slid down against her back and tipped off the bike, was not take her with him.

Jet stared at him, oddly bereft without the sensation of lean, hard muscle pressing up against her, the warmth of his hands at her waist. He sprawled in the dirt at the side of the road—gritty pale sand scattered over caliche, full of rock and dryness and surrounded by all things spiny. An ocotillo soared above him, its thin, spindly arms offering no shade; a cactus wren churred nearby and flittered away.

Her hand slipped the clutch; the bike stalled out. Silence settled around her, until the sound of her own breathing within the helmet magnified, filling her mind with a surreal susurrus of white noise.

She’d never been out on her own before in the human world. Entirely on her own. Not on an assignment with carefully learned routes, not accompanied in the Tortolita foothills while learning to ride the bike. Not accompanied by Gausto out on training runs on the street. No one looking, literally, over her shoulder.

It was simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying.

And what of Nick Carter? Did it even matter?

Oh, yes. That answer came swiftly and inexplicably. It didn’t particularly make sense, not with so much inner drive to simply start this bike and step it swiftly through to sixth gear, heading out to some wild place where she could change to wolf and gather herself to save her pack.

But, oh, it mattered. Sitting here in the silence at the side of an ill-defined desert road…she was just as fettered as ever, this time by the sight of Nick Carter, sprawled ungainly in the dirt. A scant breeze stirred his hair, ruffled by wind and dampened by sweat here in this dry climate where the air sucked away perspiration before it ever had a chance to soak anything.

Sick. Damaged by the amulet, in spite of Gausto’s assurances. Not likely to survive out here in the open.

Run. Oh, run. Do it now. The instinct spoke strong in her—spoke smart.

Jet lifted her head, gazing around the foothills—the fingerlike extensions of raised earth, extending every which way—some low and long, some sharp and high. Here, in this spot, she saw no houses, no buildings. No humans at all. A power line in the distance; a windmill pulling a slow turn in another direction, a barely visible stock tank beneath it. Run, Jet. Do it now.

Jet started the bike, and her hands on the clutch and throttle felt like someone else’s—so fundamentally wrong, neat fingers and trimmed nails folding gracefully around the clutch lever on one side, the throttle and brake lever on the other.

And, as though they were someone else’s, they throttled the bike up and forward, feathered the clutch to a release point, and sent her off down the road.

Chapter 5

Marlee knew better than to carry the viral thumbnail drive around with her. Even flush from success, with Nick Carter’s machine simmering in viral malfunction and his phone redirected to the prepaid cell currently in her pocket, she wouldn’t be an overconfident fool. She jammed a screwdriver through the thing and dumped it down the incinerator shaft, and then she got an iced tea from the vending machine on her way back to her own floor and her own cubicle. In her mind she practiced just the right disdainful tone to use with Gausto when she let him know it was done.

Of course, she’d wipe the virus and reverse the phone forwarding after today—it was all the time she would have given Gausto even if he’d wanted more, and he hadn’t. Just one afternoon…a distraction. Big deal. Phoenix APS could cause them more trouble than that with a slow response to a service outage.

Besides, it very much suited her. After everyone else failed, Marlee Cerrosa would be the one to restore Carter’s computer. The hero. And if all went according to plan, no one would even catch on to what she’d done with the phone.

In fact, as she jogged down the stairs to her floor, her cell phone trilled the special ring she’d assigned to the forwarded calls—bypassing Carter’s admin, who could still call out but might well go hours before even wondering why there hadn’t been incoming calls, especially with Carter out of the building.

She tucked herself off to the side, turning toward the wall to keep her voice from echoing up the stairwell—even if it was carpeted to keep echoing noise from hammering against sensitive Sentinel ears. “Nick Carter’s office.”

Just that easy. Marlee breezily told the caller that her boss was out of the office, and then she took a message.

She was grinning when she exited out into the stairwell. So she wasn’t as strong as these Sentinels, and she didn’t have the special skills and senses they shared. She was still strong enough. Skilled enough. Human enough.

The grin faded right off her face when she rounded the corner and found a whole little pack of them in the hallway. Lyn Maines and Joe Ryan, from earlier in the day, nodding a greeting without breaking off their conversation. And oh, crap, was that Treviño? The last Sentinel she wanted to see, this hard man who took the jaguar. He hadn’t softened a bit since Meghan Lawrence had snared him—she who had been raised without Sentinel training and had her own very human ways of dealing with things.

There’d been talk, of course. And Marlee made no apologies for listening. She’d known, long before she hit true Sentinel training, that these thickly blooded shapeshifters needed to be watched.

She just hadn’t realized she didn’t have to be alone in it.

So she knew of Dolan’s history, his grudge against the Sentinels, his barely tolerated independence in the southern-most Southwest territory. He’d also not been to brevis for years…until recently. Marlee had to stop herself from scowling at him. Why now?

Meghan stood beside him—pure lean cowgirl in worn, hard-worked jeans and boots and a rolled-sleeved flannel shirt over a snug tank top—her features a bit sharp and her eyes faintly tipped up at the outside, coyote eyes in shape if not in color. No one, Marlee thought, should be that comfortable standing next to Dolan Treviño.

And there was Annorah, come out of her communications shell. Annorah, Marlee could admire. Envy, even, for her vast skill, uncoupled with physical prowess as it was. But not trust. Not when she’d worked with the others so closely, even if she was still atoning for her misjudgment in her first and last field assignment.

The final member of their little group, she’d been watching. Maks, who took the tiger. He was big; he was quiet. He’d been badly hurt in Flagstaff, and he hadn’t quite been released from care. Why he didn’t bear a grudge against Joe Ryan, Marlee couldn’t figure.

With Marlee hesitating on the edge of them, Meghan said, “It won’t be long, Maks. You look so much better than the last time.”

Treviño snorted. “You mean back when his eyes were still crossed?”

Maks muttered something Marlee couldn’t hear, but it was short and sweet and emphatic, and it made Ryan snort in laughter.

“A happy ending is nice when you can get it,” Lyn pointed out, not nearly as relaxed as the rest of them—as if she ever was. “Even Michael is recovering, and I honestly thought Shea was dead. But Nick—”

Meghan ran a hand over the wall beside her. Never just a simple gesture, with Meghan Lawrence—she was always reading the wards around her, soaking them in and sorting them out. “Do you really think…?”

Ryan shook his head. “He’s been out of contact for a couple of hours, that’s all.”

Completely? That startled Marlee; she wondered what Gausto had done to Carter’s cell phone. And why hadn’t Annorah been able to reach him?

Ryan added, “But it’s time to find him.”

Treviño shifted, impatience on his face. “Dane doesn’t need to get wind of this.”

The consul. Not a man many people saw; not a man considered at the top of his game. Not anymore. Ryan agreed, apparently. He snorted, no amusement at all this time. “Not Dane, not his people.”

“I think it’s already beyond that,” said Annorah, a plump woman who moved with strength and assurance. “I don’t think you’re getting it. I haven’t been able to reach him at all. There’s only two ways that happens—one is if he’s been closed off somehow. The other is if he’s…” She hesitated, looked uncomfortable, and said it anyway. “Dead.”

Meghan frowned. “What if he’s sleeping?”

“Then I still get a sense of him. He can shield me out, too—not many can, but he’s got the way of it. But I can still sense him.”

Marlee said, without really planning on it, “I bet he’s just caught up in that dog show.”

As one, they turned to her. Oh, crap. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just…well, I need to get through, and I got caught up in your conversation.”

“No problem,” Ryan said, so laid back that she floundered a little. Had she been wrong—? Then again, he had that reputation: laid back, easy to take lightly…until it was too late. That new scar…a cogent reminder. Now he added, “You’re not worried?”

She found a smile, offered it up. “The thought that Nick Carter can’t take care of himself at a dog show…” She shrugged. “Nick is good at what he does. It’s not convenient, having him out of touch like this, but he’ll be back soon and we’ll figure it out.”

Meghan shared her smile. “It’s hard to imagine things going wrong on quick check into disappearing dogs.”

“He thought the disappearances might be tied to bigger things,” Annorah said, a bit sharply—defensively. Had a crush on her boss, did she?

It was then that Marlee realized she was reveling in the moment. Tense at the prospect of being caught, yes. Anxious to make sure she walked the line she’d set for herself without crossing it, yes. But she also knew more than they did—if not the exact nature of Carter’s disrupted communications, she at least knew who was behind them. She knew that there were parts of it they hadn’t even discovered yet, and weren’t likely to discover. And she knew it would be over when she removed the virus—half a day of disruption.

She knew all those things, and it made all the difference in the world. Didn’t it?

“Back to work,” she said. “But it’d be great if someone lets me know when you hear from him.”

“You know,” Meghan said, her words drawn out with the pondering of it, “I’m thinking that it’s a good day for a dog show.”

Marlee wondered at the relief she felt.

Maybe not so complacent after all.

Can’t be good.

Dry, hot ground dusting close by his face, full of sharp desert scent. The sun beating on his chest, his legs…his shoulder grinding into hard, gritty caliche. Can’t be good.

Could be hours before anyone found him here. Longer.

He tried to consider the amulet, to consider Jet, to understand how the one was tied to the other, and to pull together what little he knew. She’d been with Gausto. Now she was on the run. She had answers that he needed.

He couldn’t trust her for a moment.

He had no idea what she really was.

And he wished like hell she would get her ass back here so he could find out.

But since she was running, and since no one would find him here, and since his Sentinels had to be warned that Gausto was making some sort of move…

This time, he really did roll over.

And found himself staring at a pair of black leather lace-ons, soft slipperlike shoes over sturdy, well-arched feet that would have been happier barefoot.

“I found it,” Jet said. “Little adobe Beagles. Maybe.”

He hadn’t heard her bike. He looked for it, dull and thick and slow to think.

“I left it there,” she told him. “You would fall. So we walk.” She stepped back to look at him, hands on hips, head cocked…frowning. “Or I carry you.”

And she did.

Jet rubbed her feet. These shoes hadn’t been meant for walking alongside a desert road, and they definitely hadn’t been meant for carrying a man over her shoulders across that same terrain.

Gausto’s men had thought her freakishly strong, like the Sentinels they hated so much. She thought herself no more than what was necessary to survive.

And now she had no way to get inside that small adobe house, which was nothing like Gausto’s ostentatious residence. More welcoming; more lived-in. A human den. She took Nick through the side yard gate instead, trailing a hand over the fence coyote rollers and taking note of the small tricolored and red-patched hounds who gave her instant berth, circling at a distance with their noses lifted to scent the air—hanging ears, bright eyes, tentatively wagging tails, brows wrinkled in worry…but seeing her. Knowing her. Not daring to bark at her.

She lowered him from her shoulder-carry into a patio lounger and stepped back to look around, finding the back door—steel security screening with a geometric design that couldn’t hide its stout purpose. Locked.

No matter. He was in the shade. And there was water. Jet had already dumped her jacket and her helmet in the front drive; now, after a thoughtful glance at the dog water buckets, she stripped her shirt off, bundled it up, and dunked it.

She carried it back to Nick Carter, letting it drip all over his face…letting it trickle into his mouth. The flush on his face highlighted the hard line of his cheek and the echo of it in his jaw; even in the shade, the strong light of the desert day brought out the silver scattered on his eyebrows, made the silver hoarfrost of his hair shine bright.

She pulled his shirt up, became impatient with the inconvenience of buttons, and ripped it aside so she could sit on the edge of the lounger, spreading water over his chest. Goose bumps rose on his skin, tightening his nipples and raising the hair, more silver than black, that grew crisply across his chest.

She thought, then, of their desert romp. She closed her eyes and felt it—the connection they’d forged out among the cactus and creosote, the wolf in them driving past human concerns and human interference. Deep and pure and as strong as any instinct…stronger than any rational understanding. It had resonated in her then; it tingled in her now.