Patriot Acts Read Online Free

free with the motion, and I know she would’ve said something more in response, but the door from the hallway opened again, and Dan returned.
    “She’s fine,” Dan said. “Cranky, that’s how I know.”
    “She’s not the only one,” Natalie said, looking at me. The anger she’d been reflecting was gone, replaced by confusion, and it made me feel guilty, but I wasn’t about to explain.
    Dan reached around his back, beneath the same thin black leather jacket he seemed to always wear no matter what the weather, and came out with a pistol. He held it out, offering me the butt end.
    “Just in case,” he said. “It’s clean. You can dump it with the car.”
    It was a Glock 34, simple and straightforward and infinitely anonymous. The magazine was fully loaded, seventeen rounds. I tucked the pistol into my pants at the small of my back.
    “We’ll take good care of her for you,” he told me.
    “I know you will.”
    “She wants to see you before you go.”
    “Then I should see her,” I said, and turned to head upstairs.
    “Atticus,” Natalie called after me. “Idiot or not, I’m right. It’s the only thing that matters.”
             
    They’d put her in a small room on the second floor, beside the bedroom where Tamryn was sleeping. The lights were off, and she was sitting on the edge of the bed, Miata with his head in her lap, petting him.
    When she saw me, she said, “Why do they keep putting me on the second floor when I can barely climb the stairs alone?”
    “Because it’s easier to fall down than to climb up?” I suggested.
    She snorted, then pushed Miata gently away and got to her feet, using the headboard as a support. Her cane was leaning against the wall nearby, but she didn’t go for it, instead making her way slowly to where I was standing just inside the door. The progress looked painful, and when she reached me she put out her hands, resting them, palms flat, against my chest, and I thought she would give me her weight, but she didn’t. There was enough light to see her face, just barely, but not enough to read what was painted there when she looked at me. I couldn’t feel her hands through the vest, but I imagined that they were warm.
    “I have to go, Alena,” I said.
    “I don’t know how to do this, Atticus,” she said, and the frustration in her voice sounded more pained than angry. “I have never had to do this. I have never had to say good-bye to someone I did not want to see go.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    She moved her left hand, raised it as if to rest it against my cheek, but then dropped it back to my chest, as if afraid that the touch would burn her. Even in the darkness, I could see her scowling.
    “I want to kiss you,” Alena said, suddenly. “May I do that?”
    “You can do that,” I told her.
    She moved her hands up my chest once again, this time lighter, splaying her fingers, as if reading me in Braille. When they reached my shoulders, she began to lean in, then balked, pulling back. She tilted her head to her right, tried a second approach, pulled back once again. Her head tilted to the left, and that seemed to make her feel more confident, and she held my shoulders more firmly, and this time I knew she would go through with it.
    I met her mouth with my own, felt her lips tentative against mine, and there was only a light brushing of skin, dry and softer than I had thought her capable of being. Then she did it again, this time with certainty. Her fingers moved to my neck, then into my hair, and she pulled herself into me. I put my arms around her, tasting her and holding her, and she made a sound into my mouth, almost mournful.
    Then she let me go, reaching out for the dresser with one hand, using it to support herself as she made her way back to the bed. She sat slowly, in exactly the same place she had before.
    “Good-bye, Atticus,” Alena said.
    I left her sitting there.

CHAPTER
    TWO
    It turned out I was right; they were coming after me.
    I’d