Read Online White by Ted Dekker - Free Book Online Page B

though.
    All of this she realized with her first blink.
    Then she realized that she was in an automobile at a precarious angle, hanging from her seat belt. She grabbed the steering wheel to support herself and sucked in a huge gulp of air.
    What had happened? Where was she? Panic edged into her mind. If she shifted her weight, the car might fall!
    Green foliage was plastered against the windows. A shaft of sunlight shot through a small triangular break in the leaves. She was in a tree?
    Monique blinked again and forced her mind to slow down. She remembered some things. She’d been working on the antivirus to the Raison Strain. Her solution had failed. The chances of finding any antivirus other than the one Svensson possessed were nil. She’d been on her way to Washington—an unscheduled trip of desperation. Kara had convinced her that Thomas might still be their only hope, and in the wake of her monumental failure, Monique intended to make the case to the president himself. Then she would go to Johns Hopkins, where Kara was going to attempt to connect with the other reality by using Thomas’s blood.
    She’d been driving down a side road at night, following the sign that said Gas—2 miles, when her vision suddenly clouded. That was all she could remember.
    Monique leaned to her right. The car didn’t budge. She leaned farther and peered out the side window. The car was on the ground, not in a tree. Shrubs crowded every side. The hood was wedged under a web of small branches. She must have fallen asleep and driven off the road. There was no sign of blood.
    She moved her legs and neck. Still no pain. Not even a headache.
    The car was resting at a thirty-degree angle—nothing short of a crane was going to budge it. She tried the door, found it unobstructed, and shoved it open. Released the shoulder harness.
    Her purse. It had Merton Gains’s card and her identification. She would need money. The black leather purse was on the floor, passenger side. Holding the steering wheel with her left hand, she lowered herself, grabbed the purse, and pulled herself back up.
    Monique eased out of the car and started crawling up the slope with the help of the surrounding shrubs. The road was just above her, maybe twenty-five yards, but several large trees blocked a clear view from the air.
    How much time had passed?
    The trip up the rocky slope did more damage to her than the car wreck. She tore her black slacks and smudged the front of her beige silk blouse with several falls. Her shoes were black flats, but they had slick soles. She kicked them off halfway up the slope, reached back for them, and muttered a curse when one slid ten feet down before stopping. She decided she was better off without them. Her soles had once favored bare earth over shoes anyway.
    When she finally clambered over the crest, she found a two-lane road with a solid yellow line down the middle. The sun was directly above—she’d been unconscious all night and half the day?
    To her right she could just see the highway. She stared about, still dis-oriented. Then she turned to her left and walked toward the small red Conoco sign a mile down the road. Or was it two miles? No, the sign had said 2 miles, but as near as she could see, she was halfway between the highway and the station. One mile. She would take her chances with a phone over thumbing a ride.
    Almost immediately she regretted having left her shoes. Fifty yards later she decided that she would thumb a ride to the station if at all possible. Assuming there was a ride to be thumbed. The road was deserted. For that matter, the Conoco station could be deserted as well. Last night she’d seen the lights from the highway—a hopeful sign that the station was open. Most she’d encountered along the road were closed.
    The hum of a big rig sounded behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. A large fuel truck with a yellow Shell sign on a chrome tank sped down the