As soon as my arms are free, I sit up and wrap them around Hoke, who climbs right into my lap. “You’ve been sleeping and sleeping, Jack. Why were you so tired?”
I glance at Caedmon, at a complete loss.
“Jack has been working very hard lately,” she says as she removes a sticky sensor from my neck, “reuniting some missing girls with their families.”
The kidnappings. The Bruelim. The headaches. My uncontrollable behavior. I can feel the blood drain from my face as I remember pulling the trigger on my partner. “Ethan!” I gasp. “Is he…?”
“He’s fine,” Willoughby says. “He’s been out on assignment for most of the past two weeks, but he’s due back this evening. I’m sure he’ll want to see you.”
“He’s not…angry?”
Willoughby chuckles wryly. “No, I don’t believe he’s angry.” He pats my knee beneath the covers. “Enjoy the visit with your family.”
I nod and he moves to shake Opal’s hand. “It’s been a pleasure to see you again, Mrs. Wildon. I’ll send you and Hoke home tomorrow at first light, if that’s all right with you.”
“Yes, of course,” Opal agrees. “Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Willoughby.”
He nods briskly. “Jack and Caedmon, I’ll see you in my office tomorrow after they’ve gone.” And he strides out of the room.
“I expect you’re ready for some real food,” Caedmon guesses, removing the IV from my arm and applying a bandage. “You’ve been eating through this tube for two weeks.”
“Have I really been out that long?”
“Every day of it. Dinner’s not for a few hours, but I can have something sent in for you. You’ll want to go easy at first until your system readjusts.”
“I believe there’s some leftover vegetable soup in the refrigerator,” Opal says. “Would you like me to heat it for you, dear?”
“Yes, please.”
She rises. “I’ll be right back.”
I watch her go. “How long have Opal and Hoke been here?”
“Three days. Willoughby broke his own rules bringing them to Axis. But they’re the ones who pulled you through, Jack. They brought you back.”
I give Hoke a squeeze. “You’ve been here for three days?”
He nods. “You slept a lot,” he repeats.
“And this little trouper has been right by your side, talking to you, sleeping next to you, trying to get you to wake up.”
I’m starting to realize how serious my situation really was. “That doesn’t sound like a very fun visit. After I eat, let’s see if we can find something more enjoyable to do.”
“Willoughby has asked that they don’t leave your apartment. He doesn’t want civilians wandering around the facility.”
“Well, that limits our options. Where are Ollie and Tillman?”
“They had to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Ransom. But we’ve been able to talk to them every day.” Hoke shows me a holoband strapped around his wrist. “Mr. Willoughby gave it to Opal. He said we can also use it to talk to you after we leave.”
Willoughby really has bent the rules for my family.
Caedmon grins. “He said it’s more secure than the letters Opie’s been smuggling in and out for you.”
My mouth drops open. “How did he—?”
She laughs. “I didn’t ask. But it might have had something to do with those.” She points to the pictures the kids drew for me, which are tacked to the wall near my bed.
I laugh. Then I see Hoke has added to my collection significantly in the last few days.
Caedmon takes her leave, wheeling out the monitors as Opal returns with my soup. I eat it slowly, listening to Hoke tell me all about his friend Lyle Chapman, whom I met at school during my brief visit. I eat every bite and drink the tea Opal has made for me and soon feel my strength return.
“How about a walk?” I ask Hoke. “Willoughby didn’t say we couldn’t go outside.”
Hoke bounds toward the door to the hallway.
“Not that way. Let’s sneak out the back and take a hike in the woods. We’ll see how many kinds of foods you recognize from home.”
“Don’t go far,” Opal cautions. “You’ve been in bed for two weeks.”
Opal’s warning proves unnecessary. My muscles are weak with disuse, but only my mind has been ill, not my body. I feel well enough to take Hoke down the running trail to where the woods open into a view of the valley. “Have you ever seen anything like it?” I ask.
“We’re up so high.” His eyes take in the rugged land with childish wonder. “Are these like the mountains you grew up in, Jack?”
“The very same ones. Go on. Look around. I’m going to sit here and rest for a few minutes.”
I seat myself in a patch of sunlight where I can watch his explorations. I can’t remember the date, but it must be late September or early October. The color is beautiful, more lush and varied than the woods at home. But Hoke has already left off the view for more interesting details. He brings me a cone from a jack pine, a dead swallowtail butterfly, a tree toad, three varieties of mushrooms, and a small garter snake. I identify them for him one by one and exclaim over each new find, so grateful to Ethan and Caedmon and Willoughby for all they have done to reclaim me from madness and return me to my family.
I remain outside with Hoke for hours, reluctant to confine him within four walls. I wish we had days instead of this one afternoon. Time to explore new places, to teach him new things, to love up on him and watch him grow. I savor every minute. Eventually, however, his tummy calls us back inside. After a meal of beef and noodles, Hoke falls asleep on the sofa. I carry him into the second bedroom, work him into his pajamas, and tuck him into bed. Then I return to the living room.
Opal has made more tea. She offers me a cup, and I sink onto the sofa with a sigh. Something Willoughby said wriggles in my memory. Again. He told Opal it was good to see her again.
“Opal, do you know Willoughby?”
She stirs a spoonful of sugar into her tea and takes a sip. Her gaze is cautious. “I’ve met him before.”
“When?”
“Nearly eight years ago. It was just after your trial.”
My trial. It seems to be at the center of everything lately. I can tell by the look on Opal’s face that there’s more to the story. More she wants to say, she just hasn’t figured out how. I cringe inwardly. I’m not sure I want to know. Haven’t I endured enough surprises? But if her information could save a kidnapped girl, if it could help stop the Provocation, I need to hear it. “Tell me.”
She stirs her tea absently, formulating the words inside her head before stringing them out one by one. “Kace Willoughby showed up on my doorstep one day.” She sets the spoon down and holds the cup and saucer in both hands. “I had taken in the twins not long before. My husband had died the previous year, and I couldn’t abide the silence in the house. The twins gave my life purpose again, but honestly, I was in over my head. Then Mr. Willoughby came by to ask if I would consider taking in another child. One with a record as a runaway and who had just been tried for murder.”
“Wait! Willoughby arranged for you to take me?”
“I told him absolutely not, but he asked me to hear him out. I agreed purely out of politeness, knowing nothing he said could change my mind.” Opal smiles. “I was wrong.”
My head is spinning. This version of the story is far different from the one she always told us growing up.
“Mr. Willoughby changed everything for me that day. Everything. He told me that thirty-five years before, he was approached by a young woman named Ruby Parnell. And then he spun out a story so incredible, so outrageous, that I could scarcely believe it. I didn’t believe it. Not until he showed me a video of the woman and I heard the story from her own lips. I’m guessing it is a story you have heard by now?”
I nod weakly.
“And then he told me that this woman’s granddaughter had turned up unexpectedly within the Children’s Domestic Services system, that she
could be in deadly peril if the wrong people found out about her existence. She was in need of a home where she could grow up safely, out of the public eye. Would I be willing to take her in?” Opal reaches out to grasp my hand. “How could I say no to that?”
“Easily!” I burst out. I am still trying to put these new pieces together. To figure out the hidden connections. Opal hadn’t wanted me at all. She didn’t seek out another child. She’d been asked to take me. “You had the twins to think of. Why on earth did you risk so much on a stranger?”
Opal smiles sadly. “Not such a stranger. Jack, Ruby Parnell was my sister.”
The information rolls through me like a bucket of cold marbles. They collect in my hands and feet, turning them numb.
“Ruby disappeared in the Provocation the night she graduated high school. I was two years older. We—” Her voice wavers, and she looks down at her hands. “We’d had a disagreement that evening. A falling out. She left angry, and I never saw her again. I’ve lived with a great amount of guilt. Raising you, loving you like my own child, has been redemptive for me.”
I stare at her in amazement. “Opal, why didn’t you ever tell me this before?”
“Mr. Willoughby asked me not to. He said the fewer people who knew the truth, the safer you would be.”
I lean back against the couch, my tea forgotten. “Then you—Opal, you’re my great-aunt. And I’m your niece.” I say it with a tremendous sense of wonder.
Her smile grows tender. “Yes, my girl. You are.” She wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me against her as she did when I was little. I lean into her side. I have family. A real biological family.
“I want you to have this,” Opal says, pulling a book from her pocket and handing it to me. It’s a small journal bound with purple ribbon. “I wrote it the night Willoughby told me about you, weeks before you actually came to live with me. You know your grandmother’s story. This is mine.”
I take it reverently. “Thank you, Opal. I’ll treasure it.”
“As I treasure you.” She kisses me on the forehead and then pushes herself off the couch. “I believe I’d best join Hoke if I’m going to be any good in the morning. Oh, will you tell your Captain Alston thank you for the new porch step the next time you see him? I did want to tell him myself, but he’s been quite busy.”
“Of course, Opal.” So that’s the errand Ethan had to run while I was at school with the kids.
“Thank you, dear. Good night.”
When the door shuts behind her, I retreat to my own room and change into flannel pajama pants and an oversized sweatshirt. It’s still early, but I’m tired. I eschew the hospital bed and take a blanket out to the sofa to read Opal’s journal. I become so absorbed in her story that I don’t hear the rapping on my door until it grows insistent. I toss the book aside and hurry to answer it before the racket wakes my sleeping guests.
“What is it?” I ask when I wrestle the lock open.
Ethan barges inside, catching me by both arms. I take a step backward, but he clamps me in place. Horrified embarrassment washes over me as I remember how I nearly shot him. “Ethan, I’m sorry—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he breaks in roughly.
I pause with my mouth open. “Tell you what?”
“That you have Bruel blood. Why didn’t you tell me?” He gives me a shake.
I am taken aback and fumble for an answer. “I—”
“We almost lost you, Jack. It was absolute foolishness approaching that portal without testing your DNA first. The radiation turned you into one of them.”
“I never thought—”
“No, you didn’t think. I kept you sedated until Caedmon could get her enzyme into you. It stopped the raging, but it turned you unresponsive. If it wasn’t for Opal and Hoke…”
I’ve never seen Ethan so distraught. “Who thought to bring them here?”
“I did. We’ve had teams out, testing the kids in schools. Caedmon noticed that the Bruelim who received more stable upbringings responded better to the enzyme.”
“More stable upbringings?”
“They’re all orphans, Jack. Every one of them. They were planted here, raised unknowingly by the CDS. The ones who didn’t land in decent families, who never received affection, they’re the greater threat. Love, Jack. It makes all the difference. Bringing Hoke and Opal here was our last-ditch effort. Thank God it worked.”
I back away from his intensity, and this time he lets me go.
“The teams, they’re having success?” I ask awkwardly.
“Astronomical. Macron bought Willoughby’s health initiative, and there’s been a nationwide push to vaccinate every school child. The governor hasn’t figured out what we’re really up to. So far, we’ve been able to identify and neutralize over four thousand Bruelim across the nation. Nearly one in ten doesn’t respond well to the enzyme. They usually end up disappearing within a few days, but we injected microscopic tracking devices with the enzyme. We know where they are. And there have been no new kidnapping cases since we began.”
“What about the Lowers’ efforts to recover the missing girls?”
“I’ve been heading up rescues with them for the past two weeks. We’ve returned eighty-three girls in three cities, but we haven’t discovered any new locations for days. I think the others may be gone.”
It’s a fraction of those who are missing, but eighty-three is better than none. “Ethan, I’m really sorry about what happened in Latham City. I couldn’t control my actions, but I remember them. I pulled a gun on you. If I had killed you—” My voice chokes off.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Jack?”
I hang my head. “I didn’t want you to know. I was embarrassed. Ashamed.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“They’re the enemy, Ethan,” I say more insistently. “I have their blood. Their genetic code.”
“You are not one of them.”
“But I’ve had to work so hard to fit in around here. To prove to you that I’m capable. I was afraid if my bloodline was known, I’d be back to square one.”
I see the surprise register on his face. “That’s what you think of me? That I’d cast you aside like that?”
“It took a lot to gain your approval. I didn’t want to jeopardize our partnership.”
I see my words have disturbed him. His forehead creases, and disquiet shadows his eyes. “Jack, you have far more than my approval.” He steps forward and takes my face in his hands. His kiss is unexpected, strong and warm and bold. It lingers unrepentantly on my lips. I close my eyes, drawn into a response by its very audacity. By the sheer power of his presence.
He draws back and looks again into my eyes. I’m not sure what he hopes to find there. I am so surprised I can only blink back at him.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he says and lets himself out the door without another word.
I’m still standing exactly where he left me, wondering what I’m supposed to make of his kiss, when I hear Hoke’s bare feet pad up behind me. “Jack,” he says, “can I sleep with you?”
“Yeah. Of course, buddy.”
I scoop him up and carry him to the sofa, throwing the blanket over both of us and tucking him in close beside me. He snuggles against my chest. In a matter of minutes, his breathing has grown deep and even. I rest my chin against the top of his head, comforted by his nearness. But it is a long time before I fall asleep.
TWENTY-FOUR
I wake at four o’clock the next morning. I don’t feel well-rested, but I want to run. My body has been lying in a bed for two weeks, and I want to put it to use, even if I can only manage a mile or two. I ease Hoke away from me and slip off the sofa, tucking the blanket around him securely. I’ll be back before he and Opal rise.
I yank on yesterday’s uniform and pad down the hallway, wondering if I’ll find Ethan waiting for me at the outer door. He isn’t there. I hang around a few minutes, but he never shows. Probably too tired. Or he�
�s been so busy that he’s fallen out of the habit. Reluctantly, I start out alone. I like running with Ethan. And I would have preferred our next meeting to occur privately, not in Willoughby’s office.
The eastern sky gives no hint of approaching dawn this time of year, so I must rely solely on the glow from my holoband. I follow our five-mile loop and feel surprisingly good. I can tell I haven’t been active, but I am able to cover the miles at a modest clip. A few days of healthy food and a normal routine should restore me to full strength.
I’m heading back to my apartment for a shower when I spot Major Norvis backing out of the lab and pulling the door closed after him. His body language immediately arouses my suspicions. I pause in the hallway and wait for him to turn around. He startles when he sees me, and then stiffens, confirming my hunch. “What are you doing here this time of the morning, Miss Holloway?”
He’s never liked me since I skipped his lectures and made him look like a fool. But one thing I really appreciate about not being Military is that rank doesn’t affect me at all. He has no authority to command me, and I refuse to be cowed. “I believe the question is, what are you doing here, major? You don’t work in the science department.”
“You don’t have authority to question me.”
“And you don’t have authority to enter the lab without permission.”
His neck turns red as a turkey’s wattle. “I don’t need to explain my actions to you.”
I shrug and continue down the hall like it’s no big deal. He’s right. He doesn’t answer to me. But he does answer to Willoughby.
I shower and have fetched fruit, bagels, eggs, and juice from the mess hall by the time Opal wakes up. We have to rouse Hoke, who’s still only half awake as we eat our predawn meal.
“I don’t want to go home yet,” he protests when I help him pack his bag.
“I’m sorry, buddy, but those are the rules. Mr. Willoughby only let you come because I was so sick.”
“Can’t you tell them you still don’t feel good?”
Recompense (Recompense, book 1) Page 29