As Lucas’s vision brightened, Cal’s bloodshot eyes reminded Lucas of bad times in Tallahassee, before Cal quit drinking. “Did they hurt you?” Lucas said, propping himself up on his elbows. The room spun, and his arms tried to buckle. He almost fell back flat on his bed.
Cal’s lips pursed with an untold story, but he shook his head. Cal laid a gentle hand across Lucas’s back, helping him support his own weight. “Don’t sit up. I ain’t company.”
Lucas was relieved to sink back to his pillow. Cal was right; no need to put on a heroic display. Lucas’s body felt like a foreign object, unwieldy and numb. He knew it was after noon, but it felt like midnight. Jessica had come by to check on him that morning, and she’d told him he should feel fine in a few hours. But he didn’t.
His body was wrung with the memory of pain, like an amputee. And Lucas’s stomach raged with hunger. Jared had tried to feed him every time he’d opened his eyes, but Lucas had kept drifting out of consciousness, too weary to eat. The cold was almost as bad, sometimes worse. Jared said their unit was eighty degrees and counting, but the room felt frigid.
After last night, you should be in ICU. Didn’t take you long to get spoiled rotten.
“How do you feel?” Cal said, watching Lucas carefully.
“Better than you look.” Cal’s hair and clothes were disheveled. Lucas doubted that Cal or Nita had slept all night.
“Then I guess that makes us even, Doc.” Cal blinked with glassy eyes. Lucas had never seen Cal so close to tears.
“I’m sorry.” They both said it at once, but Lucas pushed on first: “I was sure you’d get your fool self killed—”
“Nita’s here too,” Cal said suddenly, as if he’d just remembered. He motioned behind him, and Nita came to his side. She was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. She tried to smile at Lucas, but her smile nearly fractured.
“’Morning, Lucas,” she said.
From habit, Lucas tried to prop himself up again, but Cal’s hand was planted on his chest, holding him still. Lucas grunted and gave up. “I’m so sorry about last night, Nita,” he said.
“I know,” Nita said and patted his hand. “None of us wanted that.”
“Hank’s here too.” Cal turned to look over his shoulder. “Come on over and say hi to Uncle Luke, Hank.”
Lucas caught a glimpse of Hank near the quarters door, his GamePort headpiece hanging around his neck. Hank lingered near Jared, who was frying an egg on the stove. Lucas felt a wave of hunger so severe that he thought he might faint.
Jared gave Hank a nudge, and Hank shuffled toward the bed, reluctant and wide-eyed.
“Go on, Hank,” Jared said. “He won’t bite.”
Hank came to the bed, but his eyes dropped away from Lucas’s.
“Sorry you had to see that last night, Hank,” Lucas said. “But I’m fine.”
“Can I…look?” Hank said, gazing toward Lucas’s midsection.
Cal and Nita started to protest, but Lucas waved at them to be quiet. “No, it’s all right. I’m pretty damn curious myself.”
Lucas pulled away the sheet and heavy blanket, shivering when he lifted his shirt. Three faces stared with shining, awestruck eyes.
“Holy shit,” Hank said. Cal might have backhanded Hank for that language in front of his mother any other day, but Cal didn’t move. Like his son and wife, he only blinked and stared.
“You should have seen him last night,” Jared said from the stove. “Black and blue.”
Lucas raised his head as much as he had the strength for, gazing down his chest toward his stomach. He couldn’t see any marks or bruises, except for the scar he’d had across his chest since his bicycle crashed through a fence when he was ten. Last night’s bloody sheet still lay crumpled in the corner, but Lucas’s body wore no signs of its trauma.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Lucas said.
Hank grinned. “What would happen if you exploded into a million pieces?”
“Let’s just hope to God I never find out,” Lucas said.
Cal glanced at the wall clock, uneasy. He webbed his fingers to comb away hair from his ears. “I’m glad you’re alive and kicking, Doc, but this isn’t a social visit.”
Hank’s grin faded, and he stepped away from the bed. Nita took Cal’s pale, freckled hand and clung hard, raising their linked hands to her bosom. Her eyes were mournful.
“What’s going on?” Lucas said.
“We need help,” Cal said.
“Are they treating you badly?” Lucas said.
Cal glared. “Is that a fucking joke?”
Jared excused himself past the Duharts to bring Lucas a sandwich on a plate. “Sorry,” Jared said to Cal. “Protein helps him heal.”
Lucas was grateful for the diversion. If the Duharts were about to ask him to help them escape, he wasn’t ready. His mouth sank into the sandwich, and he nearly tore off half of it in one bite. The eggs were hot enough to scald his tongue, but he didn’t care. Lucas chewed fast and swallowed. “Where are the twins?” Lucas said, his mouth still half full.
“With Abena,” Nita said. “Just for a few minutes, so we could talk.”
“Let’s talk, then,” Lucas said. “What happened while I was out?”
Cal and Nita glanced at each other, fortifying each other with their eyes. Nita held Hank close with her free arm, as if to protect him.
Cal took a deep breath. “We’ve decided to go through with it, Doc,” he said.
“Go through with what?”
This time, Nita spoke. “What they did to Justin. The…memory wash.”
“We want to get it over with,” Cal said. “We’re leaving today. Right now.”
Lucas’s throat sealed itself, and suddenly the smell of the food made him sick to his stomach. Lucas studied their faces. Their eyes were set with resolve, even Hank’s.
“Jesus,” Lucas said. For several seconds, he couldn’t shake a coherent thought loose. “What they did to O’Neal was a punishment. You thought it was cruel.”
“Not if it means we can get the hell out of here,” Cal said.
Lucas glanced at Hank, whose face was still pudgy with baby fat. Hank was only fourteen! A memory wash would wipe away his life.
With an effort that made his arms tremble, Lucas propped himself against the wall. He couldn’t lie down for this conversation. The Duharts were so scared that they weren’t thinking straight; it was a perfect storm of irrationality.
“Cal…Nita…can we talk about this with Hank out of the room?”
Cal shook his head. “Hank was gonna’ help me shoot my way out of here last night,” he said. “If he’s man enough for that, he’s man enough to have his own say.”
Hank nodded. “I’ve already decided, Uncle Luke.”
“Cal, I know Teka knocked you out last night,” Lucas said. “Maybe you’re still recovering. You can’t expect your mind to just snap back—”
“Don’t piss me off, Doc.” Cal gritted his teeth. He hovered above Lucas, lowering his voice. “You’ve missed a few news bulletins. The Department of Homeland Security’s looking for them. Terrorist talk. The Africans are suited up like they’re going to war.”
“We weren’t sure before, especially about Hank…,” Nita said, her voice cracking. “But we are now. Help us get out while we can, Lucas. Please.”
When his sight started to dim, Lucas stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth. He didn’t taste anything. He was near fainting. He could barely follow Cal and Nita.
“…they got Justin on a plane home,” Nita was saying. “That’s all we want. They can send us to our house in Antigua—”
“Anywhere but here,” Cal said. “We’ve all got ID cards and passports. We should be able to travel, if we leave right fucking now.”
“We’ll figure out the rest,” Nita said. “We’ll be all right, Lucas.”
Lucas raised his hand, trying to shake his head clear. “Just…slow down.”
The door to the unit slammed, and they all
turned around, startled. Lucas thought Yonas or one of the immortals had entered without permission, but instead, Jared was gone. Of course. He’d gone to find Jessica. The plan wouldn’t have a prayer without her.
“Doc, every minute lost gives them more excuse to hold us,” Cal said. “There’s some kind of High Alert in the works on the I-10 corridor. Checkpoints.”
“What happened?” Lucas said.
“Speaking as a monkey, I’m out of the loop,” Cal said, a bitter glint in his eye. “But it sounds like somebody tipped them off. I’m betting it’s got to do with Caitlin and Fana.”
“Then they’ll make sure we’re all taken somewhere safe, Cal,” Lucas said. “They’ve kept themselves hidden for more than five hundred years.”
All civility fell away from Cal’s voice. “You’ll either help us or you won’t.”
“Fine. Right,” Lucas said. “But there’s got to be another way. Let’s stop and…think.”
Cal lifted Lucas’s shirt again and pressed his hand against Lucas’s abdomen, prodding. “Lucas, my rig rammed into you at a good twenty miles per hour, maybe more. Probably broke half your ribs and did God-knows-what to your insides. You flew in the air like a rag doll and ended up hugging a tree. But now you’re as good as new.”
Lucas nodded. “That’s right, Cal. And you’ll have my blood whenever you need it. I’ll convince Jessica to let all of you undergo a Ceremony to have your own. That’s a vow.”
Cal blinked, moved. “And it’s a mighty generous offer, Doc.”
Nita was shaking her head. “No,” she said. Her voice skated at the edge of a sob. “Lucas, I was a history major. The history books are nothing but records of the punishment inflicted on places where riches are found. Salt. Gold. Cotton. Diamonds. Oil. What you’re walking around with in your veins is all that and more. It’s a blessing. But—”
“We can’t afford it,” Cal said. He sighed, rubbing his son’s close-cropped hair.
“They took twenty years from Justin,” Lucas said. “What about that price? You don’t want to remember your time with your children? You want to throw away how you watched Hank grow up from diapers? You want to deny your own son his childhood memories?”
Cal’s eyes burned into him. “We’ve known each other a long time, Doc Shepard. Maybe we haven’t always seen eye to eye on politics and race, all that. Remember how you used to always say you grew up in a different Georgia than me? Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t understand a man wanting his family to be free.”
Cal was right: Lucas couldn’t hold his friend’s gaze. He would do the same thing for his family, and Cal knew it.
There was a knock. The door cracked open, and Jared stuck his head in.
“Uncle Cal?” Jared said. “I’ve got Aunt Jessica out here. And…Teka.”
Cal looked wild-eyed, and he seemed to shrink. The sudden shift in Cal’s body language told Lucas how invaded Cal felt after last night’s mental manipulation. Cal stared at the table. “These are your people, Doc,” Cal said quietly. “Say what you need to say.”
“Just watch your temper, Cal. Promise me.”
“Promise,” Cal said, although his teeth were glued tight.
“I’ll get you all out of here,” Lucas said and waved his son inside. If he blew it again, Cal and his family might not survive.
Nita accepted an apologetic, tearful hug from Jessica but quickly gestured for Jessica to sit at the table. Jessica and Nita had grown apart over the years, and it showed. Nita no longer trusted her. Teka looked distracted, but he sat too.
Jessica gazed at Lucas with horror as he explained what the Duharts were willing to do to be released. After he finished, the room was silent for a long time.
Cal sat strangling a cloth napkin while he fought his temper and his nerves. Jared stood over the table, transfixed. Teka listened with his eyes closed, a million miles away.
“An extraordinary request,” Teka said finally, his eyes still closed. His face showed no emotion. “And extraordinarily ill-timed. The effort alone…”
Blood crept into Cal’s face in splotchy red spots. Lucas knew that Cal would rather punch Teka through a wall than engage in polite debate about his family’s future.
Lucas’s voice cleared. “Then let them walk away free and clear, without restrictions. Like they tried to do last night.”
Jessica gave a long, pained sigh, shaking her head. She squeezed Nita’s hand. “When Fana comes back, I’ll get you out on your terms,” she said. “I just need time.”
“When Fana comes back?” Cal said, finally breaking in. “Don’t you mean if?”
“Jess, it’s too late,” Nita said. Politely, she slipped her hand away from Jessica’s. “No more promises. If we give up the memories, how can you say no?”
“How can I sit by and watch friends do that?” Jessica said.
Cal laughed grimly. “There’s plenty you sit by and watch, Jess. Plenty.”
Lucas swung his legs over the side of the bed. “They have a right to go, and we don’t have a right to stop them. When we agreed to stay here, none of us knew all the facts.”
When Teka looked squarely at him, Lucas felt a chill, a sensation of being physically touched. “This crisis has grown much bigger than the handful of people in this room,” Teka said. “And certainly bigger than the whims of three mortals.”
You mean three monkeys, Lucas couldn’t help thinking.
Suddenly, Teka’s voice filled Lucas’s head: I CAN ALLEVIATE THEIR FEAR.
The effect of hearing Teka’s voice so clearly while Teka only stared silently from across the room was so disorienting that Lucas shook his head hard. Jessica gave Teka a discreet glance, then she looked at Lucas. She had heard Teka’s voice, too.
Lucas shook his head. “If it’s worth saying, say it in front of them,” he told Teka.
A wince of irritation passed across Teka’s lips. Teka turned to Cal. “I offer you peace of mind until Fana’s return,” he said. “I will soften your mood. Without your fear to hamper you—”
Cal suddenly let out a yell, and he lunged from his chair, wrapping his arm around Teka’s neck. Cal’s weight threw Teka’s pinewood chair backward, and it cracked beneath them on the floor. The bump toppled a drinking glass, which broke inches behind them.
“Cal, no!” Lucas yelled. From where he sat, he couldn’t tell if Cal had snapped the Life Brother’s neck in half.
“Stop it!” Jessica said, leaping to her feet.
Cal’s arm swung, and he punched Teka’s face as he choked him. One punch. Two.
“Don’t you fuck with me, you sonofabitch!” Cal said through a spray of spittle. He punched Teka a third time; the blow was hard. Teka groaned.
All sound seemed to vanish as Lucas lurched to standing. He grabbed Cal before he could hit Teka again, but Lucas couldn’t unwind Cal’s arm from Teka’s neck without help from Jared. Cal was still panting and cursing when they pulled him near the bed, and Cal might have yanked free of them if his burly son hadn’t come and hugged him around the waist. Cal bucked with such fervor that he was a challenge even for three.
“Dad, quit it!” Hank said.
Cal finally stopped fighting and hung limply. He was exhausted from his outburst, breathing in harsh gasps. “What’s wrong, asshole?” Cal taunted Teka. “Didn’t see that coming?”
Teka lay on the floor, holding his throat, his bottom lip split and bleeding. Droplets of blood stained his white tunic, near the complex pattern embroidered on his collar to signify his station as the Highest Teacher. Jessica knelt beside Teka, offering her arm to help him stand.
“Forgive him, Teka,” Jessica said, her head inclined almost in a bow. “He’s very upset.”
Lucas had known the Life Brothers would come, but the sound of the door slamming open against the wall still made his heart drop. Fasilidas and Yonas ran into the room with batons pointed like guns, and for a grim millisecond Lucas expected to witness a slaughter like the one he had seen at Jessica’s cli
nic in Botswana.
The Life Brothers’ faces were angrier than the faces of the white gunmen. Those had only been mercenaries carrying out their work; the Life Brothers were enraged. Fasilidas’s bright, youthful smile was gone, and a glint in Yonas’s eye made Lucas wonder how they had ever mistaken him for a docile caretaker.
Cal was ready for them, swaying from side to side, his eyes ready to fight to the death. Lucas prayed that Hank wasn’t about to see his father killed.
“Teka, he’s under duress,” Lucas said. “That won’t happen again.”
Fasilidas and Yonas had their eyes on Cal, but they each grabbed Teka’s arms to lift him up. When no one spoke, Lucas realized that the Life Brothers were communicating silently.
“Get out of this room,” a gravelly voice said, but Lucas couldn’t tell which of the men had spoken. A blink later, he realized that the voice had been a woman’s.
Jessica’s fists were clenched at her sides, elbows locked as she glared at Fasilidas. Lucas’s heartbeat rattled in his eardrums as he waited to find out if the Life Brothers were willing to defer to his sister-in-law, or if they only pretended to.
Fasilidas bowed, looking mortified. “Blessed Mother—”
“Never enter my quarters without my permission, Fasilidas,” Jessica said. “How dare you! Now leave us.” Her voice was an earthquake.
Their eyes still on Cal, neither immortal moved.
Teka delicately wiped blood from his lip with the back of his wrist. Finally, he nodded to the men. “Leave us,” he said. Teka probably said much more, but he didn’t share it aloud.
Without a word, Fasilidas and Yonas gave final bows and closed the door quietly behind them. Lucas was so relieved that he nearly swooned. He staggered to an empty chair.
“That was beyond foolish,” Teka said to Cal. He went to the sink and turned on a stream of water to rinse blood from his hand. “My Brothers are incensed.”
Lucas pounded the table. “Let them go, Teka. If you don’t, Cal will have to answer for this.”
“All of us answer for what we do,” Teka said, sounding noncommittal. He turned off the water and shook his hands dry.
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