“You will never say that again. Walter, you will never say that again.” Her voice dropped even lower as on those mornings when she had worked all night long. “Go find your children.”
Walter’s breath caught in his throat. Trask flung his arms from her and he stumbled backwards as she walked away muttering, “you sick bastard.” She yanked the handset from the wall and hit two buttons. “The cleanup team will stand down. E4 leads report to the courtyard immediately.”
Walter straightened his shirt. Without a word the scientist took his knapsack and jacket from the hook in the corner. He bent to the sea of pictures and selected one composite of five pictures. Rhea and the four puppies. He shoved a handful of gum into his bag. Then he pushed past Trask and left the office.
The Director made a note to pull his lab plants for loyalty testing. Trask seemed to be improving her conditioning skills. She couldn’t be allowed to have too much control over her employees. As much as the Biotech Research divisions amused him, the Director would not permit another disaster like the fire that had taken the genius Kathrine Coogan from them. Their successes were few and far between since Coogan had died and each one was being tested by the secondary team in Rotterdam. The Consortium was taking no chances this time. Coogan should have been more closely monitored.
On a whim, the Director pulled up restored footage from the fire. They had not wired the original division buildings as they had this new facility but there were a few security cameras. The only footage that could be recovered came from the parking lot cameras. Why did nearly everyone leave the building except for Trask, Coogan, and a dozen others? Of the hundreds of people working in that building, only three died that day.
The Director folded his hands and laid his chins on them. He watched the three angles of employees chatting as they exited each of the heavily secured doors of the building in an endless stream. His fourth screen showed only a patch of grass interrupted by a few feet and later flaming debris until the camera was taken out by the last explosion.
His phone sang out a passage from Stravinsky to tell him it was time to check in on L.A. Headquarters. He ignored it. Lights turned on in his little garden and the temperature dropped, both trying to get his attention.
The Director buried his nose in his knuckles and focused on the fourth screen. The camera should have shown the main entrance to the division campus. It showed grass. Someone had moved that camera.
The Director cut the other three playbacks. He pulled the cord of his headphones from the primary jack and plugged it directly into the audio feed of screen four. He turned the volume to ten.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sher grabbed her go bag from under the bed and followed seconds behind Clark out the door and down the stairs. She was thrown from her feet when they ran into Bailey zipping up the stairs.
“You have to come. You have to come help him!”
Woodford barked furiously.
Clark caught his son when the kid’s sudden stop sent him tumbling. Sher pulled her feet in on the landing to stay out of their way.
“We’re coming,” Clark assured him. “Who’s hurt?”
“Mom, bring your bag.” Not waiting to catch his balance, Bailey tore back down the stairs.
“I’ve got it right here. Who’s hurt?” Sher scrambled to her feet and followed.
“Davis!” He ripped a blanket from the back of the orange couch. “I saw the tree falling but I couldn’t catch it.”
“It’s okay, kiddo. You aren’t infinitely strong.”
“No Dad. I could have caught it. I could have lifted it off him but I didn’t because then he’d see.”
Sher pulled her son from his dad. “It’s okay. We’ll go help him. Is he. . . Where is he?”
Bailey led them out the front door. Mr. Rick was crossing the street with his cat in his arms.
He held out his phone. “I’ve got 911. Can you talk to them?”
“No!” Bailey yelled as he jogged towards the rental cottage at the curve of the cul-de-sac.
Clark slowed. “Tell them to send an ambulance. We’ll come back and direct them if we can’t get Davis out.”
“But how is he hurt?” Mr. Rick whined the question.
Letitia Rucker burst through her front door yelling, “Go get my grandson. Sher, you do whatever you can. Go, Clark. George Rick, you give me that phone.”
Clark caught up with Bailey and Sher at the stone passageway. She was already out of breath.
“You boys go. Make a mess and I’ll follow your path.”
Bailey nodded. “We’ll send Laylea back to lead you.” He leaned forward to put on speed.
But Clark grabbed his shirt tail. “No. Davis will notice if you get back too soon.”
They kept running, but not as fast as the boys could.
“He was half unconscious from blood loss, Dad. If I hadn’t cauterized the artery, he’d be dead already.”
Sher pushed herself to catch up. She slowed her son even more. “Which artery? Bailey, what happened exactly?”
Bailey stumbled through the trees, trying to slow when his legs wanted to race. “I was jogging with Laylea,” he cut off his Dad before he could even ask the question, “Yes, slow enough for her. We heard Parker and Davis saying hi to someone. I ran closer and I couldn’t see the guy real well but he looked like a brown Yeti.”
“Bigfoot,” Clark automatically supplied.
“Yeah. He was chopping down a tree and when the guys stopped to talk to him, he pushed the tree over at them. Parker ran. But Davis got caught in the branches. One broken branch spiked his left leg and the trunk trapped his body. I thought he was crushed. I could have,” he stumbled again, pushing off a tree to keep upright, “I could have got there but I kept thinking Davis and Parker and this bigfoot would see and then the Consortium would come for you, Dad.” A sob rolled in. “But I did go, following Laylea’s pace and when we got to him, there was blood everywhere. Parker was covered in it because it was just spurting from Davis’ leg. I know you’re not supposed to pull things out but Parker didn’t. He saw that, that living stake in his brother and he pulled it out. I swear to god, he didn’t see me do it. I made sure my body was between us. And I pulled off my jacket and tied it around the leg after to explain why the blood stopped. Davis was screaming and I wanted to lift the tree off him, but— Dad! Please can we run faster? A . . . A little faster?”
“Bailey,” Sher stopped her son. She took him by both arms and held him in place with all of her strength despite her burning lungs. “This is important. You cauterized the femoral artery?”
Bailey nodded. His eyes were too full with tears to see clearly. But Clark saw terror cross his wife’s face.
“Go.” Her voice was firm but painfully quiet. “Clark,” she nodded slightly, giving him permission to run full out, “Go.”
Clark took her medical bag and the boys ran. Sher followed as best she could. Five minutes later she could hear distant shouting and she was met by a frantic Laylea, blood dripping from her little body. The dog skittered to a stop. Sher bent over her knees, gasping for breath.
“Do—” She waited another moment, telling her lungs to relax. “Is he alive?”
Laylea barked so hard her head bobbed.
“Go.”
Laylea took off, stopping every now and then to be sure Sher was behind her. She detoured a couple of times and after tripping through a rock quarry when she didn’t trust the dog, Sher followed her exactly. Clark, Parker, and Bailey waited for her.
“Should we lift?” Clark asked.
At the same time Parker told her, “Clark said to wait for you.”
“Give me a second.” Sher had to climb through the branches to get to Davis’s side. She heard the boy cry out as she moved the tree. She cried back, “Davis, what’s your name?”
After a moment, the boy replied, “Davis Fitz Rucker.”
His voice was strained but she heard nothing bubbling in the tone. Nothing to indicate his lungs were p
unctured.
“Boy your mom likes jazz, huh?” She fell out of the branches into wet leaves and barely heard Davis’ slow response.
“Dad named us. He plays tenor sax.”
“Really?” She liked the strength in his voice. “Bailey plays the tuba. Not much call for jazz tuba these days.”
Sher pushed past the three waiting to lift the tree. Parker crouched closest to his brother and Sher laid a hand on him as she looked over Davis. “Breathe, Parker. Let the blood flow.”
She didn’t wait to see if his body responded to her suggestions. She set a cold hand on either side of Davis’ face and crooned, “Sleep. Go ahead and sleep and get warm.”
When his eyes floated shut, she hunkered down and reached under his shoulders to grip his armpits. Behind her, Laylea scampered through the leaves, dragging branches aside and nosing at rocks. Pretending to play, she cleared space for Sher to back into.
Sher squeezed Davis’ head between her forearms to keep the neck straight. She took a breath, tensed her muscles, and called out, “Lift.”
Sher pulled. Davis’ body moved a few inches, then stopped when his pant leg caught on a branch. Laylea ducked under the tree and clamped down on the pants. She growled and tugged, throwing her head from side to side as she dug her Jack Russell legs into the dirt. Sher and Laylea both fell over when the pants ripped. Sher scrambled to get her feet under her while Laylea hopped back up and kept watch as the mom pulled Davis all the way out from under the tree.
She laid him down and began a full examination even as she yelled, “Clear.”
“No!” Parker yelled as the tree’s weight lowered his hands. “The dog.”
Laylea barked twice. She pulled her rear paws from the pit of mud that may have saved Davis from being crushed. Dragging hard with her front paws, she got herself free, growling fiercely at Sher when the doctor looked like she was going to leave her patient to help. Her legs popped free much as Davis’ pants had and she rolled to safety, stopping when she hit the unconscious boy.
“Okay. Clear.” Parker fell to his knees when they finally dropped the tree trunk.
Bailey imitated him. Clark rubbed his arms but he moved over, ready to lift Davis on Sher’s word.
“Spine seems okay. Some minor cuts. Some worse.”
Clark leaned in and murmured, “leg?”
Sher barely shook her head. “Get him to the ambulance.”
Clark didn’t wait for any further confirmation. He lifted the boy with barely a grunt and sat on the trunk to swing his legs over. He was nearly out of sight before Parker was over and after him. Bailey went to follow but Sher tugged at his sweatpants. “Stay with Parker. Don’t help him too much.”
Bailey nodded. He cleared the trunk with one hand to assist and jogged after the others.
Sher brushed at the soaking mess of her pajama pants. She hitched her medical kit more securely on her shoulder and looked toward the base of the tree. It looked like several trees had been cleared from an area just beyond. An odd arrangement caught her attention and she picked her way toward it.
One short, high pitched cry drew her eyes down. Laylea looked up at her and quickly looked away. The dog tried to walk along the trunk but the left hip wouldn’t take her weight.
“Oh, I hate that man.” She picked up a rock and threw it into the deep woods.
The rock careened off a tree, crashing to a stop in some leaves. Sher fell silent. She palpated Laylea’s hip and massaged it a bit before lifting the dog into her arms. They walked towards the tree stump. When they reached it, Sher glanced off in the direction the boys had run. Then she looked in the opposite direction, toward the remains of a rough lean-to at the edge of the clearing.
“No.” Laylea was startled by the mom’s rough voice. “Your bum hip is my fault, Laylea.” She pushed off the stump and crossed the clearing. “I created this human research program to see what we could turn men into. And I didn’t destroy it well enough when I left. Don’t hate Hardknock. He’s not a bad man. He hurt you because I created the conditioning program that hurt him.”
She circled the pile of logs, rolling a few with one foot. She bent to touch a tanned hide that might have acted as a door. Under one corner of the hide she found a scrap of paper torn from a book. She brushed a little dirt from the page and read.
“’Don’t keep telling me what you hope!’ Howled the little man. ‘Keep listening to what I hope’. He pulled the bell rope savagely.” She flipped the little scrap of page and read, “You know where they catch that crook — that guy has a little finger off one hand and wears a glove to cover it up? That’s Thurber. Was . . .”
Sher stood. She looked around the area but saw nothing but trees and leaves and rocks. She couldn’t see a forest the way Clark or Bailey could. And suddenly she felt uncomfortable out here by herself.
“Let’s go home.” She started to say Laylea’s name but stopped herself.
She slogged through the wet forest, following the trail of broken branches and crushed leaves left in the boys’ wake.
“Davis is lucky to have Parker. He’ll take care of him. My big brother watched over me whenever I was hurting. Just like Bailey watches over you.”
Laylea barked.
Sher wandered off in her thoughts for a while. When she spoke again it was like she was talking to herself. “He’s gonna be okay. We’ll train him and he won’t make a mistake like this again.”
Sher tripped. She caught herself against a trunk with just her shoulders and leaned there for a moment before pushing off to keep trudging forward. They had spotted the sequoia triplets that led to the line of bitter cherry trees that promised the stone walls would soon be in sight when a breeze rustled the treetops. Sher shivered.
“I’m carrying a blood-covered dog through a dew dappled forest in Hello Kitty pajamas and a pair of bright yellow galoshes.” She wiped a hand along Laylea’s back and down her tail. Her hand came away covered in brown and red. “You are getting a bath when we get home.” She lifted Laylea and tilted her head at the dog. “Unless you want a shower?”
Laylea bared her teeth and growled.
“Okay.” Sher brushed her wet hackles back. “A nice warm bath it is. For both of us.”
Laylea settled into the crook of Sher’s arm. She tried to keep her mind off her throbbing hip and Davis’ cold dead leg by thinking of the nice warm bath followed by a full body rubbing with a sun-heated towel and a long snuggle with her dad, her brothers, and a book under a thick comforter.
Chapter Thirty
Sher stomped the snow from her boots in the garage. The truck was still gone. She lifted her bike onto its ceiling hook beside Bailey’s. A ten-year-old mountain bike leaned against the shelves. Sher hung her headlamp on the bike’s handlebars and her heavy coat on the peg by the door. She took advantage of the truck’s absence and squirted some oil into the never-used hinges of the rear garage door, mentally adding the escape route to her spring cleaning checklist.
She opened the kitchen door to enter a tropical forest based action film. She hung her bag on the hook by the door and grabbed a handful of nuts from the bowl on the center island. She stopped by the radio closet. The door was open. When she got closer she heard static coming from the set. She shut it down.
Woodford met her in the hallway. His tail circled wildly and when she bent to scritch his head he fell to his side and raised a leg.
“Oh, belly rubs, huh?” Sher complied, scratching up and down the rough fur on his chest and stomach.
Woodford followed her to the family room arch. He trotted under the two boys’ legs propped on the coffee table and circled to his bed. Sher watched the boys’ avatars swing around in treetops battling a pack of pterodactyls.
“Hey, Thomas.”
The boy jumped. His green sweatshirt hood fell back. Nice to see the kid might be moving out of his all black phase.
He turned to smile at her without taking his hands off the controller. “Hi, Dr. Hillen.”
S
her let them defeat the horde of colorful dinosaurs. The female avatars high-fived and leaped into their airship.
“Hey, Thomas, do you know what Bailey got on his math test?”
“Yeah, Dr. Hillen. He got a D.”
Thomas’ red-headed avatar stopped moving. The kid looked at Bailey and then over his shoulder at Sher.
“Gotta go, Bailey.” He flipped his hood up and grabbed his book bag from the table. “See ya. Bye, Dr. Hillen.”
“Bye, Thomas. Ride safe.”
Bailey jumped up from the couch and ran after his friend. He avoided Sher’s eyes.
Woodford ran after him. Sher shut down the game system and disconnected it from the TV. She gathered the bowl of popcorn and two empty glasses from the table, wiping away a wet ring with her sleeve. She’d bet Thomas had been the one using a coaster.
Light suddenly flashed overhead, snapping around the mirrors set in the corners of the ceiling. Sher crossed the room to raise the window shades. Her spirits rose as well at the sight of the battered old truck inching into the neighborhood. She felt for him and Laylea and breathed a sigh of relief that both were cold but safe. Lucky Lee lay tucked in Clark’s lap under his jacket and seatbelt.
Sher joined Bailey in the garage in time to see Clark stop Thomas. She grabbed her jacket from the hook and went out to take Laylea.
“Welcome home.” She kissed him, whispering, “The early warning system worked great.”
“Great!” Clark’s cheeks shone with the chill. “I’m gonna take Thomas home.”
Thomas shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll drop you off by the church so you can say you were at the library.” He kissed Laylea on the head and then his wife. “Actually, I need to go to the library. I’m gonna get some textbooks on navigation.”
“Drive safe.”
“Okay,” Thomas swung a leg off his bike. “I can ride home from the library.”
“Only if they’ve plowed Elm. Help me put your bike in back.” He kissed Sher again. “What a flight. We’re starving.”
WereHuman - The Witch's Daughter: Consortium Battle book 1 (Wyrdos) Page 20