Summoned Dreams
Page 21
“I get it,” I stubbed out the cigarette. “And when put that way, you’re right. It’s a serious problem.”
Plague
She had spent three days testing and marking her mice and rats. Over eighty percent were showing signs of infection. That was a good thing. The strain of bubonic plague was very contagious. Some of the rats were even showing signs of having caught pneumonic plague. Their tiny, rasping coughs could be heard over the squeaking of their relatives.
The captives were starting to turn on each other though, attacking the sickest members and killing them to try to keep themselves from catching the horrid pneumonic mutation. It was time to start releasing some of them.
She opened a slide door in the colony’s large habitat set up. There were roughly six miles of tubing in the shed for the rats to run through. There were twenty large boxes where they could nest, feed, and drink. However, this section had been off limits to them since they arrived.
They charged into the new area. When she felt she had plenty, she closed the door to the dismay of the others. She detached the container of rats.
It was dark in the city. She was supposed to be working. Her job was to remove rats from the area. Now, she used that to her advantage. She grabbed the traps and put the fresh rats into her containment boxes. One very large one hissed at her. The others kept away from it. She’d caught an alpha, her first. She smiled at his bared teeth.
She took the infected rats and released them. They immediately scurried away into the darkness. They would find the holes and infect more rats. They might start infecting the animal population within the next thirty-six hours.
Tomorrow, she would return with a new batch of infected rats. In a few days, her newest detainees would be carrying the deadly bacteria, ready to be released back into the gutters of the city.
It was going to be a wonderful week.
Epilogue
Xavier and I drove back to Kansas City. Instead of going to the Federal Guard neighborhood and our homes, we went straight to the hospital. He checked me in using my MRI scans. They would do a battery of tests.
After three days, they cut out the tumor from my brain and sent it for testing. By the next morning, I was already feeling better. Or rather, a little more like myself.
When they did finally release me, I didn’t go straight home. Malachi picked me up at the hospital and while we did enter the neighborhood, he dragged me to his house. I didn’t want to go to Malachi’s home. I wanted to sleep in my own bed and actually get some sleep.
The living room in Malachi’s house was decorated with dark woods with red tints. The walls were painted in a beautiful shade of purplish red with light blue accents. A large couch was the focal point. The material was a deep brown and plush, like a fleece blanket. It was onto this that I plopped my tired butt.
As far as decor went, he had a fine collection of framed album covers covering everything from The Cure to U2. A few were signed, all looked brand new. However, I knew Malachi had gotten most of them when we were kids, before the invention of the CD player.
His mantle held the signed baseball I had gotten him when we were children, still in its shadowbox and proudly displayed as if he had hit it himself. On either side were photos of the two of us. All of them from our youth.
He paced in front of a gas fireplace. His cowboy boots echoed as they hit against the hardwood floors. It was tailor made for a bachelor like Malachi. I wondered how much renovation had been done before he moved in.
His normally fluid movements were no longer fluid. He didn’t stalk, he clomped. He was unnerved by something. I imagined that something had to do with me. I wasn’t really in the mood for another discussion about my importance.
“Malachi, I’d really like to go home. I’m tired,” I told him.
“If you lose your position with the Marshals, you won’t be able to live here anymore,” he blurted.
“I am aware.”
“If that happens, you can’t go back to public housing. You’ve become too recognizable. Serial killers will be beating on your door day and night. It won’t take long for one to find a weakness,” his voice was rising in octaves, not volume.
“Are you panicking?” I asked.
“A little, perhaps,” Malachi answered.
“Stop, it’s weird.”
“I can’t. I’ve been trying to stop since Gabriel told me about your condition.” Malachi stopped pacing. “If you lose your position with the Marshals, I want you to move in with me.”
“Not in this lifetime,” I told him.
“Fine, I demand that you move in with me.”
“Demand?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “You demand it?” I stood up, found his Taser on the coffee table and pulled the trigger. “Demand, my ass.”
I walked the three blocks to my house. He was right. I wasn’t willing to admit that or move in with him though. I wasn’t sure what I would do if I couldn’t return to work.
When I arrived at my house, my front door was unlocked. Lucas and Trevor sat in the living room. They looked grim.
“I’m not dead, guys,” I told them.
“No, but we’ve been thinking,” Lucas started. He pursed his lips together. “If you lose your badge for medical reasons, you’ll probably have to move.”
“You too?” I interrupted. “Malachi just reminded me of all this and demanded I move in with him if that happens.”
“Well, we are here to offer you part of our place,” Trevor said. “We can apply for a bigger place, one with a walkout basement. We’ll fix up the downstairs and you can have your own apartment.”
“Thanks, I really appreciate it, but I’m already starting to feel better. I even tasered Malachi when he demanded I move in with him,” I told them.
“Well, just know that our house is your house if you want it,” Lucas told me. “Do you need anything?”
“A nap. I don’t know why they put people in the hospital for recovery. They don’t let you sleep there.”
“Dinner is going to be at 6:30 tonight. We’ll bring it over to you,” Trevor informed me.
“Don’t go out of your way for me. I’m sure I have a take-out menu around here,” I replied.
“Nonsense.” Trevor waved his hand at me. “You know how I like to cook and it won’t just be the three of us, it will be all of us. We are just having it at your place so you don’t have to travel far.”
“It’s across the street,” I frowned.
“Honey, they cut a hole in your head. When they do it to Xavier, it isn’t a big deal, he’s Xavier, but this was you and that makes it a big deal,” Trevor answered. “Now stop arguing and go take a nap. What’s done is done and this is as done as it gets. We’ll figure out your hair in a few days when it starts growing back. Do you want me to brush it for you before you go to sleep?”
If anyone else had offered to brush my hair because of the giant hole in my head, I would have tasered them. However, coming from Trevor, it made me smile. When I had first met him, he had instantly fallen in love with the idea of having a living doll. At first, it had been weird, but we had grown accustomed to our respective positions and it was no longer weird. It was welcoming.
“Nope,” I answered. “Are you cooking here or just bringing it over?”
“Cooking will be done here. I already know to bring my own cookware.” Trevor smiled at me. “And we’ll work out a bathing routine for you.”
“You do know they put the chunk of skull back after removing the tumor, right?” I asked.
“Yes, but you still have staples and bandages on your head,” he told me.
Xavier had been with me during surgery. They had planned just to drill a small hole and take the tumor out, but I couldn’t handle it. The sound of the drill, the pressure on my skull, I had started screaming and there wasn’t enough sedatives to stop it. They’d resorted to a more invasive, more complicated method and cut a small square in my skull. For some reason, the bone saw hadn’t bothered me.
/> Trevor and Lucas left. I undressed as I headed upstairs. I would pick them up later. Once in my room, I grabbed a pair of pirate pajamas. They had the skull and crossbones on them with the words “Lazy Bones” written under each picture. Nyleena had gotten them for me for Christmas. I put them on and climbed into bed. My phone rang.
“Hey,” Xavier’s voice came over the line.
“No, I’m not moving in with you,” I said.
“Good, that would cramp my style. Hard to bring home girls when you have a female roommate. That sounds like a Lucas thing. He already lives with his soul mate.” Xavier said. “I just heard that it is going to be a few more days on the biopsy results.”
“That sucks,” I told him.
“Yes, it does,” he answered. “Lucas told me you tasered Malachi.”
“I did. He was being a jerk.”
“That’s a very good sign.” Xavier hung up on me.
Also by Hadena James
The Dreams & Reality Series
Tortured Dreams (Book 1)
Elysium Dreams (Book 2)
Mercurial Dreams (Book 3)
Explosive Dreams (Book 4)
Cannibal Dreams (Book 5)
Butchered Dreams (Book 6)
The Brenna Strachan Series (Urban Fantasy)
Dark Cotillion (Book 1)
Dark Illumination (Book 2)
Dark Resurrections (Book 3)
Dark Legacies (Book 4)
The Dysfunctional Chronicles
The Dysfunctional Affair (Book 1)
The Dysfunctional Valentine (Book 2)
The Dysfunctional Honeymoon (Book 3)
The Dysfunctional Proposal (Book 4)
The Dysfunctional Holiday (Book 5)
Short Story Collection
Tales to Read Before the End of the World