The Iron Quil
Shelena Shorts
The Iron Quill
Published through Lands Atlantic Publishing
www.landsatlantic.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2011 by Shelena Shorts
ISBN: 978-0982500545 (print)
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author or publisher.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: THE WAIT
Chapter 2: TWO DAYS EARLIER: DR. EVAN CARTER
Chapter 3: THE SHARP EDGE OF PATIENCE
Chapter 4: THE TRUTH: DR. EVAN CARTER
Chapter 5: GONE FOREVER
Chapter 6: THE LIMIT: DR. EVAN CARTER
Chapter 7: THE ARREST
Chapter 8: THE CALL: DR. EVAN CARTER
Chapter 9: TIM WALTERS TALKS
Chapter 10: THE CLOCK: DR. EVAN CARTER
Chapter 11: SECOND GUESSING
Chapter 12: DAWN: DR. EVAN CARTER
Chapter 13: THE RETURN
Chapter 14: MATURITY
Chapter 15: THE LITTLE GIVER
Chapter 16: COMING CLEAN
Chapter 17: THE OTHER RETURN
Chapter 18: THE UNEXPECTED
Chapter 19: THE PIECES OF THE PAST
Chapter 20: THE MISSING LINK
Chapter 21: THE NEWS
Chapter 22: THE CLIMB
Chapter 23: IN THE WIND
Chapter 24: ON THE BRIGHT SIDE
Chapter 25: THE FINAL RESULTS
Chapter 26: COMING TOGETHER
Chapter 27: THE VOW
Chapter 28: THE FIRST TIME
Chapter 29: TOMORROW
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
THE WAIT
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. I just want to keep my eyes, thank you.”
I suppose that was called for. After all, just two days earlier I’d nearly gouged them out. Who could blame Chase now for the way he was cowering beneath the hospital sheets?
“I’m not going to attack you, Chase.”
“Then why are you here?”
He winced as he shifted slightly. Beneath the obvious pain, I could sense his irritation at my presence.
Strangely, I was the only one who had visited him all day—besides the police officer outside his door. So it didn’t make sense that he was annoyed at me. A little gratitude would’ve been nice.
“Well,” I took a step closer to his bedside, “I just want to make sure you’re all right.”
“Sophie, yesterday you would’ve driven me off the road if I hadn’t done it myself.”
Confused, and not sure I’d heard him correctly, I stepped even closer. It looked like he wanted to scoot further away, but he couldn’t. The nurse said he’d broken his collarbone, two ribs, an arm, and his nose, punctured a lung, and suffered a concussion. He could barely move, but every hard line in his face told me that he wanted me gone.
“Did you say ‘drove yourself off the road’?”
He rolled his eyes and turned away, wincing again.
“Chase? Did you just say yourself?”
“Just go away, Sophie.”
My thighs were touching the side of the bedrails now. “Chase, I’m not leaving here until you tell me what you said.”
I wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily. He’d played a role in Wes’ disappearance and he was absolutely going to help me get him back.
“I said . . . myself.”
“That’s what I thought you said, but you didn’t tell me that yesterday. You said—”
“I didn’t say anything yesterday.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Just a day ago he had written on a piece of paper that Tim, Andy’s grandson, had driven him off the road. I hadn’t coerced him into telling me. He’d been barely conscious. There is no way he could’ve made that up. Why was he backpedaling now?
“Well, you wrote something else yesterday. You said—”
Frustrated, he cut me off, “I just remembered it wrong.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Chase. Stop it.” I tried to keep my voice down. If he called the nurse, this interrogation was over. “You were not remembering it wrong.” I moved around to the side he was facing and saw his eyes watering. “You don’t misremember someone running you off the road.”
He winced again, and I had a pretty good idea it was from the memory and not the pain this time. “You know what you saw, Chase. Why are you changing it now?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Just go away.”
I shook my head, anger building. Maybe he was afraid that Tim would come back to finish him off. That was it.
“Chase, you don’t have to worry. The police are outside your door. They’re not going to let anyone else hurt you, but you have to tell the truth.”
He let out a small laugh that immediately caused him to grab his side and squeeze his eyes shut.
“Sophie, those cops are not here to protect me. They’re here to arrest me when I get out.”
“What? . . . Why?”
“You know why. Ms. Mary, remember?”
A strange burning sensation filled my chest. Accusing Chase of murdering Ms. Mary was one thing, but actually believing it was another. I had hated him before. He annoyed me like no other, but in the last twenty-four hours I had fully convinced myself that Andy’s grandson, Tim, and those government ops people had used him. Manipulated him into getting information in exchange for a cold-blood serum high. Yes, he was bad, but not a murderer.
Then again, who was I to say? All I knew was that Wes was still gone and the forty-eight hours he had asked me to wait before calling the police had passed. Dr. Lyon had convinced me to give him another day to make a connection, so I waited.
I was a wreck, miserable, nearly sick to death with worry, and one of the main people responsible for it was lying right in front of me.
Why couldn’t I believe he had killed a poor, innocent Healey’s employee just so he could get a job there, essentially putting him close to Wes and me? Sounded like a no-brainer, but something in me didn’t believe it, and my instincts about people were pretty good. Especially when they wrote down the name of the person who had tried to run them off the road.
Even so, I had to clarify. “Are you saying you murdered innocent, loving Ms. Mary?”
He turned his head back the other way.
“Chase? Just say it if you did.”
“I already said it, okay. I told the cops, now leave me alone,” he growled.
“But you told me—”
“I didn’t tell you anything. I wrote something when I was delirious. I tried to kill myself, because I felt terrible about what I did to that lady, and then I tried to blame it on someone else. End of story.”
“No, it isn’t, because you didn’t try to blame Ms. Mary’s death on someone else. That’s not what you wrote, you wrote—”
“Would you just leave, please? You’re making it worse.”
I opened my mouth to counter, but nothing came out. I didn’t want to care about what happened to Chase. I just wanted Wes home, and the more I stood there looking at the back of Chase’s head, the more irritated I became at his evasiveness.
I let out a grumble, walked back around to the other side of the bed, and leaned right into his face. “Chase, I am going to be real clear here. I don�
��t really like you. Especially since you helped those people find a way to take Wes. But more than my dislike for you, I have a real dislike for people who use others for their own gain. People who intimidate others and ruin lives.
“Yes, you’re scum, but not the scum of the earth who kill old ladies and try to run people off the road. And I don’t believe for one second that whoever is scaring you right now is going to want you alive. They’ll probably try tokill you no matter what you say, so you might as well tell the truth.”
A tear traveled down his bruised cheek. Wanting to give him another chance to come clean, I made him an offer. “I know people. Important people who can protect you. If you just help us.” He seemed to be softening until I added that he could help Wes, and then he laughed.
“I don’t want to help that jerk.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
I stood up straight. “You don’t even know Wes.”
He rolled his eyes. “I know that he sold a drug to the military and it’s killing soldiers. And I know he won’t sell them the antidote because he wants more money. So I don’t care what happens to that money hungry a—”
“Wes would never do that!” I shot back.
He half laughed and half coughed. “Yeah, right.”
“You listen to me.” I grabbed his gown at his chest with just enough firmness to get his attention. “You are clueless. Wes didn’t sell anything to them. Those lunatics have been trying to steal some miracle strength-boosting drug for years. They concocted their own drug through stolen information and they messed up those soldiers. And now they don’t want to buy anything to save them. They want to steal more information so they can make a newer, better drug for war. And not only for American soldiers, you dope. They want to sell it to the highest bidder. Wes wants to find cures for people, not kill them. Not like your friends. And you fell for it. They used you.”
I could tell he was searching my eyes for some sort of weakness in my story, so I spoke fast. “Do you really think they would want to take Wes against his will to buy something from him? Come on. And do you think they would run you off the road if they were only trying to make a purchase? And Ms. Mary? Seriously, these people are evil. Ugh!”
I let go and snatched my purse off the floor.
“Chase. I don’t have much time. And I swear, I’m not going to let any of this go away, so if you want to make things right, you’d better say so now.”
When he didn’t reply, I shook my head and turned to leave, realizing I didn’t expect Chase to ever help me. Maybe I just needed closure. Needed to look him in the eye and have him admit that he was wrong. Maybe if he did, then I could believe things were going to be all right, that the bad guys would turn good and apologize for having made a terrible decision.
Yeah, it was a dream world, but it didn’t hurt to hope for it. I had put my hand on the knob and given it a strong turn when the silence was broken.
“Sophie.” I paused with my hand still on the door. “Please.”
“What?” I didn’t bother to turn around. At that point I was on a new path, and it didn’t include foolish thoughts of Chase’s help.
“I can’t talk loudly . . . please.”
My shoulders dropped as a tingling sensation crept up my back, calling me to turn around. I fought it, trying to push it away and force myself to open the door, but just couldn’t. I wanted everything to be fixed and needed him to help me. Needed something, anything. I let go of the handle and made my way back over to him.
He closed his eyes and slowly opened them again, sighing. “Okay, Tim did try to kill me and he’ll do it to you, too. He’s crazy. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop snooping around. Just let it go.”
Is that what he stopped me for? To warn me about Tim?
He had no idea.
“Chase, Tim’s grandfather already kidnapped me, broke my hand, and used my face for slapping practice. Then, he drained me of nearly all my blood, so he could mix some serum that your friends are trying to ‘buy’. Oh yeah, and a feeling I have tells me I probably won’t live past nineteen anyway. So Tim doesn’t scare me. I just want Wes home.”
He looked shocked by my revelations, but instead of addressing them, he turned away and quietly mumbled, “These people aren’t to be messed with. You see what they did to me.”
“Yeah, and I see that you’re going to rot in jail because you’re afraid to tell the truth about Tim.”
He tried to sit up, but cringed in pain as he held his ribs. “I don’t have anyone. I have nowhere to go. I won’t make it out there anyway. I’m better off in jail.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Well, that’s a chance I’ll take.”
“Fine,” I said, as he turned back to get a glimpse of my stoic expression. “I’m sorry, Chase. I just don’t have any more time or energy to go in circles about this. I have to figure out how to get Wes out of this mess.”
He looked at me for a moment. “Fine.”
Without even saying goodbye, I turned around and walked out, with nowhere to go.
After driving around for an hour, I decided to go to Wes’.
Driving up and down the slopes of his driveway seemed to match how I felt. One minute I was a mess, and the next I was full of hope. Then the next was awful again. No matter how twisted my emotions were, the sight of Wes’ house somehow brought a strong sense of warmth.
The house was completely still on the hillside, but it screamed his name to me. The echo traveled around inside my head, wrapping itself around my senses, compelling me to answer it back.
“Yes,” I whispered, slowly pulling to a stop behind his truck. “I miss him, too.”
Several moments went by before I gathered the courage to guide myself up his steps. Still in possession of his keys from our trip, I slid the house key into the lock and pushed open the door and flinched. The shock of an ear-piercing siren sent my heart cartwheeling, causing me to jump backward.
By the time I realized it was just his house alarm, it had been blaring for nearly fifteen seconds. I was tempted to leave, then remembered I wasn’t trespassing. If anyone was permitted to be there, it was me, and if I left, the police would show up.
Making the decision to prevent that and to continue on, I hurried into the house, trying to remember the code.
He’d given it to me in case of an emergency, but I’d never thought there would actually be a need for it, so I hadn’t paid much attention. Now, I wished I had. What was it? What was it? Think, Sophie.
Gosh! 15—, no, 1660?
Crap.
Dang it. I was staring at the keypad. My hands shaking, my heart racing. How many more seconds did I have before the cops would come?
I thought hard. I pictured his perfect face standing right there in the foyer with me, his perfect grin leaning into me as he spoke. Once I envisioned his calm voice talking to me, it flowed out like melted butter: 1663.
My fingers quickly punched in the numbers 1-6-6-3. I couldn’t believe it didn’t register when he’d told me the first time. Sixteen for 1916, and 63 for 1963. The two prior times he had loved me.
I turned my back to the wall as the alarm ceased, repeating the code several more times. 1663,1663. By the tenth time, my legs had become weak and my body slid to the floor where I found myself at the bottom of the hill, again.
I don’t know how many tears fell or how much time elapsed before my sadness turned to worry again. I reached in my purse and checked my phone. Four bars and no missed calls. I squeezed it tightly in my hands and made my way over to his sofa, cradling it, hoping for a swift end to my miserable waiting.
Chapter 2
TWO DAYS EARLIER: DR. EVAN CARTER
The helicopter touched down at 10 p.m. Only three hours from the time my superiors had called my house with the news that Mr. Wilson would be arriving. This was a moment I had eagerly anticipated since my assignment to Unit 86.
From the day I was placed in char
ge of the recovery wing, I’d often wondered what the world had come to. My father had convinced me to follow in his footsteps and join the army, but I’ve never wanted anything to do with war. It was a compromise to serve as a doctor.
In my two previous tours, I’d saved more lives than anyone expected. I never lost a single soldier who was brought to me, no matter how wounded.
It was extremely rewarding, and made me content with my profession, until my superiors called upon me for help with a group of soldiers who were suffering from painful drug withdrawals. I had reservations when I found out it was from experimental performance-enhancing injections, but they pressed on.
They needed someone who had experience in the field of hematology and a security clearance. They insisted I’d be able to continue healing people while saving thousands of soldiers’ lives in the future. Then they offered me everything, including civilian status and a large stipend.
I didn’t care as much about the stipend, but the civilian status got my attention. It meant that I’d be free to go into civilian practice sooner than expected.
So, for two years, I have worked nonstop, researching and observing soldiers, looking for a solution. I’ve become passionate about this project, and after monitoring the effects of withdrawal, I not only want the soldiers to get better, I want to prevent future suffering.
If there’s a medication that the soldiers can take to give them an edge against physical and chemical attacks, then I want to be a part of that. But I can’t figure it out. Something is missing. These men benefit for only short periods of time before their bodies reject it and go into shock, or worse.
Watching these young men suffer has eaten away at me, and now my superiors have told me that Weston Wilson III, great-nephew to the only doctor ever known to work with cold-blood infusions in humans, is coming to visit me with information to help.
I’m elated, curious, and quite frankly honored. It’s a meeting I have definitely been looking forward to.
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