Bat and the Bone

by Alexa Gregory

  The time my family and I spent at the lake house in Willowbend was kind of idyllic.

  It was serene and a lot of fun. I even remember my mother playing board games with me by the large bay window on rainy nights when it was too cold to swim. When she was around, when she wasn't distracted by whatever was going on in her head, she was actually a good mother.

  If I'm right and we find something at the lake house, all of those good memories of us during those summers will be lost.

  "Hey…" T-Bone pulls me from the darkness in my head. "You okay there? You've gone quiet."

  "I'm fine," I lie.

  I'm not all right. How can I be? This feels like my mother has been caught and arrested all over again. I feel sixteen again.

  I thought these wounds were slightly more healed. I really did believe that helping those families get closure would help me move on, but wave after wave of sadness and anger crash into me, leaving my insides feeling hollowed out like a piece of driftwood.

  "You know I don't believe you. I can't even imagine what you must be going through. I took your word in Director Cooper’s office, but if you change your mind, you tell me. Are you sure you want to be here for this?”

  "Yes," I say immediately before T-Bone can entertain any more doubt. "This is where I need to be. I never felt like I could do enough for the victims. Now I have a real tangible way to make a difference."

  I won't let myself sabotage this chance.

  No matter how much it hurts.

  "If that changes, you need to tell me."

  I just nod

  "Would it make you feel better if I let you choose the music? You can put on that god-awful stuff you were listening to earlier."

  I shake my head, a thin laugh escaping me. It's a small gesture, but it's very sweet. I fiddle around with controls, connecting my smartphone. The speakers fill with the not-so-subtle boom boom of my favorite album.

  I try not to think too much about the fact that these were the songs that played on a loop during my mother's trial. There is comfort in the aggressive strum of the guitars and the guttural singing. It reminds the sixteen-year-old part of me that if I survived the last time, then I can surely survive this as an adult.

  "Can I guess what you like to listen to?"

  T-Bone laughs, and the sound surprises me. It's a beautiful rich sound that reminds me of an acoustic guitar being strummed over a campfire.

  "Think you got me pegged, do you?"

  "I'm a fairly good judge of musical tastes," I respond, knowing that it's a weird thing to brag about. "I'm going to say, based on your choice of pants and your haircut, that you're a top forties guy. You don't like it necessarily, but it's there, and it beats silence. It's predictable, and the same things get played over and over again."

  T-Bone's laughter fills the car this time around. He shoots me a quick look before letting his eyes focus back on the road.

  "How the hell did you do that? Based on my pants—" He stops, scrunches his face, and shakes his head. "What's wrong with my pants?"

  "They're cargo pants, and the ugly, clunky things need to be burned. I hate the bulging pockets filled with all of the stuff you feel the need to carry.”

  What I don’t tell him is how the loaded pockets aren’t fair to my eyes. He has powerful, muscular thighs, defined calves, and the most bubbled ass I've ever seen on a man, and he hides it all.

  “Your choice in clothing means that you choose functionality over style. But you pay close enough attention to popular culture to choose the pompadour haircut. So even though you're not vain—we're back to the pants on that one—you do like to look nice."

  He shakes his head. "My barber picked this haircut. And seriously, what's wrong with my pants?"

  "Nothing. But I bet you love to be prepared for any eventuality."

  "Absolutely," he agrees. "That was really cool, by the way. Any other superpowers I should know about?"

  I tap my chin, biting down on my lower lip. "I don't think so. The music thing is the only one. It's probably because of my bat hearing. I bet you anything music sounds different to me because of my echolocation hearing."

  I don't add that my bat hearing is also so that I can hunt my pray by their breath. That's creepy information he doesn't need to know just yet. If ever.

  "That makes a lot of sense," he says.

  Needing to move the topic away from vampire bats and how we like to hunt, I decide that questioning him about his own life is a much safer topic of conversation.

  "How about you? Any cattle superpowers you'd like to share?"

  "Hmm." T-Bone inhales deeply and shakes his head. "I'm built like a bull, and that's about it. I do take orders well, but that's about it."

  "Then I guess you picked the right profession. You said it was a family thing, right?"

  "I did. My grandfather joined when he was eighteen. Same with my dad. I didn't join straight out of high school. I decided to enroll into university first."

  "No! You rebel, you," I tease.

  "Laugh all you want," he says, a smile on his face, "but that's exactly how it was seen by both my father and my grandfather." He adds a shrug. "When I turned thirty-one, and I wasn't the head of my own division, they both sat me down and asked me what I was doing with my life."

  "Yikes. That's rough."

  "It took me three years to get my degree in political science. Then I joined the RCMP. Apparently, it was lost time. But I'm happy I did it. When I was going through my training, I knew myself. I knew I'd made the right choice by joining the force."

  "That's very sensible of you," I say, because it is. It also makes a lot of sense. The fact that the men in his family become police officers shouldn't automatically mean that should be his path.

  Just like my mother being a killer doesn't mean I'll turn into one.

  "I suppose it is reasonable. I had to be sure."

  Silence falls in the car, and for a few miles, we ride in without any more interactions. The SUV slides through the night as we head toward Willowbend.

  "I just want to add a second superpower that you have," T-Bone says.

  I crane my head to look at him.

  "You read people. Their behavior, their motives. I bet that would have made you a very good field agent."

  I swallow hard, nearly gulping as my throat gets dry.

  He's not wrong.

  I trained myself to observe people, to garner who they are with as little information as possible. It's made relationships and friendships slightly difficult. I tend to see monsters everywhere.

  Not like anyone can blame me. I was raised by one without realizing it for nearly two decades.

  7

  Mila

  The narrow winding streets are replaced by the unpaved dirt roads leading deeper into the forested area surrounding Willowbend.

  Being back here now, after all these years, is a little bit surreal.

  Ghosts of laughter and good times echo through the wind, making me shiver in the warm vehicle. T-Bone doesn't miss my shudder, and he gives me a side-glance, his eyebrows knitted together with concern.

  "Did you come here often?"

  "We only rented this cabin for three summers when I was really little. My dad wanted some quality family time away from the city. He thought Mom was putting in too many hours in the lab. He was scared she was losing herself to her work. I remember that she was here with us most of the time. But I also have this weird memory. It was the middle of the day, so that's the middle of the night for you non-nocturnal types, and she was sneaking back into the house. She smelled like blood. When I asked her why, she said she'd had a nosebleed. I replay that moment again and again in my head. It wasn't a nosebleed. She was most likely coming back from one of her experiments. One of her victims.

  "I'm really sorry, Mila. If you want, you can stay in the car."

  "If she's at the cabin, there is no way in hell that I'm going to sit in here. And if she's not, I need to look around. I need to make sure that there ar
e no more bodies."

  I add that last part, trying to sound cavalier and unaffected.

  T-Bone doesn't buy it. He nods and inhales deeply. "If you think that's best."

  For the last thirty minutes, we ride in silence. I don't know if T-Bone senses that I need to disassociate and retreat back deep inside of myself, but he doesn't say anything. Not even when he pulls into the drive for the lake house.

  There are no cars, but that doesn't mean that she hasn't been around since her escape. Not if she was looking for cash and identification papers. I slide out of the SUV, thankful that I still have a few moments of moonlight before the sun comes up and I have to hide behind the SUV's tinted windows.

  "She was here." I point to the shed at the back of the property.

  The fresh tire tracks lead straight to it. T-Bone squats down, his flashlight illuminating the fresh grooves in the soft dirt.

  "These weren't made by a truck. She must have switched vehicles."

  "So we know she came here and found her go-bag gone.”

  I walk through the back half of the property, and cold snaps through my spine. There is a large swath of land that has been disturbed. Away from the original gravesite. I make my way to it on shaking feet.

  I can hear T-Bone close behind me.

  “What is it, Mila?” he asks me.

  "Look." I point to the base of the line of trees.

  Some of the soil has been disturbed recently. Whoever dug tried to cover it back up, but it's a rushed job. With the help of my eyes, made to see in the dark, I see the odd indentations. I can't be sure until the ground is dug up, but the cold sitting in the pit of my stomach tells me that there is at least one other victim buried here.

  "You might want to call over a team and a coroner." I'm unable to suppress my shiver. "I bet you there’s a body”—my voice breaks—“or bodies buried on this property. I'd start by this strip of land right here."

  T-Bone furrows his brow.

  “New ones? Because this property was seriously excavated during the initial investigation.”

  All I can do is nod. I take deep breaths, letting the night air fill my lungs as the realization that, in her short time out of prison, my mother has already found a new victim.

  “New ones,” I croak. “I’m positive. This has been freshly dug. No rain has tamped down the shovel marks.”

  T-Bone looks down, taking note of the indentations in the ground. He swears under his breath, taking his phone out of his infernal cargo pants. He quickly makes a call to his team, demanding a coroner at our location immediately. His next calls are to both of our superiors, letting them know of this new development.

  "Are you okay, Mila?" he asks me.

  If anyone else were to ask me that question as many times as T-Bone has, I think I would pick a fight. Maybe scream and say some very hurtful things. But there is something about the way he asks. Like he legitimately wants to know. It's not a sick sort of worry, like oh, how you doing with yourself, daughter of a murderer?

  It's real, and it doesn't feel forced or disingenuous like it usually does.

  With a deep breath, I give him a small headshake. "I knew this was a possibility the second she escaped. Somehow, getting the confirmation that I was right isn't making me feel any better about all of this."

  "That's normal, you know. Entirely valid. The fact that you expected this doesn't make you in any way responsible."

  I nod but turn my back to him nonetheless.

  Somehow, being in my lab, working with the bones, looking over maps, and going over theories in my head is entirely different than being here, possibly discovering more victims.

  It's hitting me hard.

  The sting isn't as painful as it was when I learned that my mother was a killer. But it hurts nonetheless.

  How can the woman who gave me life be the harbinger of death for so many families?

  I make my way back to the car and sit on the edge of the seat, my eyes focused on a small pebble on the ground as I force my lungs to expand and deflate with deep puffs of air.

  T-Bone is on the phone, sometimes pausing his conversation to tap out a message. He is clearly a master at multitasking. It's no wonder he was chosen to be the incident coordinator for this particular escape. The way he sees the world and compartmentalizes everything in its appropriate box makes him the best person for it.

  Somehow, the small rock at my feet loses my attention, and I fixate on the wide set of T-Bone's shoulders and the way he rolls his shoulder in between tasks as if to ground himself and reset.

  "Mila," he calls out. If I could reassure myself right now that there is anything good left in the world, then the goddess herself is delivering me proof in the form of T-Bone’s ass. "We need to go to the prison. They just figured out how she escaped. There's also some stuff in her cell that we absolutely need to see."

  "How far is it? We need to get to Lake Murray. If I'm right, we're only just a few hours behind her."

  "Mila, you don't get it. We have to go. I’ll dispatch teams to all of her known dumpsites and make sure a few others are out looking for her. You need to see this."

  T-Bone takes a few long strides toward me and hands me his phone, a picture filling the screen.

  "Holy shit..." Dread crashes into my gut, making the acid rise to the back of my throat.

  The walls of her cell are covered in drawings, some papers looking worse for wear. They look maniacal, dipped in evil. I use my thumb and forefinger to zoom on the picture. Some are the renderings of DNA strands while others are scrawled out writing I can't quite read.

  "We need to get over there," I whisper. “This…” My voice breaks, and I shiver. “This isn’t her usual clean, methodical note-keeping. Something has changed. These drawings are disorganized. And look…” I point to a few dates scribbled on the walls in the picture. “Those are recent. This is how she kept track of her victims. This doesn’t make sense. Why would she be tracking dates from prison?”

  T-Bone furrows his brow and shakes his head.

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to log this.” With his phone, he takes a picture of the dates. “I’ll have someone check these to see if they line up with any missing people.”

  If the things in my mother’s cell are any indication, things are about to get much worse before they get better.

  8

  T-Bone

  The sun is just about rising on the horizon when Mila and I pull onto the prison grounds. After we were done making some calls to dispatch teams to every location Mila had named, the drive was quiet and uncomfortable. I wanted to reach inside of Mila's head and shake her out and away from the dark thoughts.

  Her sharp teeth kept working on the soft flesh of her lower lip or biting down on the inside of her cheek. For the first half of the drive, I kept myself in check and kept my hands to myself. But slowly, as we drove closer to the jail, Mila's breathing pattern changed. It was erratic and almost choppy.

  My composure broke.

  I reached over the center console and took her hand in mine.

  Her fingers interlaced with mine, and she gave me a squeeze. I was scared she would push my hand away, but instead, she tucked it onto her lap. Her breath eased, in turn making it easier for me to focus on the road, not just the brave woman sitting beside me.

  "Are you ready?" I ask her once I've parked the SUV in the prison’s parking lot.

  She blinks rapidly, each movement making her eyes clearer. "Yup," is all she says as she hops out of the car, pulling her messenger bag behind her.

  My hand finds the small of her back as we walk toward the administrative office. Again, I'm surprised when Mila doesn't push me away. She leans into the touch again. No doubt seeking whatever comfort she can.

  It's hard not letting my mind run away with itself. Even under these messed-up circumstances. I shouldn't want to have my hands all over her. I shouldn't be looking to catch her eye.

  Mila isn't mine to worry about.

  She's a colleag
ue. One who is going through something pretty intense at the moment.

  I can lie to myself and say that I'm simply trying to do the right thing and be there for her, but I know there is something else going on deep inside of me.

  My entire being responds to her. I try to tuck away the glow of my attraction to her as we're led into Carlyle Winthrop's office. The warden of the human jail is a mole shifter, and at the time of Markov’s sentencing, it was decided that having a shifter jailer would be enough to tend to Markov's need for specialized incarceration.

  Carlyle's workspace is sparsely decorated, and only a few framed diplomas line the walls. He's been the warden for nearly twenty years, but it's clear he has spent very little time making his office feel like his own.

  I can't help but wonder if it's because he is too busy or if it's because he spends very little time at work. It's an unfair judgment. One I'm making based solely on the fact that Sveta escaped.

  "Agent Thrussell, Miss Starling," the large man says by way of greeting.

  I want to correct him and tell him that he should address Mila as agent or doctor, but think better of it when she doesn't intervene. It dawns on me then that Carlyle knows her because he knows Mila as Miss Starling. As Sveta's daughter. Not a respected forensic anthropologist. Not a FUC agent.

  "Where should we start?" Carlyle asks.

  “Let's get to Markov’s cell,” I say. “Maybe we'll get lucky and find the next step of their plan."

  The long walk to Sveta's cell takes entirely too long.

  It doesn't help that we already know what we will find there. The pictures one of my team leaders sent me were enough to have the hair on the back of my neck raised in apprehension. I let my hand go to Mila's back again, hoping she doesn't mind that I offer her comfort in front of Carlyle. Her shoulders do slump a tiny bit. And I can only hope it's because she knows that she isn't alone in this. That I'm right here with her, ready to offer whatever support she needs from me.

  "Here we are," Carlyle says, pointing to one of the cells. "This is where she bunks when she isn't in solitary.”