Blaze

by Joan Swan

  “Wait, wait, wait.” She turned fully toward them. Met each of their gazes deliberately. “You want to talk about his health? Let’s talk about the fact that there is something experimental implanted in his brain tissue. The risk of this sedative is negligible compared to the potential damage these implants could cause. This study could save his life.”

  The room remained quiet. Luke was caught in an impossible dilemma between the people he loved most.

  “Aren’t you all getting it? This isn’t about me or Mateo or any one of us individually anymore. We need to know what they put in his head and why. The answers are critical to our survival. The implications of what those people did to this boy affect every child, every person, in the nation. And we are the only people in a position to gather evidence and information to stop them. Am I the only one who sees the enormity of this situation?”

  Gazes dropped to the floor. Luke’s chest grew painfully tight.

  “I didn’t think so.” Alyssa faced the Pixus machine again and punched more numbers, pulled a drawer open, and took a small bottle from a compartment.

  “So it’s, um . . . pretty safe then?” Keira’s worried voice broke the tense silence.

  Alyssa held up a tiny bottle. “This is the safest sedative made. I’ll use as little as possible to calm him so I can get images. Unfortunately, no other study will give us the information we need, and they all require him to remain still just like this one.”

  She put her hands over Keira’s. “I’m sorry I don’t have a better solution, but whatever is in his head has life-threatening potential. The benefits far outweigh the risk. Keira, you are the closest thing he has to a mother at the moment. If you say no, we’ll leave.”

  Keira didn’t balk at the surrogate mother reference as Luke expected, only pressed her lips together and nodded. “What do I need to do?”

  “Just try to keep him quiet while I give him the medication.”

  Keira stepped close to Luke. She steadied herself with a hand on his back, then rested her head against his shoulder so she was face-to-face with Mateo. She kissed the boy’s nose. Laid her cheek to his. Whispered soothing reassurances.

  Luke couldn’t ignore the rightness of the situation. Her, him, a child. Not necessarily Mateo, although the kid was an absolute doll. But that connection. That uniting force. The completion of a family.

  Alyssa drew up the medication. Mateo took the shot with as little fuss as the numbing medication at the doctor’s office.

  “Okay.” Alyssa rubbed at the spot on his arm to ease the sting of the needle. “That should kick in pretty quick. Let’s not take him back in there until his eyes close.”

  Keira brushed the wetness from the boy’s cheek with her thumb, her own eyes brewing with tears. “What the hell did they do to you in that place, baby?”

  Luke’s muscles kinked with tension as he considered the possibilities. Mateo’s body softened against Luke’s. The hand fisted in Luke’s shirt fell to his side.

  “He’s ready,” Alyssa said. “Let’s go.”

  Keira remained in the room, sentinel at Mateo’s side. Luke, grateful for the distance, stood beside Alyssa as she punched buttons on the CT console and started the scan. Images flashed across the screen as fast as subliminal messages. Before Luke could begin to assimilate the first image, Alyssa was pushing buttons again.

  “Done,” she said. “I’m transferring the images to a DVD so I can take them home and look at them there. Get everyone to the car.” She lifted her eyes to Luke. “And, Luke. You owe me another twenty bucks.”

  Keira was still struggling to numb herself as they reached Alyssa and Teague’s house. She wanted to completely shut down, a self-preservation technique she’d learned a long time ago, one that had seen her through the toughest moments of her life. But it wasn’t working.

  Everyone she’d tried so hard to distance herself from over the last three years was back, all at once, and all together. Then there was the beauty of what she considered home—Truckee and a family unit she loved. One that gave her the understanding and support she needed, but that also mucked in her business, which she hated. And just to top it all off, she was saddled with this kid who stirred yearnings and fears she’d thought she’d settled long ago.

  This, all of it, was exactly why she didn’t come back to visit anymore.

  Two men dressed in fatigues, carrying M14s and looking like they’d just walked off the Rostov compound, opened the gate leading to Teague and Alyssa’s mountain property.

  Keira straightened in the backseat of the SUV. “What’s wrong?”

  Teague waved in greeting as they passed through columns of towering pines and broke into an open space beneath the trees where their lodge-style home stood in a clearing overlooking a mountain meadow. “Just extra security. We call in a little muscle when junk like this happens. Otherwise our own system does the job.”

  Their own system would do the job for Bill Gates. It included the most advanced shit Mitch and his military buddies could think up—infrared movement detection, video surveillance, silent alarms, automatic locking mechanisms, even state-of-the-art booby traps along the border of the ten-acre property.

  And while they’d never fessed up, Keira would bet each member of Teague and Alyssa’s family had a tracker implanted somewhere on his or her body. One that verified each person’s whereabouts with an independent third-party service. Teague would never go through what he’d been through with these DARPA animals again. He’d never let anything happen to Alyssa or Kat or their unborn baby.

  She thought of her conversation with Tony and his cavalier attitude about the money Teague and Alyssa had received in settlements—Teague from the federal government for wrongful conviction and Alyssa from the state for negligence on the part of the guards who’d left Teague, their prisoner at the time, alone with her, resulting in her abduction. Luke had been right when he’d said Mitch was good. When it came to slaying dragons, Mitch was the best.

  But no amount of money could restore a person’s identity. Or their sense of security. Keira had lost both, and she didn’t need a ton of money to know it wouldn’t be any type of fix for either problem.

  As they neared the house, Keira spotted Kat standing in the glow of the open front door. Guilt coated her belly. As did fear. She felt the same way every damned time she had to face Kat, which was just freaking stupid, because Kat had never once rejected Keira—before or after she’d left for the academy.

  Keira hadn’t even climbed from the car before the seven-year-old burst from the house. For a split second she considered asking Luke to run interference so she could avoid the whole reunion, but she decided just to face it. It had to happen sooner or later.

  Kat headed straight for Luke, who dropped to one knee and pulled her into a hug.

  “What are you doing up?” Teague asked Kat, but looked behind her at Mitch for the answer.

  Mitch shrugged in that carefree way. “You woke her when you left. I let her stay up. That’s what uncles are for. Breaking rules.”

  Teague tossed a look at Alyssa as she met him at the passenger’s side. “That’s why I didn’t go to Fallon with you.”

  “Sorry, Kitty-Cat,” Luke said into Kat’s hair, eyes squeezed in an expression of pleasure and pain. “I can’t pick you up. I’ve got sore ribs.”

  Kat didn’t seem to mind. Her angelic face, one that Keira swore had its own light source, turned toward her and Mateo.

  “Auntie Keira!” She bounced on her toes and tore from Luke to reach for her. Only when it was obvious the boy in Keira’s arms would prevent Kat from giving a proper hug did the girl seem to notice Mateo. She cocked her head in that oh-so-innocent way. “Who are you?”

  Keira crouched. Mateo was already alert, inspecting Kat with those matter-of-fact chocolate eyes. “This is Mateo.”

  “I’m Kat.” The little extrovert didn’t waste a second. “I’m seven and I’m in first grade. How old are you?”

  Mateo just stared.

/>   “He doesn’t speak English, Kat.”

  Her brow furrowed, as if trying to understand that phenomenon. “Where did he come from?”

  “We’re trying to figure that out. He’s five and he’s had a really rough night. Do you think you could be extra nice to him? Share some of your toys?”

  “Sure.” The frown vanished. She reached out and wound her fingers around his hand and tugged. “Come on. I’ll show you my new Barbie clothes.”

  “Hey, now,” Luke teased. “Wait a minute.”

  Teague snorted a laugh. “You’ve been swept by the competition.”

  Mateo’s dark eyes darted around the circle of faces. Keira nodded and nudged him off her lap. “It’s okay.”

  Kat’s chatter seemed to hypnotize the boy, and he followed obediently. Their feet crunched on the pine needles scattered along the stone walkway.

  Teague swung an arm around Alyssa’s shoulders and led her toward the expansive, authentic log home’s front steps and double-glass-door entry beyond, all flanked by a covered wraparound porch. He grinned as he watched the kids wander ahead of them. “Another one bites the dust.”

  Keira didn’t realize she was still standing in place until Alyssa’s voice broke her trance. “Are you coming?”

  Keira startled, then headed toward the door, but felt more like she was floating than walking, she was so exhausted.

  Alyssa waited in the foyer and closed the door behind her. “Why don’t you take a shower? I’ll bring you some of my pajamas to change into and have Teague start a fire in the living room.”

  Another shower? She’d turn into a prune. “But the CAT scan—”

  “I need some time to study the images. Go take a few minutes to decompress.”

  Normally, Keira would have bristled at the suggestion, but she nodded in agreement. The thought of decompression sounded good, but . . . She darted a nervous look toward the living room.

  “You saw those guys out front?” Alyssa asked. “There are four more around the property. I’ll make sure either Mitch, Teague, or Luke checks on Mateo every five minutes. Okay?”

  Keira’s shoulders sagged as she nodded and retreated to the bathroom. Her mind felt like a piece of cooked rice: soggy, swollen, and stupid. The rote tasks of adjusting the water, gathering fresh towels, and stripping became nothing but reflex as thoughts in the foreground shut down. But on some level her brain still worked. Still chewed on things she would never allow when she had more strength for control.

  Because she knew this semiconscious state could be dangerous, she fought the brain fog and quickly rinsed off. The hot spray stung cuts all over her body, but also eased sore muscles, and she let it pound on her shoulders, tilting her chin to her chest to stretch her tight neck.

  A magenta splotch expanded across her left flank, the border shadowed a deeper plum that reached out to brush her belly button.

  Her fingers feathered over the edges of the bruise. Her mushy brain slid sideways into the past, into one of her many foster homes.

  Instead of the butt of her rifle jabbing her in the stomach in the aftermath of the explosion, in her mind she saw the bottom of a man’s boot come at her. The source—maybe a foster father, maybe a boyfriend of a foster mother, maybe another kid in the house—wasn’t as clear as the boot’s size: nearly the width of her ten-year-old shoulders. Or the tread pattern—arrows. Arrows creating an X in the sole of the boot. So vivid, she could still remember pushing one hand in front of her chest to ward off the blow, wrapping the other arm around her torso. She curled into a ball, as tight as she could. Still the heel caught her side. Pain crackled through her ribs. Another kick. A scream—her own—as her insides ripped.

  “Keira?”

  The female voice forced Keira’s eyes open. She found her arms wrapped tight across her belly, breaths coming fast and labored. She was naked. Hot water pounding on her back. Pain throbbing through her belly and chest. Where—?

  “Keira?” The voice again. “I brought you some pajamas. I’ll leave them on the sink. Bring your clothes out so I can wash them.” A hesitation. “Okay?”

  Alyssa.

  Keira’s brain clicked back to the present.

  “Ye—” Her voice cracked. “Yeah.”

  “Are you . . . okay?”

  “Uh, no,” she murmured. “Not okay. Lys. Wait.”

  She flipped off the water and wrapped the towel around her, chest to thighs, without bothering to dry off. She didn’t want to miss this opportunity to be alone with Alyssa; there were so many questions running through her head.

  But she needn’t have worried, because when she pushed the curtain open, Alyssa was sitting on the sink, hands flanking her hips, ankles crossed, feet swinging, and that pregnant belly creating an overinflated basketball beneath her V-neck black sweater.

  Alyssa’s eyes went straight to Keira’s shoulder. She pushed off the sink and landed on her feet in a move far too lithe for a woman seven-months pregnant. “Oh, man. Can you move that arm?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Show me.”

  Wincing, Keira lifted and rotated her injured shoulder the best she could. Alyssa probed the joint. “How’d you do this?”

  “Hit a chimney. I think.”

  “What were you doing on a roof?”

  “Breaking into a house.”

  “Your job is so much more exciting than mine.”

  “And yours is so much safer, and pays so much better.”

  Alyssa moved in front of her, lifted both hands, grimaced. “Bend your fingers.”

  Keira obeyed, gritting her teeth.

  “How did you do this?”

  “Sliding down that roof.”

  Alyssa shook her head, dropped into a crouch. “I suppose you had to have matching knees.”

  “Absolutely.”

  She rose, propped a hand on her hip, looked Keira in the eye. “What else?”

  Keira opened one side of her towel to expose her ribs.

  “Oh, how cute.” Alyssa bent and inspected. “His and hers matching broken ribs. Who got theirs first?”

  “Me.” Keira closed her towel. “He always has to try and show me up.”

  Alyssa straightened. “You two are . . .” She lifted her eyes to the ceiling as she seemed to search for the right words. “A lot more connected than I expected. After three years, all the stories I heard . . .” She shrugged. “I guess I thought there would be more animosity or indifference or . . . I don’t know.”

  Keira still had a hard time reconciling the fact that she hadn’t known either Alyssa or Mitch when she and Luke had been together. She felt like she’d known them both forever. “Yeah. I don’t know, either. Can I ask you some questions?”

  “Of course.”

  Keira dropped to the edge of the tub with her towel tight around her chest again. Alyssa leaned against the sink.

  “So, you know I’m almost thirty. And, uh, women have kids late now, like even into their forties, right?”

  “Yeeees.” Alyssa drew out the word cautiously. “But it’s better to have children earlier because after a certain age, typically thirty-five, risks for certain types of birth defects and complications increase with every year.”

  “Right, but I’m not talking about a normal woman. I’m talking about me, and what kind of, you know, birth defects our baby could have.” She met Alyssa’s surprised eyes, cleared her throat. “Mine and . . . you know, Luke’s,” she clarified, unable to believe she’d actually said the words.

  “Well, duh. I figured the Luke part, which I have to admit is . . . both shocking and exciting.” Alyssa grinned, then got serious again. “I’ve done some research on your particular situation. I’m half in your situation, remember. I’ve checked with colleagues, and while there are, of course, no prior studies to go on, based on what we know of medicine and science in general, I’d say you and Luke are at only a slightly higher risk than the general population.”

  Keira scraped out a dry laugh. “Gee, that’s helpf
ul. Some real specifics there, Lys. What does a slightly higher risk mean?”

  “What it means is that birth defects are a fact of life. It happens, across the board. Risk is inherent in pregnancy—to the mother and the unborn child. Certain people carry more risks for certain defects than others. Given you and Luke have perfect health,” Alyssa said, “and no known history of familial defects—”

  “I didn’t know my father. Who knows what could be on his side of the family?”

  “That’s true, but let’s look at what we do know. You’re healthy, you’re strong, you’re young. Plus, none of the team directly affected by the chemicals at the warehouse has contracted any diseases or cancer. That’s another very healthy sign in favor of your strong genetics.

  “In fact, if you think about it, none of you has had so much as a common cold since the incident. I’ve been keeping records, and everyone is healthier than they’ve ever been, except psychologically, of course. Which may indicate that your genes are even stronger than the average person’s, not weaker.

  “And if you did get pregnant, you could have an amniocentesis to make sure the baby’s chromosomes were normal. It doesn’t rule out all the potential problems, but unfortunately. . .” Alyssa shrugged. “There are very few assurances in this life, for either the normal or the paranormal.”

  “Yeah, I keep hearing that.”

  “For what it’s worth, Keira, I like you and Luke together, and you know I wouldn’t say that unless I meant it. Having known you both as individuals, now seeing you together. . .” She nodded. “Good fit.”

  Keira laughed again. “Um . . . did you happen to miss the fact that we haven’t spent one moment together not fighting?”

  “You’ve been apart for three years. Teague and I bicker if we’ve been apart three hours. It takes time to get used to each other again. Besides, arguing is healthy. It’s keeping everything inside that’ll kill you.”

  “Yeah, about that.” Keira’s fingers tightened in her towel as her chest squeezed with embarrassment. “Could you, uh, recommend a good, you know, shrink, psychologist . . . whatever you call them?”