"Hey? Hey," Jake whispers, crouching in front of me. "Talk to me Ems, are you okay?"
"I'm... I'm so sorry... That's the car. The one we crashed in. I can see it all so clearly in my head. I keep having these recurring nightmares that she's not dead, that my mom is one of them. I– "
Jake pulls me into a tight hug. With his arms holding me together, he lifts us both back up off to our feet.
"If we see her, we'll help her be at peace." His hands rest on my shoulders.
I nod my head, feeling grateful to have him by my side. We finish the last stretch to the parking lot of South River Medical Labs. The glass doors are still open wide, but the alarm no longer sounds. Walking through the doors together to an empty reception area, a stark difference blazes in my mind. The room isn't as dark as it was before. The lights overhead are dim, and a low vibrating noise can be heard.
"Generators," I mumble, confused.
"What?"
"Last time I was here, they had everything shut off. It's what they normally do when the labs are closed. Now they have generators on."
"Okay, well, let's be extra quiet then to make sure we can hear if someone's here." He climbs over the security desk slowly, instead of going through the metal detector and then reaches for my hand to help me cross as well.
I lead Jake to the door to the right of the steel receptionist desk and we walk quietly down the dimly lit hall. I point to the second to last door before the double doors to the stairs. Jake checks the office out and gives me a thumbs up, signifying that I can open it. I lift the badges free from my pocket and scan Mom's ID. The red bar turns green, granting us access to her office.
"Someone's been here," my voice croaks out numbly as I take in her ransacked office. Her file cabinets are open with folders and papers scattered across the floor. The files on her desk are opened and strewn over the desk as if combed through for information. Her computer is on. There is a low rumble of the CPU below her desk and while her monitor is black, there is a yellow blinking light in the bottom corner of her screen.
"What do you think they were looking for?"
"I have no idea," I wiggle the mouse, bring her computer back to life. A password screen pops up, so I quickly type the code she gave me. My eyes scan the screen, fluttering over each minute detail, "All I need is her password folder so I can log into Dad's computer and email. Ah, here it is. Okay, pen... pen..."
"Here," Jake reaches around my waist with a black fountain pen in hand. I tear some paper from the mess on the desk, inking passwords and usernames into the paper harder than I intended. The ink smears as I graze my palm over it accidentally but it’s still legible, so I fold the paper in half and shove it into my pocket.
"Let's go. Dad's office is on the second floor." I barrel past him, shoving Mom’s door open with heavy intention. Remembering that I need to stay quiet, I give Jake a nervous glance before slowly pushing the heavy metal doors to the stairs open enough for both of us to walk through. We climb the wide stairs up to the second floor, taking care to be both quick and light on our feet.
Nausea fills my stomach the moment we step into the second level hall. The stench is unbearable. Jake and I raise our clothes to our noses as we step towards my dad's long vacant office. Not even ten feet in front of me is Mr. Buckley. His body is covered by a thick black blanket.
"That's military issue," Jake gasps, walking closer to the edge of it. "See here in the corner," he covers his mouth again, pointing his foot to a small square outline in yellow with a star in the middle.
We edge past Mr. Buckley's deflated form and swipe Dad's badge, slipping into his office. Finally, I can breathe again, the smell is sealed out by the thick, heavy-laden door.
"So, they were here? What could they have wanted from my mother's files?" My mind races through possibilities as I look at my father's perfectly normal, clean office. They don't need anything from him since he's already there... Or do they? Could they have been searching for my mom as leverage? Did they think she knew something Dad didn't, or at least, wasn't telling them?
"I think it's safe to say that they aren't here anymore. They would have heard us by now. "
I lower myself into Dad's chair behind his desk as Jake circles the room. My hands reach for the power button, bringing the desktop back to life. As I wait, I watch Jake, taking in the belongings on my dad's shelf. His hand reaches for the family photo, perched in the center.
"You look beautiful," he says, tipping the picture towards me. "Happy. You all look happy."
"We were." A half smile forms on my lips as I remember that day. Mom scheduled a photoshoot for us at a nearby plantation. We spent the whole car ride laughing and singing songs, changing the lyrics to absolutely nonsensical things.
"Do you think you'll ever be that happy again?"
"In a different way, maybe. Sometimes I do feel that happy still, being with you all. You’re my family..."
"But we're not at the same time."
I nod my head, as he finishes my thoughts, feeling somewhat ashamed for thinking that at all. They've taken me in, they've trained a clumsy, emotional wreck into someone who can actually take care of herself. They've given me friendship and love when I thought I had lost all of it.
"It's just, I have this unnerving feeling that I'm not allowed to be happy right now. I feel this charge inside of me. It keeps telling me that I can do more than this, that I have to do more. I'm sure it sounds crazy, but – it's like my mom keeps yelling into my subconscious that there is something to be done. I have to try to stop this."
"You deserve to be happy too, you know. If I've ever met someone who deserves it, it’s you. I hope you find it after you’re done saving the world." He smiles lightly at me, but it doesn't crease up into his eyes. I can see sadness there and it breaks my heart.
Dad's computer screen comes to life as I pull the crumpled paper from my pocket. I smooth it out on the desk so I can read the usernames and passwords and hammer away on the desktop until I have his email pulled up. My hands shake with fear and hope as I glide the mouse over to his draft box.
"He sent another one." My voice quakes with excitement as I click to open it.
“Please don't let it be too late... They're coming. They're coming to kill everyone. Get out! NOW!"
My heart stops. I feel like I can't move or breathe. Like all of the air has left my body. As suddenly as it left, it comes back. Rapidly and heavily, it heaves my lungs and heart in my chest.
"Ems," Jake, somehow now at my side, hand on my shoulder, "Are you okay?"
When I turn my face up to look at him, my mind calms instantly. I can see the worry in his eyes. I don't want him to worry about me.
"He tried to warn us." I pull it together enough to whisper.
Jake lowers himself to his knees reading the email beside me, "When did he send it?"
"He was a day too late," I say, hovering over the details section of the draft. "He wrote this on March 8th at 7:20 in the morning. Mom pulled me out of school on the 5th. They came on the 7th."
"So, he wasn't completely in the loop. The group must've been out for a couple days before your dad found out. That is about the same as it was when I was there as well. Most of the time the scientists were oblivious to what was going on. The Lead was the only person who had all of the details."
Having spotted Dad's cabinets of medical supplies beside the entrance to his lab, Jake rises back to his feet to check it out. I stay seated, thinking.
If they came here without his knowledge, maybe they didn't care that he had a family here and planned on killing us after getting as much information from Mom as possible. They could have thought they would find us and take us back to base, but Dad's frantic email makes me believe the former. That means, when I get onto the base, my best option is to pretend I don't know him.
While Jake is knelt to the floor going through the cabinet and cold fridge, I try to discreetly make a new draft in hopes that Dad will read it.
"Mom is
dead. She died to protect me. She wants us to stop this. Can you help?”
I save the draft, feeling my heart do flips as I do so. I shut down his computer and slide the passwords into my pocket.
"Find anything good?"
"Uh, some antiseptic, rubbing alcohol and gauze tape. Doesn't hurt to have it on hand if anyone gets injured." He zips his bag closed and stands up to face me. "Are you ready to go?"
"Yes. Actually... No." I walk back to the tall file cabinets behind Dad's desk and open the top drawer. Dad's Metallica t-shirt is still folded on top. My heart warms as I pick it up and squeeze it to my chest. It still smells like him. "Okay, now I'm ready."
"Yep, that reminds me of your dad. We used to talk about classic rock and concerts all the time," he smiles. I smile too, thinking of my dad and Jake getting along.
“Hey, look,” Jake says, pulling a deck of playing cards off the back edge of the cabinet, “He used to play cards in the lab too. Really it was more of just—”
“Shuffling them around,” we say together, laughing.
"Um, Jake..." the smile slips off my face as I peer out the window of the door into the hallway.
"What's wrong?"
"You see that door over there?" I point across the hall, moving over a bit to give him room to look. "I'm pretty sure that was closed when we first got here."
"Wait, what? Are you sure?"
"Yes. Jake, the last time I was here, that man lying on the floor out there, had a bunch of his employees dead and shoved into that lab. Worse still, he had a Rager in the room with them."
"Crap."
"Exactly. If he's not in there, where is he?"
"Let's move carefully and quietly."
As we step into the hallway, it instantaneously grows 100 feet longer. The lights from the generator now glow dimly and eerily. Jake walks beside me with his hand on his knife. I can see his knuckles clenched tightly around the handle. My body moves slowly and hazily as Jake reaches the double doors before me. His arm spikes up in front of me, pushing my chest back and jerking me to my senses.
"It's in there."
"How?" Suspicion creeps over my body, making chill bumps rise on my arms as my hair stands up.
"Okay, new plan. One is easy, but let's make sure we aren't being careless. Let's crack the door and make a little noise to get his attention. When he's in front of one of the doors, we'll push it open together to pin him against the wall. I'll be able to stab him from there."
"If worse comes to worse, we can shove him down the stairs," I whisper to myself, thinking of my first kill.
"Ready?"
I nod, yes, and Jake cracks the door wide enough to stick his hand in. "Hey, you!"
The Rager snaps his head in our direction sniffing the air as he does so. His eyelids are so swollen and puss-filled that they look forced shut. Jake's voice and the smell of living humans sends him spinning in our direction.
Pulling his hand free, Jake closes the door seconds before the patchy-haired brunette man slams into the other side. The man backs up and slams into it again but stays centered on both doors.
Jake bangs his hand across the door, trying to draw the man to stand in front of just one of the clanky metal doors. With each bang, the Rager becomes increasingly aggressive. I watch through the small glass window in the door as the man glides nearer, readying myself to give Jake the go ahead.
The Rager brings his arm back in anger and my heart leaps as I see his fist come towards the window. I bob down and into Jake, turning my body as the man's opaque arm comes crashing into the glass. Little shards of glass spray out, hitting me on my back and scattering angrily on the ground.
Jake grabs my waist, spinning me to his other side in an instant as the man's decrepit hand reaches for us. Jake slams his knife through the Rager's hand, pinning it to the door.
"Now, Emma. Push!" We shove our bodies into the door as the Rager flails about. As soon as he's pinned, I yank my knife out of my sock, spinning back around Jake and thrust it into the poor man's skull. Jake and I move out of the doorway as the heavy door slowly creeps closed, dragging the man's dead vessel, which sinks to the ground as it moves, with it. He hangs on the door only by the knife's pin in his hand. My mind eerily pictures his body eventually sloshing off the knife, leaving nothing more than a hand or a bit of skin stuck on the knife.
Once we reach the jeep again, my mind is completely unsettled. I bite my tongue until my eyes blur from the sting.
“What would you like to do, Emma? Go home or try to search some houses for food and supplies?” Jake keeps his watchful grey eyes on me, and I can tell he’s worried about me.
I hate it. I don’t want him to continuously be worried about me once I leave. I couldn’t bare it. I grit my teeth and gather myself together before answering with as much gusto and confidence as I can bare.
“No way. We came here for a reason. I promised we’d be able to get some food. Let’s go explore some of the houses.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. If you drive down this road towards the high school, we can turn into my old neighborhood and explore some of the houses that weren’t already abandoned when we left.” I point up the road to the right.
“Wait… Wasn’t your high school still open the day they came?”
“Yeah… why?”
“And they were still feeding you all lunch?”
“Yes…” and then it clicks, “You beautiful man, and you said I was the smart one,” punching him in the shoulder lightly.
“You think I’m beautiful?” Jake teases, starting up the jeep while giving me a devilish green.
“Oh, shut up and drive!”
Forty minutes later, and the worn steel equipment cart we took from the storage closet is laden with our heavy load. The rusted wheels squeal and glide in an erratic frenzy as it struggles to move across the stained and cracked linoleum floor.
Jake’s smile shines across his face, spreading ear to ear with glee. It softens the hard jawline of his face, bringing brightness to the dull, dark cafeteria we cross to reach the parking lot. He never allows me to see if he is groaning on the inside as much as this cart is.
The sky is still abysmal with a gloom that could spill out of the dark, puffy clouds as tears would leak out of the corner of one’s eyes.
"Ems, I've got to hand it to you, you were right about coming back here. Kye will be impressed."
"Maybe, but I don't know that I would have thought to come here. So really, I think you deserve more credit than I do," I smile none-the-less. This trip could have gone terrible in a thousand different ways but we somehow managed.
"Let's split it then, fifty-fifty."
A reverberating clatter cuts through the stifled air, causing me to jump as my hair prickles on the back of my skull. My eyes dart back and forth across the seemingly empty hall, gathering information in a hunger as my brain works in overdrive to find the source of the sound.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jake's long fingers wrapped tight around his gun. His eyes narrow with laser focus, drawn to something unseen. Within seconds his gun is drawn, and I hear the soft switch of his safety being flipped off.
"Come out now, if you don't want me to shoot you dead," Jake's voice booms with command and control. My brain reasons this as a serious threat, thankful to be on his side rather than against.
"Please don't," a softer male voice responds, "I'm coming out." From the shadowed edge of the lunchroom, behind the stack of upturned tables, the back of a leg emerges.
Though dark, my mind registers the camo Army pants and black boots. My fingers tighten on my gun, ready to pull it out at any moment as the backside of a hand and arm come out next; the lightly tanned skin is taut with tension, but completely still.
His full frame steps completely out of hiding, both arms held in the air as if surrendering. His hair is thicker than the average military member, curly and full until it stops at his shoulders.
Something is familiar about his t
hin frame and the rounded curl of his biceps. When he speaks next, the gentle air of it sparks both curiosity and concern in me.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone else was here." He slowly rotates around to face us, "I heard you laughing and hid. You never know who you can run into out here... Emma?" Thomas steps forward, surprise seeping in his voice and crossing through his eyes before a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. "Wow, I can't believe I'm actually seeing you again." He takes bounding steps forward to me, arms open wide.
"And why is that?" Jake says sharply, still aiming his gun at Thomas with a suspicious frown.
Thomas stops in his tracks, dropping his arms to his side. His head darts back and forth between Jake and I for a moment before turning his gaze back to me.
"After seeing you a few months ago, I got a bit nostalgic. I figured I should come back home. I've been here for about a week now, staying in my old place and venturing out to explore a little each day." He moves closer to me, ignoring Jake's foot stomp forward.
His sturdy arms pull me into a hug, but unlike last time, I can't shake the nagging feeling that something isn't right here. I rigidly pat his light brown shirt while my stomach falls into a pit of unease.
Thomas senses my discomfort, pulling himself back, his hands now resting on my shoulder, looking straight into my questioning eyes.
"What's wrong?"
"I... I don't know, Thomas. It is an awfully big coincidence that you are here at the same time as us. It just doesn't feel... right." The last word hangs off my lips, hoping to be caught and brought back to safety.
"I'm sorry that I happened to be here when you were. I promise I didn't mean to startle you. That's why I was trying to stay hidden. I didn't want to start anything with anybody scavenging like me. I swear, I didn't even know it was you."
Jake lowers his gun an inch, rolling his eyes with disbelief.
"Emma, come on," Thomas implores, "You can't honestly believe I'm lying to you."
But something inside of me does believe it. Something is telling me I should run away from him and never look back.
A Whisper in the Flame (The Ragers Series Book 1) Page 22
