by Lee French
“Everybody’s life is kinda complicated.” She shrugged. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk to me. But you should really talk to someone. Soon.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I lost everything, I guess, and there was cops involved, and I’m not sure about going home to my Momma. She’s gonna be real disappointed.”
The girl gave him an encouraging smile. “She’s your mom. Just tell her you love her and, if you think you need to, ask her to forgive you.”
Bobby took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah.” He took another bite and knew he had to stop home, if only for a few minutes. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” She took his plates and squeezed his shoulder. “Good luck.”
His belly full, he got up and found an empty spot to flow out into the swarm. After orienting himself, he headed straight for Atlanta, then got his bearings again and made for the ‘burbs. The hop took him about an hour and a half, and he landed in his own backyard. The wash hung out on the clothesline, flapping gently in a light breeze. The herb and vegetable garden seemed fine. Her sunflowers would be dropping seeds soon.
Inside, a shadow passed behind the kitchen curtains. Despite the girl’s suggestion, he’d been hoping she might not be here. She deserved a full explanation, and he didn’t have long enough to give it to her. Hanging his head, he trudged around to the front door. At least he could avoid adding scaring the crap out of her to the list of things he’d done wrong recently. The five seconds it took her to get to the front door stretched out, making them the longest of his life.
“Bobby,” Momma breathed. She wrapped her arms around him, hugging him the way she did when he fell off his bike or got beat up. “They said some really terrible things.”
His eyes burned as he sagged with relief and squeezed her. “I know, Momma, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry and stuff.”
She let him decide when the embrace ended, then pulled back and put a hand on his cheek. Just a few inches shorter than his own five feet, nine inches, she had to look up, but he’d never felt bigger than the woman that raised him. “There’s ghosts in your eyes, boy. Come on in and sit down.”
“Yes, Momma.” How would he explain any of this? Should he explain any of this? Could he leave it all vague? He sat down on the couch obediently. “Nice the heat broke some,” he observed. The day he left had been at least ten degrees hotter, and he could never have worn a trenchcoat in that.
“Don’t you try to distract me with things like that.” Brenda Mitchell planted her feet on the floor and loomed over him with her arms crossed. “Those policemen said you were hauled off by Feds, that you’re a terrorist, that you killed Mr. Peterson.”
He winced and hung his head again. “Yes, Momma, I know. I ain’t no terrorist, though, and I didn’t do nothing more than punch Mr. Peterson once.” This reminded him of the time he found the cookie jar broken, knocked off the counter by a gust of wind, and went ahead and ate all the cookies.
“I told you to leave him alone, boy.”
Knowing that tone, he hunched down and mumbled, “I know.” He scratched the back of his neck and squirmed. “I just— Never mind. I gotta ask you something, Momma.” He looked up at her and sighed at how much trouble he’d caused her. It’d only get worse from here, too. “Am I adopted?”
Frowning at him, she asked, “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Something happened out there, Momma, and it’s hard to explain. I ain’t normal, and I’m trying to figure out why. Did you adopt me?”
She turned away to stare at…maybe another time or place. “No.” Taking a deep breath, she sat down beside him and clasped her hands together in her lap. “You were born of my body, but I don’t know who your daddy rightly was. To be honest, I’m not a hundred percent sure you and me are actually related by blood.”
He shifted into his thinking pose and tried not to get upset. Whenever he looked at a picture of them, he figured he took more after his real father, whoever that might be. Edward came into their lives before his fourth birthday, and he never thought to ask about the mystery man before then. After, she’d always brush off any questions with an admonition to think of Edward as Dad.
One of her hands moved to settle on his. “I was young, and I fell in with a bad crowd. I wound up on the drugs, and on the street, and all that. These nice ladies scooped a bunch of us up and asked us to participate in an experimental program. They said they’d help us clean up, get some job training, give us health insurance for five years, and help us find jobs. All we had to do was be a test subject for six months.
“In the position I was in, I said yes. The experimentation was with in-vitro fertilization. They were making test tube babies, and the process was still new then. We were told the chance of actually conceiving was small, less than one percent. While I was there, I was the only one I ever saw actually get pregnant. They said they’d help me give you up for adoption if I wanted to, but I wanted to keep the baby that grew in my body. I stayed there, with those nice people, until you were six months old, then they helped me get a job and find decent child care for you.”
Stunned, Bobby let his jaw hang open and stared at her. “But…” No other words came out of his mouth.
“I got no idea if they used my eggs or not, Bobby, but it don’t matter to me. You’re my boy. You already knew Eddie wasn’t your daddy, but he raised you good anyway, and that’s what matters.”
Taken on its own, the story was crazy. Compared to the last few days, though, it made sense. Sort of. Why anyone would do this, he had no idea, nor could he imagine how. Sitting there, he made a choice and held up his hand. One dragon popped off the end of his thumb. “Momma, I ain’t rightly human, exactly.”
Her eyes went wide as she stared at the tiny creature. She crossed herself and leaned back away from him, showing the fear he’d dearly hoped she wouldn’t. “They said to watch out for anything unusual, but I thought they meant you might get sick.”
Swallowing down the taste of bile from her reaction, he stood with a resigned sigh. “I’m just gonna grab a few things, then I’mma go. They didn’t let me out, I escaped.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her reach for him, but stop before her hand got close enough. He fled for his bedroom, tossing the door shut behind himself, and paced its short length a few times, trying not to let that rejection sting. There wasn’t time for this. He needed to be strong and get to Baton Rouge, where he’d pick up another guy, then New Orleans, then Little Rock.
This room belonged to his old life. Souvenir beer and soda bottles wouldn’t help him. Neither would his high school yearbooks or pictures from parties at work. Clothes would be helpful, he figured, and he stuffed a few pairs of socks and underwear into his coat pockets. He grabbed a keychain flashlight and all the spare cash he kept in a drawer. Since it fit, he took a spare shirt and a bandanna. The FBI still had his best shoes and jeans, and his wallet. Maybe someday, he’d take them back.
For the rest, he hoped Momma would hold onto it. All this would get sorted, eventually. He had to believe that, just as he had to believe Momma would overcome her reaction. The alternative meant a lifetime on the run, always looking over his shoulder. Shaking his head to banish those thoughts, he tried to think of anything else that might be useful in the house. The doorbell rang, making him think of the small tool set in the garage he’d used to repair it a few weeks ago. One part paranoid and one part curious, he cracked his bedroom door open to hear as Momma opened the door.
He watched Momma draw herself up and point her finger at them. “You got a lot of nerve, staking out my house to watch for my boy coming back.”
“Ma’am, it’s important. He’s wanted for—”
“I don’t give a damn what he’s wanted for. He’s an ungrateful bastard of a boy, and he swiped money from my purse and ran out the back five minutes ago. You want to actually catch him, you best be on your way.” She slammed the door in their faces and hurried to his room, holding out money. “Boy, you ta
ke this and you get going. They’re gonna bust in here, probably, and it’ll be best for me if you’re gone by then.”
Heart full of…something, he couldn’t decide what, Bobby hugged his Momma and kissed her cheek. “I love you, Momma. Put my stuff in boxes, yeah? I’ll be back sometime for it.”
She smiled and ruffled his hair. “Get going, boy. Stay safe.”
He hurried to the window and popped the screen out. Without waiting for her to leave, he dissolved into dragons and they spiraled up and out. Seeing her expression of awe, this time with no crossing herself, filled his heart, and he knew it had been the right choice to stop. Nothing like a hug from Momma to make everything seem better.
On top of everything else, she gave him money, and he knew she couldn’t afford to do that. The top bill had been a twenty, so he had at least thirty-five dollars now. If he really needed something, he could get it, one way or another. And he could do his laundry. Should he chance the bank? His savings account had almost three thousand dollars he’d been saving up to someday get a car. No, he’d leave that for now. Odds were, he’d get stuck there, and that would only make things worse. ‘Escaped terrorist robs bank’, the headline would read. Besides, he had no ID to get the money with anyway.
He put Atlanta behind him, hopefully not for the last time, and headed west. Trying to judge how long he could go without eating had him stopping several times along the way. After doing this several times, it seemed to him that he could go two to three hours between meals. Dumpsters near eateries saved him, over and over. So many people tossed so much perfectly edible food, especially bakeries.
By the time he hit Baton Rouge, the sun had disappeared. Time to look up Andrew Roulet and give him the spiel. It took half an hour to find a gas station with a map he could open up and use to find an address. The little old lady behind the register gave him a dirty look for doing it. He ignored her and took care to fold it up properly before putting it back.
Andrew had had the not-nightmare experience, but hadn’t noticed any kind of superpower. Bobby’s story horrified him. The dragons fascinated him. When he stuck his hand into the cloud made by Bobby’s arm, they all snapped back to Bobby, and while he stayed touching that arm, Bobby couldn’t make even one dragon pop out. With that, Andrew let him eat and crash on the couch and started packing up to move himself to Colorado. In the morning, Bobby made sure he had the directions right, wished him luck, and took the short hop to New Orleans.
Chapter 8
“‘Scuse me, ma’am, I’m looking for Raymond Beller.” Bobby stood on the porch of a crappy old house, one that had managed to survive Katrina. From the outside it looked fine, at least. In a relative sort of way, anyhow. This neighborhood had a lot of houses that needed serious repairs, alongside a handful of empty lots with scattered debris. These folks had to be barely scraping along to ignore the damage for so many years.
The young black woman who answered the door when he knocked wore a gray uniform dress, marking her as likely to be a hotel maid. Her belly showed just enough of a bump that he felt confident guessing she might be pregnant. What caught his attention were her bloodshot eyes, and the way her shoulders sagged. “Are you a cop?”
Given his clothes and week’s worth of beard, Bobby couldn’t imagine why she might think that. Also, given the area, it surprised him she’d ask with hope instead of suspicion. “No, ma’am. I’m just—”
She reached out and touched his arm hesitantly, interrupting him. “Please stop calling me ‘ma’am’. It’s Belinda.”
Bobby nodded, now more confused by her. “Yes, ma’am. Belinda. Maybe you noticed I got the same eyes as him?” When she nodded, he kept going. “That’s why I’m looking for him. I just want to talk to him about that. Is he here, or at work, maybe? If you tell me where he works, I can go find him there instead and stop bugging you.”
“I don’t know where he is.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. “He never came home from work last night. I called all the hospitals, the morgue, the cops, his work, friends, everywhere, but he’s just gone. Nobody saw anything, nobody knows anything. Gone.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. Left work for the day and disappeared. Cops won’t look into it,” she spat, “because there’s no sign of foul play and he hasn’t been missing for twenty-four hours yet.”
Bobby paled. Two days ago, they tried to grab Jasmine and Jayce warned them. Yesterday, someone took Raymond Beller. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Had he warned Andrew in time? He had to get out of here and get to the next name. Now. They started a race to collect people at Jasmine’s apartment without knowing it. “I’m sorry.”
Belinda seemed nice. He didn’t want to know anything else about her. Didn’t want to know about that baby, didn’t want to know if she was his wife or just his girlfriend, or even his sister staying with him. Didn’t want to know how she’d manage to make ends meet without him around. Didn’t want to know. He stumbled a few steps back, watching her frown at him. “I’m sorry,” he said again, not sure what he was sorry for.
He took off running without a backward glance and didn’t stop until he got far enough away to be sure she wouldn’t follow or find him by cruising the neighborhood. He pulled out his phone and called Hannah. She needed to know.
“Hi Bobby,” Hannah said, cheerful and bright. “What’s up?”
“Raymond Beller, in New Orleans? He’s missing.”
“Missing? Missing how?”
“Just gone. Belinda— Um, his girl, she said he just up and vanished like smoke in the wind. Yesterday, after work.” He doubled over, panic keeping him from being able to catch his breath.
“Okay, Bobby. Calm down. It’s not your fault. Nobody saw anything?”
He shook his head, then remembered she couldn’t see that. “No. She called around to everywhere she could think of already. I ain’t gonna find nothing by doing it all over again.”
“No, you won’t. Just get yourself to the next one, Bobby. He’s gone. We’ll find him, but we need a clue to where he is first.”
He glanced around, expecting to see a suit tailing him. Instead, he saw few locals ignoring him. “Okay. Right. Just gotta focus.”
“I’m on my way to Colorado right now, okay? Sam and I—she’s from New York city—split from Jayce, he’s going up to Boston on the train. Have you sent anyone to the base yet?”
“Yeah. One so far. He left from Baton Rouge maybe an hour or two ago.” He should have come to New Orleans first. Except Raymond went missing early yesterday, and he couldn’t have gotten here that fast, not even by skipping Momma’s house. Damn.
“Okay, we’ll do our best to make good speed, then. Watch your back, Bobby. If you find someone who can keep up with you, consider teaming up so you’re not alone.”
“Yeah. That’s a good idea. Thanks.”
“I’ll see you soon, Bobby.”
“Yeah.” He hung up and dropped the phone back into his pocket. Panic helped nothing. Taking a deep breath, he tried to think about it more. The suits had been able to grab a SWAT team, so they must have plenty of resources. They reached New Orleans faster than he did, so they probably had access to at least one plane. Did the guys running the lab send out hit teams as soon as they noticed the four of them went missing? Man, would he love to get one of them strapped to a board naked. See how they like it.
Shaking off the thoughts that wouldn’t lead anywhere good, he took a deep breath and looked around. No one around, not really. He burst into the swarm and headed up. Time to get himself to Little Rock. Two of them lived there, Elizabeth Caulfield and Daniel Jarvis, at the same address. It wasn’t a terribly long way, he touched down in Little Rock at lunch time, hungry and on the lookout for a map. Problem number one was solved in the alley behind an Italian restaurant, problem number two at a gas station.
Elizabeth and Daniel’s house sat outside the city limits of Little Rock, by itself in a semi-rural area. Tucked in behind a bunch of trees, it reminded him of the kin
d of place teenagers went to in a horror movie. The walls needed paint, the roof had partially collapsed in one corner, the roof needed shingles here and there, a few shutters hung from just one point instead of two, some windows had been boarded up, and the porch didn’t look anything like safe to walk on. A cracked tire hung on a frayed rope from a big oak tree and a rusty old car without tires sat on blocks off to one side. Momma would tsk at the state of the yard especially, with weeds and grass higher than his waist in some places. He’d never seen dandelions that big before.
Bobby landed and re-formed next to the mailbox on the road, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his trenchcoat. Movies, he sternly reminded himself, had nothing to do with real life. People who lived in places like this usually suffered from poverty more than insanity. At least it had no dead rodents hanging from the roof or trees. If he saw something like, he thought he might turn around and walk away. Duty or no, he hadn’t igned up to collect crazy people.
Taking a deep breath, one that brought him the scent of dry earth and old leaves and damp wood, he forced himself to the front door. At the porch, he tested each step before putting his weight on it. It had no button for a bell, so he gulped and knocked. His prayers hadn’t been paid much attention recently, but he offered one up to not encounter a serial killer here.
Daniel’s appearance reminded Bobby a lot of himself. They had the same hair, eyes, facial structure, coloring, height, and build. Looking at him felt a lot like looking in a mirror, except Daniel seemed to have tiny differences that made him more rough and rugged, in the way he suspected a lot of women preferred. “Who’re you?” From his raised brow, Bobby figured Daniel noticed that, too.
“Name’s Bobby. You must be Daniel Jarvis. Is Elizabeth Caulfield here, too?”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. “Dan. What’s it to ya?” His Southern accent even sounded similar to Bobby’s.
“Dan, then. I’m here because we all got the same eyes, and stuff’s happening on account of that. I’d really rather just tell you both the whole story at once, if that’s alright. You’re both in danger, though, you ought to know that right off.”
