by Lee French
“Um.” She pulled her hand to herself, and Bobby, sensing her sudden discomfort, got the dragon to hop off. “I can boot up a computer for you to use, I guess.”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that.” Any idiot could look a person up on the internet, right? He called his dragons back and sat down where she pointed to try to find Maisie Polape. Weird sounding name, so maybe not too common. After finding a browser, he tried very hard to ignore the attractive woman in the room so he could punch the name into the search bar. It came back with only a few results. Halfway down the page, the hits only had one name or the other.
The first link went to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the paper out that way. It had an article about how Maisie Polape went missing last night. A leaden feeling settled in his gut, making him sit and read the whole thing. She’d been out with her boyfriend, it said, and he got hit from behind. When he came to, Maisie was gone. He saw nothing. The police were already investigating it as an abduction.
Why were the cops looking into it if the government snatched her? Maybe they did that as a cover, and they’d ‘investigate’ for a little while, give up and call it a cold case. Still, why not just arrest her? Then again, none of the other missing people had been arrested so far as the families knew. These people had enough skill to abduct a person without leaving witnesses, and either no connection to the police, or no interest in keeping the cops out of it.
“I think you should hurry,” he said. Getting out of the chair, he found the kitchen empty. A plastic box full of food sat on the counter, and Lily must’ve left while he read the article and panicked. At least he now knew he had no need to figure out how to get to Hawaii and back. On reflection, he probably could have taken a plane out there and back, depending upon how much it cost. Or, heck, maybe he could fly in the baggage compartment if he stayed in the swarm the whole time. He shut down the computer and pulled out his phone to let Hannah know about Maisie while looking around the house for Lily.
As he passed the front door, he noticed movement on the wall, a shadow tracking across it. Hannah picked up the phone as he hurried to the front window and peered out around the side. The sight made him pale and pull back quickly, hoping the two guys in suits hadn’t seen him. Two long heartbeats later, the doorbell rang.
“Hannah,” he murmured into the phone, “there’s guys in suits here, I’m at Lily’s place.” He took the stairs two at a time to go intercept Lily on her way to answer the door. “Maisie got took last night, according to the paper. It’s so far, I decided to check first. If you don’t hear from me again today, it’s cause I’m took.” Without giving her a chance to respond, he snapped the phone shut and stopped short of colliding with Lily. “It’s them, they’re here, now, to grab you up. What’s your power?”
To her credit, she blanched without panicking. “I can make things, out of nothing. Simple things, like hand tools, toys, that sort of thing.”
Nothing leaped to mind for how to make that useful in this situation. “You stay here, keep packing up, keep Sebastian close. I’m gonna see if’n I can get rid of them, one way or another. Make up a bag of what you gotta take if you gotta go with just one bag, keep that close, but keep working anyway, just in case.” He took her hand and pressed the phone into it. “Hannah is speed dial one.”
She nodded and ran to her son. He hurried down the steps to answer the door. Halfway down, the door smashed open. Two men in suits stepped inside with guns out and ready, sweeping them around the room. He had no Stephen or Jayce around to handle this kind of thing, so he’d have to do it himself. Lily could help, except she needed to keep Sebastian safe. Who knew how many men these guys actually had. They could send someone to circle around back and swipe the kid while these guys in the front kept them busy. Not acceptable.
In sight of the door, Bobby put his hands up rather than bothering to hide and draw them upstairs. Both suits pointed their handguns straight at him. Not a lot of choices presented themselves. He picked the best thing he could think of an committed to it. “I sent her away already, you’re too late.”
Then what are you doing here?” It bothered him a tiny bit that these suits had normal voices. With the sunglasses hiding their identities so much, they ought to have creepy voices, or say crazy stuff, or something.
Bobby shrugged. “Packing some of her crap, using the bathroom, that kinda thing. Y’all made it so I ain’t exactly got lots of funding and all.”
“What’s your name?” Presented with an obvious target, they both focused on him. Good.
“That’s a kinda personal question. How’s about you tell me who you’re working for, and I’ll tell my name.”
“Are you going to come quietly, or are we going to have to shoot you?”
He took a moment to think about that, and made sure they could tell he thought about it. “You know, I ain’t rightly sure. Last time I got shot, it bruised up my hand something fierce, so I’d say it ain’t much fun, but I don’t rightly think it’s gonna kill me like it would you guys.” Saying that out loud gave him more confidence. He took the steps down slowly, keeping his hands up. “That kinda leaves me with not so much of a need to avoid it as a regular person might. A regular person such as yourself. I mean, you’re hunting us with guns? Really? Didn’t we make it pretty clear that ain’t gonna cut it?”
“Mitchell,” the second suit said into his sleeve, probably into a microphone of some kind. “It’s Mitchell.”
“Shoot, you figured out who I am.” He needed to make sure any bullets that got fired went nowhere near Lily and Sebastian. If he acted cocky, it might draw them out. Outside, he might be able to figure out a way to knock them down for a while. An old-fashioned fist to the face might work. “Well, I guess I ain’t got nothing left to bargain with. ‘Course, I know where they went, but you probably don’t care about that.”
“You’re lying.”
Bobby shrugged and forced himself to keep going down the stairs. They couldn’t hurt him, not really. This fear bubbling in his belly came from what their masters had done to him. Knowing that didn’t really slow his heart down. It kept beating a million miles a minute, ready to back him up the second he needed to fly into an adrenaline fueled frenzy. “Suit yourself.” Did adrenaline affect the dragons? Interesting question.
He pushed past the first suit, shoving him aside with his shoulder. Stepping past that man put him between the two of them. It felt stupid and crazy and vulnerable. The other suit holstered his gun, too. Behind him, he noticed movement, too late to do anything about it. The first suit jammed something into his back, and it buzzed and clicked.
A hot poker drove into his lower back. His body tightened, voltage sending him into spasms. His hands burst into dragons. His arms followed as he tried to scream and made only a weird whining noise. As more dragons fought their way free, the swarm flew into a blind rage. Stuck in a dizzying fog of pain, Bobby had no control over them. An eternity later, the swarm calmed down and let him re-form, his hands burning with agony.
Both men lay limp on the floor, covered with scorchmarks, and tiny bites and scratches. Their clothes had been shredded, with the damage focused around their hands and less frenzied across the rest of their bodies. Their faces hadn’t been spared at all, and their eyes— He covered his mouth with a hand, tasting bile. He did this, not Alice or Jayce or Stephen. His dragons, which were him, killed two men. They wanted to hurt him and others, so he’d done it in self-defense, but he still killed them.
Scrambling to get away from them, he stumbled into the nearest bathroom and splashed water on his face. Both his hands hurt even worse than last night, and he wondered how badly the dragons had been damaged by the jolt. Like any other bathroom, this one had a mirror over the sink, and he stared at himself in it.
“I did that.” He gripped the sink with both hands and groaned from the pain. “It was me, no one else. I gotta live with it. It was my fault.” Just like killing those homeless people had been Alice’s fault. “You dumbass. It had to ha
ppen eventually, but you just kept going, like you’re invincible and perfect and all that, but you’re not. You’re just a guy with a gun who ain’t figured out how to use it yet.”
He splashed more water on his face and grabbed a towel, drying his face as he hurried back to the stairs. One foot on the bottom step, he froze at the sound of a car door slamming shut, then an engine roaring. Out the door in a second, he caught sight of a black SUV peeling away, another suit in the driver’s seat. This one, he recognized. Austin, Phoenix, now San Jose, that guy got around, and fast. Though he wore sunglasses, Bobby thought it likely the suit saw him, too.
Part of him wanted to chase that guy down and demand to know where Jasmine had been taken. Terrified he’d kill that one, too, he ran back into the house. They had to get out of here. Would the suit call for backup or just let them go? How long would it take him to get backup? What would they bring?
Heckbiscuits, they had two dead bodies lying on the floor. As soon as anyone else walked through that door, they’d freak and call the cops. Taking the stairs two at a time, he ran up and called out. “Lily, they’re…I— Um. It’s safe for now. You don’t want to let Sebastian see, though. I…it was kinda an accident.”
The door cracked open and Lily peeked out. “Are you okay?”
“More or less, yeah. They had a taser, it stings, but I’m okay. They really…uh, they ain’t getting up.”
She nodded and let out a tiny sigh of relief, then her face clouded. “We should pack up the car and go, then, before they’re missed.”
“Yeah, uh, too late for that. We gotta move. Is it okay if I come with you after all? I don’t need to go to Hawaii, as it turns out.”
As a response, she opened the door and hugged him. It came as a surprise, one he needed badly. He wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. “Thank you,” she whispered. “If you hadn’t been here, they would’ve taken us.”
The apology he intended to deliver for doing something so horrible as killing two people in her house died under the weight of her gratitude. “Nah, you’da done alright.” With her this close, he wanted to kiss her. While he thought about that, trying to decide if he ought to or not, she pulled away. To cover up his disappointment, he crouched down to Sebastian’s level.
“Hey, buddy, we gotta load up the car and go away, right? There’s something at the bottom of the stairs, though, and I don’t want you to see it. There’s a…” He faltered, trying to figure out how to explain without explaining. “Here, just lemme carry you down the stairs and out to the car, okay?”
Sebastian looked to his mother, who paused for a second, then nodded. He put out his arms and let Bobby pick him up, and Bobby turned the boy’s head into his neck, then covered the one angle he might be able to still see from. Lily followed behind him as he carried the boy down the stairs and stepped over the bodies. He heard her sharp intake of breath, then they both reached the car. Sebastian’s car seat had already been strapped down in the back seat, so he settled the boy inside it.
“I’ll bring stuff out, just tell me what to grab.” Ten minutes or so later, she started the car and the three of them set out. With the one suit knowing exactly what had happened here, Bobby decided not to waste time trying to hide the bodies. He shoved them aside so he shut the front door and left it at that. His hands hurt. He did it all anyway, without complaint. Instead, he clenched his jaw and soldiered through it. His daddy would be proud.
Chapter 15
Once they reached the freeway, Lily turned on some soft jazz for Sebastian’s amusement. Bobby hadn’t had nearly enough good sleep over the past few days to resist that assault. Secure, warm, and comfortable enough, he passed out. He woke up to Lily shaking his shoulder.
“I hate to wake you, but I had to stop for Sebastian. We’re just south of Stockton.” She left him in the car and hurried around to Sebastian’s door to let him out of his seat.
Blinking and rubbing his eyes, Bobby got out and stood up. “Dang, I was really wiped.”
“Sebastian didn’t want to wake you up or we would have stopped sooner.” Lily held the boy’s hand to walk him to the building. “He needs to use the bathroom.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. I can take him into the men’s room if you like.”
“Sebastian, do you want to go into the boy’s room with Bobby, or the girl’s room with me? ”
The boy looked from one to the other and said, “Mama, please.”
Bobby cracked a grin. “Ain’t nothing like the honesty of a little kid.” In the bathroom, he took the time to run his head under the faucet, the closest he’d gotten to a shower since being arrested. As he walked back to the car with a handful of spare paper towels, he remembered he hadn’t called Hannah back yet. She must be worried to all heck. First Jasmine, now him. He groped around for his phone, started to panic, then recalled handing it over to Lily. At the time, he’d done it in case the suits managed to grab him somehow.
He found Lily making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a little one for Sebastian, and a full size one for him. He took his with reverent gratitude. “You got no idea how much I need this.” He took the first bite with unfeigned and unrestrained joy at the simple pleasure of fresh food prepared specifically for him. Though he wanted to use the phone, he wanted to eat much more. Five more minutes wouldn’t break Hannah. He sat down on the curb nearby and watched Lily make a sandwich for herself.
Sebastian sat next to him, enjoying his own sandwich. “Mama is pretty.”
“Ayup.” He nodded while he swallowed his bite. His gaze traveled from her feet up to her hips and he sighed with contentment. “She sure is.”
Lily glanced over her shoulder as she screwed the lid back on the peanut butter. Knowing he’d been caught staring at her behind, Bobby looked down at his sandwich.
“Bobby’s eyes are like my eyes, like Mama’s eyes.”
“Ayup, they sure are. That’s why I’m here, kinda.”
“Bobby talks funny.”
Bobby snorted. “I’m from Georgia. This is how we talk down thataway. You talk funny from where I’m sitting.”
Sebastian giggled and managed to smear peanut butter on his nose. Like he knew it would, a paper towel came in handy. Bobby used one to wipe the kid’s face off, managing despite him squirming and blowing raspberries.
“Aw, quit yer grousing, boy.” Bobby wasn’t rough, and he chuckled as he said it. “You do that to my Momma, and she’d tan your hide. How old are you, anyway?”
“Two and a half.” He held up three fingers.
Lily sat down with her sandwich, putting Sebastian between her and Bobby. “Not until September. His birthday is in March.”
“You don’t seem old enough to have a boy his age.”
“I got pregnant right after I graduated high school.” Lily sighed. “Got married then, too. His father enlisted, though, and was killed in action about a month before Sebastian was born.”
Stunned, Bobby gaped at her. “He had a wife like you, and a baby on the way, and he enlisted?”
She stared off at nothing. “We didn’t know there was a baby on the way when he did it. He thought if we were married, I’d be able to live near him easier. Then they sent him to Afghanistan, and he never came back.” Her thumb fiddled with her wedding ring. “Besides that, though, he just had to do it. He wanted to…he said he felt like he had something to prove, to himself and to his own father.”
He nodded, because he understood. He didn’t share it, because he didn’t feel like going off to die would make his father proud, but he understood it. “My daddy was a Marine. He died in Afghanistan, too, when I was twelve.” He had nothing else to offer on the subject and couldn’t figure out how to feel about her story. Plain as day, she still loved the guy. That might not leave much room for anyone else.
For several minutes, nobody said anything. Bobby polished off his sandwich and wiped his hands. “That really did hit the spot.” He stood and stretched his arms up.
“You didn�
��t say where we’re actually going, just Colorado. Do you have more specific directions than that?”
“Yes, ma’am, but I think Sebastian here needs to be rambunctious. He’s a boy, after all. I’ll go take care of that.” He picked the boy up and carted him to a grassy space, where he chased Sebastian around and threw him up in the air. They wrestled around on the ground enough to get the boy shrieking with joy while stopping short of how making him puke his food back up.
When they’d gotten back on the road, he picked up his phone where Lily left it for him and made the call. “Sorry I didn’t call sooner, it was complicated and then I fell asleep.”
“We were about ready to write you and Lily off.”
“We’re both fine. On the road to you right now. I…um, those two suits, they—” Bobby frowned, not wanting to admit what he did.
“Did you have to kill them?”
He sighed heavily. “Yeah.”
“Jayce had to take two down, also.”
“They’re gonna come for us with big guns, you know that, don’tcha?”
“It’s been on our minds, yes.”
“Did Stephen get there yet?”
“No. Where are you? How long do you think it’ll be until you get here?”
“I dunno. Lily has a little kid. We gotta stop a lot for him, probably. Just leaving Stockton right now.”
Hannah left a long pause. “She has a kid?”
“Yeah, he has the eyes. Cute as a button, too.”
“That’s really interesting.”
“If’n you say so. Do you want me to check in again before we get there?”
“No, just call if anything goes wrong.”
“Alrighty. See ya soon.” He hung up and watched the scenery go by.
