by J. D. Dexter
“Well, I feel like a horse’s ass.” Dr. Jamison blurts out.
Chapter Thirteen
The bubble of tension stuck in my chest explodes in laughter and snorts. Brent joins in as soon as he hears me. My boys find my snorting hilariously adorable. I’m not sure I believe them, but I’ll take the pseudo-compliment anyway.
My side and my cheeks begin to hurt after a couple minutes of uncontrollable laughter.
“Good.” Brent and I both say as soon as we can breathe again.
Dr. Jamison’s sheepish wince melts my heart a little bit.
“Hold any discussion about this. I’m going to get the family up and around. Do you need anything from home, Finley?” Brent asks, already pulling his phone out of his pants pocket. He’s hitting buttons without looking at me, concentration focused on getting our families awake and running again.
“I would like some of my own clothes to wear. This gown is just bringing me down.” I pluck at the fabric covering my ample chest.
“Gotcha.” He answers before turning away to talk to whoever he got on the phone. “I need you to call Josh and dad. I’ll call George and Alice. We’ve had another development with Finley.”
He makes me sound like some kind of virus. I pout at him. He smirks as he steps out into the hall, leaving Dr. Jamison and me alone in the room.
“Is there any way I can get disconnected from all of this machinery? That beeping machine is about to die…because I’m going to toss it out the window. I don’t care who is down there either. Although, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if Whittier was walking by at the right moment.” I smile at him, showing all of my teeth.
He chuckles, stepping over and pulling the various wires, tubes, and diodes off the different areas of my body.
“Last one,” he says. He grabs the edges of the tape that holds my IV down against my arm.
“Do it fast, please.” I squish my eyes shut. I hate needles.
I feel a tugging on my arm, and a short, fast pinch as the needle is removed.
“All done.” He’s staring at me, my IV line hanging limp in his hand.
“Thanks.” I rub at my arm, lifting my gaze to meet his. I feel a little trapped in his eyes. I can feel my heart rate slowly climbing. Luckily, I’m not connected to any more monitors, so I don’t have to worry about it giving away my secrets.
“I’m truly sorry, Finley.” He whispers to me, a slight pinching around his eyes. “Please forgive me. You knew exactly what you were talking about, and I shouldn’t have said you were over-reacting. I was under-reacting. I’m seriously glad you didn’t take my advice.” His eyes slide closed, a small quake moving over his body.
“I forgive you,” I whisper back him. I’m really surprised he humbled himself and apologized. I hadn’t really expected him to do that. My heart turns to mush.
Knew we had a connection.
I reach up and grab his hand with mine. Giving it a squeeze, his eyes open, locking on mine. I offer him a small smile, content to just hold his hand in this moment.
“Ahem.” Brent clears his throat, paused at the door.
“Come on in, Brent.” I tell him, still looking at Hunter.
Hunter squeezes my hand back, before letting it fall to my side. He turns to put all of the wires and other things he removed from my body away. When he’s done, he turns his tablet back on, and gets busy tapping at the screen.
“Hmm. That’s weird.” I just barely hear him. I look over to see him talking mostly to himself. I think he’s forgotten I’m in the room with him.
“What’s weird?” I ask.
“Huh?” He lifts his head and looks at me, confusion on his beautiful face. “Oh. I didn’t realize I spoke out loud.” He grins a little sheepishly. “I can’t find your file.” He’s looking back down at his tablet.
“What does that mean?” I feel a band around my chest, making it harder to breathe.
Crap, crap, crap.
Here we go again.
“Richardson said she would try to cover you with the agency. Could it be her?” Brent asks, coming over to look at Hunter’s tablet.
“You can’t see this, man. Privileged information.” Hunter steps back, cradling the tablet against his chest.
“Sorry, sorry.” Brent scoots away, a grimace on his face, hands up in surrender. “Do you think Richardson deleted Finley’s files?” he asks again from a couple feet away.
“I’m trying to check. Give me a second.” Hunter does some fiddling with the tablet again. His stance rigid and tense. “Oh, hell no.” He looks up, his face terrified. “It looks like someone made a copy of your file before Richardson deleted it from our system and our servers.”
I feel the bottom drop out of my stomach.
“Who made the copy?” Brent’s voice scratches over my nerves.
“I don’t know, it looks like a nurse’s code was used. I’ll go check.” Hunter races out of the room, the tails of his white coat flapping behind him.
I turn to stare at Brent, worst case scenarios running through my brain one after the other.
“We’ll get this figured out, Finley. Don’t worry.”
I’m not sure I believe him. It doesn’t sound like he believes what he’s saying either.
“What’s the big deal?” Brian’s low voice invades the horror show running on loop through my mind as he crosses the threshold into my prison cell—I mean hospital room. Turning to look at him, I open my mouth to share the crapshow my life has become, only to be cut short by Brent.
“Wait for everyone to get here, that way we don’t have to explain more than once.” Brent pulls him farther into the room, checking the hallway before closing the door and drawing the curtains. He looks like he’s in a really bad spy movie, checking to make sure the coasts are clear. The only person I can see in the hallway from my vantage point is Officer Davids. He’s looking a little sleepy to me.
“Fine.” Brian turns to the bed, coming over and scooping me up into his arms.
I wrap my scrub-covered legs around Brian’s waist, burrowing into his huge chest, clinging like a scared kitten. Brent scored me some borrowed scrubs from one of Hunter’s nurses. I’m so thankful to be out of those awful hospital gowns.
Considering the height of my guys, it’s just easier to wrap my legs around their waists when they want to hold me like this. Although, it probably looks a little too intimate to others.
“Finley-babe. It’ll be alright. We’ve got you.” Brian murmurs over and over into my hair.
“I found the nurse who copied the file.” Hunter’s voice pulls my head up. I see him step around Brent before stopping short at the sight of me in Brian’s arms, my legs around his waist. Hunter’s face is carefully blank.
I pull back a little from Brian, and he sets me down on my feet next to the cursed bed, looping his arm around my shoulders.
“And? What did you find?” Brent rushes over, missing Hunter’s reaction completely.
“Family?” Hunter asks me, his knuckles white around the edge of the tablet.
I smile softly at him. “Family.” I answer. He nods and takes a deep breath, his eyes warming back up after the chill that had entered them when he saw me in Brian’s arms.
“One of the floating nurses. She said a government agent had a warrant for a copy of Finley’s medical chart. I saw the warrant, it’s legit.” His face is carefully neutral.
I walk toward him, Brian’s arm dropping away from my shoulders.
This is the first time I’ve stopped to see how tall Hunter is. He’s easily six foot five.
Be still my heart.
God love tall men.
I swallow a giddy sound of excitement. Hunter’s answering smile matches my own. His full lips draw my attention. Wondering what they would feel like against my own, I take another step forward.
“Who was the agent?” Brent’s harsh question snaps me out of my fantasy with Hunter and his delicious mouth. I blink a couple of times. Brian’s quiet chuckle just reachin
g my ears.
I feel my face flame with embarrassment. Hunter winks at me before directing his attention back to Brent.
“Not Whittier.” That’s both good and bad news.
“Then who?” Brent’s voice is slowly climbing the rage scale. Apparently underwhelmed by the slow trickle of information, Brent scans the room.
He stops when he sees the fading color on my cheeks, which makes the red flare a little higher. He whips his head to look at Hunter. Back to me, over to Hunter. He gives me an aggrieved huff before stepping between me and Hunter.
He wants some answers…now.
“An Agent Scarsman, from the Kansas City FBI field office.” Hunter finally responds.
“What the hell?” Brian comes up behind me “Why do you have FBI agents looking at Finley?” He’s close to yelling. Brian doesn’t do well with being kept out of the loop.
“Wait for everyone to get here. I only want to tell it once.” Brent reminds him, a hand on his shoulder.
“Finley.” Brian makes demands with only one word.
I pull him to the side and give him a really brief rundown. The color in his face lets me know that steam could be coming from his ears shortly.
“Finley? Brian called and told me to come…oh.” Mark’s voice interrupts Brian’s explosion, for which I’m very thankful.
“What’s going on? Why is Finley out of bed already?” Mark asks, his forgetfulness is endearing sometimes. This is not one of those times. I have less and less patience with Mark right now. Come to think of it, I’ve been pushing him away since I woke up the first time. Subtly, but definitely there. I’m sure he’s felt the distance, too, if his tortured eyes are any indication.
“She healed herself remember, dad? Come in, close the door.” Brent waves him in.
“Oh, that’s right. I’d forgotten.” At his sheepish chagrin, I feel the tiniest piece of heart softening towards him. Even with all that’s happened recently, I still dearly love this man. I walk over to him, standing on tiptoes to peck his cheek. He returns the kiss on my hair, giving me a hug.
“Mr. Hastings, I would like to talk to you for a second.” Hunter says from across the room. All of the men in the room turn to look at him. He looks a little surprised by all of the attention he gets. He clears his throat, “Sorry. I meant Dr. Hastings.”
Pulling something up on his tablet, Hunter and Mark lean over the small screen and start mumbling to themselves.
“What the hell are we going to do?” Brian grumbles from the corner where I left him.
Brent and I go over to him. “That’s why I called everyone here. We need to come up with a plan.” Brent places his hand on Brian’s shoulder. “Now, just wait for everyone else.” He sounds exasperated, a fairly common occurrence between the two.
One more knock on the doors brings the boys’ and my heads around to see Josh, Mom, and Dad coming in. Clearly, they’re all surprised to see a full room of people.
“Finley? Where’s Finley.” Mom’s strident tone tells me she can’t see me from behind Brent and Brian.
“Here, Mom. I’m here.” I jump up and down, my arm raised in the air. I move the boys out of the way just in time to see the relief crash back down over my mom’s face. She looks older than when she left a couple of hours ago. My heart breaks seeing her suffering.
Dad looks as stoic and unmovable as ever. He’s a good partner for the more emotionally charged personality of my mom. They’re my relationship goal.
“What’s all of this about, boys? I thought we were meeting in a couple of hours to get Finley released and settled at home.” Dad says, clearly not liking the deviation from the plan that had been agreed upon.
“Can we get some more chairs in here, Jamison?” Brent asks, looking around at the two chairs available.
“Sure. Hang on. Start without me.” Hunter races out of the room, once again a man on a mission.
“I gathered everyone here because we’ve had some serious revelations in the hours since we left Finley,” Brent begins.
Hunter, along with another nurse, bring in three more chairs. Everyone gets settled. I sit back on the accursed bed, legs crossed under me. Hunter sits on the edge of the bed. I hold his hand in mine.
Josh smiles at me from across the room, nodding his head at our joined hands. I smile back at him, shooting him a wink.
“I got a call a couple of,” he glances at his watch quickly, “hours ago now from a nurse here at the hospital. It seems Dr. Jamison told her to call because agents from the Department of Homeland Security were demanding to see Finley. I raced over here, arriving just as they were beginning to question her.” Brent lets that fall into the room with all of the subtlety of a nuclear bomb.
It doesn’t take long for the explosion.
Mom’s hasty inhale is followed closely by dad’s glare. Mark looks like he wants to vomit. Josh joins Brian, leaning forward in their chairs, bracing their elbows on their knees, holding their heads in their hands, cursing the floor beneath their feet.
Brian’s clearly still struggling to deal with my nighttime visitors.
Brent gives everyone a chance to get over the shock before he starts with his story again.
“Turns out that Dad’s research has been given to DHS, and they have been searching out ANK-23 participants. Two agents came to question Finley. Whittier, male, early- to mid-forties, bland in every possible way, five foot eleven, brown and brown. Richardson, female, mid-thirties, trim, blond and hazel, about five foot eight.” I’m amazed at his brief description of the agents; he sounds like a law enforcement professional.
Part of his rundown nudges something in my mind. Something he said about Agent Richardson struck me as odd. “What do you mean her eyes were hazel?” I blurt out.
All eyes turn to me. Brent looks a little put out by my outburst.
“She had hazel eyes. What’s so hard to understand?” He huffs out, annoyed.
“She had eyes like mine—central heterochromia, but hers were blues, greens, and golds.” I look at Hunter for confirmation.
He’s looking at me like I’m crazy.
“Finley, she had bland hazel eyes. Pretty, I guess, but nothing like yours,” Hunter says.
I look back at Brent, he nods in agreement with Hunter.
“I can guarantee you they were like mine. Maybe not as many colors, but certainly not just hazel.” I try again.
“We can discuss her eyes later. Can I go on?” Brent pushes.
I nod mutely. There’s no way her eyes were just hazel.
Hunter squeezes my hand; I return the pressure.
“Richardson maneuvered Whittier out of the room. Richardson herself is an ANK-23 participant. No, I’m not going to tell you what her enhancement is—I can keep a secret too.” The last he says to Josh and Brian, who both look a little crestfallen.
“She said they, her and Whittier, were there to recruit Finley into Team 23,” my snicker covers Brent’s voice momentarily. He glares at me. “Yes, given, it’s a stupid name. Team 23 is supposedly a group of enhanced individuals who are on a goodwill mission for the US government. They are supposed to help in some way, I wasn’t really clear on that point. After Finley got Agent Whittier kicked out the room, however, Richardson made it clear that 23ers—her name for the enhanced participants—were being tested, their enhancements refined and expanded, and in the fine print of the contract for joining up, lose all of their rights and privacy. They essentially become property, like printers or office chairs.” I can hear the outrage in Brent’s voice.
Brian looks at me, his face a picture of grief overlaid by disgust. I know he’s not disgusted with me. Brian, while not anti-government, is definitely of the idea that the government is not a good and generous entity all the time. He’s the reason I’m so skeptical of the political system. He makes a pretty convincing argument.
“Richardson suggested that Finley formally reject the offer, and live a quiet life. No more hospital visits, no more blood tests, no bumps with th
e law. I’m going to suggest that Finley lead as quiet a life as possible, but I can’t squelch her fire.” Brent looks at me, a fierce smile on his face.
“What happens if Finley does get into trouble of some kind?” Dad speaks up, his brow furrowed in concentration.
“We’re not really sure, but Richardson indicated it would end poorly for Finley. I’m inclined to believe Richardson. She mentioned that she’s already lost someone close to her on Team 23. She says that Finley is the only 23er she’s met who had a good life, a good support system, and people who love her.” Brent continues, his voice holding just a hint of the gruffness I witnessed when Richardson was in the room with us.
“Then Finley needs to live as quietly as possible. I’m not willing to endanger her life, fire squelching or not,” Dad says fiercely. He’s my biggest protector getting ready to stand in front of me once again.
“What happens if she needs a doctor? She still needs to be healthy and that includes having yearly examines that need to be run through a testing facility.” Mom, ever the nurse.
“Dr. Jamison.” All eyes swing to the man holding my hand on the hospital bed. “Would you be able to suggest anyone who would be willing to see Finley off the books?” Dad asks.
“Uh. I’m not sure. I can make some discreet inquiries. No one right now; no one readily comes to mind for that type of case.” Hunter squirms just a little under my dad’s eye. “We can figure that part out later, if and when it does happen.”
“Well, I can do the yearly examine part of it, we’ll just need a lab for testing the samples.” Mom pipes up, she’s giving me a happy smile.
I’m not really sure why she’s happy; I wouldn’t consider vagina diving a pleasant way to spend time together.
I give her a half-hearted smile back. “Why are you so excited by that idea, Mom? It’s a little creepy.” I ask her under my breath, hoping all the men can’t hear us.
“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m happy happy about it. I’m just glad I have something to contribute. I’ll do anything to keep you safe, and if that means I have to see your lady bits once a year to help do that, I’ll bring the gloves and the bright flashlight.”
