With a sigh, Bash went back downstairs and out the front door.
“Come on, Lily,” he called out. “It’s fine.”
Lily came out of the forest and into the cabin with him.
Bear flu victim,” Bash said. Lily nodded and bit her lower lip as she looked around.
“Such an awful disease,” she said, pain filling her eyes. Bash knew that memories of her own family suffering were coming back to her, and he pulled her into his arms.
“I’m really sorry,” he said, kissing the top of her head. She leaned her head against his chest.
“It’s okay,” she said. “At least seeing things like this motivates me to work harder to get the cure out there. No one should have to suffer the loss of their family or loved ones when there’s help available.”
“I agree.” Bash said. “Which is why we need to get in touch with Juno. Looks like this guy’s got a computer. Let’s see if it still working.” Bash fired up the computer, which didn’t seem to be secured by a fingerprint requirement.
“Who just leaves their computer unsecured?” Lily asked. “That’s weird.
Bash laughed. “Some guy living out in the middle of the woods as a recluse is probably just trying to live and let live. I don’t think he expected anyone to come in here and use his computer.”
“I wonder where he is,” Lily said. “His truck is still out there.”
“He probably wandered off into the woods to die,” Bash said with a sad shrug. “It’s awful, but it’s true. A lot of bear flu victims, especially men, get really restless at the end and stumble around deliriously.”
“Yeah,” Lily said biting her lower lip again. “My dad was kind of like that. My brother not so much. But my dad…”
Her voice caught and she looked away, obviously fighting back tears. Bash reached over and squeezed her shoulder.
“Hey,” he said. “Don’t think about it right now. Let’s see if we can get online and check my email. That’s the first way Juno would try to contact me.”
Lily nodded, blinking back tears as Bash tried to log into his email.
“Internet out here is pretty slow.” he said, “But it looks like it’s going to let me in.”
Moments later, his inbox popped up and he let out a cheer.
“Yes! We have a message from Juno,” he said. He started reading, and it didn’t take long for his jaw to drop.
“Holy shit,” he said. “Holy shit?”
“What?” Lily asked, running back over. She’d been looking through the drawers in the kitchen. “This place is pretty old-school by the way. Most of the guy’s stuff is still uncomputerized.”
Bash laughed. “He must’ve been like my buddy Drew, trying to stay off the grid. Just not quite as committed to no computers as Drew is, lucky for us. Come look at this. Look what Juno said.”
Lily peered over Bash’s shoulder, and Bash started reading the email.
“Bash, I hope this email finds you well—and I hope it finds you quickly, since I haven’t heard from you. I’m assuming your hover crashed. Hopefully you made it to safety and are okay. As soon as you can, please contact us. We are all fine and made it to Hideout B. Not long after we got here, we were contacted by the President. It seems that the reporter who interviewed Lily decided to use her contacts at the White House to let them know about the cure. Somehow she got the message through to the President, and managed to convince him that there actually is a cure available.”
“Wow,” Lily said, cutting in. “That’s awesome.”
“Yeah,” Bash agreed. “But it doesn’t end there.”
He went back to reading. “The President sent out the National Guard, or what remains of it anyway, to guard Hook Labs. They’re there with Grant and Jack right now, who have demonstrated the medicine, but the President still doesn’t trust that this isn’t some plot of shifters to kill off more people. He wants to see Lily to know for sure. Let’s just say that he’s become quite a paranoid man, with everything going on lately. If Lily can talk to him and convince them that she really is a full human who was cured, I think we have a pretty good chance to get this cure moving forward. But there’s one other hang-up—I found out who the people were that attacked us. Apparently Hook Labs still has a small army out there, and they’ve been watching us. I’m not sure exactly when they found out who we are or what we’re doing. My guess is that somehow they learned about the news story the reporter was doing. Maybe they followed us home from there or something. They’re the ones who attacked us, but they’re scientists, not soldiers. That’s why they weren’t very good fighters. As far as I can tell, they haven’t been able to figure out where Hideout B is, so we’re safe for the moment. The National Guard is watching us as well. Here’s the kicker: I’ve been working on decoding some documents from Hook Labs for a while now. They were labeled as top-secret, and I thought they were just some research from something unrelated. Grant’s been working on them with me, and we managed to crack the code. It turns out that the bear flu itself was actually created by Hook Labs. It was a mistake. They originally intended for it to be a virus to kill off shifters. Remember the guy who was part of the virus decades ago when our parents were younger? That old scientist kept some of his data, and was trying to bring it back and bring back the virus. But he fucked up, to put it mildly. He misread the data, and the virus he created and released, instead of being aimed directly at shifters, was actually effective against everyone but shifters.”
“Oh my God,” Lily said. “So this guy was trying to kill off shifters and accidentally killed off humanity? And what’s Juno talking about when she mentions the old virus?”
Bash leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “A couple decades ago, even before I was even born, actually, a group of scientists who knew about shifters wanted to get rid of us. They were working on a virus that would essentially kill off the world’s entire population of shifters, and they got pretty damn close. But my parents and their clans fought against them and killed them all off. All except for one. They never knew where that guy went, and they thought all of his data was destroyed. But somehow, he must’ve made it to safety and kept some of the data. I guess that goes to show you can never assume you’ve completely beaten someone until you know they’re dead. I’m honestly floored that this is how this all came about. We have to figure out where we are and get in touch with Juno so that we can get you to the President. No doubt Hook Labs’ scientists, or what’s left of them anyway, want to get the cure in their hands so they can act like they cured the disease instead of being the ones who created it. Then they can blame shifters and convince whoever is left of humanity that the shifters are responsible for the near extinction of the world and that we need to be killed.” Bash felt like his head was spinning, and Lily looked like she felt the same way.
“This is too much,” Lily finally said.
“You’re telling me,” Bash agreed. It’s hard to believe, but we don’t have time to sit here pondering it all. Let’s figure out where we are and let Juno know.”
“How we can do that?” Lily asked. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Good old Google maps,” Bash said. “A half-century later, and it’s still the best for finding your location.”
Bash pulled up Google maps and hit the little button that would show where he was, then he started zooming out further and further.
“Northern Virginia, like I thought,” he said. “Pretty far west though. We’re almost in West Virginia. Let me just get our latitude and longitude coordinates and email them over to Juno.”
“Then what?” Lily asked.
“Then we wait here,” Bash said. “I have a feeling that the President is going to figure out how to send someone out to get us, and I would imagine he’s not going to waste any time doing so. We’ll let Juno take care the details, while we sit tight and wait. And, in the meantime, I’m sure we can find ways to keep ourselves entertained.
Bash winked at Lily, who bl
ushed and looked away. Bash felt a little thrill go through him. If he had to be trapped at yet another cabin in the wilderness, he couldn’t think of a better person to be trapped with than Lily.
Chapter Ten
Lily couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was all the nerves and excitement of the day, or maybe it was the fact that she had napped half the day away. But right now it was eleven p.m., and she was wide awake. Bash was snoring upstairs in the loft, and Lily was pacing the first floor, feeling like a caged animal. Now that she knew that the President wanted to meet with her, and wanted to get the cure for bear flu out there, she couldn’t calm herself down enough to sleep. They hadn’t heard back from Juno since they emailed her to let her know where they were, but Bash was hopeful that it wouldn’t take more than a day for something to happen. If the President really wanted to see them, then he wouldn’t waste time. Not with thousands of new bear flu victims every day. The sooner this got taken care of, the better.
Lily kept pacing, her thoughts jumbled and disorganized. Her life looked so different now than it had just a few months ago. She’d lost a lot, and she’d been through a lot. And yet, she couldn’t keep the smile off of her face when she thought about how she and Bash had been brought together. She was surprised at how sweet he could be. He might have a tough, bad boy exterior, and he might act like a daredevil sometimes. But underneath that rough façade was one of the kindest men she had ever met. Now that they were being open and honest about their feelings for each other, he took every opportunity to touch her hand or her shoulder, to put a palm on the small of her back, or to send a wink in her direction—usually accompanied by a little poking of her ribs. He wasn’t holding back anything. He cared about her. He felt things for her, and he wanted her to know it. Lily breathed in deeply and let out her breath slowly. She would’ve liked to have met him under better circumstances, sure. But sometimes things have to come together in just the right way, and maybe all of this was what she needed: a crisis of worldwide proportions that forced her to be courageous, and brought into her life a man who saw the courage hiding within her.
Lily smiled, but her smile froze as she glanced out the front window. In the distance, she had just seen a flicker of light high above the trees that looked like a hover’s headlight. It had appeared and disappeared so quickly that she thought it might have been her imagination, but something told her it wasn’t. Her heart pounded in her chest. Was it the President sending someone for them, or was someone else out there? Lily strained to see in the darkness, and moments later she saw the light again, followed by another light. They were hovers, and they were getting closer. She had a bad feeling that these were not friendly hovers, and she quickly darted over to the ladder. She climbed into the loft, where she found Bash snoring, and shook him awake.
“Bash! Bash, wake up,” she said. He grunted and rolled over, and she shook him again.
“Bash, wake up,” she said, shaking him. Suddenly, his eyes flew open and he popped up, looking around wildly.
“What is it?” he asked, instantly alert.
“There are hovers coming,” Lily said. “I’m not sure if they’re friends or not, but they’re definitely heading in this direction. There’re a few of them. Two, maybe three.”
Bash instantly jumped out of bed and pulled his jeans on. He slid down the ladder in one swift movement, without even bothering to put his feet on the rungs.
“Over there,” Lily said, following him and pointing toward the front window. “I saw lights in that direction. Do you think it’s maybe the President sending people to rescue us?”
“Shit,” Bash said. “I don’t think so. I don’t think he would send that many hovers with lights that bright. Whoever is driving those hovers isn’t very good at keeping a low profile.”
Lily’s heart pounded. “Do you think it’s…” she trailed off.
“Those scoundresl from Hook Labs?” Bash finished. “Yeah, they found us somehow. Goddammit I shouldn’t have used the computer, but I didn’t have much of a choice. Shit, shit, shit.”
“What are we going to do?” Lily asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
“The only thing we can do,” Bash said. “Fight.”
“Fight?” Lily repeated. “I don’t know how.”
“You can learn, sweetheart,” Bash said as he fired up the computer.
“What are you doing?” Lily asked.
“Sending a Mayday message to Juno,” Bash said. “I don’t know if she’ll get it in time. Probably not, but I don’t know how else to let her know what happened if we disappear. Lily felt like the breath was leaving her body. She breathed in and out and repeated her new mantra to herself.
“Be brave, be brave, be brave.”
Bash sent a quick email, then killed the computer so that there were no lights on in the cabin. He motioned to Lily to follow him back up to the loft, and they sat there in silence for a long time. Bash held the one small handgun they had.
“Do you know how to use this thing?” he asked. Lily shook her head no.
“I thought not,” he said. “I’m going to give you a quick lesson, just in case something happens to me.”
“I can’t learn to use a gun in three minutes!” Lily said, her eyes widening.
“Yes, Lily. You can,” Bash said. “Now focus.”
He started pointing out the features of the gun, and Lily did her best to pay attention. She was pretty sure she would never be able to pull the trigger, but she at least tried to look like she was taking in what he was telling her. Every now and then, the lights from the hovers flickered above the tree line. The hovers were getting closer, and they were definitely heading in the direction of the cabin.”
“They’re still pretty far out,” Bash said. “And they’re moving slowly. I don’t think they know exactly where we are, which is good. They’ll find us before morning, though. Which is disappointing. I could really use some daylight if I have to fight a bunch of these cronies.”
Lily said nothing. The minutes ticked by, feeling like an eternity. For the most part, Lily and Bash sat in silence, although occasionally Bash reached over and squeezed Lily’s hand. The hovers seemed to circle for nearly an hour. They didn’t make much progress, but then they started heading in the right direction, getting closer and closer.
“Shit,” Bash said. “They found us.”
“How?” Lily asked. “The computer’s not even plugged in.”
“Who knows,” Bash said. “There are too many electronic signals in here. Whoever the guy was that lived here, he wasn’t as serious about hiding out as Drew is. He’s got some electronic shit in here. Not much, but enough. And those guys are tracing it.”
“Why don’t we run?” Lily asked. “We could go out into the woods to hide.”
“They’ll find us out there,” Bash said. “And we’ll probably get separated. Besides, then Juno won’t know where we are and the President won’t be able to find us. Not a good idea.”
“You’re crazy,” Lily said. “We should run. Now.”
“No,” Bash said, his voice taking on a stubborn tone that Lily had already learned to recognize. For whatever reason, Bash didn’t want to leave.
“We could take the take the truck,” Lily said.
“It doesn’t have enough gas. I already checked,” Bash said.
“So we’re just going to stay here like sitting ducks, waiting for them to come kill us?” Lily asked, her voice starting to shake. Bash looked over at her and smiled, his eyes crinkling in the moonlight.
“No, Silly. We’re going to sit here and wait for them to come so we can kill them.”
Lily shuddered. This was insanity, but the only thing that sounded scarier than sitting here waiting for these guys was running off into the forest alone, and Bash clearly wasn’t going to run.
“Bash,” she tried one more time. “Come on.”
“Nope,” he said. “I’m not leaving. Don’t worry. We’ll hold them off and Juno will send help when she sees my me
ssage.”
“But she might not see it in time,” Lily protested.
“She will,” Bash said. “She always does. She has a good sense for these things.”
Lily fell silent as the sound of the hovers became louder and louder, until they were right above the clearing where the cabin was located. The hovers paused in midair for a moment, and then dove downward.
“They found us,” Lily said, her voice filled with fear.
Bash said nothing. He just held his gun steady and waited. There were three hovers, and each one was holding four men. They were all dressed in black, just like the attackers at the old hideout had been. But thanks to the bright moonlight, it was still possible to watch them through the small window in the loft that looked out into the front yard.
“There are so many,” Lily whispered.
Bash shook his head. “Just twelve. Much easier to handle than the last group.”
Lily felt like she was going to puke. She had convinced herself that she could hang with the shifters, but right now she just wanted to disappear into a hole in the ground.
“Bash…” she said, not even sure what to say after his name. It was too late now to run into the woods, even if he wanted to.
“Don’t worry,” Bash said. “Just stay close to me and I promise I’ll protect you.”
Lily wanted to cry, but she forced herself to keep quiet and put on a brave face. The door to the cabin creaked open, and bright flashlight beams swept across the first floor. Lily and Bash huddled in a back corner of the loft, where the light couldn’t reach them from downstairs.
“There’s nothing here,” one of the men said. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here. There’s just a bunch of rotten food and other shit like that. I think we’ve got the wrong house.”
Courage in a Fur Coat (The Fur Coat Society Book 5) Page 6
