“Here it is,” she said after a moment of searching.
I stepped behind her, but those three words, Salt Lake Pharmaceuticals, were the only three that came into focus. “What does it say?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Nathen and I were just talking about it when you—”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Dude, stop yelling,” Nathen said with a warning note.
I ground my teeth together to keep from yelling more.
“I’m sorry I haven’t finished my law degree. I skipped Stringasmanyunrelatedbigwordstogetheraspossibleuntilnobodyunderstandswhatthehellyou’resaying 101,” Carina snapped.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
The tension in the room had risen to a thick consistency like the stench of a public bathroom.
“We’ll find them,” Carina said. “And figure out what happened to my dad.”
I nodded.
“This is old.” Nathen pointed to a date at the top of the page. “Fourteen years, to be exact.”
“As far as I can tell, it talks about a prenatal drug distributed to the hospital by your dad’s company.” Carina pointed to certain parts of the paper, but none of the print made sense to me.
“What kind of drug?” Nathen asked.
“Voluntary. It’s supposed to strengthen the baby’s health in preparation for birth.”
I started pacing again.
“How come I’ve never heard of it?” Nathen wondered.
“I guess it never caught on,” Carina muttered, still reading under the dim light of the cell phone. “Not many mothers risk unnecessary drugs when it comes to their babies. Especially not unproven ones. This one just talks about an investment in Lindström by Sterling Securities.” She flipped past that page. “An order for that drug.”
“That thing is unpronounceable,” Nathen said, reading over her shoulder. “Pre…dexa…lida…sone? Something like that.”
“That was a huge order. Salt Lake Pharmaceuticals only had a month to fill it. This is eighteen years ago.”
Nathen pointed at the page. “That’s a lot of zeros lighting a fire under them to make sure they got it done.”
“What does this have to do with finding my family?” I snapped.
“This is where you dad works,” Carina said. “And mine works at Lindström.”
“He didn’t even work there fourteen years ago,” I said, throwing up my hands, “much less, eighteen.”
“I don’t know, Conor,” Carina said. “It’s too much of a coincidence. Both our dads—”
“Maybe that’s all it is,” I broke in. “Coincidence. This is going nowhere. We need to be out there looking for them.”
“Yeah, because rushing out there worked out so well for us earlier,” Nathen said.
“We can’t just stand here in the dark and do nothing,” I insisted.
“We’re not doing ‘nothing.’” Carina said. “There’s got to be something in here that will tell us what’s going on. Your dad works for—”
“I know where my dad works!” I cut in through clenched teeth. “But, like I said, he’s only worked there for twelve years. That has nothing to do with him or my family.”
“You were born at that Salt Lake Medical Center, weren’t you?” Nathen asked.
“We all were,” I said. “So what?”
My pacing increased. I felt like I was wearing a track in the hardwood floors. I couldn’t stop myself. I had to do something. While they stood around, reading old memos, my family was out there, possibly hurt. Maybe because of me. Did they leave to look for me?
If somebody hurt them, I was going to rip this whole city apart until I found who had and beat them to a bloody mash. It could have even been Marc, Carina’s dad, but I didn’t care. If he had anything to do with their disappearance, I was going to give him a beat down a thousand times worse than what he could do to me. I was going to…
I stopped, mid-step. Nathen and Carina were staring at me with eyes as wide as plates. “What?”
“What you just said…” Carina breathed.
My brows drew together. “What did I say?”
“It can’t be,” Nathen said.
“What can’t be what?” I asked. I didn’t have the mental capacity to figure out what they were talking about. I had to stop myself from jumping the couch and beating the answers out of them.
“You said…” Nathen started, but stopped and whipped his head around toward the front door.
“What?” Carina asked.
“Shh.” Nathen killed the light on the phone.
I turned but saw only the black night out the window.
“I saw something move in front of the window,” he whispered.
After a quick glance at each other in the dark, we crouched and moved toward the front of the house. Carina and I settled on one side of a front window while Nathen knelt on the other side. He pushed the curtain aside an inch and peeked outside.
“There are people out there,” he said in a barely audible whisper.
Finally! Somebody I could punch. I didn’t care who was out there. I was sure one of them would be able to answer my questions. I didn’t realize I was standing until I felt Carina’s rough hand on my arm. I settled back into a crouch.
“More kids?” she asked.
Nathen shook his head. “They’re darting around, trying not to be seen.”
Carina moved around me to peer out the window. “Are those guns? Do they have guns?” There was a slight panic in her voice.
What did it matter to her? Those guns couldn’t hurt her.
“Yeah,” Nathen answered. “Military?”
I switched places with Carina to have a look for myself. They were hard to make out in the dark. They were nothing more than shadows darting from fence to car to trash can to whatever cover they could use to mask their approach. They all wore black, completely covered from head to toe. Their bulk made me think they wore armor under all that black. And yes, they had guns.
“They’re not military,” I growled.
“How do you know?” Nathen asked.
“Why the hell would the military be converging on a residence in the suburbs?”
“Fair ‘nuff. Looks like Mr. Lava For Brains is finally thinking again,” Nathen quipped.
“Who are they, then?” Carina cut in.
“I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet one of them will be able to answer a few questions about my family.”
She grabbed my arm. “Conor,” she hissed. “If they start shooting, I’ll be fine and you might be able to survive a few hits if you’re lucky, but Nathen wouldn’t be so lucky. Don’t be stupid.”
“That’s what he’s good at lately,” Nathen muttered.
“So, what are we going to do?” I demanded. “Sit down, have a soda, and wait for them to get in position to storm the place?”
“I’m not saying that,” she said. “We just need to be smart about this.”
“Seems to me, there’s no smart play in this,” Nathen said.
“You’re not helping,” Carina hissed.
Nathen shrugged.
“What do you suggest, then?” I asked her.
“I don’t know! We just need to figure out a way out of here.” She crawled under the window and peeked over the edge. She squeaked and fell back. “Look out!”
Out of instinct—and doing the exact opposite—I peeked out of the window. A man was ducking back behind Nathen’s car and a dark object flew at the window. It broke through the window, sending shards everywhere, a string of thin smoking trailing behind it. I snatched it out of the air, cocked my arm, and threw it back out of the window.
“The back door!” Nathen croaked.
The tear gas grenade was only in the house for a second or two, but that was enough to make us cough and bring tears to our eyes. I sneezed, snatched Carina off the floor, and set her on her feet as we ran through the living room and dining room. I blinked tears as we rushed through the kitche
n to the back door. Nathen got there first. He unlatched the deadbolt and yanked the door open.
We made it about a foot or two outside before a pop sounded. Two thin needles stuck out of Nathen’s chest. Right around the time I realized they were connected to tiny wires that ran somewhere out in the dark, a series of clicks sounded and Nathen dropped like a sack of potatoes.
Two more pops. Wired needles appeared in my arm. More bounced off Carina’s hardened skin.
More clicking sent a sharp pain up my arm, causing it to stiffen and convulse. I felt my body fight the electricity, but it was a losing battle.
Luckily, Carina interfered. She grabbed the wires and ripped the needles out of my skin.
“Get Nathen,” she yelled. “We need to get out of here.”
More pops sounded, but these were different. Louder. Meaner. Something struck me on the side. I spun and fell to the ground as new pain bloomed like an evil flower coming to life.
“Conor!” Carina stepped in front of me. Bullets clicked off her. Most ricocheted off somewhere else, but one caught in her clothes, lost all its energy and fell to the ground beside me. I picked it up. It didn’t feel right.
“Rubber bullets,” I called up to her.
“They can still hurt you!” She yelled back.
Yeah, really? My side was going to have a nasty bruise for a few hours. I stood, making sure to stand behind Carina, my human shield. “Move closer to Nathen.”
She nodded and slid toward him.
We didn’t make it. The gunfire stopped just as a thump sounded somewhere from a neighbor’s yard and a canister flew over the fence. It hit the house and landed at our feet. It sat there for a moment before it popped and, like one of those spinning fireworks, it started to whirl. It spewed smoke everywhere. More canisters landed in the yard, adding their happy little clouds to the situation.
I coughed. My throat closed in on itself. My eyes felt like white hot needles were being pressed into them. I squeezed them shut.
My head went all wonky and I fell to a knee. I thought I might throw up and wondered if I’d pass out before I did.
In my giddy, light-headed state, I also wondered if I’d drown in my own vomit like a drugged out celebrity. I wasn’t going to find out. Darkness splashed over me like an ocean wave.
Chapter 23
10:06 p.m.
Something tugged on my arm, urging me to stand. I allowed myself to be pulled to my feet, coughing the whole time. Each time my lungs spasmed, flashes of light arched like lightning across the insides of my eyelids.
I mindlessly obeyed the tugging on my arm, allowing it to drag me along. I stumbled over my own feet but managed not to fall again. Had I fallen over? I didn’t remember falling over, but the hand under my arm urged me off the ground.
“Conor!” somebody yelled at me. “We have to get over the fence.”
I stumbled into a wall. I put both hands on the rough surface. Over? I brought both hands back a few inches, then forward. The wooden boards gave way and flew into the next yard.
“That works, too,” the voice said and dragged me through the narrow opening I had made.
I really had no clue what was going on. I just followed orders blindly. All I knew was I couldn’t stop coughing, my chest hurt, my eyes stung like somebody had poured acid on them, and I wanted to throw up, but couldn’t.
The person guiding me screamed in surprise. The piercing sound cut through the fog in my head. Carina. I clutched her hand holding my arm.
“Don’t move!” somebody yelled, a distinctly male voice. Deep and booming.
A hand gripped my shirt at the shoulder.
“Conor!” Carina yelled from the other side of me.
That was all I needed to let me know the hand on my shoulder wasn’t her. I grabbed the wrist and squeezed. The hand flexed open and I twisted it hard. Satisfaction cut through the pain when I heard pops and felt his arm give under the pressure. He grunted. That wasn’t quite as satisfying as a squeal of pain, but it had to do.
“Gun!” Carina said.
I imagined him reaching for a gun with his free and uninjured hand. I snapped my foot out, landing a solid kick to the gut, letting go of his broken arm at the same time. The kick had enough force behind it to send him flying out of reach.
Another hand landed on my other shoulder. Instinctively, I grabbed it and gave it a similar twist, but it didn’t give.
“Conor, it’s me!” Carina hissed.
I realized the flesh under my hand felt like stone and released it. She dragged me across my neighbor’s yard and pushed me against another fence. It wobbled against the sudden force and she pulled me down to a crouch. I couldn’t open my eyes and just the thought of trying made them hurt more. I was totally reliant on Carina.
“They’re everywhere,” she hissed. “Stay here.”
“Wait!” I said as loud as I dared, but she was gone. Just to make sure, I reached around me with both arms but felt nothing but the fence behind me. I tried to listen to sounds around me, but only heard my own ragged breathing and muffled coughs.
Left alone, I started to worry. Was I going to be blind permanently? Would I even be able to open my eyes again? They felt glued shut. Panic wiggled its way around my chest like a worm trying to burrow into the ground. My breath quickened. My coughing grew worse. It hurt to stifle them. Each one felt like it would rip my chest open like cracking a peanut shell.
“Conor,” Carina hissed, putting a hand on my arm.
I jumped at her sudden voice and touch. “Where did you go?” I croaked.
“Here.” She grabbed my hand and water splashed over it. Then, she wrapped my fingers around what felt like a hose. “Wash your face.”
I leaned over and held the hose close to my face. The water felt like aloe on a sunburn. Immediately, the sting lessened to the point I thought I just might be able to see again. I rubbed my free hand over my eyes before using my fingers to pry them open. The water on my eyeballs made them hurt almost as bad as before, but I let it run on them.
“I don’t know where they are,” Carina said. “They’re out there. What are they waiting for?”
I filled my mouth with water, swished it around, and spit it out before taking a long drink that hurt to swallow. I dropped the running hose and blinked. They still hurt, but I could feel them already healing. Everything was still a big, dark blur, though.
“We have to get Nathen.” I started to rise, but Carina grabbed my arm.
“Wait,” she hissed. She pointed to the roof.
“What?” I didn’t see anything. Just dark shapes in front of less dark shapes.
“They’re still there.”
“We can’t leave him.”
“If we go back there, we’ll be right back where we started,” she warned. “Do you care for round two with that gas?”
I really didn’t. “We can’t just leave him,” I said again.
“I know, but we can’t just rush in there or we’ll join him.”
I turned to ask what she suggested, but never got the words out. They caught in my throat like a greasy fast food cheeseburger. I stared at a blurry little red dot wiggling around on her shirt. I planted a hand on her shoulder and pushed her.
Probably a little too hard. She flew over the fence into the next yard over. A pop sounded somewhere in the night and a sizable hole exploded in the fence where she used to be.
“That wasn’t a rubber bullet,” I said. I jumped to my feet and dove over the fence myself. I tried to tuck myself into a roll but ended up flopping on my back next to her.
“What did you do that for?” She demanded. Luckily her hardened skin had left her without a scratch.
“They’re not messing around anymore.”
More pops were followed by bits of ground flying around me and new holes punched into the fence.
Huddling against the house, we were afforded some protection in the angles, but I had no doubt it wouldn’t take them long to maneuver to get a better shot at
us. Apparently, they were done with passive tactics, especially for two freaks who had escaped their gas and rubber bullets.
I wasn’t ready to give them what they wanted, though. We had no idea what they were up to before they stormed Nathen’s house, but there was no doubt now. They were after us. Why? I don’t know. Whatever it was, I wasn’t about to give it to them. That included Nathen.
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