by K Hanson
“Yeah, it’s been a busy time,” I said. “This is Amari, someone I just picked up as part of a case.”
“Ah, hello there, Amari,” he said in a warm voice as he held out his hand.
Amari shook it.
“Please, do come in.” he waved us inside and closed the door after us, making sure to latch all of the locks.
I glanced around his lab. Both of his centrifuges were whirring in the corner. A couple of burners had bubbling liquid on top of them. Racks of vials full of chemicals of varying colors covered the walls.
“Hard at work, as usual, aren’t you?” I asked.
“I never stop. I’ve had some great success with a new water filtration process. The settlement council has even approved an order for me to install the first full-scale version. We should never have to worry about water shortages again.”
“That’s great, David.” I flashed him a quick smile as I scanned over his instruments, even though I didn’t know exactly what I was looking at. “I didn’t know it was so far along.”
“Yes, it is very exciting. I can show you how it works, if you want.” He started toward a contraption of tubes and pipes in the corner.
“Maybe another time,” I said. “Right now, I’ve still got this case with Amari.”
“Ah, yes, of course, I apologize for getting distracted. What can I do for you?”
“It’s a bit of a unique situation. I’m investigating a murder, but Amari was the victim. She thinks she was killed and came back to life.”
David frowned and cocked his head. “Is this some sort of prank, Isabella?”
“No, it isn’t. And someone claiming to be her uncle got me to find her and rescue her from some enslavers. But he wasn’t her uncle. He wanted to take her away for some reason. Amari thinks he was the person who killed her, or one of them at least.”
“This is … strange, to say the least.”
“Stranger than what happened to me?” I asked.
“By far. It’s one thing to change the biology of a creature. It’s quite another to bring it back to life.”
I let the reference to me being a creature slide. He had always known how to compliment a girl.
“Are you sure you weren’t just resuscitated?” he asked Amari.
She shrugged. “I can’t say for sure, but I didn’t come back with anyone around me. I don’t know who would go through the effort of reviving me and just leaving me behind. If I ended up in a hospital or with a doctor, they wouldn’t dump me somewhere just to get snatched up by enslavers.”
“Probably,” he said. “Can you tell me more about what happened?”
Amari gave David a quick rundown of everything she had told me.
“How did you feel when you woke up?” David asked.
“It was cold and damp outside, I know that.”
“I mean inside. Anything different?”
Amari furrowed her brow. “My lungs burned, I think. Like they didn’t have enough oxygen. The next time I woke up, they were fine.”
“So perhaps they had deteriorated postmortem, and then rejuvenated themselves? What could cause that, I wonder? Amari, would you allow me to do a quick examination? Nothing too invasive. I just want to get some basic information.”
Amari nodded. “Sure, go ahead.”
“Please, sit here.” He gestured toward a chair and then rolled up another one next to her.
I leaned against the wall and rolled my shoulders, relieving some of the tension of carrying the corpse of a grown man.
He took her pulse and blood pressure and listened to her breathing and heartbeat. “Everything seems normal, at least to me. I’m not a medical doctor, so I’m just going off of the knowledge I have. Where were you injured to cause your death?”
“Here, I think.” Amari pointed to the scar on her neck.
David gently tilted her head so he could get a clear look at it.
“The positioning matches a cut to the carotid artery, which could be fatal if not stopped within a very short time. This scar is remarkably fresh, yet very cleanly healed. Maybe what brought you back healed it, as well?”
“She also recovered from a gunshot earlier tonight.”
“Where did you get hit?” he asked.
“Here.” Amari pointed to the bullet hole in her sleeve, pulling it open a bit so David could see.
“A little bit of scar tissue, but the damage is healed.” He let out a sigh, turning to look at me. “Isabella, I’m sorry, but I think this is beyond me. I need to talk to someone who is trained in medicine. I know quite a bit about biology, but we need more knowledge. And there’s nobody in this settlement who qualifies. A few medics, but nobody I would trust with something this advanced.”
“But we both know someone who could do it,” I said.
David frowned.
“Yes, Rose,” he said. “It will be a trip, but it’s one we have to make.”
Amari looked between us. “What kind of trip?”
“Rose is a doctor in another settlement,” I said. “It means leaving Glenview and making the trek across town.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Very, and I don’t have a vehicle. We’ll have to go on foot,” I said. I really wished Jack was around or we had a way to reach him, but if he had left on another job, he wouldn’t be back anytime soon.
It was only a handful of miles to the Cathedral settlement where Rose lived, but with what awaited us in the darkness, it could be a much longer trip.
CHAPTER 6
I glanced over at Amari as she sat in her chair. Earlier, she had said she was good to go, but some slight circles of fatigue drooped under her eyes, and her shoulder slumped against the back of the chair. Adrenaline may keep her going for a while, but it wouldn’t last the whole trip to Cathedral Hill. She needed sleep, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
“It’s going to be a long trip,” I said. “We should rest up before we go.”
Amari sat up straighter. “I’m ready now.”
I admired her enthusiasm, but a five-mile hike through the dusk would take more than that.
“I’m sure you are, but have you made much of a trip outside these walls before?”
Her shoulders dropped. “Tonight was the first time.”
“I don’t want to discourage you, but trust me—you need every ounce of energy for what could be waiting for us. It will be a hard trip, and we might have company along the way. David, do you have a place she could wash up?”
“Of course,” he said as he looked toward her. “Do you see that door back there?” He pointed across the room. “You’ll find a bathroom in there. You’re welcome to it as long as you need it. And my cot in the back of the lab is all yours, too.”
“You won’t need it?” Amari asked.
“No, I’ll be fine,” David said with a genuine smile.
Without another word, Amari slipped into the bathroom. Hopefully, she could clean up the dirt and grime left over from crawling around that drainage pipe in the park.
I sank down into a chair, finally taking the chance to relax and let my guard down. It had been an exhausting day.
“She seems like an interesting girl,” David said.
“Yeah, I’m not sure what her story is. Or why they picked her.”
“No, I mean to go through so much and still keep her head up. A lot of people would have shut down, but she wants to keep fighting. Reminds me of you, a bit.”
“Of me?” I cocked my head and let out a huff of amusement.
“Yes, someone who doesn’t know when to take a break.” He laughed.
He wasn’t exactly wrong. But who could take a break when there was so much that needed to be done?
“How have things been here for you? I haven’t seen much of you since Arkwright.” I unclipped my holster and pulled the knife from my belt, and set them on the small table next to my chair.
He plopped into a chair across from me, letting out a sigh.
“Oh, I can
’t complain too much. I told you about that new water system I’ve made. I’ve also managed to modify some plants so that they can grow in the dark. I should be ready to send it to the nearby settlements soon.”
“Heard anything about the kids?”
“The ones that Arkwright was experimenting on? Rose has sent me some updates. Sounds like they’re doing well, though learning to live with the changes they endured is a challenge. One is stuck with a claw for a hand. The others all struggle with the more bestial nature from the night stalkers used to create the serum. And, of course, the trauma of being imprisoned and forced to fight each other for their meals. Recovery will be a long road for them.”
I remembered all the things Arkwright had done with those kids. Those corporate fuckers had used them to test serums that would transform a person into a kind of super night stalker, and it had left the kids with a variety of mutations.
Just thinking about it again made my blood surge with anger, and I clenched my fist for a moment until it subsided. I’d spent weeks trying to track her down after she had escaped me, but with no luck. She had kept herself well-hidden. One lead had led me to an old Arkwright office building, but nobody had been there.
“We’ll have to check in with the kids while we’re at Cathedral Hill,” I said.
“Indeed. Maybe I can think of some ways to alleviate their challenges.” He stood up. “I need to check on some of my experiments, and you need some rest.”
He went from instrument to instrument, jotting in a notebook, as I leaned my head back and fell asleep.
A few hours later, we were all awake and ready after our quick rest. Amari’s eyes held a spark of energy that hadn’t been there before, and she’d cleaned off the grime that had accumulated during her captivity and our escape.
I set out into the night, David and Amari right beside me.
The guards at the gate let us out of Glenview Station without an argument. As far as they were concerned, if anyone wanted to leave, it wasn’t their problem. Their only job was to keep bad things from getting in, not keeping us from getting ourselves killed doing stupid shit out in the darkness.
As we passed through the gate and headed west, we walked in silence for the first part of the journey. The city outside the walls was in stark contrast to what was in the safety of the settlement.
Dark, abandoned houses lined either side of the street, though they still had signs of the people who had left them. In one yard, a red ball still sat in the dead grass. In another, a stake with a chain for a dog was unused. Decorations hung in the windows, while the occasional windchime tinkled as it hung outside a front door.
Somehow, these signs of the life that had once been here made the darkness seem all the more haunting and consuming than if it had been taken down.
“Have you been out here much?” Amari asked as she stepped up next to me. “I know you came to get me, but aside from that?”
I almost laughed. If only I had never set foot out of those walls.
“I’ve been out a few times. Too many, if you ask me.”
“Is it all like this? Dark and quiet?”
“Mostly. Be thankful that it is quiet.” I scanned the area around us. Still nothing. “You saw those night stalkers that came at the enslaver camp, right? There are sure to be some of those out and about.”
“I’d never seen a night stalker until then.”
“You’re lucky. Don’t let them bite you.”
“Good thing you said that. I was planning on letting one take a nibble.” She cracked a smile. “Where have you been out of the walls? Have you been to this place we’re going?”
“Yeah, I’ve been there a couple of times.”
Inside, my spirit fell as I remembered those trips. The last time I had been there, it had been to bury my friend and mentor, Chief Howard, after he got turned into a monstrous night stalker, forcing me to kill him. We’d had a funeral without a body.
If he hadn’t left the settlement to help me, he would have still been alive, living with his daughter Rose. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing her again. She didn’t blame me for what happened, but I couldn’t see her face without feeling the weight of guilt for taking her dad away from her.
I shuddered at the memory and picked up my pace, the other two keeping up with me.
“What was your life like before all of this?” I asked Amari, ready to talk about anything else.
“Nothing too interesting, really. I was in grad school here in town when things started happening. I was lucky and had a friend with a house where the Fort Lorraine settlement popped up. I’ve been there ever since.”
We made our way down the hill toward the north, which would take us almost all the way to the Cathedral settlement, crossed over a bridge that divided two parks from each other, and then headed under an interstate overpass.
An engine roared from up the hill behind us. I whirled around as a truck charged down the slope.
Someone was in a damn hurry.
I didn’t like the look of this at all. What could they possibly be doing driving so fast? They didn’t even have their headlights on.
It would be best to just let them pass, so I led David and Amari across the street. An old fast food restaurant had one of its front windows broken, so we climbed in and hid behind the walls. I peeked my head out to see where the vehicle would go.
They emerged from under the interstate, slowed, and then stopped on the road out in front of the building. Had they seen us? Who were they?
A group of people climbed out from the vehicle, three in total, including a woman with a short blond ponytail who had been in the driver’s seat and two men, one with light hair in a military cut and the other bald with a bulbous nose. All of them had guns and knives strapped to their bodies. They weren’t average scavengers. These were bandits, and they had a working vehicle, which meant they had resources and fuel to spare.
“Where did you say it was?” asked one of the bandits.
From a pouch at her hip, the woman pulled out a small tablet, which lit up her face as she looked at it.
“Looks like it should be here. Right in there.” She pointed at the restaurant where we were hiding.
Shit.
As they started walking toward us, I grabbed David and Amari by the shoulder and pulled them toward the back of the restaurant. We went through the kitchen doors and ducked under the counter.
“Finally, it left the settlement,” said one of the voices as they came closer.
Glass crunched as they climbed through the same broken window we had used to get inside.
What did they mean by leaving the settlement? What were they tracking?
“Careful,” said the woman’s voice. “It might be protected.”
“We’ll be ready, don’t you worry your little head, sweetie,” the man said.
A thud sounded, followed by an “oof.”
“What was that for?” the man asked in a pained voice.
“Don’t be an idiot,” the woman said.
Footsteps came toward us. “Just under that counter, it looks like. It’s not far at all.”
Under the counter?
I looked around where we were hidden, feeling under the countertop. I couldn’t find anything of note that would be worth coming all the way out into the dusk.
Then it dawned on me. They were tracking us, somehow. I didn’t know how they managed that, but they had followed us from the settlement into the city itself. Could they be looking for Amari? Why? But I doubted they would be in the mood to answer questions about their mission.
If they truly were tracking Amari, escaping out the back wouldn’t stop them. I would have to fight them, ideally catching them by surprise before they could find us.
I calmed myself and listened to the three bandits as they approached. The soles of their boots squeaked slightly on the tile floor.
Their breaths sounded in my ears, their heartbeats coming into focus. A slight banging interrupted my concentratio
n. David was rummaging through a cupboard of supplies under the counter. He wasn’t making enough noise to draw the attention of the bandits, though. I only heard him because he was right next to me, and I had enhanced hearing.
I didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but he wasn’t an idiot, so I figured it was something that would be helpful.
I could leap out and attack the bandits, but that would ruin our chance to learn what they wanted and how they were tracking us.
With my hand on Amari’s shoulder, I leaned over and whispered, “Stay down. If things get dicey, run out that back door.”
She nodded, and I gave her a soft pat.
Then, I drew my pistol, stood up, and looked at the bandits over the barrel of my gun. “Hello, how may I take your order today?”
They all swiveled toward me, with their guns drawn.
“Who the fuck are you?” the woman asked as she glared at me, her sharp cheekbones giving her an intense look.
“I could ask the same thing,” I said. “You’re the ones who just chased us down with your truck and somehow are following us with that tablet.” I gestured the barrel of my gun toward her device.
“This isn’t who we’re looking for, is it?” asked the man with the big nose.
“No,” the woman said, “we’re looking for a Black chick.”
Yup, they were looking for Amari.
“There’s nobody like that here,” I said, tilting my head. “But maybe I can help you find her. Why are you looking for her?”
“None of your damn business,” she said.
“You made it my business when you followed me and shoved your guns in my face. Nobody here wants to die today, and I’m going to put my money on me to win this fight. So, tell me what I want to know.”
The woman scoffed. “You think you can take on all three of us?”
“I know I can. You really should have brought more with you if you wanted a fair fight.”
A little bravado sometimes went a long way to getting the bad guys to back down. If I seemed confident that I could defeat them, they might start to doubt their own abilities.
