Vindicta, p.19
Vindicta, page 19
Kim seemed to waver, though Kate couldn’t read the emotion in her eyes because they were so foreign. “Look. We’ll tell them what happened, and then we’ll come to get you. Why don’t you go wait over there at the pavilion.”
Kim’s head jerked to the covered structure near the water and she took off without warning. Kate blew out a deep breath and Storm cocked an eyebrow at her. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“You want to talk to them?” he asked. “I’ll secure the area.”
“I guess.”
So far they had seen no movement in the covered windows. There had been no sound through the wooden walls. There was nothing to indicate that people occupied this place at all. Kate wondered if the woman was confused, or delusional.
Perhaps the change had turned her insane.
She knocked anyway, standing off to the side to avoid any shotgun blasts because now she was paranoid about doors as well as bathrooms.
There was no answer.
“Mr. Daniels? My name is Kate. Can you come to the door so that we can talk?” she asked.
She sounded like a social worker.
She knocked again. “Mr. Daniels, it’s about your wife. We really need to talk!” Kate called.
She was considering whether they should try to bust in or just leave when she heard the sounds of multiple locks. She stayed off to the side of the door and her palms grew sweaty as she considered what she needed to say.
She used to be a people person, but this wasn’t a color consultation, or a living room makeover. She had changed too much to ever be able to communicate so effortlessly with people again.
And how did a person go about telling a man that his wife is now a freak?
“Come in. Slowly,” a deep voice said from inside.
This was probably a terrible idea.
“Why don’t you come out?” she asked.
“Not yet. Come in. Leave the door open if you want,” he insisted.
Storm, standing near the corner of the building, frowned and shook his head in warning. She raised her eyebrows and shrugged.
“Okay. I’m coming in, but don’t try anything or you’ll regret it. Trust me,” she warned. She heard an impatient sigh and stepped through the doorway.
She left the door wide open.
The first thing she saw was a man in a wheelchair. The second thing she saw was a kid with a sniper rifle pointed directly at her face. The thing was almost bigger than he was, and she was only exaggerating a little.
“Can you even fire that thing?” she asked with a grin.
“You want to find out?” the kid said with a sneer.
She smiled. “I like you, kid. My name is Kate.”
He didn’t say anything and that was fine. She needed to talk to Mr. Daniels but wasn’t sure if they should have the conversation with the boy in the room.
“I need to talk to you about your wife. Do you think we should be alone for that?” she asked.
“No. Wes is thirteen. He’s old enough to hear anything you have to say.” The man answered and rolled further into the light.
She tried not to stare.
It was evident that he’d been in some horrific accident at some point in his life, and she didn’t know what to make of it. How did he make it this long? His face was scarred and burned on one side. His arms and shoulders were big, bulky even. He’d obviously spent a lot of time lifting. He was missing a leg.
“Mr. Daniels—”
“Joe,” he insisted. “Now tell me about my wife. Is she okay?” she sensed an edge of panic beneath his calm exterior. This man was used to hiding his emotions.
“She’s alive…kind of,” she answered and his eyes narrowed. “We found her at the hardware store up at the intersection near The Pines. She had changed into one of those things. When we realized that she wasn’t trying to kill us, we managed to communicate with her. She told us about you and your kid and that you were here. We brought her with us, but…she’s not going to look like you probably remember.”
He looked down at his lap and covered his face with one large hand. “Was that her banging on the door a few minutes ago?” he asked.
“Yes. I told her that you guys wouldn’t know that she wasn’t dangerous. She’s waiting at the pavilion.”
“She left three days ago to go get food. I would have gone, but she stole my crutch,” he said and Kate saw the faintest glimmer in his eyes as he looked up. His devastation was well-hidden, but it was there.
“Joe, she was probably already ill by then. That’s probably why she left. She didn’t want to turn here.”
“Shit,” he said, shaking his head.
“But it’s still Mom, right?” Wes asked Kate, looking frantic. “She’s still my mom! You said you talked to her. You said she told you about us!”
Kate held up a hand for him to stop. “She’s still your mom, but she’s also one of those fre—uh, sick people now. Her eyes are very different and she has trouble controlling her body. She can’t talk, but she can write. She’s going to be different than you remember.”
Right then, they heard the telltale harsh whooping, and Kate grimaced apologetically at the man.
“Dad came home different than I remember,” the boy pointed out and the man winced.
“Just bring her here, and find my damned crutch,” the man ordered. He seemed to realize what he had sounded like and amended himself. "Please?”
Well, at least this bossy asshole has manners.
She left and went to the doorway. “Bring her in!” she called out to Storm.
They heard the rapid thuds of feet on the dirt and harsh breathing. The doorway was filled by the woman, blocking a lot of the light. Her head twitched and her fingers pinwheeled in the air by her thigh.
“Kim?” Joe asked, pressing his lips together.
His face was a disturbing mix of grief and elation and horror. Kate couldn’t bear to look at him and turned to the boy.
He was grinning.
“Cool eyes, Mom!” he said and the woman's lips trembled and she bared her sharp teeth in a grin.
It was pretty terrifying. She held a hand out to Joe and Kate saw his anguish as he wheeled forward a bit. He paused a moment with heartbreak so sweeping that the room was filled with it. Kate was suffocating in it.
She needed to get out.
She pushed through, not even caring that her arm brushed the woman. She couldn’t deal with this. Storm grabbed her arm as she passed.
“Let me go,” she snapped and jerked her arm away.
He looked surprised and let her go. She stumbled and limped over to the pavilion and sat. She looked out over the sparkling lake as the deep ache settled in her calf and in her chest.
Family. It was the most important thing now. She felt the weight of it settle on her. She had her new family here, but she also had the old one that she had let down.
At that instant, she knew that she was going to have to go back and find Jared before she did anything else. She needed him to know what happened and if he forgave her, fine…if not then she would deal with that too.
Storm wasn’t going to like it.
She figured that she could make it there and back before they pulled out for Colorado. She wasn’t going to abandon them, but she had to clear the air with her brother first.
“Kate?” Storm said, moving so silently that she hadn’t heard him come over. She reproached herself for letting him sneak up on her. It was stupid to let her guard down.
“Yeah, I’m coming. There’s something I have to tell you.”
He looked wary as she got closer, maybe seeing the way her jaw was set or maybe the way her eyes were firm with her decision. He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m going home to talk to my brother,” she said.
His cheek muscle jerked and a mask descended over his face. He looked at her like she was a stranger. “You’re leaving.”
“I’ll come back,” she said and he looked away. “It’s only a two-hour drive.”
“It’s much more than a simple drive now, Kate. You know that,” he bit out.
“I have to go. I have to tell him what I did. I can’t get away from it.” She turned back to the lake. “I got my mother killed, Storm.”
He blew out a breath.
“At the stadium. I didn’t save her and I didn’t stop her. She died and I failed her and my brother.”
Storm came around her and put his hands on her shoulders. “That’s not on you, Kate,” he said fiercely. “You tried. Your mother made her decision, just like we all have to make decisions. She was a grown woman. In fact, if anyone is at fault it is me and my unit. We failed her, we failed you, and we failed every single person inside that stadium that night. We just couldn’t hold them off. We underestimated the threat.”
Kate leaned her forehead against his chest, suddenly exhausted, and he pulled her in and squeezed her tightly. They stayed like that for a long time and in the end, she felt lighter somehow.
“Let’s go home and pack,” he said.
Chapter Eighteen
Change of Plans
Kate- Past
Kim, Joe, and Wes had decided to go back to Storm’s cabin with them and Kate hoped the people accepted her…disability.
Joe was strong, a fighter, but he needed help keeping his family alive. Nobody was an island anymore. In the end, being alone was a death sentence.
She’d found out that Joe had been injured in Afghanistan. He didn’t talk much about it, but she’d overheard him talking to Storm about some OP in the Hindu Kush mountains. A major offensive by the Taliban over a decade ago had taken his leg and left them with a lot of dead friends. Storm had apparently known some of his guys and been to the OP a time or two.
Small world.
He’d been fighting wars a long time, and he said this one wasn’t much different. Storm had recovered the crutch from the other cabin and she’d watched as he got around almost normally with it. Hell, he could probably even run with the thing if he needed to.
That evening over supper, she had an idea.
“How hard would it be to get prosthetics for Harley and Joe?”
“I don’t know where to even begin fitting people for prosthetic limbs, Kate,” Storm said dryly.
“Want me to go fetch a chunk of wood and carve Joe an oaken leg?” Red asked sardonically.
“Forget I said anything,” she muttered.
“What? You don’t want me to help Joe? Joe is one badass dude, Kate. He’s like, half Lieutenant Dan—”
“Red!” Kate snapped.
“It’s true. He ain’t go no leg!”
“Who’s Lieutenant Dan?” Wes asked Storm, who was glowering at Red.
“I already have a prosthesis,” Joe said, silencing everyone as he crutched into the dining room. Wes got him a cup of coffee.
“Where’s Kim?” Kate asked.
“She decided to stay back,” he said.
It was probably for the best. The others hadn’t been thrilled about her. There’d been a bit of an uproar when they first came back, but after that had settled down, they seemed to accept her presence as inevitable.
Joe had read the crowd accurately and suggested that they sleep in another cabin.
He was a hard man to read—frosty, as Storm would say. She wondered what he was thinking and how he was coping with his wife being a hybrid.
“Why aren’t you wearing your leg?” Red asked, rudely in her opinion.
“Because it feels unnatural, and it’s not here. I left it at home.” He sat with Wes and Jen brought him a plate.
“Where’s your home? Maybe we can send a team to pick it up,” Storm said.
“We live outside Joplin,” he said.
The others were milling around the large room, talking quietly. They seemed tired and many of them waved away the food they were offered. They went quiet as Storm stood and went to the large whiteboard someone had set up against the wall. Maps and lists lined the walls nearby. He placed a pin on the board. “Joplin will be our first stop then.”
“What’s the timeline on our departure, Major?” a woman named Dana asked.
Dana was one of three civilian women left alive. She was the youngest, younger than Kate even, and seemed level-headed.
“I want to be out of here by the end of the month, if not sooner,” he said, checking the date on the calendar. “It’s the sixteenth of August according to my watch. That gives us fifteen days to prepare.”
“I’m taking a team to the dealership in town tomorrow. We’re hoping to find what we need there,” Young said.
“Take Rob,” Storm said, nodding at the man on the sofa. “He’s a mechanic. Have him get whatever spare parts we may need for the road. I want at least three pickups. Everything needs to be four-wheel drive.”
“Roger.”
“Jen, you and the rest of the civvies are to pack the supplies as I have them written down on your packet.”
Jen nodded and Red squeezed the back of her neck in an intimate gesture. She was throwing herself into the preparations and Kate knew she was doing it to keep her mind off of Cory’s death.
“Red, I want you and Joe to go over the route. Plan it out. Set up alternatives and rally points. Avoid the cities where possible. I’m also fairly certain that Joe can help you with those special projects that I mentioned.”
Red nodded and Joe leaned forward and studied the map with the same intensity that he’d shown everything else so far. “I thought you were going to get those assembled?” Red said with a frown.
“Change of plans. I’ve got to take Kate home.”
Everyone was staring at her for a split second before Red burst out of his chair. “Bubba’s leaving?” He looked hurt and confused.
“Not for good. We’re going to talk to her brother. We’ll be gone a few days. Joe, do you mind if we take the Suburban?” he asked.
“Go ahead. Vehicles are free these days,” he said waving him off and moving over to the map wall.
“Kate and I will leave out in the morning.”
“Maybe I should go along,” Red said. “You shouldn’t go out without backup.”
“Two is one and one is none,” Joe muttered from the wall.
Storm scanned the room, studying the faces and parsing out which men could be spared. “Cole and Keller. You guys up for a trip?”
Cole and Keller were the remaining men from Lieutenant McCord’s group and the sole survivors of their unit in Nashville. They were from a traditional infantry unit and hadn’t assimilated very well with Storm’s special operations detachment…yet.
Kate thought it would just take time, like with the civilians.
They nodded and went back to their chow.
◆◆◆
“Kate, wake up!” Storm said, bursting into her room.
It was pitch black outside and she looked at the new watch on her wrist. Two a.m.
“What’s going on? We can’t leave yet,” she said, yawning.
She hadn’t slept well. She’d laid there for hours tossing and turning, and after she had finally fallen asleep it had been broken by nightmares.
“Sickness,” was all he said.
She jumped up, clicked on the solar lantern, and dressed in her newly-pilfered OCPs that Charlie Two had brought back from a surplus store on the fringes of town. She strapped on her pistol belt and knife and raced from the room.
She walked downstairs and into a grimly familiar scene.
Soldiers were laid out in rows on pallets in the great room. Storm and Red were moving among them, anxiety and confusion marked their faces.
“What’s happening?” she asked, hurrying toward them. She looked down at the closest men lying on the sleeping bags.
“They have fevers,” Storm said, hands on his hips.
“Some of them said they didn’t feel well yesterday. I thought they were just tired,” Red said.
“Delta One and Two are both down. Six with fevers and one that’s probably on his way. I’m having them stay in here while the rest of us move upstairs,” Storm said. “At this point, isolating them seems a bit like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted.”
“Do they have the flu, you think?” she asked, leaning down over a man named Underwood and feeling his head. He was hot for sure. Prentiss, the man who’d had a lethal radiation dose, had been on Underwood’s team.
“I don’t know. As of right now, it’s only Delta team that’s down. I don’t like it.”
“Have Santiago bring a thermometer,” she told Red. “And all the vitamins and supplements that we have.”
“Bravo team scavenged a pharmacy earlier,” Red offered.
“Good. Bring me everything, and get Jen and Santiago in here,” Kate said.
Storm pulled her aside, out of earshot of the men. “I think this had something to do with the radiation they received. It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“So nobody else has a fever yet—Jen or anyone that got sick from the water?"
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Let’s hope they don’t.”
Red rushed back into the room with the thermometer and a box of supplies. “Here.”
She took the temperature of each man. Every member of Delta team, aside from one man—Alcott— had a fever. They had no vomiting, which she took for a good sign. Jen came in with water and soup just as she was sitting down on the floor to look through the tote box.
“I think we need to make sure everyone is getting a good multivitamin and extra iron. We have to keep them hydrated, especially if they develop vomiting and diarrhea. We don’t know how contagious this is, or if it’s just something affecting Delta team so make sure to wash your hands often.”
“Jen, can you keep an eye on them for a moment?” Storm asked, coming back into the room.
“Sure.”
“Kate, follow me.”
She followed him upstairs and was surprised to see Bravo Team and Charlie Two, as well as Joe milling around the master bedroom.
“Without Delta team, we’re going to have to work twice as hard to be ready to go by the end of the month,” Storm explained. “I know that you wanted to go home and talk to your brother, but I’m afraid we just can’t spare anyone—not even for a couple of days. This is a big op and I don’t like rushing the preliminaries, but I feel that we need to be heading out there. I can’t explain it.”
