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Chapter or Story
Disclaimer: The characters Miss Parker, Sydney, Jarod, Broots etc.and the fictional Centre, are all property of MTM, TNT and NBC Productions and used without permission. I'm not making any money out of this and no infringement is intended.
Regeneration
part 4
by Gizmo
The moonlight illuminated the wooden cross as he approached. Bending down, he rested his hand briefly on the grave.
“I failed to protect any of them,” he confessed. “Your son is a monster. He almost destroyed Jarod. And Miss Parker is caught up in all of it. How could I have failed so utterly?”
He lowered his head and let the tears fall. Cox was right – he had been caught, twisting, ensnared and unable to move for too long. He needed to make a decision – a choice. He couldn’t save all of them. Someone would have to be sacrificed.
His cellphone rang and he answered it.
“Yes,” Sydney told his caller. “I’ll take care of them. Tell Willie I’m on my way.”
****
Ethan felt the slight pain starting behind his eyes. He wished he could reach up and rub the area between his eyes but his hands were cuffed behind him. Closing his eyes, he felt the voices getting stronger. Tilting his head to the side, he listened as she whispered in his mind.
Emily shifted uncomfortably in the wooden chair she had been cuffed to for the last four hours. A large sweeper named Dan glared at her and she returned the look. Glancing at her brother, she saw his eyes closed and realized what was happening. Worriedly, she looked in Maggie’s direction.
The redheaded girl was staring at Ethan in perplexity. The young man nodded and whispered something unintelligible.
“Ethan?” she asked worriedly.
“He’s okay,” Emily distracted her.
“Shutup!” Willie roared. “What’s wrong with the freak?”
“He’s not a freak!”
Willie placed one hand around Emily’s throat. “Get him to stop it!”
“If you’d release us, maybe we could help him!” Maggie protested.
Willie looked over at the girl. She was too smart, too tough for him not to admire. She was obviously very frightened but still had defended the freak. He released Emily, unlocked the red head and shoved her towards the couch.
Maggie sat next to Ethan and put her hand on his shoulder. The entire situation seemed surreal to her – as if she had stepped into a movie plot and couldn’t get out. The men in suits didn’t seem particularly interested in her but had refused Ethan and Emily’s pleas to let her go. Whatever these two were involved in, now she was too. Something told her that Ethan and Emily had done nothing wrong and she trusted that instinct. It had warned her the moment she saw the black towncar that bad news had come home. Biting her lip, she shook Ethan gently.
Ethan blinked and turned to look at Maggie. His mother’s voice faded and he sucked in a lungful of air. He knew what he had to do now.
The screams startled her and she sat back in shock. Ethan fell off the couch, screaming and jerking like a fish caught in her net. She knelt beside him and tried to hold him still as he seized on the floor. She didn’t want him getting hurt. Ignoring the bored gaze of the suits with guns, she continued trying to comfort the young man until he stopped moving and lay quietly with his eyes closed.
“Now that the show’s over, go make a sweep of the area,” Willie told Dan. When the sweeper was a sufficient distance from the house, Willie approached Emily and smiled down at her.
“You don’t look a thing like your brothers,” he commented. He reached to touch her face.
“Nice.”
Emily jerked her face away. Willie stepped closer and she almost smiled.
“I wonder what Jarod would do if something were to happen to you,” Willie inferred.
“Kill you,” she replied. Then she brought her leg up and kicked out at him with enough strength to knock her chair over backwards. The sweeper doubled over, moaning and turning green, just as Ethan shot to his feet and grabbed the harpoon from the wall. Maggie stared in shock, wondering how he had freed himself, but reacted quickly when Ethan told her to get Willie’s gun.
Before she knew it, Maggie was in the SUV racing down the dark roads. Emily had quickly and efficiently disabled the sweeper’s car but that wouldn’t stall them long. They had to get as far away as quickly as possible.
***
Lyle’s cellphone rang. Jeff looked up with an annoyed glance. This part of the procedure was delicate and distraction was dangerous. Miss Parker grabbed the phone and left Lyle’s room. Jarod nodded and Jeff continued directing the instrument.
“Vitals?” Jeff asked his brother.
“Stable. His pulse has increased some.”
“I’m going through the sinus cavity now.”
Jarod nodded and reached for the gauze. The bleeding from this portion would be messy. He smiled as he realized how perfectly they worked together. Although his hands weren’t steady enough to do more than assist, he knew the boy needed him there. It was a bit much to ask a fourteen-year-old to perform this precise surgery alone. His father and Miss Parker had protested that he should be in bed but Lyle had demanded Jarod’s assistance.
The door opened and Jarod looked up at Miss Parker. She was angry – fuming-steaming-at-the-ears pissed.
“Just get the damn thing out of him,” she snapped at Jeff. The boy looked up at her perplexed. “I’ll explain later.”
The instrument was pressed further into Lyle’s head and a small clink was heard.
“You’ve got it,” Jarod noted. “Now, slowly draw back. Make sure you take the same path out. That will minimize any damage to neurological tissue.”
When the boy produced the long metal rod from Lyle’s nose, a small metal square was attached to the magnet on the end. Little wires had been ripped free from the device.
“Will the wires be okay in his head?” he asked.
“They’ve been there for years. They won’t hurt anything.”
Lyle’s nose was packed with cotton and antiseptic pads. After bandaging him, Jeff stood and stretched the kinks out of his back. Turning to his brother, he frowned.
“Now it’s your turn,” Jeff told him.
“No,” Jarod replied. “Someone will need to stay with him tonight. I’ve been asleep all day. You go…”
“Forget it, Jarod,” Miss Parker interrupted. “Jeff, take your brother to his room. If he doesn’t cooperate, come get me. I’ll stay with Lyle.”
Once the two pretenders had left, she leaned over her unconscious brother.
“You snake,” she told him. “You are so lucky they got away. If Willie had hurt them, you would be taking your last breath right now – device or no device.”
She would need to tell Major Charles about Willie’s call. She remembered Lyle’s protests that he had business to take care of before the surgery. Her twin hadn’t come up with an acceptable explanation of what his business was so they had all chalked it up to Lyle’s fear of the surgery. While they had prepared the bedroom for the procedure, Lyle had disappeared.
Fortunately, she had convinced Willie that Lyle was otherwise occupied at the moment. She wondered what her father would think when he was told that she and Lyle were together.
****
Jarod sat down on the edge of the bed and ran his hands through his hair. The cough medicine was wearing off and he suppressed the urge to cough. With both his father and brother hovering, he wanted to keep them from worrying. He was determined to get to the bottom of whatever had angered Parker.
He felt hands fumbling with his pajama top buttons and looked up.
“I’m fine. There’s no need…”
The boy shook his head and continued with the buttons. Jarod grabbed his wrists and continued to protest that he was fine. Looking up at his father, Jeff gave a frustrated sigh.
“Son, we just need to reassure ourselves that you’re okay. You’ve been in the hands of Centre operatives for three days. Please let the boy take a look.”
“Why haven’t Emily and Ethan called?” Jarod questioned. He pushed the boys hands away.
Major Charles sighed. “You let us worry about Emily and Ethan. Now, take your shirt off and lay back.”
“We need to…” Jarod started as the boy reached for the shirt again.
“Dad!” the boy complained. “He’s not cooperating.”
Major Charles stepped closer and grabbed Jarod’s shoulders. “Jarod, listen to me.” He shook him gently and Jarod looked up into his father’s worried eyes. “No more. Just lay back and relax, okay?”
Giving up, Jarod unbuttoned his pajama top and the boy helped pull it off. His father’s hands pushed him down and he lay back against the mattress and closed his eyes. He began thinking through Parker’s behavior as they tugged at bandages and unwound the wrappings around his ribs. Keeping his mind preoccupied with the simulation, he didn’t even notice as Parker entered.
“How’s your brother?” Jeff asked as he dabbed ointment on a wound.
“Asleep.” She watched for a moment then stole a glance at the major. The older man stood at the foot of the bed, watching helplessly as his youngest son pulled back bandages, revealing his eldest son’s abused body. The pain etched in his face and eyes was intense. Looking back at Jarod, she smiled. The pretender had both eyes closed and was totally oblivious. But she knew him well enough to know he wasn’t asleep. Running simulations, probably, she thought. The boy pushed Jarod onto his side.
“This looks bad,” the boy commented as he revealed a deep slash across Jarod’s shoulder.
She bent down to look. “It wasn’t infected this morning.”
“Did it get wet?”
“Yes,” she replied. “This morning, during his bath and the night before last – his fever was sky high so…”
“We’ll need to keep it dry.”
She nodded and looked up at the Major. Tears were shining in his eyes. “I need to talk to you.”
Major Charles drug his gaze from his son’s sliced up back to study her face. “Did you see any of it?”
She shook her head. “I was with Ethan. Trying to get to you. Let’s talk downstairs.”
They were half way down the stairs when Sydney called.
***
“I DON’T CARE what kind of danger your story will put me in! I want to know what the hell I’m mixed up in right now!”
Ethan sighed in exasperation. For the past hour, Maggie had interrogated them and their evasive answers had done nothing more than rile the red-head’s formidable temper. Emily looked over at Ethan in the passenger seat and they shared a concerned look.
“Why can’t I go to my brothers in New York?” Maggie interrupted their silent exchange.
Ethan turned back to look at her. “We already explained that the first place they’ll look for you – and therefore also us – is with your family. Is there someone or someplace that only your brothers know about?”
“No,” she replied angrily. She glanced at her watch. They had been traveling for hours. In another two hours, she would normally be loading her boat to head out. She couldn’t afford to miss the great catches she had been getting lately. Sean, her partner and friend, would be worried if she didn’t show up. Although the old man was a tough old codger, she didn’t like causing him any stress.
Crossing her arms, she sat back against the seat, resigned that she wasn’t going to get any answers out the mysterious duo that had appeared in her life. She realized that she was acting like a petulant teenager. But having been tied up, held hostage and then dragged miles from home, she felt a little petulance wasn’t out of place.
To top it off, she knew her brothers would use this entire fiasco as another reason why she should give up on the fishing business and move to New York with them. After their escape, she had requested to be left off in nearest town. But they had told her they couldn’t stop – it wasn’t safe yet. After an hour, she had demanded they stop. That’s when they started asking her where she would go. And now, it looked like she was going to be an uninvited guest at their brother’s sickroom.
“We’ve only got another hour and we’ll be there. Jarod will have a phone you can use that is safe.”
“A safe phone?” she asked in confusion.
“By now, they’ll have a trace on your brothers’ phones. If you called from a pay phone, they’d be able to track you down.”
“I thought you had to have a judge sign a decree or something to get a trace.”
“That’s government agencies,” Emily explained. “These people who are after us – they do what they want. You’ve got to trust us.”
“When can I go home?”
“When it’s safe.”
“And that will be when?”
“We don’t know.”
“Great,” Maggie muttered. Rotating her neck, she realized how tired she sounded. Another hour, she realized, and perhaps she would get some answers from the rest of their family.
***
Sydney flipped his phone closed and pressed harder on the gas pedal. He glanced at his scribbled directions given by his nephew. At least another two hours before he would reach the remote fishing cabin. Rubbing a hand over his face, he sighed in exhaustion. A slow-moving truck in his lane caused him to brake sharply. Despite the double yellow-line, Sydney decided to pass. He was so close to making it when the lights from the oncoming car blinded him. He felt the metal scrunch all the way to his bones.
She grabbed the Major’s arm and held on.
“There’s more,” she told him firmly. “It may not be what it seems.”
“I’m going to make sure your brother doesn’t get away.”
“He’s unconscious. Listen to what Willie told me.”
He tried to tamp down his temper and impatience. Finding out Lyle had captured his son and daughter had his blood boiling. When he had cooled down, he nodded.
“The good news is that Ethan and Emily have escaped. The bad news is that Cox knows Lyle had captured them. Apparently, Cox had a sweeper on Lyle’s team. After Ethan and Emily escaped, Willie intercepted this other sweeper before he could tell Cox about their escape. From what Willie could ascertain, Cox had sent someone to take Ethan and Emily back to the Centre.”
“So Cox doesn’t know that Ethan and Emily escaped?”
Parker nodded and the older man frowned.
“How can you be certain that Cox doesn’t have them?”
“Because Cox made a fatal error in who he sent to collect Ethan and Emily.”
The older man looked thoughtful for a moment. “Sydney.”
“Yes. That was Sydney on the phone before. I didn’t tell Sydney that Ethan and Emily escaped and his trip to the cabin would be fruitless.”
“That way…”
“It keeps Sydney and Cox out of the way temporarily.”
“Why did Sydney call? Was he going to help them or just reporting in to you?”
She shrugged helplessly. “With Sydney, who knows? What’s important is that we find Emily and Ethan before Cox does. And, somehow, we have to figure out what Lyle was up to.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Major Charles ruminated. “Why didn’t Lyle have them taken directly to the Centre?”
“There’s several explanations but with Lyle – it’s difficult to tell. There’s another way we can figure this out before Lyle wakes up.”
“What?”
“Jarod.” She nodded her head towards the ceiling.
“No,” Major Charles replied. “He’s exhausted and needs sleep. I won’t risk his health.”
She turned to pace. There was no way she would subject the boy to this kind of simulation. Getting inside Lyle’s head was going to be ugly. Besides, Jarod had more experience with Lyle and simulations.
“What did you tell Willie when he called?” Major Charles asked, interrupting her thoughts.
She smiled a bit evilly. The sweeper’s first words on the phone had been ‘they escaped.’ After that, Willie had been obliged to fill her in on the details. Her revenge on her brother had been sweet.
“I told him not to worry as Lyle just let the pretender slip through his fingers. It seems Lyle will have to explain to our father how Jarod managed, in his condition, to tie him up and leave him for me to find.”
Major Charles laughed then turned serious. He glanced at the phone anxiously. From what Miss Parker had said, it had been hours since Ethan and Emily escaped Willie’s clutches. They should have called. Where the hell were they?
***
The lights seemed strange. She remembered it had been dark. A car… Emily opened her eyes. The flashing lights emanated from several police cruisers and ambulances. Gasping, she tried to sit up on the gurney but several hands pushed her down.
“My brother,” she got out. Frantically, she turned her head, searching for him. “He was in the car with me.”
“They’re getting him out now,” a uniformed ERT told her. “Just take it easy.”
“No, wait. Where are you taking us?”
“To the hospital, miss. You were out cold when we found you.”
She looked down at herself but didn’t see any blood.
“I’m fine,” she informed the ERT guy. “Just a little shook up. It’s been a really long day. I was injured a couple of weeks ago and I’m still recovering. Please let me see my brother.”
“Miss, he’s been injured. We need to get both of you and the older gentleman to the hospital. If you could just lay still…”
“The older gentleman?”
“The car that hit yours? The truck driver said the older guy tried to go around him and hit you head on.”
“Is he okay?”
“He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. It doesn’t look good.”
“How bad is Ethan?”
“It’s hard to tell. He was wearing his seatbelt, thank God. But you never know – there could be some internal damage or something.”
Emily felt like she was forgetting something. There was something else but she couldn’t quite remember what. Laying her head back down, she closed her eyes and concentrated on worrying about Ethan.
Maggie sat quietly in the back of the police cruiser. She was still debating how much she would tell the cops. Watching them carefully extract Ethan from the demolished car, she tapped her broken fingernails against her forehead. One way or another though, she had to call her brothers. They would come and get her out of this nightmare.
***
Two hours later
Jeff looked up as his father quietly opened the door and walked into the room. Dawn was approaching and it was light enough to make out the man sleeping restlessly on the bed. His father bent over the figure and lay a hand across Jarod’s forehead. After a few moments, Jarod quieted and his breathing slowed.
“Jeff, you should go back to bed,” his father admonished in a whisper.
“You were talking with Miss Parker and I wanted to keep an eye on him,” Jeff replied. But the truth was more than that, he acknowledged. He wanted to help Jarod. Seeing the damage inflicted by the Centre had renewed his own determination to have a family. The Centre wouldn’t destroy his family. He would do everything he could to prevent it. “Have you heard from Emily or Ethan?”
“No.” Major Charles pulled on the boy’s arm and escorted him into the hallway. He felt a twinge of guilt as he realized that, while plotting with Miss Parker, he had left both the boy and Jarod alone with Lyle across the hallway. “Things have gotten complicated. I’ll explain in the morning.”
“It is morning, Dad.”
“Well, then, after you’ve gotten some sleep.”
“Okay. Just let me check on Lyle…”
“No.” His answer was abrupt and he rubbed the boy’s head to soften it. “Just get some sleep.”
***
The phone jangled from downstairs and they listened as Miss Parker answered it. A moment later, the woman appeared in the hallway.
“It’s Emily,” she breathed. “There’s been an accident.”
“Where are they?”
“A hospital about an hour from here. Ethan was injured. Emily is fine. They want to keep her for a few hours for observation. But Ethan needs surgery. Internal bleeding.”
Major Charles looked back at the bedroom door. He couldn’t leave Jarod alone again. Running his hand through his hair, he turned to look at Jeff.
“I’ll stay with him, Dad,” Jeff reassured him. “Nothing is going to happen to us. Miss Parker will watch Lyle.”
He hugged the boy hard. “You take care of yourself first. Go get that sleep. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
The boy smiled at his father. “I’ll take care of both of us. Just tell Ethan to get well fast.”
Miss Parker put her arm over the boy’s shoulders. “I’ll keep an eye on them.”
“You better,” Major Charles answered. “You’ve got both of them here. This is exactly what Lyle wanted. If you betray us, I will not rest until you and your brother are dead.”
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part 4
by Gizmo
The moonlight illuminated the wooden cross as he approached. Bending down, he rested his hand briefly on the grave.
“I failed to protect any of them,” he confessed. “Your son is a monster. He almost destroyed Jarod. And Miss Parker is caught up in all of it. How could I have failed so utterly?”
He lowered his head and let the tears fall. Cox was right – he had been caught, twisting, ensnared and unable to move for too long. He needed to make a decision – a choice. He couldn’t save all of them. Someone would have to be sacrificed.
His cellphone rang and he answered it.
“Yes,” Sydney told his caller. “I’ll take care of them. Tell Willie I’m on my way.”
****
Ethan felt the slight pain starting behind his eyes. He wished he could reach up and rub the area between his eyes but his hands were cuffed behind him. Closing his eyes, he felt the voices getting stronger. Tilting his head to the side, he listened as she whispered in his mind.
Emily shifted uncomfortably in the wooden chair she had been cuffed to for the last four hours. A large sweeper named Dan glared at her and she returned the look. Glancing at her brother, she saw his eyes closed and realized what was happening. Worriedly, she looked in Maggie’s direction.
The redheaded girl was staring at Ethan in perplexity. The young man nodded and whispered something unintelligible.
“Ethan?” she asked worriedly.
“He’s okay,” Emily distracted her.
“Shutup!” Willie roared. “What’s wrong with the freak?”
“He’s not a freak!”
Willie placed one hand around Emily’s throat. “Get him to stop it!”
“If you’d release us, maybe we could help him!” Maggie protested.
Willie looked over at the girl. She was too smart, too tough for him not to admire. She was obviously very frightened but still had defended the freak. He released Emily, unlocked the red head and shoved her towards the couch.
Maggie sat next to Ethan and put her hand on his shoulder. The entire situation seemed surreal to her – as if she had stepped into a movie plot and couldn’t get out. The men in suits didn’t seem particularly interested in her but had refused Ethan and Emily’s pleas to let her go. Whatever these two were involved in, now she was too. Something told her that Ethan and Emily had done nothing wrong and she trusted that instinct. It had warned her the moment she saw the black towncar that bad news had come home. Biting her lip, she shook Ethan gently.
Ethan blinked and turned to look at Maggie. His mother’s voice faded and he sucked in a lungful of air. He knew what he had to do now.
The screams startled her and she sat back in shock. Ethan fell off the couch, screaming and jerking like a fish caught in her net. She knelt beside him and tried to hold him still as he seized on the floor. She didn’t want him getting hurt. Ignoring the bored gaze of the suits with guns, she continued trying to comfort the young man until he stopped moving and lay quietly with his eyes closed.
“Now that the show’s over, go make a sweep of the area,” Willie told Dan. When the sweeper was a sufficient distance from the house, Willie approached Emily and smiled down at her.
“You don’t look a thing like your brothers,” he commented. He reached to touch her face.
“Nice.”
Emily jerked her face away. Willie stepped closer and she almost smiled.
“I wonder what Jarod would do if something were to happen to you,” Willie inferred.
“Kill you,” she replied. Then she brought her leg up and kicked out at him with enough strength to knock her chair over backwards. The sweeper doubled over, moaning and turning green, just as Ethan shot to his feet and grabbed the harpoon from the wall. Maggie stared in shock, wondering how he had freed himself, but reacted quickly when Ethan told her to get Willie’s gun.
Before she knew it, Maggie was in the SUV racing down the dark roads. Emily had quickly and efficiently disabled the sweeper’s car but that wouldn’t stall them long. They had to get as far away as quickly as possible.
***
Lyle’s cellphone rang. Jeff looked up with an annoyed glance. This part of the procedure was delicate and distraction was dangerous. Miss Parker grabbed the phone and left Lyle’s room. Jarod nodded and Jeff continued directing the instrument.
“Vitals?” Jeff asked his brother.
“Stable. His pulse has increased some.”
“I’m going through the sinus cavity now.”
Jarod nodded and reached for the gauze. The bleeding from this portion would be messy. He smiled as he realized how perfectly they worked together. Although his hands weren’t steady enough to do more than assist, he knew the boy needed him there. It was a bit much to ask a fourteen-year-old to perform this precise surgery alone. His father and Miss Parker had protested that he should be in bed but Lyle had demanded Jarod’s assistance.
The door opened and Jarod looked up at Miss Parker. She was angry – fuming-steaming-at-the-ears pissed.
“Just get the damn thing out of him,” she snapped at Jeff. The boy looked up at her perplexed. “I’ll explain later.”
The instrument was pressed further into Lyle’s head and a small clink was heard.
“You’ve got it,” Jarod noted. “Now, slowly draw back. Make sure you take the same path out. That will minimize any damage to neurological tissue.”
When the boy produced the long metal rod from Lyle’s nose, a small metal square was attached to the magnet on the end. Little wires had been ripped free from the device.
“Will the wires be okay in his head?” he asked.
“They’ve been there for years. They won’t hurt anything.”
Lyle’s nose was packed with cotton and antiseptic pads. After bandaging him, Jeff stood and stretched the kinks out of his back. Turning to his brother, he frowned.
“Now it’s your turn,” Jeff told him.
“No,” Jarod replied. “Someone will need to stay with him tonight. I’ve been asleep all day. You go…”
“Forget it, Jarod,” Miss Parker interrupted. “Jeff, take your brother to his room. If he doesn’t cooperate, come get me. I’ll stay with Lyle.”
Once the two pretenders had left, she leaned over her unconscious brother.
“You snake,” she told him. “You are so lucky they got away. If Willie had hurt them, you would be taking your last breath right now – device or no device.”
She would need to tell Major Charles about Willie’s call. She remembered Lyle’s protests that he had business to take care of before the surgery. Her twin hadn’t come up with an acceptable explanation of what his business was so they had all chalked it up to Lyle’s fear of the surgery. While they had prepared the bedroom for the procedure, Lyle had disappeared.
Fortunately, she had convinced Willie that Lyle was otherwise occupied at the moment. She wondered what her father would think when he was told that she and Lyle were together.
****
Jarod sat down on the edge of the bed and ran his hands through his hair. The cough medicine was wearing off and he suppressed the urge to cough. With both his father and brother hovering, he wanted to keep them from worrying. He was determined to get to the bottom of whatever had angered Parker.
He felt hands fumbling with his pajama top buttons and looked up.
“I’m fine. There’s no need…”
The boy shook his head and continued with the buttons. Jarod grabbed his wrists and continued to protest that he was fine. Looking up at his father, Jeff gave a frustrated sigh.
“Son, we just need to reassure ourselves that you’re okay. You’ve been in the hands of Centre operatives for three days. Please let the boy take a look.”
“Why haven’t Emily and Ethan called?” Jarod questioned. He pushed the boys hands away.
Major Charles sighed. “You let us worry about Emily and Ethan. Now, take your shirt off and lay back.”
“We need to…” Jarod started as the boy reached for the shirt again.
“Dad!” the boy complained. “He’s not cooperating.”
Major Charles stepped closer and grabbed Jarod’s shoulders. “Jarod, listen to me.” He shook him gently and Jarod looked up into his father’s worried eyes. “No more. Just lay back and relax, okay?”
Giving up, Jarod unbuttoned his pajama top and the boy helped pull it off. His father’s hands pushed him down and he lay back against the mattress and closed his eyes. He began thinking through Parker’s behavior as they tugged at bandages and unwound the wrappings around his ribs. Keeping his mind preoccupied with the simulation, he didn’t even notice as Parker entered.
“How’s your brother?” Jeff asked as he dabbed ointment on a wound.
“Asleep.” She watched for a moment then stole a glance at the major. The older man stood at the foot of the bed, watching helplessly as his youngest son pulled back bandages, revealing his eldest son’s abused body. The pain etched in his face and eyes was intense. Looking back at Jarod, she smiled. The pretender had both eyes closed and was totally oblivious. But she knew him well enough to know he wasn’t asleep. Running simulations, probably, she thought. The boy pushed Jarod onto his side.
“This looks bad,” the boy commented as he revealed a deep slash across Jarod’s shoulder.
She bent down to look. “It wasn’t infected this morning.”
“Did it get wet?”
“Yes,” she replied. “This morning, during his bath and the night before last – his fever was sky high so…”
“We’ll need to keep it dry.”
She nodded and looked up at the Major. Tears were shining in his eyes. “I need to talk to you.”
Major Charles drug his gaze from his son’s sliced up back to study her face. “Did you see any of it?”
She shook her head. “I was with Ethan. Trying to get to you. Let’s talk downstairs.”
They were half way down the stairs when Sydney called.
***
“I DON’T CARE what kind of danger your story will put me in! I want to know what the hell I’m mixed up in right now!”
Ethan sighed in exasperation. For the past hour, Maggie had interrogated them and their evasive answers had done nothing more than rile the red-head’s formidable temper. Emily looked over at Ethan in the passenger seat and they shared a concerned look.
“Why can’t I go to my brothers in New York?” Maggie interrupted their silent exchange.
Ethan turned back to look at her. “We already explained that the first place they’ll look for you – and therefore also us – is with your family. Is there someone or someplace that only your brothers know about?”
“No,” she replied angrily. She glanced at her watch. They had been traveling for hours. In another two hours, she would normally be loading her boat to head out. She couldn’t afford to miss the great catches she had been getting lately. Sean, her partner and friend, would be worried if she didn’t show up. Although the old man was a tough old codger, she didn’t like causing him any stress.
Crossing her arms, she sat back against the seat, resigned that she wasn’t going to get any answers out the mysterious duo that had appeared in her life. She realized that she was acting like a petulant teenager. But having been tied up, held hostage and then dragged miles from home, she felt a little petulance wasn’t out of place.
To top it off, she knew her brothers would use this entire fiasco as another reason why she should give up on the fishing business and move to New York with them. After their escape, she had requested to be left off in nearest town. But they had told her they couldn’t stop – it wasn’t safe yet. After an hour, she had demanded they stop. That’s when they started asking her where she would go. And now, it looked like she was going to be an uninvited guest at their brother’s sickroom.
“We’ve only got another hour and we’ll be there. Jarod will have a phone you can use that is safe.”
“A safe phone?” she asked in confusion.
“By now, they’ll have a trace on your brothers’ phones. If you called from a pay phone, they’d be able to track you down.”
“I thought you had to have a judge sign a decree or something to get a trace.”
“That’s government agencies,” Emily explained. “These people who are after us – they do what they want. You’ve got to trust us.”
“When can I go home?”
“When it’s safe.”
“And that will be when?”
“We don’t know.”
“Great,” Maggie muttered. Rotating her neck, she realized how tired she sounded. Another hour, she realized, and perhaps she would get some answers from the rest of their family.
***
Sydney flipped his phone closed and pressed harder on the gas pedal. He glanced at his scribbled directions given by his nephew. At least another two hours before he would reach the remote fishing cabin. Rubbing a hand over his face, he sighed in exhaustion. A slow-moving truck in his lane caused him to brake sharply. Despite the double yellow-line, Sydney decided to pass. He was so close to making it when the lights from the oncoming car blinded him. He felt the metal scrunch all the way to his bones.
She grabbed the Major’s arm and held on.
“There’s more,” she told him firmly. “It may not be what it seems.”
“I’m going to make sure your brother doesn’t get away.”
“He’s unconscious. Listen to what Willie told me.”
He tried to tamp down his temper and impatience. Finding out Lyle had captured his son and daughter had his blood boiling. When he had cooled down, he nodded.
“The good news is that Ethan and Emily have escaped. The bad news is that Cox knows Lyle had captured them. Apparently, Cox had a sweeper on Lyle’s team. After Ethan and Emily escaped, Willie intercepted this other sweeper before he could tell Cox about their escape. From what Willie could ascertain, Cox had sent someone to take Ethan and Emily back to the Centre.”
“So Cox doesn’t know that Ethan and Emily escaped?”
Parker nodded and the older man frowned.
“How can you be certain that Cox doesn’t have them?”
“Because Cox made a fatal error in who he sent to collect Ethan and Emily.”
The older man looked thoughtful for a moment. “Sydney.”
“Yes. That was Sydney on the phone before. I didn’t tell Sydney that Ethan and Emily escaped and his trip to the cabin would be fruitless.”
“That way…”
“It keeps Sydney and Cox out of the way temporarily.”
“Why did Sydney call? Was he going to help them or just reporting in to you?”
She shrugged helplessly. “With Sydney, who knows? What’s important is that we find Emily and Ethan before Cox does. And, somehow, we have to figure out what Lyle was up to.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Major Charles ruminated. “Why didn’t Lyle have them taken directly to the Centre?”
“There’s several explanations but with Lyle – it’s difficult to tell. There’s another way we can figure this out before Lyle wakes up.”
“What?”
“Jarod.” She nodded her head towards the ceiling.
“No,” Major Charles replied. “He’s exhausted and needs sleep. I won’t risk his health.”
She turned to pace. There was no way she would subject the boy to this kind of simulation. Getting inside Lyle’s head was going to be ugly. Besides, Jarod had more experience with Lyle and simulations.
“What did you tell Willie when he called?” Major Charles asked, interrupting her thoughts.
She smiled a bit evilly. The sweeper’s first words on the phone had been ‘they escaped.’ After that, Willie had been obliged to fill her in on the details. Her revenge on her brother had been sweet.
“I told him not to worry as Lyle just let the pretender slip through his fingers. It seems Lyle will have to explain to our father how Jarod managed, in his condition, to tie him up and leave him for me to find.”
Major Charles laughed then turned serious. He glanced at the phone anxiously. From what Miss Parker had said, it had been hours since Ethan and Emily escaped Willie’s clutches. They should have called. Where the hell were they?
***
The lights seemed strange. She remembered it had been dark. A car… Emily opened her eyes. The flashing lights emanated from several police cruisers and ambulances. Gasping, she tried to sit up on the gurney but several hands pushed her down.
“My brother,” she got out. Frantically, she turned her head, searching for him. “He was in the car with me.”
“They’re getting him out now,” a uniformed ERT told her. “Just take it easy.”
“No, wait. Where are you taking us?”
“To the hospital, miss. You were out cold when we found you.”
She looked down at herself but didn’t see any blood.
“I’m fine,” she informed the ERT guy. “Just a little shook up. It’s been a really long day. I was injured a couple of weeks ago and I’m still recovering. Please let me see my brother.”
“Miss, he’s been injured. We need to get both of you and the older gentleman to the hospital. If you could just lay still…”
“The older gentleman?”
“The car that hit yours? The truck driver said the older guy tried to go around him and hit you head on.”
“Is he okay?”
“He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. It doesn’t look good.”
“How bad is Ethan?”
“It’s hard to tell. He was wearing his seatbelt, thank God. But you never know – there could be some internal damage or something.”
Emily felt like she was forgetting something. There was something else but she couldn’t quite remember what. Laying her head back down, she closed her eyes and concentrated on worrying about Ethan.
Maggie sat quietly in the back of the police cruiser. She was still debating how much she would tell the cops. Watching them carefully extract Ethan from the demolished car, she tapped her broken fingernails against her forehead. One way or another though, she had to call her brothers. They would come and get her out of this nightmare.
***
Two hours later
Jeff looked up as his father quietly opened the door and walked into the room. Dawn was approaching and it was light enough to make out the man sleeping restlessly on the bed. His father bent over the figure and lay a hand across Jarod’s forehead. After a few moments, Jarod quieted and his breathing slowed.
“Jeff, you should go back to bed,” his father admonished in a whisper.
“You were talking with Miss Parker and I wanted to keep an eye on him,” Jeff replied. But the truth was more than that, he acknowledged. He wanted to help Jarod. Seeing the damage inflicted by the Centre had renewed his own determination to have a family. The Centre wouldn’t destroy his family. He would do everything he could to prevent it. “Have you heard from Emily or Ethan?”
“No.” Major Charles pulled on the boy’s arm and escorted him into the hallway. He felt a twinge of guilt as he realized that, while plotting with Miss Parker, he had left both the boy and Jarod alone with Lyle across the hallway. “Things have gotten complicated. I’ll explain in the morning.”
“It is morning, Dad.”
“Well, then, after you’ve gotten some sleep.”
“Okay. Just let me check on Lyle…”
“No.” His answer was abrupt and he rubbed the boy’s head to soften it. “Just get some sleep.”
***
The phone jangled from downstairs and they listened as Miss Parker answered it. A moment later, the woman appeared in the hallway.
“It’s Emily,” she breathed. “There’s been an accident.”
“Where are they?”
“A hospital about an hour from here. Ethan was injured. Emily is fine. They want to keep her for a few hours for observation. But Ethan needs surgery. Internal bleeding.”
Major Charles looked back at the bedroom door. He couldn’t leave Jarod alone again. Running his hand through his hair, he turned to look at Jeff.
“I’ll stay with him, Dad,” Jeff reassured him. “Nothing is going to happen to us. Miss Parker will watch Lyle.”
He hugged the boy hard. “You take care of yourself first. Go get that sleep. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
The boy smiled at his father. “I’ll take care of both of us. Just tell Ethan to get well fast.”
Miss Parker put her arm over the boy’s shoulders. “I’ll keep an eye on them.”
“You better,” Major Charles answered. “You’ve got both of them here. This is exactly what Lyle wanted. If you betray us, I will not rest until you and your brother are dead.”
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