Adam and Seth continued to talk, with Seth asking questions about what it was like for him, just the day to day activities. Adam talked about the gym and other aspects--taking supplements, etc. Rain’s mind wandered. She should get up. She should let them know she could hear. But then, a third voice entered the conversation, one she didn’t recognize at all. One she instantly didn’t like.
“Hey, Seth!” a male voice, higher pitched and grating but still masculine, called out. “This one of the rebs you pulled from the river?”
“Yeah, Daniel. This is Adam.”
“Hi,” she heard Adam say and then there was the smack of flesh on flesh that made her think they must’ve shaken hands or something.
“How’s it going?” Daniel asked, his voice still irritating. “You likin’ it on the outside?”
“
“Good, you’re awake.” Esther brought in a tray with soup and a sandwich on it, along with some ice water. She insisted Rain drink as much as possible, which would’ve been all good and well if it didn’t mean she had to get up to use the bathroom every half an hour, making it hard to sleep. Thank goodness there were plenty of bathrooms in this house and that one was attached to her bedroom.Setting the tray on the nightstand, Esther situated herself on the bed near Rain’s hip. “Any pain this morning?”With her lips pursed together, Rain shook her head, afraid opening her mouth would cause a gush of words to spill out, words she ought not say.Esther gestured for her to lean up so she could inspect the wound. Satisfied that it was healing nicely, she smoothed down the bandages. “I brought you a nontraditional breakfast. Figured the soup broth would help heal you, and t
With the first shout, Esther was up off of the bed and headed for the door so that when he called her name the second time, she had it open. “What’s wrong, Adam?” The alarm on her face matched the feeling in Rain’s gut. Panic. She pulled the covers back and reached for the jogging pants Esther had brought her the day before. They were an old pair of Seth’s but they would be more comfortable than her own clothes if Rain needed to come out of the room for any reason. Whatever was happening now, seemed like as good a reason as any.“Stay here!” Esther said to her even as Adam flew toward the door. “What?”“It’s… Mist,” he said, his face white. “I don’t know… I… Walt sent me. I’ve never seen so much blood.”Rain’s heart was thundering as she ignored Esther’s command for her to stay there. “
Mist nodded slowly in understanding of what Rain was about to do. Behind Rain, the door opened, and a voice she didn’t recognize hit her ear. “What’s amiss?” an older woman asked.There was no time for that. Rain stood and snatched a large medical bag from the woman whose mouth dropped open and her eyes bulged. Esther put her arm around the midwife and began to explain in soft whispers as Rain dug through the bag for what she needed.The speculum was crude, unlike anything she’d ever seen before, but it would have to do. “Esther, light,” she said moving the blanket out of the way and positioning the device. Esther took one of the flashtubes from the medical bag and fidgeted with it for a moment until she turned it on. The light was blinding for a second, but then she managed to turn it down.It would be nearly impossible for her to actually see what she was doing, even with the
A swift moving current lofted a broken tree branch along the edge of shore as the murky, red tinged river cut a swath in the land wide enough to make it infeasible to try to swim across the distance to the identical patch of muddied ground that disappeared into tall grass and eventually a forest that mirrored the woods behind her. Mother White stood perfectly still, only her eyes moving as she traced the path of the projectile as if this broken tree from upstream could somehow solve all of her problems.It had been almost forty-eight hours since she’d gotten a report of shots fired. At the time, she’d been a few hours behind the lead Military Mothers who had progressed quickly around the outskirts of Dafo as she led the attack on the remnants of the city. Dal and his people had put up quite a battle, which had been surprising since he had no dog in the fight. What he sought to gain by preventing White and her military from advancing on the fo
Leaving Rain to rest, Adam rushed out of the room, not exactly sure what she was getting at as far as the last part of the scrambled message she’d given him, but he didn’t have much time to think about it at the moment. He needed to make sure Esther and Seth understood the problem at hand. The fact that Mist had attempted to remove her IUD had put them all at risk. Both pieces of the IUD were now sending a signal back to the Mothers to let them know exactly where Mist was located. They needed to find a way to get rid of it. Immediately.He found Esther and Seth in the kitchen, both chunks of metal from the IUD on a towel on the table as the mother and son hovered over them, talking in hushed tones. “How is Mist?” he asked, thinking of her health first.“She’s resting,” Esther nodded. “Mary gave her something to help her sleep. How is Rain?”Adam wasn’t even su
The motorbike had to be at least thirty years older than Adam and Seth. Rigid joints along the casing and the seat told Adam that it had been put back together more than once. Since the vehicle only had two wheels, unlike the apparatus the boat had become when it had transitioned to land to bring them into the cave only a few days before, the bike was fundamentally unstable. Even when Seth was bringing it out of the garage into a large clearing that was meant to resemble an open field, though it was still inside of the mountain, it leaned to one side. Adam had good balance and coordination, but he didn’t know how well he’d be able to handle this challenge.“All right, this is it,” Seth said, kicking out a piece of metal that allowed the bike to balance on the ground so that he could let go of it. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”“I guess we’ll find out,” Adam said, running his
Before Adam got the chance to tell Seth the important message he'd contemplated sending to Rain, Seth pulled a device out of his back pocket. “This was my grandfather’s phone,” he explained. “It’s old, but it’ll work. It uses a frequency the Mothers abandoned a long time ago, so they won’t be able to track it. Still, you’ll want to leave it off when you’re not using it, so the battery will last.”Adam had never seen anything like it up close, but it reminded him of the device Crit had used to talk to Dal when he was delivering them to the outskirts of Dafo. “How does it work?” he asked.“This is how you turn it on,” Seth explained, squeezing a button on top. “It takes a minute. Then, the passcode is easy. Grandpa was always forgetting it, so we went with one, two, three, four.”Adam chuckled. “I think I can remember th
The roar of an engine in the distance had Rain turning over in bed. Her shoulder was uncomfortable--stiff and achy--but it didn’t hurt. When she opened her eyes, blinking a few times against the bright faux sun coming in the window, it took her a moment to remember what had happened. Then, she sat up in bed. There was a lot to do, and they needed to hurry. She glanced at the clock to see what time it was, but realized she had no idea what time she’d gotten up to go fix Mist. The tray with the breakfast Esther had brought her that she didn’t get a chance to eat was gone. Her stomach rumbled, but there was no time for that either.Tossing back the quilt and sheet from her bed, Rain eyed her boots, thinking she should put them on so that she was ready to do whatever needed to be done. But then, she was still wearing Seth’s oversized pants. Remarkably, she hadn’t gotten any blood on them or her T-shirt, which was a miracle since