Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Jen
"Activation," Thaw repeats. Slow. "Of what?"
Harek's mouth works for the word.
"Not — miscarriage. Not — period. Not — wound." He doesn't touch the blood. His hand hovers an inch above the sheet, the long fingers careful, the brand on his throat catching the morning light. "Body — changing. Blood — first. Like — sweat, when a fever breaks. Body pushing — what was in — out."
"Pushing what out."
"The old."
"You are saying the blood is —"
"The body shedding the old. To make room."
Thaw looks at the sheet, then at me, then back. He has gone the color of a man who is putting two things together that he does not want to put together — the chart in the folder, the projected: full viability, stable, and the blood on the sheet that is dark and hot and oxidizing cotton.
"Is she —"
Harek shakes his head. "Not — that. Not what they wanted."
"Then what."
"What she is. Coming up."
I am standing by a bed full of my own blood and three men are talking about me like I am a process, and the part of my brain that should be in shock is not in shock.
It is curious. Every cell in my body is in agreement with what Harek just said.
The patch under my skin is humming so loud I can almost hear it.
The bonds are full. The hollow where Fen will go is full.
The heat in my pelvis is not pregnancy, was never pregnancy, was always this — the body becoming whatever it has been building toward since the rash appeared.
I look at my hands.
The nails are darker than they were yesterday. The black has moved down almost to the cuticle. The point at the corner of my index finger is sharper.
I lift the sheet a fraction. There is more blood than I thought. Not period-volume — more — and the smell coming off it is wrong: hot iron, cracked stone, and something underneath that registers as mine in a way nothing from my own body ever has.
"Harek."
"Yes."
"How long does this take?"
"Don't know."
"Hours? Days?"
"Don't know."
"What do I do."
He looks at me.
"Let it," he says. "Body knows. Don't fight."
Dean is back. I don’t know when he left. He is holding a glass of water and more towels. The black handheld radio at his belt is new.
"Jen."
"I am okay. I think."
"What can I do?"
"Bring the towels. Help me move clean up."
He brings the towels and helps me move. He is not delicate — he is efficient, the way Crull was efficient when he carried me, the way Thaw is efficient when he is holding the bond steady through a crisis.
He gets me onto a folded towel on the floor by the bedside.
The wet sheet bundles into another towel without anyone making a thing of it.
Harek is already going to the bathroom for more towels.
The room is warm. The heat coming off whatever is leaving my body has fogged the lower edge of the window.
Dean crosses to it. He cracks it an inch.
The radio at his belt crackles.
The voice that comes through it is Daron's.
Dean. Drone. East ridge. Two miles. Heads up, brother.
It is the first time I have heard Daron's voice since the cargo door rolled down when we changed trucks.
The forming thread to him pulls tight in my chest at the sound of it — relief that he is alive and close, alarm at what he is saying, and underneath it the bond reading him the way I have started reading all of them.
Dean's face changes.
"Thaw. Back of the house. Now."
Thaw has me up off the floor before I have processed what is happening. Harek is back from the bathroom and takes one look at Dean's face and drops the towels and gets between me and the front of the house. The three of them move me down the hallway to a back bedroom.
Dean is at the back window already, rifle in his hand. He sniffs the air. He swears, low.
"What is it?" I ask.
"The blood. The blood smell. It's not a normal smell, Jen. It's —"
"Carrying."
"Yes. The wind is coming up the draw. It's taking it east. Whatever is in your blood — whatever it's doing — is venting signal out the window. A signal that isn't normal blood."
"How fast?"
"Fast and the drone is only two miles east."
I am standing in a back bedroom in a towel and a borrowed sweatshirt with my own blood on the floor of the room next door, and a drone has just come up on the east ridge within minutes of my blood in the air.
"Thaw."
"They're scenting the air," Thaw says. His hand is on my back. "They have a profile of me. Of Crull. Of Harek. They have something of you, from the lab samples. They have been pinging everything for the right scent. They got something they did not expect, and they came to look."
"My blood called them."
"Yes."
"Not the cabin. Not the truck. Me."
"Yes."
I am the beacon.
The bond pulls. The hollow goes hot. Somewhere south of here, Fen has felt it. Something is wrong with me, and he is answering.
I press my palm to my sternum.
"How long until they have us?" I ask Dean.
"Hopefully hours, if we're smart. Less if we're not."
"What do we do?"
Thaw answers. "We move now. We meet Daron's truck on the spur. And then we find somewhere to put you that the wind cannot reach until your body finishes whatever it is doing."
"Is there such a place?"
"I don't know yet. We will find one."
Harek is already stuffing my things back into the duffel and zipping it up.
Dean is at the back window, rifle steady, the radio crackling once more with Daron's voice — ten minutes out, holding off the spur, advise — and Dean keys his mic and answers, low: coming to you.
Bring the truck up. We're going to need the swap.
I look down at my hands.
I look at Thaw.
"They won't have us before Daron gets here."
"No."
"Good."
Fen is awake on the other end of it and Fen is responding and the truck is coming up the spur.
The house is the place we were supposed to be safe.
The house is now worthless because the Syndicate found it, the way the cabin was lost to us, in less than four hours from when we walked into it, because my body has decided to start telling the world what it is, and the Syndicate is listening.
I let Harek pack me. I let Dean ready the perimeter. I let Thaw move me toward the back door.