Chapter 26
NO STONE UNTURNED
“Ready, set, go?” I stare down the familiar hallway. “I have looked through the house before, but two heads are better than one, I guess?”
“What about that boat in your back yard?”
“We can look there too.”
The McCluskers suggested we look for dad’s cache. Again.
I enter the living room, where we recently had sex and, considering Kail is behind me, the flashback is vivid. “Let’s be methodical. One room at a time.”
“Sure.” He advances to stand by my side then goes to the sofa and pushes his hand into the cushions. “Do we pull things apart or just prod and poke them?”
“Oof. No demolishing. Or not yet. You can prod me too?” I waggle my eyebrows—a trick I perfected as teenager.
His chuckle is adorable. I swear he’s relaxing more every minute.
“You have to buy that dildo first.”
“Seriously?” I hug him from behind, let my arms wrap around to the front so I can feel his chest. I squish my nose into his back, inhale.
He smells faintly musky, a vague mix of sweat, maybe, and male pheromones.
It’s nice, comforting. Kail is my sexy security blanket.
Through the shirt, a line of staples bumps my skin.
I kiss it then lay my cheek on him. He pats my hands and traps them against his chest. I could stay like this for hours, close to him, warmed, happy.
“This afternoon you could go and find that shop, after we do this search?”
“A dildo… Okay. Mean though, making me wait.”
We are perfect for each other, and that very perfection makes unease slither in, as if happiness tempts fate.
I join him in dismantling the cushions, pulling them off the base of the sofa, tipping it over.
We poke the undercarriage parts, the springs and upholstery.
We move on, around the room, sometimes he grabs me, and sometimes I do it to him.
It’s the craziness of a new relationship, and I guess I’ve missed this.
Touch, the tactile sensation, it’s so yummy. We’re magnetized to each other.
Honesty, though. I remember my vow and that note. “All the stuff I told the McCluskers. Is there anything you want to ask me about it, or the institute? Was that new to you? Like, what my dad said about frankenstructs being made there?”
“No.” He’s on his knees and halts in his stacking of drawers on the rug. “I knew I came from there. I trained there. I know this. Just, I do not aways know…what I will suddenly remember. Does that make sense? Will you forgive me if something like that turns out to be a problem?”
I put my hands on his shoulders, run them up to his neck. “Of course I won’t be angry if you didn’t know it.”
My smile falters, and I lower myself to sit cross-legged on the floor before him.
“Do you know who you are, Kail? Or who you were? Is all of you the same you?” I touch the suture line on his arm. “If any of this upsets you, just say and I will stop.”
Tentatively, I put my fingers on his mouth. He holds my wrist as I touch his face then angles his head and kisses those fingers. His mouth stills. I guess I’ve made him think.
“Even if it did, I promise I will tell you the truth, if you ask me. No. I don’t know what my name means or my true past, or whether all of me is from the same man.
I trained with four others like me, and we trained to fight, kill, obey commands.
The man I intercepted at your door was my handler.
He gave me a mission, but I chose to disobey. ”
“Chose?” I frown. “What mission?”
He sighs. “You would ask that. I’d decided not to tell you. If you hate me for this—”
“What was it?” My pulse is accelerating. I think I know. “You were supposed to kill me.”
“No. I was supposed to kill your father.”
“But…he’s been dead for months.”
“Then they made a mistake.”
“How? And even so…you chose not to do it. Why would I hate you? Wait. The institute knew my father was dead. That makes no sense. None at all. Are you sure?”
“It’s what he told me.”
This can only be a mistake. “Your memory must be wrong, Kail. I’m sorry, but I don’t think it likely your handler told you that. We should chalk it up as a glitch.” I bite my lip, aware I must look worried, and I am.
“Huh.”
“Look, nothing else has gone wrong. I don’t blame you for it, whatever your mission was.
I do not. Let me see. You know all there is to know about my recent mess.
My father, his death, and what he discovered, Clay, the institute.
I’d trade you some insights into my own life, if I could think of any. ”
“Same. I don’t remember anything at all of my creation. No people are in here.” He taps his head. “Apart from those four frankenstructs and vaguely some scientists, but their faces are a blur. The handler too. Let’s keep searching your house. We can talk while we do this.”
“Okay. This handler. Do you know where—”
He sighs. “Dead. He’s dead. I killed him to stop him hurting you.”
“Wow.”
“I swore I wouldn’t tell you that either, because I figured you’d be scared of me. He’s in the same place as the others.” Kail waits, one eyebrow high, as if he thinks this will be the blow that dooms him.
“Oh my.” I’m probably taking this too calmly.
Yeah, I am. My heart isn’t racing. Kail killed for me and this information only affirms his nature, and I am…
I run through the logic. That his handler was dragged away by Kail and went missing suggested he killed the man.
I am, if anything, reassured. “That must be some cemetery,” I mutter, pulling aside all the dusty books on a shelf and flicking through the pages.
“Yes. Smelly too.”
“So, you’re a triple murderer, and I’m now an accomplice?”
“Yes.”
“Why wasn’t anyone looking for him?”
He shrugs, lifts a rug. “I don’t know.”
“You’re making me feel an amateur at this. I have zero murders to confess.”
“Early days.”
I laugh at that, even though this is strange and awful, to talk about people being dead so casually. As if they never mattered to anyone. Were they bad men? Yes.
“We can’t tell anyone else about the deaths, not Molly or Ron, not the Weirdos,” Kail says.
“I agree.”
For a while we don’t talk much. The confessions came as a shock to me, but we both need the silence. Finally, I suggest we figure out what we can tell the Weirdos, as well as what we can’t. We decide almost everything should be disclosed. With so much at stake, we owe them the truth.
We take a breather in the kitchen, drinking the last of my milk and sharing a stray snack bar, having checked the paper files in the hallway, and the other downstairs rooms. It’s past midday.
“Let’s check the yard and the boat, then do lunch? Wait.” I tsk at myself. “We might have to eat cat food. I need to shop. I’ve sponged off the McCluskers enough.”
“Uh-huh. Let’s do that. Is there no attic?”
I shake my head. “You know, I don’t think we will find anything new.” I raise my arms out to my sides, then flop them back down, ready to give in. “Apart from some rubbish and the overgrown gardens, there’s nothing outside. Oh. The garage too.”
“We should be thorough. You might’ve missed things.”
“I guess.”
Another hour passes, and we find nothing.
“Phooey.” We clean our shoes at the back door, then I grab my phone and keys off the kitchen counter and head for the car. “Be back soon. With food and you know what.”
“I’m coming with you.”
I stop and turn. “If you’re seen…even your face will make people remember you. The institute must know you’re missing.” Will make-up help disguise him?
“They don’t. It’s a different institute.”
“What? Now this is getting really ridiculous. There isn’t another one.”
“There is. A more secret one.”
He’s dead serious. How bad is this memory problem?
“I remember reading how some memories can sometimes not be read by other parts of the brain. They’re there but not being seen? Maybe that’s you?”
He purses his lips, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far, stepped on a metaphorical landmine.
“Maybe.”
“Even if you’re right, somehow, it’s just too risky.”
“I’ll stay in the car, Hailey. I’m your back-up, your bodyguard. You are at risk, also. Remember?”
He’s right. Damn. “They won’t try to abduct or kill me in public.”
“I’ll be in the car.”
“Tsk. Okay. Come on.”
“I’m grabbing some good clothes to cover up my face and arms. A hoodie.” He returns to the bedroom, and I head downstairs into the garage to the Chevy.
It’s so complicated. Our best defense is being out in public, so long as the cops don’t want to arrest us. If they do, we are fucked. But if Kail is being searched for, being out in public is the opposite of where he should be. Plus, he might scare anyone who sees his scars into next week.
It’s a problem.
We do need more people helping us. We cannot succeed without others. If the Weirdos aren’t willing, we might have to run from Revenant, and that would be appalling and sad.
Or…would it?
Would Dad forgive me for abandoning the fight, if he knew? He had reasons—good reasons—for wanting to release the info about frankenstructs. Maybe I do need to dig, to discover all of what the institute is doing, for the sake of whatever that truth is. Something ugly must be happening.
If you’re making a man from parts, the obvious question is where those parts are coming from. I already asked Clay this and suggested it was illegal, which hit a nerve. Why? Because it must be true. Where does one obtain parts of a human to use for this research?
I reach the Chevy, push the button for the garage door, then have to go and open it manually, the shitty thing.
And what if Kail does have segregated bits of his brain not talking to his conscious half? Or not properly, like a Neanderthal trying to chisel out a message to modern man. It’s a thought, a horrid one.
Complicated, yeah. My head is hurting again. I planned for revenge, now I’m pining for a happy, average life with my weird-ass, badass frankenstruct, somewhere in a cabin on a lake, where no one will bother us.
The other side of the coin: I can do what my father would have done and fight for justice.
Justice and truth for the people who can’t do it themselves. Which might be the dead in this case. Grim.
Kail climbs in the passenger side, slams the door. “Go.” He’s dressed hooded and concealed like some assassin out for a stroll, or, as it were, an average citizen out to burglarize. He even wears gloves. He points straight-armed at the windscreen. “Onward Dancer. On Blitzen. On Prancer.”
I laugh. “Oh, fuck you. I’m not Santa Claus.”
Where did he remember that from?
“Filthy mouths get washed out.”
“Oh?” I side-eye him as I ease out onto the driveway. Is that a promise?
It’s then that I recall how I wanted to find out who he once was by sending away some DNA samples. They can trace anyone by their family tree. If he has the DNA of several men, he’d want to know who, wouldn’t he? I’ll do it then see what answers I get.