21. Christopher
Chapter twenty-one
Christopher
The early moonrise wakes me midafternoon while the sun is still out, and I roll off the mattress, unlock the bedroom door, then close the latch silently so I don’t startle Maria. She’s still sound asleep.
My anger over the guitar subsided while I slept. Maria’s right. It’s just a thing, and I’m hanging on to the past too much, both metaphorically and literally. The kiddo was just trying to make me happy.
The living area is quiet. Zinnia’s toys are in the box where I stacked them before dawn. Could she still be sleeping? It’s daylight outside, but we’ve been adjusting her sleep so she stays awake longer at night, to match our daytime sleeping hours.
Except the snack plate I prepared last night is on the table and half eaten. Maybe she went back to bed. I grab some donor blood for Maria and me and then, while it’s heating, knock on Zinnia’s door.
No answer. No sounds of breathing.
Concerned, I barge in. The room is empty, and the door to the bathroom is wide open.
Also empty.
Where is she?
My pulse pounds, and panic sets in.
I rush back to the kitchen, grab the heated blood, and take it to Maria, explaining the situation as we both gulp down our glasses.
“It may not be that bad. She may have wandered into the warehouse. I’ve made a point of locking the elevator, but maybe I forgot when I put my tools away last night. I just don’t know.”
Maria rubs the sleep from her eyes. Or are those tear stains? Then she rolls out of bed and races to the warehouse elevator door in her bare feet.
We inspect the door together. Still locked.
The worry in Maria’s eyes is unmistakable. “Zinnia’s never hidden from me before. Did you check the closet?”
A chill crawls up the back of my neck. Did I cause this?
We return to the recording studio—er, bedroom. I look under the bed and in the closet. Nothing. The kiddo must be somewhere.
I check our room in case she doubled back and sneaked in while we searched.
Once again, nothing.
Maria runs into me as I leave our bedroom and spins me about. “What about the other preservation domes connected to yours? Could she reach any of them?”
The panic on her face rips me open. “Impossible. I locked the entrance last night.” I turn on my heel and head for the sliding glass doors. “See?” I motion at the bolts attached to the top that keep the doors from being forced back.
Then I check the power switch that controls whether the automatic doors can open. “It’s off. There’s no way…” My gaze travels to the cat door. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“Zinnia unlocked Wolfie’s door.” The latch hangs to the side, and I press on the polymer door. It swings freely. “She must have watched me let him in that way.”
Maria kneels and runs her hand around the opening’s frame. “You think she could fit through here?” Her voice is steady, but her face blanches paler than it normally is. “The doorway is so narrow.”
“Let me check something.” I slam my butt onto the desk chair and wake up the computer that runs continuously, monitoring my habitat.
“Last year, when I first arrived, I installed a door sensor to monitor Wolfe’s comings and goings so I’d know where to look for him.
I tried putting a tracking collar on him but got tired of fighting his claws. He hates collars.”
I realize I’m rambling, but I don’t stop. In addition to yelling, it’s what I do under stress.
“There.” I stop scrolling through the log. “She unlatched the cat door twenty minutes ago, swinging it outward. She must have crawled through.”
“How do we find her?”
I grab my daylight bracelet from where I left it charging on my desk, then bounce to my feet, whoosh to the automatic doors, and unbolt them. When I flip the electric switch, they slide apart.
Maria races past me. “She probably went to the rabbit dome.”
I grasp her shoulder, pulling her back. “Wait. It’s daylight still. You can’t go barreling out there. You’ll burn.”
“Oh my God. I almost… But how do we find her if she’s out there?”
“Put your bracelet on.”
“Oh, right.” She wraps it on, fumbling the latch.
I help fasten the bracelet, then wave one hand at the junction hub where all the tunnels leading to different domes join. “Give me a second to think this through. This place is a maze to a child her age. She could have gone through any tunnel.”
Maria clenches her fists. “There must be a way to find her. We’ll split up if we need to.”
My mind races. No cameras are mounted in the tunnels, but there’s another way to track her. “Okay, I have an idea. Step back.”
“Hurry.”
I strip off my t-shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“Changing into my wolf form.” I unbuckle my belt and push down my pants, then plop onto the floor to remove my shoes.
“I’ll teach you how later.” Bundling my clothes together, I drop them by the entrance.
“After I transform into a wolf, grip my fur and stay in my bubble.” I tighten the daylight bracelet as much as I can.
“If the bracelet slides off my paw, fasten it around my leg.”
I don’t wait for her to argue. I turn on both our bracelets, then push energy through my body, envisioning my wolf form. A large gray wolf from Canada, with red and black highlights. Fully morphed, I shake from nose to tail, then sniff the floor.
There it is. I trot through the hub, Maria hanging on, as I track Zinnia’s scent.
Crap. She didn’t go to the rabbit dome. No, she took the tunnel next to it, the one leading to the natural desert habitat, the way the ecosystem existed before the climate disaster scorched Arizona and killed most of the plants and wildlife.
The habitat preserves the creatures from back then—including some I wish had disappeared for good.
When we step out into the daylight, I feel Maria flinch, and she lets go of my fur.
I yip at her. She immediately weaves her fingers into my scruff, and we’re off. The warm sand under my paws feels eerie. My body tells me I don’t belong here. But the sun won’t hurt me so long as the bracelet stays fastened—or I remain in Maria’s bubble.
Right now, I’m more afraid of losing Zinnia’s scent than I am of sunlight. I plaster my nose to the ground and trot forward, scanning the horizon for any sign of the little girl. She can’t have gone far. When I finally spot her, the hackles on my back rise.
She cowers against a boulder, a rattlesnake coiled between her and freedom.
“Oh my God,” Maria whispers.
I transform and stand, not caring that I’m naked. With us still in our overlapping bubbles, the little girl can’t see us. “Zinnia, don’t move.”
“Daddy Christopher?”
“Yes, kiddo, it’s me. Stay still. I’m moving between you and the snake. When I’m in place, I’ll tell you to run. When I do, move to your right. The direction of my voice. Your mother is here. She’ll catch you.”
“I can’t see her.”
“I’m here, baby,” Maria says, her voice trembling.
“Mommy!” Zinnia cries and shifts her feet toward Maria.
“Zinnia, don’t move,” I snap.
Zinnia freezes.
I grab Maria’s hand. “Whatever happens, stay here. Be ready for her. Snake venom won’t kill a vampire, but it’ll make you painfully ill, so don’t move.”
The snake shakes its rattle, the sound a warning to stay away, but now the snake’s head rises in Zinnia’s direction, ready to strike.
“Run when I say ‘go.’”
“O-okay,” Zinnia stammers.
I take a deep breath and dive for the desert floor between the snake and Zinnia, and my movement stirs air currents, breaking the standoff.
The snake uncoils, using its powerful muscles to spring.
I thrust out both hands to catch the reptile by its throat and tail. “Go!” Before I get a good grip, fangs strike my chest and release a shitload of venom. “Aargh!”
The toxin lights my chest muscle on fire, the same side that hasn’t fully healed from last night’s silver burns, and my scream echoes through the desert.
Despite the pain, I tighten my grip around the snake’s neck and tail.
The reptile thrashes, but it’s no match for my strength.
As much as I want to rip it apart for threatening Zinnia, rattlesnakes are a protected species under our treaty.
I grit my teeth against the pain. “Maria, do you have Zinnia?”
“Yes.”
Zinnia immediately launches into an apology. “I’m sorry, Daddy Christopher. Wolfie was crying at his door, and I let him in, but then he ran away. I chased him, but he was too fast, and I didn’t know how to get home—”
“You shouldn’t ever follow Wolfie into the dome.” I try to keep my voice level, but it rises at the end.
“Chris—”
“No. Don’t fucking tell me to calm down.” I know I’m losing it, but I can’t stop myself. “Look at what happened. I’m here, injured, and struggling to hold the snake so it doesn’t go after you two.”
Panic and pain and…guilt are all surging within me.
Maria clears her throat. “She didn’t know the danger—”
“Yes, Maria, she didn’t know because she’s a child. How many times have I said it?”
“We’ll teach her—”
“A child doesn’t belong here. She’s a danger to herself and to us. She shouldn’t be here,” I snap. “I’m taking this snake into the desert. Run back the way we came and get away from here. Now.”
I whoosh deeper into the desert and fling the snake over a boulder, then stumble, pinching my shoulder muscle to block the pain while I struggle to stay upright.
The snake is unlikely to follow. This breed is less aggressive and isn’t any more interested in me than I am in it—especially after depleting its load of venom—and if it does follow, my lower body temperature might confuse the snake’s heat sensors.
My chest throbs as the burning fluid works its way through my veins. Vampires have remarkable restorative powers, but a potent toxin isn’t easy to heal from, especially with my scabbed-over knife wound still mending. It could take weeks to flush the venom from my system.
When I return to where we found Zinnia, I collapse onto the hard desert sand and pick up the green stuffed rabbit she dropped. Sage, she calls it. A memento of her time in the silo. She’ll miss the toy if I don’t bring it back.