The Lair

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Carter

“What?” I demanded, studying the stranger in front of me.

It’s the other guy I was worried about.

He was a tall, fit man, with dark hair, graying at the temples. He was dressed like the classic rich good ol’ boy—boots, dark wranglers, and shirt so well pressed it was stiff. Just the sight of him gave me culture shock. I hadn’t seen anyone in clothes this clean in months.

“I am Jonathan Price,” he said, sliding a security pass card into his back pocket. He flashed a smile taken straight from one of those cheesy motivational speakers schools used to hire in the Before. “And I am, indeed, their father.”

Every bit of his appearance and his attitude irritated me. Even his voice grated on my nerves. So the sum total should be instant dislike, right? But here’s the thing: that’s not what I felt. My gut said that this was a great guy. This was someone to trust. I simultaneously wanted to stand up straighter and trot out my best “Yes, sir!” Hell, I was kind of hoping he’d take me out into the yard and toss a football around with me. Surely someone here had a football handy, right?

“What?” I asked again, because that disconnect—that difference between what my mind told me to feel and what I was actually feeling was so profound, I reeled from it.

I didn’t know if Mel and Lily felt it, too, or if they were just shocked because—holy crap—the father they’d thought was dead just popped up in the compound of humanity’s greatest enemy.

Whichever it is, neither of them said anything. “I thought you said your father left when you were little.”

“He did,” Lily muttered, her words slurring. She sounded confused, like it wasn’t just her tongue that was muddled, but her thoughts as well.

Jonathan stood there awkwardly, as if he couldn’t decide what to do with his hands. He held them out as though ready to embrace either Lily or Mel. Or maybe both. “My girls. My beautiful girls.”

Mel surprised me by walking over to him and slipping into his arms. She hugged him tightly, burrowing against him like a toddler might. He patted her back awkwardly. “You can’t possibly know how hard it has been the past few years. Not being with you. Not knowing where you were. If you were okay. You can’t imagine how we’ve searched.”

Confused, Lily watched Mel. I could tell she was just as baffled as I was. But then Mel stepped away and ducked her head. I saw her hand slip into her pocket. She looked at her father with a kind of shy adoration that I didn’t entirely buy. So why did she hug him?

When she hugged Lily and me, she’d slipped us the radios. Which she must have, in turn, stolen from the guards. So had she stolen something from her father? His passkey, maybe?

Who knew Mel was such a kleptomaniac? And she was thinking much more clearly than I was.

It took a lot of effort to shove down the eager-puppy-dog feeling I had, but I struggled to move past confusion into damage control. Maybe Mel had figured it out already or maybe she was still unnerved just by being around humans again. As for Lily, she was out of it and was only going to get worse until she got that cure.

Me, I didn’t have time for emotional reunions. I needed that medic back here with the meds, asap.

I wasn’t about to stand by and wait to see how this shook out. I put myself between Lily and Mel and their father. I approached him with my hands raised, looking as non-threatening as I could manage. I could imagine a lot of different ways this might go down. One of them involved about twenty armed guards deciding I was a threat, rushing in, and gunning me down. I wasn’t too excited about that outcome.

So as I walked toward him I tried to look peaceful, friendly even. “Sir, could I please have a word?”

The look he gave me said he hadn’t noticed me until that moment and he couldn’t quite figure out who I was or why I was there.

“I’m Carter Olson. I’m with Lily. I . . .” I trailed off, not sure how to describe myself. I’m in love with your daughter. I’m her boyfriend. I’m the guy who’s going to kill you for hurting her, you gutless bastard. This had to be a record breaker for uncomfortable first meetings. Finally, I just finished with, “I’ve been taking care of your daughters.” He still looked unconvinced, so I added, “I really need to talk to you. Alone.”

Behind me I heard Lily murmur a protest. “Carter, I can . . .”

I ignored her. There was too much at stake to let my feelings for her sway me. This sucked for her, no matter what. If there was any chance—any chance at all—that me vetting the guy would make this easier for Lily, I was going to take it.

I stepped even closer to him and said softly, “I am not exaggerating when I say that I know both your daughters better than you do. If you want any hope of actually getting through to them, I’m your best shot.” I could see him waffling, so I added, “You’ve waited eight years. Ten more minutes isn’t going to make a difference.”

He didn’t look at me as I talked to him; instead, he looked at Lily and Mel. Confusion flickered in his gaze. He had walked into the room so confident, but I saw otherwise now. Something about them had him stumped.

I glanced over my shoulder to look at them, too, and it hit me. It had been eight years since he’d seen his daughters. Maybe he’d seen pictures of them in that time, maybe not. But he hadn’t seen them in person in nearly a decade. Hell, I’d seen Mel two months ago and I was still surprised by her transformation. I’d watched Lily’s rapid decline over the past day, and it shocked the hell out of me.

That was the crux of Jonathan Price’s problem. He couldn’t tell his daughters apart. Not because they looked so similar, but because they looked so different from what he expected. And he was a smart enough man to know that if he blundered and called them the wrong name, he’d never win them over.

And that was an advantage I was willing to use.

A moment later, he nodded to the guard, who leaped to attention and opened the door for him. Price nodded back toward the room. “Watch over them,” he said softly to the guard before he led me out into the hall. Nice that he didn’t trust his daughters. True, they can’t be trusted, but still.

“Okay, young man, what can I do for you?”

What could he do for me? A hell of a lot, I hoped. I needed two things from him. Medical attention for Lily was still the top priority, but Mel . . . if I’d understood her correctly, Mel had a plan to get us out of here. I needed to get her alone long enough to find out what that plan was. I also needed to make sure her father wasn’t around long enough to realize she wasn’t autistic anymore. If I understood her rhymes, then Bob was the itsy-bitsy spider and she was going to be the rain that washed him out. Sneaking up on him would be a hell of a lot easier if everyone thought she was still autistic.

If she wanted to go after Bob, that was fine by me. One less person for me to kill later. I just needed to make sure Lily was treated before the three blind mice made their escape.

“Sir, Lily is sick.” It’s always best to start with the truth, right? “She needs medical attention. You know that. We came to you because we thought you could help her. Don’t let her down now.”

Hell, there was no reason not to lie just a little. Okay, so ten minutes ago, none of us had had any idea at all that Lily and Mel’s father was still alive. But we needed him, and it was worth lying if he could get Lily the cure.

“I’m not sure I understand why you’ve come to me.”

“You’re her father. If you can help her you have to do it. Please.”

“I haven’t seen my daughter in eight years. You want me to have her shipped off to the clinic without even talking to her? I don’t have—”

“What you don’t have is time to waste.” I jabbed my finger in the direction of the closed door. “She’s sick. It’s been nearly twelve hours since she was exposed. Whatever you’re going to do to save her, you have to do it fast.”

Jonathon frowned, thinking about it for longer than seemed reasonable. She was his daughter, for god’s sake. What was there to think about?

Finally he nodded. He walked down the hall to where a guard was standing maybe ten feet away. While they were talking, I rapped quietly on the door. There was the click of Mel opening it from the inside with the passkey. She opened the door just a fraction and whispered, “ETA?”

“Another minute, tops,” I whispered back. “I’ve convinced him to bring Lily to the clinic.” I looked down the hall. “Actually, they’re bringing the stretcher now.”

“Fine. Don’t let him wake me.”

I wanted to ask what she meant, but Price, the guard, and the medic—still in hazmat—were almost on me.

A moment later, the second guard opened the door and they rolled the stretcher in. The medic and the guard moved quickly to get Lily onto the stretcher. It took me a moment to realize that I didn’t see Mel at all. Price must have realized it about the same time, because I saw him looking around the room, too. Did Mel get out already? If she didn’t where was she?

“She was exhausted, sir,” the guard offered up in a voice that sounded so young, it almost cracked. No wonder the guy looked smaller than me. He couldn’t be more than sixteen. “I told her she could lie down. I got her a blanket. Hope that’s okay.”

He nodded toward the back wall and I finally saw Mel. She was curled up on the bench facing the wall. Huddled under a blanket, all that was visible of her was her socked feet and a thick strand of dark hair, which hung out from under the hood she’d pulled up over her head.

Price looked annoyed and took a step toward her as if he was going to wake her up and make her talk to him. I remembered what Mel had said: Don’t let him wake me.

I grabbed Price’s arm to stop him. He turned to glare at me. “What?”

“She’s exhausted, sir,” I said. “She drove through the night to get here. She probably hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in months. You can’t wait another twenty minutes to let her have a catnap?”

Price glared at me, but after a few seconds, he nodded at me. “Fine. But you and I are going to have words.”

“No problem.”

I wasn’t sure how much time Mel needed to subdue this guard and escape from the room. If “words” with Price would buy her that time, I was game to go a few rounds.

I turned back to where Lily was on the stretcher. I reached out my hand to trace a finger across her arm, but it was so hot that I instinctively jerked away. She rolled her head toward me without lifting it from the gurney. Her eyes looked cloudy and unfocused. Her lips were parched and cracked. How had she gotten so bad in just a few hours? How could she possibly pull out of this and survive? How could she not?

“Carter?” She choked out my name.

“Yeah,” I murmured, “I’m here.”

“Worth it,” she muttered before her eyes drifted closed. My heart clenched and before I could say anything else, the medic and the guard rolled her out.

I didn’t have a chance to ask what she’d meant. I could only hope that she meant that the time we’d spent together had been worth it to her. To me, it had been everything.