“That’s an order,” Papa barked. “We’ll catch up. I don’t want you at risk of any possible exposure. You’re our fucking medic. We need you. Go.”
Tango grabbed the keys and Doc and led him to the truck. Doc picked up Lima’s laptop, still sitting on the passenger seat, and set it in his lap while Tango got behind the wheel.
They were halfway back to the house when the computer beeped.
“Shut that fucking thing down,” Tango groused.
Doc was about to do that when he realized what was beeping. He grinned. “Fuck me, our special snowflake learned a thing or two.” He turned the laptop around to show Tango. “Fucking turn here, goddammit!”
On the screen, a tracking map.
With her location. Or, at least, the location of her phone.
Neither of them had burner cells on them. “We need to go back and get the guys,” Tango said.
“We do that, she could fucking die. Go. Now.”
“Fuck,” Tango grumbled.
He spun the wheel and headed down the rural road toward the signal.
* * * *
Celia didn’t want to risk drawing too much attention to herself by cutting her bonds with the knife yet in case they surprised her by opening the door to check on her. She’d found and tried the light, and found it didn’t work, or it was burned out, or maybe the electricity wasn’t on.
She did have to use the toilet, though. She felt around in the dark and managed to get her jeans down and up again, then flushed and washed her hands.
The bathroom wasn’t very big. But more important, the door’s three hinges were on the inside.
She remembered the time about six months earlier when Emily had accidentally locked herself in the master bathroom at the apartment. The door on that bathroom opened out. Daryl hadn’t been able to get the lock open, so he’d simply popped the hinge pins without panic or fuss and removed the door.
She’d watched him do it and knew from feeling these hinges with her fingers that she could probably do the same with them.
She couldn’t rely on the Drunk Monkeys finding her with the cell phone. She had to do what Tango and Doc had pounded home to her in her many lessons with them over the past few days, that she had to always be prepared to find her own way free if the circumstances called for it.
Hell, at this point, she couldn’t rely on the men finding her at all. They might have thought she had made a run for freedom.
She hoped they didn’t. It would break her heart if Tango and Doc assumed the worst about her, but she wouldn’t blame them if they did.
At one point, she heard the two men talking and then walk outside. The snick of a lighter followed, and she realized they were taking a smoke break.
Good.
She returned the phone to her bra and removed the multitool knife and got to work. She had the top hinge pin almost all the way out when the abductors returned to the house. She heard them talking elsewhere inside. But over the next hour, she alternated turning the phone on and off with working on the hinges when the men went out to smoke.
Whoever they were, they were obviously waiting for someone else to arrive and question her.
She got the third hinge pin almost completely removed. Now all she’d need was a chance to pop all three out with her fingers, cut the tape at her ankles, and run like hell.
She didn’t know where she’d run to, but maybe she could get away. Or at least get to a place where she could call Papa or Alpha without worrying about her abductors hearing her.
During one of the smoke breaks, which were growing more frequent and longer each time, she cut the tape at her ankles and worked the bottom and middle hinge pins free. The next smoke break, she would make her escape.
It was difficult not to hold her breath as she sat there, the multitool and phone tucked back into her bra, curled on the floor as if her feet were still taped together just in case they checked on her, knowing if they did, they’d discover the hinges.
Finally, what felt like forever, the men went outside again. They were sounding more relaxed, talking and laughing.
They thought they were successful.
She had pulled the pin free and was easing the door open when it pushed all the way in on her and she had to stifle a scream.
A familiar hand slapped over her mouth.
“Shh.” Doc edged the door in, not letting it make any noise. “You all right?”
She nodded, her knees giving out with relief as she hit the floor again. They’d found her.
Maybe there is a god who takes pity on all us special snowflakes who fall off the turnip truck.
Celia didn’t even mind when Doc wasn’t the slightest bit gentle as he sliced through the duct tape around her wrists and jerked her to her feet again.
“Run,” he whispered in her ear and pressed something into her hand. “From the back door, straight through the woods, to the road. Less than a quarter mile. Tan truck. Do not look back, do not stop, no matter what you hear. Go.”
She ran, fingers clutched tightly around what turned out to be keys, not bothering to stop and ask questions that could get her or them killed. She bolted through the yard to the edge of the woods and pushed through the brush, trying to keep thoughts out of her mind about poisonous spiders and snakes and whatever the hell else killer animals and bugs and reptiles they had in Australia.
She didn’t care.
She heard footsteps crashing through the underbrush behind her and didn’t bother to look to see who they belonged to. Either they were Tango and Doc, or they weren’t.
They would have to catch her one way or another. Because she wasn’t stopping until she hit the road.
Somewhere behind her, she heard a loud report, a single shot. It made her own step falter as she prayed it wasn’t one of her guys.
Then Doc’s words in her ear spurred her forward again. She’d been given orders.
She’d follow them.
The footsteps behind her stopped and reversed course and she still didn’t turn to look.
She found the road a few minutes later and carefully looked up and down in both directions before emerging from the cover of the brush. Finally, she spotted the truck in the waning light, parked on the side of the dirt track, about six hundred yards to her left.
Staying close to the woods, she gave herself a moment before setting off at a lope toward the truck. She didn’t see anyone emerge from the woods behind her.
There was no one around the truck. She unlocked it with a trembling hand and climbed into the driver’s side, slamming the door lock down after climbing in.
Oh, joy. Stick shift.
She’d only driven one of those once, and not a right-hand drive one, either. In theory she knew what she had to do, although her first and only time with a clutch had not ended well for the clutch.
Do I start it or wait?
She was trying to familiarize herself with the controls and the shift pattern when she saw a figure emerge from the woods almost where she had reached the road. With great relief, she realized it was Doc.
Then, right behind him, Tango.
Sobbing with relief, she fumbled and cursed and they had almost made it to the truck by the time she finally got it started and pulled out of the swale and onto the road with a hitching, jerking start.
As she pulled up next to the men and remembered to shift it into neutral, she realize Tango was covered with blood.
She pulled the parking brake and started to fly out the door when Doc put out a staying hand. “No,” he said. “It’s not his blood. He’s okay.”
Relief filled her. “Why can’t I get out?”
“Slide over. Now.”
She did, and only then did Doc get behind the wheel while Tango walked around and climbed in back.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. A grim look on his face, he released the brake and smoothly got them turned around and speeding back toward their safe house.
??
?Doc, I asked you what the hell’s going on?”
He wouldn’t look at her. “The blood tested blue, okay?”
She blinked. “What?”
He still wouldn’t take his eyes off the road. “One of the guys jumped him, and Bill used his knife on him. He was trying to be quiet in case there were more around.”
Who the fuck is Bill?
She had to think for a moment. Doc had used Tango’s real name.
“I heard a shot.”
“Another guy came out of the house and Bill shot him.”
“Why do you keep calling him Bill? You never call him Bill.” Fear flowed through her. She suspected she already knew the answer but hoped she was wrong.
His jaw worked as he swallowed. “Because we tested the blood that got on Bill when he knifed the guy.” He finally glanced her way and she almost wished he hadn’t. She saw a deep well of grief there. “It tested blue. Positive. The guy Bill knifed was a Kiter.”
Chapter Thirty
After giving Celia a stick test, Doc used her burner to call Papa and give him the news that she was safe…and Tango wasn’t.
And that they were on their way back.
It was nearly dark when they reached the safe house. Doc made her get out and go into the house ahead of them. Tango stayed in the back of the truck while Doc found a hose stored in the garden shed, got it hooked up to a spigot in the backyard, turned it on, and pulled it out its full length. Then he walked into the house where everyone else had joined Celia in the foyer as she gave them the scant grim facts she knew.
They gathered at the back door in the kitchen to watch as Tango got out of the truck and walked around to where the hose lay. He quickly stripped, tossing his clothes away from him, setting everything else nearby.
She was aware of Doc slipping an arm around her, holding her as they watched him hose off, carefully scrubbing every bit he could. He hosed off his boots, turning them upside down to empty the water out of them.
“I’m proud of you,” Doc whispered in her ear. “You did good.”
“I was stupid. I got lost and found the hotel and thought I was helping. I’m a moron. Now he might die because of me.”
He pulled her tightly against his side. “You didn’t mean to do it, baby. It’s okay. You learned why orders are important. You were smart. You thought your way out of there.”
“He might die because of me.” The thought kept pounding through her veins. She’d never forgive herself if that happened.
“He’s a tough motherfucker,” he assured her, pressing his lips to the top of her head. “It’ll be okay.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t. I feel it.”
She didn’t have an answer to that. “He’s going to be cold out there,” she softly said.
“I’ll take him a towel in a few minutes,” Doc told her. “He needs to get cleaned off.”
“How long a countdown?” Papa asked.
Doc glanced at his wrist. “Sixty-eight minutes ’til start.”
Papa nodded, arms crossed over his chest.
“What?”
“Two hours, minimum, before we know if he’s blue,” Doc quietly said. “Sixty-eight minutes until the two-hour mark.”
“We’re just going to let him sit out there in the cold?” she asked, incredulous. “You were with him at the house. The men kidnapped me. We could all be exposed.”
“Did you bite them?”
She blushed. “No.” At least that lesson she’d learned. “They also put a hood over my head when they grabbed me.”
“Okay, then you probably weren’t exposed.”
“Why’s it different for him?”
“He got blood on him. On his face. On his arm.”
She swallowed but didn’t respond.
“I didn’t touch him or get close enough to get any of the blood on me,” Doc said. “I was a couple of yards behind you when I heard the shot and turned around. I went back, saw what happened, and I tossed him my travel strip kit. He stayed behind me the whole way back, far enough I didn’t have to worry about contamination. He’s got my travel strip kit out there with him. He’ll start testing himself at the two-hour mark, and then again every hour after that.”
“It’s cold out there!”
“We can’t risk anyone getting exposed,” Papa said. “I’m sorry.”
“We’ve got thermal blankets,” Doc said. “In a few minutes, once we know the water spray has settled, I’ll take a couple of towels and thermal blankets out to him. He’ll be okay. He’s dealt with worse than this in basic training and in the field on missions, believe me. We all have.”
The other men nodded.
It didn’t make her feel any better, but she knew if she dared try to set foot out those doors before it was safe, all the men would hold her back, not just Doc.
She was one of them.
She’d ripped off the remaining duct tape from her wrists in the truck, but she realized she still had some stuck to her jeans. She pulled it off, using the distraction to help her hold her tears at bay.
She might love Tango, but these men had known him longer than she had. If they weren’t crying, neither would she. She’d be strong.
“How long does he have to stay out there?” she asked as she picked at another piece of tape.
“Minimum six hours following exposure,” Doc said. “Preferably eight. Optimally ten.”
Her head shot up as she stared at him. “Ten hours outside? It’s supposed to rain in the morning. And it’s cold!”
“He can sit in the shed,” Uncle said.
From his tone, she realized he wasn’t kidding.
None of the other men were arguing.
“Look, it’s not our first rodeo,” Doc told her. “Not the first time one of us was exposed. This is the fourth time. So far, we’ve gotten lucky. And two of those other times were worse than this. As chilly as it is, that works in our favor.”
“Yes,” Dr. Quong said from behind them. “It certainly does.”
They turned.
“Can’t we let him sit in the garage in your lab or something?” she asked, hoping for maybe a little logic to overrule the standing plan.
The doctor slowly shook his head. “I am sorry. This is best. If anything, the damp, chilly weather might help inhibit it.”
“He’s tough,” Doc said, once again sliding his arm around her shoulders. “He’ll be okay.”
She stared out the window at where Tango was standing under the hose, letting the water sluice down his body. Even in the dim glow from the light over the back door that someone had turned on for the man, she could see his flesh covered in goose bumps.
And she couldn’t even go hug him, try to warm him up.
Kiss him.
After nearly twenty minutes, Tango finished hosing down his gear and left it on the sidewalk to dry before shutting the hose off. Doc disengaged himself from Celia for a moment and walked into one of the back rooms. He returned a few minutes later with a couple of towels and three shiny thermal blankets, as well as a black plastic bag.
“What’s that for?” she asked, pointing at the bag.
“His clothes. We can’t risk washing them. He can bag them for the trash.”
“Actually,” Dr. Quong said, “I would prefer to have them.”
Papa turned. “Why?”
“I would like to see what kinds of samples I can get from them. Compare them to the samples you brought me back from the other man. I do not know if it will help, but perhaps I can use it for cultures. I also want to see if there are any mutations.”
Papa scrubbed at his chin. “Okay. But I want you in full protective gear when you retrieve the bag.”
“Okay.”
“Can I take them out to him?” Celia quietly asked.
“No,” came the universal reply from everyone, including Doc.
“Sweetheart,” he said, “it’s too risky. It’s bad enough we were all in the truck together.”
“You both should test again, too,” Dr. Quong said. “As a precaution.”
“Well, if we’re exposed, aren’t all of you already exposed?” she asked.
“No, because you have not licked or bit or bled on any of us,” Dr. Quong said, an uncharacteristic smile quirking his lips.
“Someone’s got to clean the truck out,” Alpha observed.
“Dammit.” Doc set the stuff on the counter next to the back door and rummaged under the kitchen sink. “Ah. Here.” He came up with a plastic gallon jug of bleach.
“Perfect,” Dr. Quong said. “Bleach will kill the virus, absolutely.”
Doc carried everything outside and set it on the back sidewalk, taking care not to get anywhere near Tango’s gear drying a few yards away. They couldn’t hear what he said to Tango, but he pointed at the jug of bleach, and the truck.
Tango nodded, turned the hose on again, grabbed it and the jug of bleach, and headed toward the truck. He had just enough hose to reach the truck bed. After emptying the jug of bleach into the bed, he carefully hosed it out, flooding it, then hosing himself off again before returning to the backyard and shutting off the hose. Then he grabbed one of the towels and started drying off.
The other men went back to whatever it was they were doing before Celia and her men arrived. She couldn’t pull herself from the back door, however.
It didn’t seem right if Tango had to stand out there, alone, in the cold, that she should be comfortable.
Doc slid an arm around her. “Come on. You need sleep.”
“I don’t want to leave him.”
“You’re not. You’ll be asleep.”
She looked up into his face with as snarky an expression as she could muster.
He let out an aggravated sigh and rapped on the door’s window with his knuckles.
Tango looked up from where he was currently sitting on a garden bench, the three thermal blankets wrapped around him.
Doc pointed at her, mimed sleeping, and hooked his thumb toward the rest of the house.
Tango flashed them an okay sign and nodded.
Celia crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head.
Negatory, cowboy.
Tango scowled and jabbed a finger at her, then pointed toward the front of the house.