It had been a while since we had been in tents. I had forgotten how cold and damp it could get. I never thought I would have forgotten that, but I did.
When we had left Charleston to go to Boston for the 'exploding Espheni base' plan, we had packed up our things, ready to leave. Not everyone came with us, in fact, it was back to the Second Mass, to be honest. A few people had left and a few had joined, but the bulk of us were the same.
I stumbled out of the tent, zipping my jacket up as far as possible, bracing from the morning chill.
"Cassidy!" Tom called out from a few tents down.
"Shhh." I said automatically before Tom had even approached. "Shhh. Ben's sleeping." I told Tom as he caught up with me.
He smiled and scratched at his beard, beginning to walk with me. "Good. Good. He should sleep."
I nodded, wrapping my arms around myself. Still sleepy, I didn't really pick up on his glances down to me as we walked.
"What are you doing out of bed?" He adjusted the rifle ever present on his shoulder.
"I'm just grabbing some water and then going back." I stopped at one of the tanks that had been set up. It was back to basics, for sure. "Missing Charleston already."
He laughed softly. "Don't think you'll be the only one." I rubbed at my eyes, waiting for my canister to fill up and waiting for Tom to say what he was planning. "Weaver and I are going to meet with the Volm leader just now." I waited a second more, knowing what he was going to say. "You're welcome to come. I'm sure you have questions for them."
I chewed at my lip, screwing the lid of my canister back on. "Not really. I mean, it can't be reversed, can it? Cochise has been pretty good with explaining it. And, uh, I think I'll stick to having just him as my Volm friend for now."
With a questioning look, Tom spoke. "What do you mean?"
I glanced around us, staring out to the camp. "I'm just..." My eyes went to his, and I saw how hopeful he was. I didn't want to unload any worries onto him. I didn't want to make him suspicious just because the doubts were part of my personality. "Tired."
Another pause. Another silence. "Are you sure?" Tom raised his eyebrows.
I nodded with a smile and put my hand on his arm. "I'm sure. And seeing as I'm apparently the only doctor type person around now, I figure I better stay close to camp."
"Maybe that's the best idea." He covered my hand with his in a motion of fatherly...pride? Relief? Acceptance? And that movement reminded me of what he said the night before.
"And thanks." I started walking backwards, away from him, towards the tent. "For the 'adopted daughter' thing. Means a lot. To me, and to Mags."
He looked down at the ground with a smile. He really only had a daughter for two weeks, now he was able to get two grown up ones.
"But you might regret it when we have a family thanksgiving. Could get hectic!" I yelled to him as I increased the distance. I turned around when I saw him laughing.
Back in my tent, Ben was still snoozing. He lay with on his side, one arm tucked under his head. he looked so sweet, so young- but still gorgeous. I shed my jacket and kicked off my boots before clambering back into my sleeping bag.
I hovered my hand over Ben's cheek, before resting my cold palm on his skin. With a sharp inhale, he stirred from his sleep, blinking sleepily.
With a groan, he took my hand away from his face. "You're hands are freezing."
I laughed softly and pulled back my hands, tucking them into the sleeping bag. "I went out for some water. Met your dad."
"Hmm. Where was he going?" he moved closer to me, both of us still wrapped in our individual sleeping bags.
"Going to meet with the Volm." I yawned. "I miss the bed."
He snorted in laughter. "Yeah. Me too. But try to get some more sleep anyway, Cass. It's still early."
And I did. I slept for maybe an hour, just over, until Ben was leaning over me. "We gotta go."
-
"Cassie!"
People were always shouting for me. This time, it was Jeanne. I had only woken up ten minutes before to hear the news that Tom was being imprisoned for touching the Volm leader- who was also Cochise's father. We were trying to pack up as quickly as possible before the Volm came to take us wherever they wanted to take us.
I almost didn't respond to the yell of my name, because we were so busy. But Jeanne was looking terrified, leaning out of her father's tent just a few metres away. I headed straight over. "What's wrong?"
"My dad." She whispered and pulled me inside. Weaver was clutching his chest, sprawling on the chair in the tent.
I went to him, pulling at his shoulders to straighten him up and placed my hand over his heart, firmly massaging at his chest to encourage the blood flow. it had happened a few times in the period I had known him. I had seen Anne do it before she had given in to his constant woes and given him some pills.
"Are you taking your pills?" I questioned him as his face stopped contorting in pain.
"Not as often. I'm making them last." He took a deep breath.
"You knew?" Jeanne looked at me with folded arms.
I nodded. "Sorry, Jeannie."
"There's nothing to be sorry about, I'm fine." Weaver scoffed. I took a step back and looked at him.
"You have to take the pills at least every two days, or else they won't work at all. I have a stock of them with me. Don't worry about that." I scolded him. I was about to launch into a lecture but was stopped by an uproar coming from outside.
We rushed out, concerned at what would have incited anger from everyone. The Volm. Cochise stood with three other of his kind. And they wanted our weapons.
They were acting like they were doing us a favour. I couldn't believe it. I didn't say anything when Pope spoke out, saying we could take them. We couldn't.
I kept my eyes focused on Cochise who looked alienly guilty. And he should. Because we trusted him and he didn't stand up for us.
So we gave up our weapons, well, most of them- the obvious ones. We still had knives and hidden handguns but that wouldn't pack much of a punch against any attack.
"So things have gone downhill pretty quick." Maggie stood beside me. "This morning I was having sex and now we are weaponless and about to be transported."
I snorted at the situation we were in. It was very much a 'laugh or cry' situation. In fact our lives were very much 'laugh or cry' situations.
"Why are we always bouncing about in this? I just want normality." I looked up at the sky, staring at the dark clouds gathered above us.
She made an agreeing noise which made me roll my eyes. "Oh please. You wouldn't know what to do with yourself in normality now." I looped my hand in her arm and we walked to help pack up the cars.
"Yeah, you're right." She sighed. "I think we all know that."
Seeing her face so ashen at my words as we walked, I sensed it was a sensitive subject at the moment. "I don't think any of us would know what to do if we were normal again. Not just you, Mags."
She didn't say anything about it as we chucked the packs into the backs of the trucks. The nature of travelling had come back to us all quickly. We could assemble and disassemble in moments. We worked in silence for a bit until Maggie spoke again.
"You spoken to Lourdes?" she asked. I flexed my hands in response to the question and took a breath.
"No. Tom doesn't want me near her just now. I think they're trying to salvage whatever medical skills there are left with us. They're terrified in case I get infected too." I shrugged.
"Hal wants to talk to her." She sighed, speaking in a hushed voice.
"I guess he knows what she's going through." I finished tying up one of the packs. And that was the thoughts in my head as we packed up the whole camp.
I had gone back to my trusty backpack which had travelled with me through the invasion. It had come with me to the second mass and through our journey to Charleston but it had sat in on of the corners in our bedroom in the complex for just less than a year. It was almost comforting to get to use it again. Almost. A bed would probably have been more comforting.
Walking towards where everyone was gathered to head out, I spotted Matt. We saw each other at the same time and he headed towards me to walk together. I outstretched my arm and wrapped it around his shoulders as we walked.
"Okay, Matty?" I squeezed him.
"Yeah." He said curtly.
"Your dad's fine, kiddo." I told him, knowing that was what was bothering him. That kid went through so much. I mean everyone had been through a lot, especially the younger ones, but Matt seemed to get the brunt of a lot of the bad luck. His father was always in danger, always missing or coming home. His brothers had both been infected by the Espheni, and just as he was warming to Anne as a mother, she disappeared.
"He always is." Matt sighed.
I didn't have words to reassure him anymore. I had used them all up in the time I had known him, so I had found just being with him was the most comforting thing I could do. We stood, Matt in front of me and my arms around his shoulder, waiting for everyone, waiting to leave.
Ben and Denny joined us not long later. "Hey." I said to them as they approached, rucksacks heavily on their backs. Ben leant into me to give me a kiss and then slid his bag off, dumping it to the ground with a thump.
Denny asked me if I knew anymore about what was happening. I didn't, that was the truth. Just as I got the words out of my mouth, Weaver appeared.
"Okay, people, let's move out." Our Colonel yelled out to us as Cochise lead us on.
"It's Brazil they're taking us too, isn't it?" Matt looked up at us as we started walking.
"Yeah. Which sucks, because I got a C in Spanish." I sighed.
We were barely out of the camp when we came to a halt. Curious, the four of us pushed into the three person deep crowd in front and emerged at the front. Matt was off like a shot before I even realised what was happening.
Tom stood with Cochise and another Volm creature. Matt enveloped his father with the same amount of relief as he always did. "Thank god." I whispered before turning my attention to what was happening with Weaver. Hal and Maggie had jumped down from one of the weapons' trucks to join us.
"You are free to go." Cochise spoke in the familiarly mechanic way and pulled back a covering to reveal all of our weapons. They were being returned to us.
Nobody questioned. We just rushed forward to claim back our guns, finding safety and comfort in the weapons. I went to Tom and Cochise, clutching my gun.
"What's going on here?"
Tom turned to me, but kept his eyes on our alien friend. "They're letting us go. We're gonna keep fighting."
"And all the Volm are okay with this." I narrowed my eyes at Cochise who nodded slowly, but confidently.
"We have just requested to Tom Mason that you vacate the area. We will be using Boston as our base." He spoke and then handed us both Volm guns. "You won't have us for medical anymore, Miss Cassidy."
"What?" I opened my mouth. "What? I'm no longer infected with Volm?" My heart started racing at the thought of not having those abilities. I didn't know what kind of emotions I had about it. I think good, I would be glad to get rid of my Volm advantages.
Both Tom and Cochise glanced at each other. "I'm sorry, Miss Cassidy, I misspoke. What I meant was that you would no longer have the Volm machine for de-harnessing."
My shoulders dropped. Of course. If they could have taken the Volm out of me, they would have. "Oh. Of course. Sorry." I bit my lip. "Well, it doesn't really matter. We haven't come across any other harnessed kids in a few months."
"We gotta head out." Tom said softly to me, trying to pull me out of whatever kind of emotional stupor I was in. And he did successfully. I successfully compartmentalised. As always.
And we did head out. We walked back in the direction of Charleston. All roads lead to Charleston, it felt. And the road was going to be so long.
"How long will it take to get to Charleston?" Matt asked me, about three hours into our journey.
"Uh." I took a breath and pursed my lips. "When I was a kid, my family drove from our town, which was Manchester, to Charlotte. And we drove for like fifteen hours, through the night and into the day. We only stopped twice because my dad wanted to be there in time for a baseball game, he was insane. But if it took us fifteen hours to get to from Manchester to Charlotte, and it took us about an hour to get to Boston form my house, it should take, like, sixteen hours."
"That's not long." Matt looked up hopefully.
"Yeah. But that was when we drove." I shrugged, breaking the news to him.
"Way to get a man's hopes up." Ben appeared at my side with Denny. Ben and Denny had ran ahead for an hour and then come back, letting us know it was safe.
I laughed at Matt's disappointment. "I think we'll be on the road for a coupla weeks, kiddo."
He huffed out a sigh. We hadn't travelled like that in over a year. It was gonna be hard going to say the least.
"Any danger?" I turned to Ben and Denny, questioning.
Ben shook his head. "Not that we could-"
Before he could finish, he reached out and gripped my arm, freezing in his movements. Both he and Denny were contorted in pain.
"TOM!" I yelled out to him a few feet ahead of us. "What's wrong?" I moved to stand in front of the two of them. Ben's grip was painful, but look on his face inflicted more pain in me than his hold.
"Something's coming." He groaned. As soon as the words came from his mouth, blood curdling screeches came from a little way back. I stared over Ben's shoulder and saw Lourdes collapse on the floor, writhing and seizing under the barrel of Anthony's gun.
Tom came running towards us.
"Something big's coming." Denny clung onto Ben's shoulder for support.
Weaver jogged towards us. I squinted through the darkness and into the trees, searching for anything that was moving, any kind of threat. And then we were joined by Maggie and Hal.
"There." Ben reached out and pointed to the sky. An Espheni hovercraft came into view and landed not far from where our entire group was walking.
"Karen. It has to be." Weaver insisted.
"I agree." Tom nodded furiously. "She took the bait."
"The bait?" I raised my eyebrows. "Lourdes?" They nodded. "You're luring Karen here." I shook my head. Sometimes, their need for vengeance clouded their judgement. There were people here, children here. "Matt." I spoke, dragging my eyes away from Tom. "You need to take everyone into the trees and hide." Matt nodded enthusiastically and ran off towards Anthony to tell him what the plan was. I motioned for Denny to go with him.
"What are you doing?" Tom stared in me in confusion as Denny started towards the crowd behind us.
"What are you doing, Tom?" I swatted him with my hand. "You don't use humans as bait."
"She's not human right now, Cassie." Maggie tried to soothe my annoyance.
"Yeah, well, neither was Hal a few weeks ago but we never used him as bait. And you want to kill Karen in front of all these people? In front of Matt? Don't you think he's seen enough death without seeing his father, or brothers shoot someone he used to find comfort in."
"Cass, he understands that Karen isn't the Karen he knew." Ben reached out for my arm.
I don't know why it annoyed me so, I don't know why I was so pissed that they had baited Karen out. Maybe it was because after the Espheni base came down, I thought that everything would be back to normal. Maybe it was because the thought of getting rid of my Volm abilities gave me hope only to have it ripped away. Maybe it was everything- my frustrations just coming to the surface when I saw a girl, who I once counted as a close friend, being used as bait.
"Whatever." I dragged a hand through my hair. "I guess we're gonna go find her, then."
I moved out of the circle of confused faces staring at me and head towards the trees where the ship seemed to have landed. I heard them follow me but our progression slowed as the trees became sparse and opened up. Perfect time to be attacked.
"Cass." I heard Ben whisper out to me because I was still standing a little in front of them.
"I know." I whispered back, stopping to let them catch up. We progressed forward together, a united front with guns poised, ready for anything. It didn't matter if we disagreed or fought, when it came down to it, when it really matter we worked as one.
We could hear the movement of the mechs from the midst of trees in front. Two skitters, armed with two mechs emerged, flanking Karen who held up a white flag, for the second time since I had met her.
I got chills just thinking about the last time I had seen her. I could feel phantom tingles in my leg from where her hand had once been inside my wound and the scar of my burn on my stomach seemed to fire up as she spoke, addressing Tom and Hal, saying we needed to talk.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you right now!" Tom yelled.
As I listened to them talk, I knew I could easily have pulled my trigger, I had my gun trained on her. And if I did shoot, I would have killed. I had amazing aim. But I also knew that she wasn't my kill. She was Hal's, or Tom's, or Maggie's, maybe even Ben's or Weaver's. But she wasn't mine.
"You don't trust me." Karen sounded almost hurt. "I would feel the same if I was in your shoes. Two sons infected with Espheni beings, a close friend is a Volm experiment gone wrong."
I rolled my eyes at her unveiled dig to me.
"I admit I may have gone about things in the wrong way." She started again, speaking about how the human alliance with the Volm would ultimately end in disaster for us, and weirdly offered up her partnership with us. "As a show of good faith, I have a gift for you, Tom."
"Yeah?" Tom yelled back. "I have a gift for you too."
And then he shot her.
The noise of the bullet was deafening in the almost silent field within the woods. And we all kind of froze, seeing what was going to happen as Karen stumbled back and dropped to the ground.
Minutes of anarchy broke out as the skitters launched themselves towards and the mechs started shooting. We shot back, destroying the skitters with our standard bullets and I shot out with the Volm gun, destroying the mechs. The silence was just as shocking as the noise of gunfire.
In the end, Karen was convulsing slightly, laying on the ground, gurgling from blood pooling into her lungs. In the calmness, her chokes were all we could hear.
I saw Ben move towards Karen, gun gripped tightly as if to kill. But I reached out and grabbed the arm of his jacket. He turned in confusion, frowning back at me.
"Don't." I pulled him back a little, keeping my eyes on Karen's body. "This isn't your fight this time."
Ben looked from me and then to Karen and then back again. "Yeah." He murmured and slipped his arm out of my grip and took my hand. We stood watching the scene play out, Hal bending over Karen, falling for her words again, and then Maggie raised her gun and fired to deafening shots into Karen's body. She stopped making noise.
I gasped softly despite my hatred for her. Ben smoothed a thumb over the back of my hand as he heard my gasp. She was dead.
We stood, frozen still, my gaze dragging over the dead when Tom yelled out for Weaver. We all spun round, realising he was gone. "Over here!" he yelled again from amongst the trees.
The five of us took off, running in Tom's direction. Ben and I were fastest, we got there first and pushed through the bracken to see Tom. And Anne.
I stopped still in front of Ben with such little warning he walked straight into my back. Anne was smiling tentatively at me, seeing my shocked face. She was there. I could see her.
My shock was pushed out of me and replaced with ecstasy. "Holy shit, I knew it!" I yelled and jumped on the spot. My gleeful outburst was entirely out of character, I knew that because Ben kinda stepped back when I jumped up. "I knew she wasn't dead!" I ran to her and hugged her tightly, squeezing and feeling how she was. She looked and felt the same, no notable weight loss, her hair looked as healthy as ever. She seemed tired, but happy to see us.
But she hadn't said anything. I pulled back to look at her, seeing a nervous look on her face. That threw me into confusion. "What? Where's Lexi?" I looked over her shoulder.
Tom made my glance and then side stepped. His movement revealed a child. A dark haired, grade school age, beautiful child. "She's right here."
I stared. I just stared. She seemed to recognise me, smiled. "What the hell?"
--
We were almost ready to get back on the road. I stood, leaning against one of the trees and watched as Alexis ran, chasing butterflies, just a moment away.
"What do you think?" Tom approached me from behind, joining me to watch his few month old daughter running around.
There was definitely an amount of confusion, especially within the rest of the group- the ones who weren't close to the family, who didn't know the ins and outs of Alexis' being. Well, none of us really knew but there were some who were pretty much in the dark. But it was a case of 'this is the information and you're going to accept it'. Dr Kadar and I had spoken, tried to figure it all out, going by Anne's story. Neither Anne nor Lexi had much information on what the hell was happening. Dr Kadar dealt with biological theory in the issue, and I dealt with checking them over.
Anne had no evidence of eye worms or bugs or infection or tracker. She was clean. And Lexi? She was amazing. She recognised all of us, she remembered all of us. She was sweet and innocent and just happy, calm and mature. She was about six, physically. Mentally? Who knows? Teenager at least.
"I think...everything's going to be okay." I took a breath and turned towards him, my back flush against the tree trunk. "Anne seems the same. Very tired."
"Yeah, she's sleeping just now. And Alexis?" he wrung his scarf in his hands and looked at me.
"She's amazing." I shrugged, stating it simply.
With a short laugh, he sighed. "But there's no explanation for it."
I pushed up off of the tree and we started walking slowly. "There's no explanation for any of this. But I mean, you could explain it kind of. She grew quickly as a baby. Abilities of a six month old in days, Over a month away, she could have kept growing in the same rate, we just haven't been able to see it."
"But when is she going to stop? She's just going to keep growing, keep aging until she's a ninety year old who's been alive for a year? Then what? She dies?" Tom shook his head.
"I don't have the answers for that, Tom." I said softly. "It's just a matter of biding our time."
Again, another sigh. Bit bigger this time. "Okay. I think we're heading out in a little bit."
"Yeah. Anne asked me to keep an eye on Lexi." I folded my arms and glanced over to her. She was balancing on the grass verge, her arms outstretched to help her. She looked incredibly child like.
"I need to talk to Weaver." Tom said apologetically. I smiled, letting him back away to talk to the Colonel and decided to head back over to the others, help them pack back up after we had stopped for the night. I went to Anthony. I loved Anthony, he was never too invested, never really questioned about personal things, just let us all get on. Whenever I felt too crowded, I would hang with Anthony. He was simple.
We worked in polite quietness, packing things. "So you're back babysitting?" he said eventually after dancing round the subject.
"I'm just happy we have a baby back for me to babysit." I grinned and turned to glance over my shoulder to see Lexi. "She's gone." The place she had stood was clear, she wasn't there.
Panic set in, panic that was familiar to the one time I had lost Adam when he was five in a street market in London. I spun around. I couldn't see her.
My eyes roamed urgently around the camp, zooming until I caught sight of her dark hair climbing onto the truck where Lourdes was.
"Alexis, no!" I yelled out at her and took off, running like hell towards her. My feet pounded the ground, my heart beating loudly as I saw her hand outstretch to get to Lourdes.
I almost didn't stop because I was running so fast, I almost ran right into the truck. I wrapped an arm around her waist and yanked her away, pulling her back from the cage Lourdes was locked in. Lourdes was breathing heavily, blinking as I stared at her. Tom and Weaver had heard my yells and ran with me over to Alexis.
The three of us stood, watching the little girl with black leech like creatures in her hands. Our mouths gaped as we saw her close her little hands. She smiled up at us and opened them again.
I almost jumped backwards when I saw it. In her palms was ash like dust. She got the worms out of Lourdes.
Alexis had healed Lourdes.