“I won’t ask outright,” Jack said. “But I’ll listen, if you want to tell me about it.” His shirt collar rustled as he turned to look at Rooster; his gaze was too sympathetic to look it. “About her. Just if you want.”
Rooster imagined the way the beer would taste; the fizzy bitterness of it over his tongue. He shouldn’t talk about Red, but he realized that he wanted to. That, or go find Jack’s liquor cabinet and scope out his bourbon selection.
He took a breath and said, “She was brought up like a lab experiment.”
The words came with difficulty at first; he tripped over them, feeling terribly guilty. Telling would get them found, get them caught. But Red was already caught, wasn’t she? How much worse could it get? And then the dam broke open, and he couldn’t stop talking.
“God knows what they’re gonna do to her,” he said, out of breath after the telling. “I can’t…” And then words dried up, his panic absorbing them like a sponge.
Jack let out a deep, tired-sounding breath. “Ah, kid.” He leaned over and patted Rooster’s forearm. “You did the best you could.”
“But that wasn’t good enough.”
Jack sent him a level look. “Most of the time it’s not. Mainly because the world is full of people who don’t try to be anything – good or otherwise.”
Rooster…couldn’t disagree with that.
“Sometimes enough isn’t possible, and all you can do is good.”
“I…yeah.”
Jack nodded, point made, and pulled his hand back. Took another sip of beer and gazed out across the yard. “When’s your friend gonna get here?”
“He said five hours. Which isn’t possible.”
“Well. Maybe he’s got some tricks up his sleeve.”
*
It turned out that he did.
Five hours later, Rooster got a text: Field west of town. Bring whatever you need to leave.
Vicki had made enough peanut butter sandwiches for ten men, and packed them all up along with some Coke, coffee, water bottles, and protein bars in a massive waterproof backpack. Rooster had gone to the garage and cleaned out his truck, duffel after duffel of weapons, ammo, and gear.
Last thing, he flipped down the driver-side sun visor, and a strip of photos fell out into the seat. It was a set of three, bought at one of their many roadside carnivals. He remembered: Kansas City, Oklahoma, nothing but open skies and the lights of the Ferris wheel. Red had dragged him after her show, tired but glowing, his wallet thick with cash. In the photos, she was beaming, bridge of her nose scattered with freckles. By contrast, he looked stern and awkward. Hunted.
He tucked the photos carefully in an interior jacket pocket and zipped it closed.
Jack drove him out. Rooster glimpsed the town sliding away in the rearview mirror, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe, chest squeezed tight by the thought that Red had liked it here. Had wanted to stay. Gaudy leather jackets, milkshakes, friends, vast western sunsets.
But none of that had been real – that was what he told himself to ease the ache.
Because some of it had been real: Jack, his kindness. Vicki. The poor souls at the VA who weren’t Jake or his men.
“I can’t believe I fell for it,” he murmured bitterly.
“We all did.” Jack sounded grim, both hands tight on the wheel.
Farley turned to houses, to outskirts, and finally to fields, and Rooster spotted an unmistakable shape in the middle of one of them. He sat up hard, seat belt catching him across the chest.
“Is that a…?” Jack started, leaning forward to peer through the windshield as he turned off the road and onto the crushed grass.
“How the hell, Deshawn?” Rooster wondered aloud.
Perched on the grass like a waiting bird of prey was a Bell AH-1W Super Cobra helicopter, clearly an escort for the pristine Huey that waited behind it. Deshawn stood in the shade cast by the Huey’s rotors, and he wasn’t alone: he and another, similarly built man were dressed in tac gear.
Rooster popped the door before the truck came to a full stop, and Deshawn came to meet him, wide, white smile breaking across his face.
It was more collision than hug when they met each other; Deshawn hugged the breath out of him, slapped him hard on the back. Rooster allowed himself a weak moment and leaned into it, into his friend. He realized, to his embarrassment, that he was shaking, and that his eyes burned.
“I know, I know,” Deshawn murmured in his ear. “We’ll get her back.” Rooster nodded.
Deshawn pulled back, and his tone was normal again; it gave Rooster the strength to blink and pull himself back together. “Look at you, man,” he said with a laugh, tugging on a too-long lock of Rooster’s sandy hair. “You tryna turn into a Viking?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He pushed his hair back, a touch self-conscious. “What about you? What the fuck are you doing with a skinny bird?”
Deshawn’s grin widened. “You remember Dunbar?” He jerked a thumb to indicate the man still standing by the helo.
Rooster squinted at him, and then felt his brows go up. “Double Dee?”
“You know it!” the man in question called through cupped hands, grinning too.
Rooster looked between the two of them. “What?”
Deshawn patted his shoulder. “You’ve been outta the loop, brother, but we’ll get you caught up on the way. You gonna introduce me to your friend?” He lifted his chin toward Jack.
“Oh, yeah.” He made quick introductions.
“I appreciate you looking after my boy here,” Deshawn said, and Rooster could tell he meant it. “He’s kinda stupid sometimes.”
Jack chuckled. “Yeah, I picked up on that.”
Deshawn stuck out a hand. “Seriously, though, thank you.”
Jack accepted the shake with a nod. “Any time. You boys need anything else?”
“No,” Rooster said, automatically, and sadness twisted his insides when he watched Jack’s face fall. He had no idea when he’d meet kind strangers again – if ever – and he knew a sudden reluctance to part that didn’t make a lick of sense. “But thank you.”
Jack fished a card from his pocket. “This is my cell. Call if you need to. And I mean that,” he added sternly.
Rooster tucked it into the same pocket that held Red’s photos. “I will.” He even thought he meant it.
34
The Ingraham Institute
Amid the Gothic slopes and dramatic crenellations of the mansion’s roof, a helicopter pad had been set up in a flat section near the conservatory, windsocks catching the breeze, and that was where Jones set the Blackhawk down when they returned to the Institute. A containment team was waiting for them with a gurney and no doubt enough tranqs to lay out a rhino.
So far, Ruby Russell hadn’t stirred. Her hands lay on her chest, cuffed together with the heavy, silver-lined cuffs that had, miraculously, stymied the flow of her power. Or something. He had no idea how she did what she did. Talbot had promised the cuffs would have a “dampening effect,” and so far, she was still out cold.
Her hair, he noticed again, surprised as he’d been when he saw it first change, was red again, and not the dyed black of a day ago. He’d seen a lot of strange shit in his day, but nothing like magical, color-changing hair. It lay fanned out around her on the backboard they’d strapped her to, hanging off the edges, curled at the ends.
“Boss,” Ramirez said, and he tore his eyes from the motionless girl.
His second-in command held herself with careful stillness, braced against the jostling of the helo’s final descent and landing. Her knuckles stood out white and stark where she gripped her seatbelt. They’d used a belt as a tourniquet; had packed her wound with strips of a clean sock. The bleeding had slowed faster than it should have: the work of their daily injections. But pain was etched around her mouth, in the groove between her brows. Sweat gleamed on her forehead and throat.
“What’s the plan, here?” she asked.
“To get you in front of a doctor. Everything else can wait.”
The Blackhawk rocked to a final halt and the engines shut off with a slow whine. Someone rapped on the door and Jake heaved it open.
The containment crew, he noted, was comprised of medical staff and security personnel armed with guns and stun batons. They began the process of unstrapping the backboard and shifting Ruby Russell out onto the gurney they’d brought.