Capture (31 page)

At my truck, I quickly grabbed the disposable phone from under the driver’s side of the front seat and called Grandma Letty.
Unfortunately the news wasn’t good.

“
What’d she say?” Tarah asked after I hung up.

“
There’s no way it’s the sedatives. She says Pam’s probably right and it’s the flu.” I hid the phone again, this time wedging it under the backseat on the seat frame. We got out of the truck and started to return to the houses. Then, on second thought, I turned back and, as quietly as I could, popped my truck’s hood.

“
What are you doing?” she whispered, though no one was outside to hear us.

“
Getting more car insurance,” I muttered as I removed one of the spark plugs from the engine. Steve seemed okay for now, but who knew if he might change his mind and try to make a fast escape with Cassie in the future? If he did, he’d have to do it without transportation. I added a spark plug from the bus’s engine with my truck’s plug in my coat pocket. Then we headed back to our house.

At the porch, I was reluctant to go inside.
It was freezing out here, but it was also peaceful.

I took a deep breath of sharp, cold air, then another.
“Cassie’s right. It does smell like Christmas here.” The crisp, pine-filled air cleared out my lungs, taking the last of the tension with it. Inside the house, it was too easy to forget where we were. Out here, I could think clearer, breathe easier.

“
Yeah. It makes me miss Christmas back home a little.”

I glanced sideways at her.
“Missing your family?”

She shrugged.
“Yeah, but we were already sort of prepping for the separation for when I went off to college.”

“
You could still go, you know. If we got your name cleared...”

“
I know. But to be honest, college was really their dream, not mine. You don’t have to have a degree to be a journalist.”

“
True. But still, they’ve got to be worried about you.”

She looked down at her feet.
“Yeah, um, about that...at your grandma’s I might have posted a message under an alias in a forum my brother visits online a lot. The alias was a nickname he gave me when I was little, so he’ll recognize it.”

At my widening eyes, she hastily added,
“Don’t worry, I didn’t give any hints about our new location. I just told him in a roundabout way that I was out of state and starting a new life and that I’m safe. I disguised it to look like someone vaguely talking about shopping for a vacation home, but he’ll get what I really meant and tell our parents.”

I thought it over, then realized I’d just have to trust her.
I let out a long, slow breath. “Okay.”

Tarah leaned against my side at the porch railing and tilted her head back.
“Wow. Have you ever seen so many stars?”

Despite seeing through her attempt to distract me from worrying, I still looked up and was stunned.
Back home, even outside of town the nearby city lights made it hard to see the night sky, so only the brightest stars showed up. Here, the mountains helped block the lights from the nearest town, allowing the full moon to light the world around us. As a result, not only was every star easy to see above us, but I could even make out the Milky Way.

And then there were those amazing peaks all around us.
Back home, East Texas wasn’t flat. It had rolling hills everywhere. But we didn’t have anything like the Black Hills mountains. The steep peaks here rose on all sides, with our settlement nestled perfectly in the middle. The effect should have been imposing. Instead, it was…comforting.

I understood then why Grandma Letty had suggested this place for our village.
It wasn’t just that she already owned the property. If she’d liked another area better, she would have raised Hell itself to buy the right land instead.

It was because everything about this area promised safety.
The shelter of the surrounding peaks, the camouflage of the thick pines and cypresses and the hardwoods that would eventually add their own color and beauty in the summer and fall. The stillness of the place, so quiet we could hear the gurgling creek where it still ran free in the unfrozen middle of its course.

I could see how this place might look in a few months, maybe a year or two.
It really could be stunning in every way, from its gifted people that it kept safely hidden, to the eventual town those people would build with their own sweat and imagination. That is, if they could find the courage to make it happen. Right now they seemed broken and shaky. But this place could fix that, could heal them and build them back up again.

This village didn’t have to be some sad place for society’s rejected and unwanted, where they simply hid away and tried to survive.

They could all be
strong
here.

“
What are you thinking about?” Tarah murmured.

I smiled down at her.
“Possibilities.”

She smiled back, slow and sweet, and her smile was a thing of beauty all on its own, a piece of her heart and soul shining through for only me to see.

I kissed her, just a short kiss, but it was like sipping from the fountain of strength itself. She grounded me, reminded me with her every look and smile and touch that she believed in me.

“
Come on, let’s go see if Pamela needs help with Bud,” I said then led the way back inside the house.

Thursday, December 24th

It was a long night. Even after the lukewarm bath and acetaminophen, Bud’s fever refused to come down. Pamela, Tarah and I took turns switching out wet washcloths on Bud’s forehead after we got him set up on the bottom bunk of one of the master bedroom’s beds. Pamela insisted Tarah and I stick to the original plan and sleep on the living room couches, where Steve had also set up a pallet on the floor by the coffee table. Apparently he didn’t want to risk sleeping with his wife in the same room as someone who was sick. And he wanted nothing to do with the germ-ridden recliner, either.

What a wimp.

At least this way I could keep an eye on him easier.

The next day, Pamela looked tired and frustrated.
“I don’t know what it is,” she murmured as we stood watching her patient toss his head from side to side in his sleep. “It’s not the flu, that much I’m sure of. When I look inside his body, the sickness is everywhere and nowhere at once. It’s not located in just one place, making it more like a virus. But I can’t get a feel for what it is. It’s like trying to grab onto water with a single finger. It just keeps escaping me.”

My chest grew tight, and I realized then that I’d believed Pamela would be able to heal Bud no matter what.
Her confusion chipped away at that confidence. “Should we take him somewhere?”

It was like she didn’t even hear me.
“It has the symptoms of flu. It almost feels like it too, but...”

I touched her shoulder to get her to focus.
“Pamela, should we take him somewhere?”

Her chin rose.
“No, not yet. Let me try a few more things first. It could just be a different strain of flu. As long as we keep him hydrated, and the fever doesn’t get any higher, he should be okay.”

I was tempted to point out that Bud was old.
But Pamela already knew that, and as a healer for our group, she needed us to trust and support her. Just like Tarah trusted and supported me.

“
Okay, it’s your call,” I told her, working hard to keep the doubt out of my voice. “But if he needs to go to the hospital, you let me know, all right?”

Pamela nodded, her frown fixed like it might become her new default expression.
“I’m going to need some supplies soon. More acetaminophen and ibuprofen. A few herbs.”

“
Make me a list and I’ll take care of it,” I promised.

“
Thanks, Hayden.” She patted my shoulder, her attention still on her patient. The absentminded gesture reminded me so strongly of my mother that I had to clear my throat and duck out of the room.

In the living room, everyone had gathered for a Monopoly tournament, apparently tired of being cooped up in their rooms.
Tarah was in the kitchen washing the breakfast dishes, with Mike at her side drying them using a combination of a towel and a spell. With each flick of his wrist, a plate rose into the air and was dried by a towel without his ever touching them. Tarah stared at the display of abilities in obvious amazement, both her eyes and her smile huge. Laughing, she waved a hand around the floating plate and towel like a magician’s assistant, proving to the imaginary audience that there were no strings attached anywhere.

For a split second, jealousy shot through me, and I wondered if Mike was interested in Tarah.
But when they both looked up me and smiled, I didn’t get even a hint of a weird vibe from either of them. So I brushed off the stupid worries I couldn’t do anything about right now and focused on the all too real problems at hand.

“
Hey, I’ve got to run into town and pick up a few things for Pamela,” I said. “Can you two keep an eye on things here?” I wanted to invite Tarah to come with me, but that would require asking Steve to do his face altering spell on her. And since he was currently content playing Monopoly with Cassie and the others, I didn’t want to risk setting him off again before I had to leave.

Plus, I wanted to get something for Tarah for Christmas.

“Yeah, sure,” Mike said.

“
You might want to check and see if anyone else needs anything,” Tarah suggested. “And at the other houses too.”

Oh.
Right. It was too easy to forget about the three other houses full of people here when I spent so much time in just this one. “Okay, I’ll ask around. Tarah, do you mind getting a list for this house while I’m at the others?”

“
Sure.”

I headed out to the other houses, careful to keep my distance from each door while I warned them about the quarantine at my house.
Everyone put together their lists, which I was worried would be a mile long and full of items like flat screen TVs and cable. Surprisingly the requests were more for things like crochet needles and yarn, more board games, and after hearing we might have a flu outbreak, lots of requests for antibacterial wipes and hand soap.

Pamela’s list was the longest, including disinfecting supplies plus several herbs I doubted I’d find anywhere but at a health food store.
At least the neighboring town of Spearfish was a decent sized one and should have everything we needed.

Tarah

While Hayden went into town to pick up a few things, I did the best I could to help the healers in any way possible…at least for someone who had zero Clann abilities. I fetched and heated water, switched out hot washcloths for cool ones, tried to keep Cassie occupied with board and card games. But not having any healing abilities to help out with made the situation frustrating.

When Hayden returned, I helped him deliver all the requested items to each house.
Then with a big grin, he led me to his truck where I found the strangest surprise waiting for me in the front seat.

“
Merry Christmas,” he said as we climbed into either side of the front seat.

My mouth dropped open.
It looked like a two foot tall Christmas tree complete with a skirt around the base. The entire decoration was positioned in the center of the front seat, so we had to lean forward in order to see each other around it.

“
I thought about cutting down a real baby tree,” he mumbled with suspiciously pink cheeks. Was he
blushing
? “But then we’d have to water it, the water would freeze in here, and the tree wouldn’t get any fresh air. And then they were all sold out of mini trees and ornaments—”

“
Is this the top of a regular sized artificial tree?” I blurted out, stunned by his creative thinking.

“
Uh, yeah. It wouldn’t stay upright, so I used this box for the base and poked a hole in the top.” He lifted the full sized tree skirt he’d tied around the wire base of the tree top to reveal how the tree was duck taped to the box. “And I was thinking, since all the mini ornaments were sold out, we could, I don’t know, make our own?” He lifted the tree and the lid it was attached to, revealing how the box was full of scissors and glue sticks and packs of Christmas cards and gift wrap.

How had he known how much I was missing getting to decorate the tree with my family?
It was one of the best parts of the holiday. I bit my lower lip as my eyes stung.

“
It was a stupid idea, I know,” he said. “I wanted you to have a tree, but—”

“
No, I love it,” I said, daring to look at him though my eyes still threatened to overflow. “It’s brilliant really. Way better than any tree I could have come up with. It’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

“
Aw crap, don’t cry,” he muttered then leaned around the tree to give me a quick kiss. “It’s not that great. It doesn’t even have any lights or decorations yet.”