He nodded.
That was good.
They crossed together down a long sterile hall painted in pastel colors that were said to be soothing. Finally they reached a door that required a special passkey. It led to a small clinical assessment space neighboring the patient’s room. A one-way glass mirror separated the two spaces.
Kendall stepped to the viewing window. The neighboring room was paneled in rich woods, with a faux fireplace that flickered silk flames. Bookshelves lined the far wall, packed full.
He found it both sad and somehow reassuring that books still brought Cutter comfort, as if buried deep down under the assaulted cerebral cortex some memory persisted, some love of knowledge.
He saw that Ashuu sat in a corner, but she stared leadenly out the window.
Kendall had arranged for Cutter’s family to be taken care of, to offer them lodging and a small stipend to remain nearby. Jori was going to a local Roanoke school, settling in well with the adaptability of the young. Cutter’s wife was more worrisome. He suspected she would eventually return to the forests, maybe once Jori was in college. The child was bright, certainly his father’s son.
Cutter lay on his back on the bed, his wrists in padded restraints, not that he was violent, but sometimes he harmed himself if not watched. He did take daily walks with the staff, and as he was in the presence of the books, he was also calmer when out in nature, some echo of his former self.
“They’re getting him settled for the night,” the nurse said. “The boy reads to him most every evening.”
Kendall flicked on the intercom to listen as Jori sat on a bedside chair, the book propped on his thin knees, and read to his father.
The nurse nodded to the volume in hand. “His son told me his father used to read that book to him every night.”
Kendall read the title and felt a twinge of guilt.
Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.
Jori’s voice was sweet, full of love for the words, for the memories they conjured.
Gray sat on the porch swing, a cool beer balanced on the rail in front of him. The night was still hot, over ninety degrees, heavily humid. It put him in a sour mood — or maybe it was the long day visiting various assisted living facilities, narrowing his choices to those with memory care units.
A cool hand slipped into his fingers. With just the touch, the pressure inside him loosened. He squeezed her hand, thanking her.
Seichan sat next to him, freshly returned from Hong Kong. She had dumped her bags at his apartment and come straight here, roaring down the street on her motorcycle, arriving in time for dinner. She and his father got along handsomely.
Then again, who wouldn’t?
Look at her.
Even in the darkness, she was a sculpture of grace and power, feral and tender, soft curve and hard muscle. Her eyes caught every bit of light. Her lips were as soft as silk. He lifted a hand and ran a finger down along her chin, tracing a trickle of sweat along the pulse of her throat.
God, how he had missed her.
Her voice dropped a full octave to a sultry darkness. “We should get you home.”
His body ached at that invitation.
“Go on ahead,” he said. “I’ll make sure the night nurse has everything she needs, then I’ll follow.”
Seichan stirred, began to rise, but she must have sensed something and settled back to the slats of the swing. “What’s wrong?”
He turned away, noticing a flicker of fireflies in the bushes beyond the porch rail. They came earlier every year, some said as a harbinger of the changing climate, a reminder of the great forces that truly controlled the world, making everything else seem insignificant and small.
He sighed, hating to admit that sometimes he was too small. “I can save the world countless times. Why can’t I save him?” He shrugged heavily. “There’s nothing I can do.”
She found his hands and held them between her palms. “You’re an ass, Gray.”
“I never denied that,” he said, discovering a small smile.
“There is always something you can do. You’re already doing it. You can love him, remember for him, live for him, care for him, fight for him. You show that love with every hard decision you make… that’s what you can do. It’s not nothing.”
He remained silent.
There was one other thing he could do — but for that, he needed a moment of privacy.
“I get it, Seichan.” He shifted her hands back to her. “Go on. I’ll be right behind you.”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then more deeply on the lips. “Don’t leave me waiting.”
Never.
As she headed down the steps toward the driveway, he entered the house and nodded to the night nurse on the sofa. “Going to go check on him before I go.”
“I think he’s already asleep,” she said.
Good.
He climbed the stairs and crossed down the hall to his father’s bedroom. The door was partly ajar, so he quietly entered and moved to his bedside.
From a pocket, he slipped out a vial and a syringe.
Days ago, he had made an inquiry with Dr. Kendall Hess about the counteragent to Cutter Elwes’s threat. He had heard Hess believed the drug might help improve other neurological impairments. Gray made his case to Hess directly, and a sample was sent overnight to his address.
He filled the syringe now.
Once, what seemed like decades ago, he had been offered a similar choice, something that might help his father’s Alzheimer’s. He ended up pouring it down the drain, believing he had to learn to accept the inevitable, not to fight what couldn’t be fought.
He lifted the syringe, pushing a bead to the tip of the needle.
Screw that.
Seichan’s words echoed to him.
… fight for him…
He leaned over his father, jabbed the needle into his arm, and pushed the plunger home. He yanked the syringe back before his father’s lids could flutter open. When he did wake, those eyes got wide upon seeing his son looming over him.
“Gray, what’re you doing?”
Fighting for you…
He leaned down and kissed his father on the crown of his head.
“Just came up to say good night.”
EPILOGUE
ARBOREAL
The pack moves slowly through the jungle, lumbering in line, their numbers much smaller since starting this long trek. Echoes of fire, rock, and ruin follow them. They remember digging with their strong claws, discovering older tunnels that led them into this endless forest, freed at last. They remember blood and death. They remember betrayal and pain. They remember the blue spark and the sting of steel.
Their memories are long.
Their hatred even longer.
AUTHOR’S NOTE TO READERS:
TRUTH OR FICTION
Time to take out that scalpel and dissect this novel, separating truth from fiction. We are at the cusp of several critical changes in this world. While few doubt that the planet is undergoing its sixth mass extinction, it’s the paths that we take from here — as a species, as a society — that split in many different directions. One of the goals of this book is to walk down several of those paths and see where they might lead. But how far down those paths are we already? Let’s find out.