James Rollins - Altar Of Eden

Get ahold of yourself already…

Glass in hand, she turned back around. “Better take two pills. Then let me check that arm.”

As he shook out the pills into his palm, she pulled up a chair and laid out the fresh gauze and a bottle of Betadine. He craned back to swallow the antibiotics. She noted the pinpricks of blood that stained his undershirt.

“Did anyone treat the wounds on your chest?” she asked.

“They’re just scratches.”

Annoyance burned away the residual discomfort of his close presence.

“Take off your shirt,” she said.

“They’re nothing.”

She waved at him. “Don’t argue.”

He gave her a tired sheepish look, then, in one pull, shed his shirt. His bare chest and belly were crisscrossed with shallow scratches. The movement and pull of cloth set a few to bleeding again. No one had bothered to clean them.

She sighed. “There’s a full bath with a shower off the sleeping porch in back. I want you to take hot water and soap to any and every wound from that cub.”

“We don’t have time-”

“Doctor’s orders.” She stood up. “There are clean towels in there. I’ll get you a fresh shirt. My brother’s about your size.”

He looked ready to argue, but she pointed her arm.

“Go. I’ll make a fresh batch of coffee and warm some leftover beignets.”

That seemed to satisfy him, and he headed off toward the bathroom.

She pulled out a teakettle and a French press to make coffee. As the water heated she picked up the phone and punched in the number for ACRES. She called the genetics lab, figuring someone was still there.

The line picked up. The voice spoke in an impatient rush. “Dr. Trent here.”

“Zoë, it’s Lorna.”

In the background, she heard the neurobiologist’s husband, Paul, talking animatedly about RNA transcription errors. She also recognized Dr. Metoyer’s muffled voice but couldn’t make out his words. None of them had left. They were pulling an all-nighter, too.

“I was just checking in,” Lorna said.

“Then you’d better stop checking, chica, and get that butt of yours over here! You’re missing all the fun. And I can use a little estrogen here.”

She smiled at her colleague’s excitement. “Had to pick up a few things from home. I should be there in the next hour. Is the DNA analysis finished?”

Zoë’s voice grew more serious. “Not yet. Should be done by the time you get here. But the MRI data finished compiling. The results showed some strange neurological anomalies.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s too much to go over on the phone. Oh, and just so you’re prepared, about an hour ago we performed a series of EEGs on your animals.”

Electroencephalograms?

“What? Why?” Irritation dulled her initial excitement. Lorna felt protective of the recovered animals. They had been traumatized enough. “Any live testing should have waited until I was on the premises. You all know that.”

“I know, I know. But the procedure was noninvasive. We’ll explain it all when you get here.”

“I’ll be right over.” She hung up the phone, knowing her last words sounded as much a threat as a promise.

The teakettle whistled for her attention. She packed the French press with a chicory blend from Cafe du Monde and allowed the simple routine to resettle her thoughts.

Down the hall, she heard the bathroom door pop open. Jack returned with his hair wet and his skin almost steaming. He came in barefoot, wearing only his work trousers and a towel over one shoulder.

“I heard talking as I was drying off. Everything okay?”

“Will be once I get over to ACRES. Something’s got them all worked up.”

Jack nodded to the table. “Then this can wait. I can take care of all of this after I drop you off-”

“Sit.” She pointed a cup of hot coffee toward the table. “Sugar? Cream?”

“Black will do.” He sank reluctantly back into his seat.

Lorna checked the scratches and bite wounds, satisfied that he’d scrubbed them clean. “This’ll sting.”

She painted the marks with Betadine, noting his skin flinch with each touch, but the deeper underlying muscle never moved and his breathing never changed its steady rhythm. She felt an impulse to press her ear to his chest, to listen to his heart, to monitor that rhythm, too, but she restrained herself.

The only other reaction from his body was a flush along his neckline and a hardening of his abdominals, as if he were preparing to take a blow to the stomach. She suspected it wasn’t all from the pain. Confirming this, he shifted self-consciously.

As she worked in silence, she noted several old ropy scars across his left shoulder, neck, and down his back. Without meaning to, she allowed one finger to lightly trace one of the scars.

“Shrapnel from an IED,” he explained matter-of-factly. “A roadside bomb.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean…” Her hand dropped away, and her face heated with embarrassment.

She finished her ministrations and replaced the bandage on his arm.

When she glanced up, she found him staring her full in the face. His eyes were like a wolf, raw and unreadable. He leaned closer. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he reached to the cup of coffee on the table.

“Thanks.” He stood up. “You said something about a new shirt.”

“That’s right,” she stammered out, feeling stupid for forgetting- and for stammering. “I’ll get one from my brother’s room.”

She was happy to flee the room. She wiped her damp hands on her jeans. She blamed the fine sheen of perspiration over her body on the night’s humidity. Or maybe it was just the exhaustion, weakening her guard. Or maybe it was the boy she’d noted in the slumbering man. An echo of Tom, of long nights in each other’s arms.

She might have forgotten, but her body had not.

She dragged a clean T-shirt from her brother’s dresser and hurried back to the hallway where Jack waited. He tugged into the shirt. She was wrong about Jack being the same size as her brother. The shirt was a tight fit and clung to his shoulders and chest.

“Ready?” he asked as he shoved into his socks and boots.

She nodded and pulled open the front door, glad for the cool night breeze on her heated face.

Out of the shadows in the front yard, a hard shout called to her.

“Where the hell do you think you’re all going?”

At the shout, Jack pulled Lorna behind him, an instinctual reaction. He crouched, feeling exposed under the porch lamp, blinded by its glare. Towering oaks and bushy magnolias shadowed the dark walkway. Movement drew his eye below. A figure stalked up from the front gate.

Lorna stepped back into view. “Kyle? What are you doing back? I thought you were stuck on that oil rig for another four days.” Lorna turned to Jack and explained under her breath. “My brother.”

“I told you on the phone I was coming back early.”

“And I told you that wasn’t necessary.”

“Well, I wasn’t about to let you go hunting in the swamps by yourself. And it looks like I got here just in time.”

The figure climbed the steps and into the porch light. Jack sized him up. Lorna’s brother had the same sandy blond hair as his sister- in his case cropped short on the sides and longer on the top. From the looks of it, he hadn’t shaved in days and had worn the same cargo shorts and loose polo shirt for just as long. He had a wiry physique, like a coiled spring-though at the moment wound a bit too tightly. As the kid gripped the porch rail, Jack noted that his fingernail beds and the wrinkles of his knuckles were black with ground-in oil. The only thing darker was the kid’s demeanor as he eyed Jack with a hard suspicion.