Emmy Laybourne - Savage Drift

“Yeah,” I told them. “Very cool.”

“Alex says it’s going to help find your parents!” Caroline chirped. “I can’t wait to meet them!”

“Look at our fort!” Max said.

“We building a wall!” Ulysses said, pointing to a wonky construction of sticks leaning against the trunk of a large maple tree.

“Very cool,” I said.

“What’s wrong, Mommy Junior?” Henry asked Astrid.

Either because she was pregnant, or because they had their “big” mom back, they’d taken to calling Astrid Mommy Junior. Usually it got a smile out of her, but not today.

“Have you guys seen Jake?” Astrid asked the moms.

“Yes,” Mrs. McKinley said. “We saw him at breakfast. He said he was going to go with Niko over to the Air Force base.”

Astrid threw up her hands.

“Is everything okay?” Mrs. McKinley asked.

Astrid looked away from her. I knew the expression—if she started to talk about it, she was going to cry.

My heart melted for her. But only a little.

“I just need to talk to him,” Astrid said.

“And I’m helping Astrid find him.” I couldn’t help myself. “See, I take care of Astrid, and I help her get whatever she wants. That’s my job. I do what I’m told.”

Surprise at my sarcastic tone of voice flickered onto Mrs. McKinley’s face.

“Ignore him,” she said. “He’s being a jealous jerk.”

Astrid turned on her heel and headed up to the Clubhouse.

A shuttle for the Air Force base left once an hour.

I followed her.

“You don’t have to come with me,” she said.

“I know that,” I answered.

“So don’t come.”

“I need to talk to Niko anyway,” I said.

It was sort of the truth.

But mostly I went because… because I was a jealous jerk. I was worried about what Jake might do or say without me around.

From what Alex had learned, the main reason that the refugee camp had been established at the Quilchena golf course was that it was a large area of open space close to the Vancouver International Airport South, which was acting as a temporary Air Force base for the USA.

Part of the reason that Captain McKinley had gotten us all brought to Quilchena was that he knew he’d be able to see a lot of his family if we were here. This improvised base was the center of the US Armed Forces effort to support the hundreds of thousands of American refugees housed across the west coast of Canada.

Supplies came and went from this base, refugees arrived and departed on a daily basis, and there were Army offices where you could go to file petitions for transfers and the like.

All you had to do to take a shuttle over to the base was give them your social security number. They wanted to know who was where at all times.

Security was tight at the base, and guards patrolled the outskirts of the camp, so I guess they weren’t worried about us escaping.

I wondered what Astrid was going to do, as the shuttle approached. Would she use her own number or the made-up one that she’d used in the medical offices?

I felt too pissed off to ask.

She entered her real SS number on the sign-in sheet the driver held out.

She looked at me and shrugged.

“They know everything else about me,” she said.

She was giving me an opening.

But I was still too mad. What did she think Jake would say that was different from what I had said? He wouldn’t be any nicer or more understanding about it. What did she want from him—now or ever?

At the base, it didn’t take long to find Niko and Captain McKinley, but Jake was nowhere to be seen.

The captain looked really annoyed. Niko was basically trailing behind him as he did some kind of equipment check on a large transport helicopter.

“You don’t have to approve of my plan to help me,” Niko was arguing as we approached.

“I’m not risking my job to help a seventeen-year-old kid go on some wild goose chase,” McKinley snapped.

Niko was sixteen, but I wasn’t about to correct him.

“Hey, guys,” I said as we drew near.

“Is Jake with you?” Astrid asked.

“He’s visiting someone he knows at the motor pool,” Niko said. “It’s out behind this building.”

“Ugh,” Astrid said, rubbing her back. She looked miserable.

“Hey,” I said. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll go get him?”

“No. I’ll go. I want to talk to him alone.”

Okay, fine.

I exhaled through my mouth, trying to keep my cool.

She headed back outside.

“What’s going on?” Niko asked. “You fighting again?”

McKinley ducked away to the chopper, probably happy to have Niko off his tail for a moment.

“Yeah, I guess. Hey, did you see the letter?”

“No, what letter?”

I told Niko and Captain McKinley about it.

“Do you think it could help me get Josie out?” Niko said, getting excited.

“Maybe,” I said.

“I bet if I brought it to the press at Mizzou—showed them that the ‘presumed dead’ girl from The Monument Fourteen was actually inside—they could put pressure on them to let her out. Captain McKinley, don’t you think?”

“I think that the publicity might help you to get her transferred here. Which would be safe and legal,” McKinley said.

Niko threw up his hands.

Captain McKinley stopped what he was doing and came around to the front of the chopper.

“How’s Astrid?” he asked. “Kara said she’s not been feeling well?”

“She’s been having some cramps. I got her to go over to the clinic today.”

“She didn’t want to go?”

He was leaning on the nose of the chopper now.

“Ahh.…,” I stalled. I didn’t want to tell the captain about Astrid’s paranoid fantasies about the Army. It seemed like he would be insulted.

“She’s heard about some women being pressured to do testing.”

That was the least direct way I could put it.

“But she’s feeling all right?”

“She’s had some cramping. The nurse said she needs more vitamins and rest. I got to see the baby on the ultrasound.”

“Isn’t it amazing?” McKinley asked.

“Blew my mind!”

“I remember seeing the twins, all nested in together. Arms and legs all a jumble. Once they were sucking their thumbs! Both of them!”

There was a glow on his face as he remembered the sight.

Astrid came back with Jake then.

She looked furious.

“Dean!” Jake said, cheerfully, and I instantly saw he was drunk. “I hear we’re famous!”

“Is it even noon yet?” I asked.

“Never too early for a friendly game of cards,” he drawled. “And look, I won!”

He had a fistful of cash.

He tried to put his arm around Astrid.

“Don’t touch me,” she nearly shouted.

“Whoa, whoa, calm down,” Jake said.

“Astrid, I think we should go back,” I said.

“To where?” she asked, her frustration spilling over. “There is nowhere safe for me to go! That nurse is probably waiting at the tent!”

“Really,” I insisted. “We should go.”

I didn’t want her spouting the abduction stuff in front of Captain McKinley.

“Niko.” Astrid turned to him, begging. “Would you take me with you? Take me out of here to go get Josie? We can leave tonight! I’ll go with you!”

Niko didn’t know what to say.

But then Captain McKinley came around the corner of the chopper.

“Astrid, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“There’s a nurse who knows my name, she knows I was exposed, and she was pushing me to sign up to let the Army scientists do experiments on me and the baby—”

“Are you sure—”

“And NO ONE will help me! Everyone thinks I’m being paranoid.”