Page 254 of Red Marked

“I told you, Dad. I told you.” Koda is crying again.

“You did, son. You did.” Dad is crying harder.

“Where have you been?” Mom sobs. “Where have you been, baby? We thought…we thought…” She can’t finish. She pulls me in again and holds on.

She won’t stop touching me. My hair. Then my arms. Then my face again. Dad keeps a hand on my shoulder even when he steps back to get a good look. Koda leans against the fridge, the one he couldn’t reach the top of when I left, and grins at me with his eyes still wet.

“Sit down.” I wipe my face. “All of you. I’m going to tell you everything.”

We go to the couch. Mom on one side of me and Dad on the other, and Koda sits on the coffee table in front of me because he isn’t prepared to go further away than that. I take their hands. Mom’s is small and cold. Dad’s swallows mine whole.

My heart is so full it aches.

I think of Flint. I wish, one more time, that things could be different. That he could be sitting here with me. Then I let it go, because the three people I love most in the world are looking at me.

“It all started with an email,” I tell them.

70

Flint

Ten days later…

I come in hard and land in the center of the pad, and the whole team spreads out around me to find a spot. It’s been a long flight; we have one male in the rig, and the only thing I want is to be out of my scales and behind a closed door.

I shift and grab my pants off the bench, and I’m talking before I have them all the way up.

“Let’s get that male off the rig. Rex, you’re in the pen with the new male until the doc has seen him. Dane, I want the paperwork done before you leave for the day. I’m not doing another report because someone forgot the order of things.” I pull my shirt over my head. “Brian, check the dart count and sign the sheet. Saber, you’re on the rig with Rex.”

“Boss,” Rex says.

“On it,” Dane says.

Brian is coming around the screen with the dart case. The lid isn’t latched. I can see it swinging from here.

“Brian.”

He stops.

“Is that how we do things?” I point.

Brian looks up. “I was just about to—” A dart falls out and almost hits him in the foot.

“For fuck’s sake. Do you know how dangerous that sedative is for a human?”

He nods, looking pale.

“I’ve told you a hundred times to be careful. I want you to fill in a report about this incident. You can’t leave the clinic on your next leave.”

“What? Please, boss⁠—”

“I want the report on my desk before I leave today. Now latch that box!” I yell.

He latches it. Rift is watching me over the top of the screen. The others have all stopped what they are doing.

“You all have a job to do. Unless you want to be written up as well, you’d better do it.” I grab my boots and walk.

Atlas watches me do it. I keep going, past him, past the guard on the gate, across the yard and into the admin block. I shut my office door hard enough that the certificate on the wall drops half an inch on its hook.