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He stops the Jeep, gets out, and leans his hip against the door. “I’m not a monster. In the three years since I orchestrated your rescue, have I ever shown you I didn’t have your best interests at heart?”
I don’t give a knee-jerk response. I consider his question. Rumor had it this man was given the option of leaving the project, moving on with his career. Instead, he chose to stay with us for three long years in the bowels of Area 51.
He never used his power to harm us. In fact, every step of the way he insisted we be treated with the utmost respect. Even the day I was rescued.
Shame flies through me, hot and painful as a live wire. When I look into his eyes, I know he’s remembering that day as clearly as I am.
“I’m sorry, Sir.”
It’s silent except for the crickets, thousands of them, who decide in unison to start chirping at the same moment.
“What am I missing?” Jo asks.
“I told you I’d tell you how I got my name. I guess now’s the time.”
There are many moments of my life I don’t like to remember, but this is one of the worst. I take a deep breath, then explain.
“We’d been on a practice mission. They used me for what they’d bred me for. I was loaded with enough weapons and equipment to last a cadre of twenty splicers a week. I sprained a fetlock the first day out and had trouble keeping up. When we arrived back at our cages, I was given a death sentence.”
I don’t turn around to see how Jo’s taking this. It’s obvious by the way she reaches behind her to stroke my flank that she’s trying to soothe both of us.
“Those in charge found the right people to work there. Every single one of them was a sadist. When they were done with us, they didn’t just take us out and shoot us.”
His tail usually flicks once or twice when he’s agitated. It’s in constant motion, speaking to the level of his discomfort.
“They left me in my cage and quit feeding me. It was an incentive to the others to do their best or die trying. When the army came to rescue me, I was lying in a pile of my own filth, every rib showing. I was too weak to stand.”
The Colonel touches my withers. “I’ll finish the story, son. When I walked by his cage, the enlisted man with me asked if he should put this male down. I looked you in the eyes, saw there was still an ember of fire there, and said ‘no, let’s give this one a chance’.”
When Jo presses her cheek to my back, I feel the wet trails of her hot tears snaking down my flesh.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jo
I’m not crying. I’m weeping. The feeling is overwhelming. That Chance and I met and fell in love seems all the more magical because he had been so close to death. And that Slater—Dad—saved his life?
“It’s as if the stars aligned to get us together,” I say through a throat clogged with emotion.
One of my hands is roaming up and down the warm skin of his chest as the other reaches behind to burrow through his dapple-gray coat. It helps calm me.
“So next time, give me the benefit of the doubt, will you? I’m not a monster,” Dad says as he tosses Chance some keys.
“What’s this, Sir?” he asks.
“You two look like you need some time alone to sort things out and have a long talk. I need to get back to the command center to investigate exactly what happened here. If our location has been compromised, we haven’t heard the last of this. As we’ve known all along, when news of this breaks, it will be a shitstorm to end all shitstorms.”
Chance glances at the keys, then asks, “And these?”
“Quonset C. It’s behind your dorms, near where the other couples are now living. We’re building them as fast as we can. It looks like splicers can be irresistible to some women.” He belts out a laugh and smiles at me.
“It’s yours. Or not. Either way, it’s a quiet place for you to talk. Don’t worry about waking at reveille, but the three of us will have lunch together at noon on the dot and you’re going to tell me everything that happened tonight, leaving nothing out.”
Jo’s mouth opens several times before she manages to say the words which are going through my own head. “How did you know? We were careful.”
“It might be hard to believe, but I was young once.” He huffs out an awkward breath. “When your mother and I met… well, let’s just say things got heated pretty quickly. We rushed into a relationship.”
As he looks out into the night, I imagine he’s replaying that entire relationship in his head.
