Another snort. She couldn’t really blame the dog. Considering how Lucas looked in his “attack variant” it was a wonder the dog stuck around at all.
Cedric pondered them for a long moment and waddled over. Emily stretched out her hand. Karina’s insides clenched into a tight knot.
Cedric nudged Emily’s hand with his nose, snorted again, and bumped the bulge in the front pocket of her hoodie.
“What do you have in your pocket?” Karina asked.
Emily dug into her pocket and pulled out a half-eaten apple.
Not again. Karina kept her voice gentle. “Emily, you know you’re not supposed to have that . . .”
Cedric sniffed at the apple. His mouth gaped open, revealing huge teeth.
“He won’t hurt her,” Lucas said with absolute certainty in his voice.
Emily held the apple out. Very carefully, almost gently, Cedric swiped it off her hand, sat on his behind, and raised the fruit to his mouth, holding it with long, dark claws. The black nose sniffed the apple, the jaws opened and closed, and the beast bit a small chunk from the fruit and chewed in obvious pleasure.
“He likes it!” Emily announced and jumped down off the steps into the yard. “Come on, Cedric!”
“Where are you going?” Karina took a step to follow.
“Just to the tree.”
The oak was barely fifty feet away. Karina bit her lip. Her instincts told her to clutch her child and not let go, but Emily needed to feel normal. She needed to play. Her daughter didn’t understand how precarious their situation was, she had no idea how vulnerable they were, and Karina had to keep it that way.
Emily was looking at her. “Can I go?”
“Yes. You can go.”
Emily headed toward the tree. Cedric finished his apple in a hurried gulp, rolled to his paws, and followed her to the tree.
Lucas leaned on a porch post next to Karina. She had expected him to somehow shrink in daylight, as if he were some sort of evil creature of the night whose power faded with the sun, but he remained just as big and menacing. If anything, the sun made it worse—she could see every detail of his severe face. Everything about him, the way he leaned against the rail, the way muscle bulged on his arms and chest, the way he surveyed the yard, inspecting his territory, communicated predator.
Lucas raised his face to the sun, closed his eyes, and smiled. The smile lasted only a moment, gone like a leaf blown by the breeze, but she had seen it. He was handsome and the danger he emanated sharpened that beauty to a lethal edge. He was beautiful in the same deadly way a tiger was beautiful, and now she was locked in a cage with him.
If he was on her side, nobody would ever bother them.
At the tree, Emily picked up a twig and tossed it. Cedric looked at the twig and back at her, slightly puzzled.
“What is he?” Karina asked.
“A bear-dog. We played with their genetics a few generations back. He’s gentle like a collie with the kids and he’s a lot smarter than an average dog. What’s the problem with her having an apple?”
Karina sat on the stairs. “She hoards food.”
“Why?”
She didn’t want to tell him. The less he knew about them, the less information he could use against her. “It makes her feel safe.”
By the tree Emily clapped her hands and explained something to Cedric. He sat on his butt again, listening to her.
“Was she adopted?” Lucas asked quietly.
“No.” She wouldn’t have expected him to know that adoptive children sometimes exhibited food hoarding. Now she had to explain more just to keep him from getting the wrong idea. “It happened after her father’s death. It’s not an eating disorder. She doesn’t want extra food; she’s just trying to control her environment. We handled it, but with everything that’s happened she might have relapsed. Please don’t berate her or yell at her for it. It . . .”
“It makes things worse,” he finished for her. “I know.”
“Let me have her,” she said, suddenly desperate. “Let me have her here with me. I thought I lost her on that fire escape. You have everything else—my freedom, my body, everything—and I just want one thing. Just let me keep my baby.”
Lucas frowned. He didn’t seem vicious now. “I’m not doing this to be an a**hole.”
“I’ll keep her out of the way . . .”
Cedric snarled at the bushes, baring his teeth, and lunged into the thicket.
Karina jumped to her feet. Before her knees had straightened, Lucas had leaped over the railing and was sprinting to the tree.
Emily stumbled back. Her mouth gaped in a surprised O.
Karina ran but she was so agonizingly slow.
Lucas reached Emily, pushed her back, out of the way, and crashed through the underbrush.
Karina lunged forward. Her hand closed about Emily’s shoulder. She grabbed her daughter and backed away, keeping her hand on her pocket, feeling the hard knife handle through the fabric of her jeans.
Lucas jerked something out of the bushes. Long and green and brown, it writhed in his hand, flailing, the elongated olive tail brushing the ground. He roared, a deep growl that nearly made her jump. “Henry!”
The thing jerked, its throat caught in Lucas’s hand. He turned and Karina finally saw it: it resembled a freakishly large bearded dragon lizard bristling with inch-long spikes on its cheeks and sides. As the creature twisted, a crest snapped open along its back, the spikes standing up like the razor-sharp fins of some deepwater fish. The lizard creature clawed at Lucas’s arm with long black claws. Blood welled in the scratches.
“A monster!” Emily squeaked.
“No, just a big lizard.” Karina kept a death grip on Emily.
Behind her the door burst open. Daniel charged onto the porch. His face contorted. Something brushed past Karina like a sudden draft. The beast jerked and hung motionless, its legs abruptly gone limp.
Lucas carried the lizard to the porch. “Henry!”
Henry burst onto the porch.
Lucas slammed the lizard down onto the porch boards. The creature blinked but lay completely still. Henry knelt by the lizard. His hands touched the back of the creature’s skull. He closed his eyes, focused for a long moment, and glanced up. “Its mind is inert. It didn’t transmit.”
Lucas looked at him. “Sure?”
Henry pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Yes. If it transmitted, there would be evidence of a spike in neural activity.”
Lucas raised his fist and brought it down like a hammer. She barely had enough warning to spin Emily around before his fist crushed the lizard’s skull, flattening it like an empty Coke can.
“Daniel, call the main house.” Lucas turned to her. “Take Emily and go to our room. Don’t come out until I get you.”
Karina didn’t ask what was going on. She just picked Emily up, ran inside the house, and didn’t stop until the door of Lucas’s room closed behind her.
The day burned down to the afternoon. Emily investigated the room, then she whined about being bored, and finally she fell asleep in the overstuffed chair in the corner. At first Karina listened for every noise and creak outside the door. Her nerves were wound so tight, she could barely sit still.
If the creature in the bushes had been just an ordinary lizard, Lucas would’ve killed it right away. She had no doubt of it. No, this beast had created an emergency. She had no idea why and that somehow made everything so much worse. Eventually her own anxiety wore her out and she sank into a light sleep, a kind of wakeful drowsiness, where every stray noise made her raise her head.
The room was so quiet. Karina closed her eyes for a moment, opened them, and then Lucas was there, walking across the room. She hadn’t heard the door open.
Lucas scooped Emily out of the chair. Karina surged to her feet. “Where are you taking her?”
“To a different room,” he said quietly and went out. She followed him down the hallway to a small bedroom. A bed with a red comforter stood against one wall, next to a bookcase filled with children’s books. A desk offered a small computer with a flat-screen monitor.
He’d made her a room. He’d changed his mind.
Lucas deposited Emily on the bed and stepped out. Karina pulled the blanket over Emily’s shoulders. She was so tiny on the bed. Karina’s mind replayed Lucas clenching the lizard’s throat. One squeeze and Emily would be dead.
He waited for her now, in the hallway. Karina made herself step away from the bed and walked out. Lucas closed the door, locked it, and handed her the key. “This is for her protection. Our room doesn’t have a lock. Daniel is pissed off tonight, and I’m feeling surly, which makes the house a dangerous place to be, so it’s best she stays in this room. This is for tonight only. Tomorrow she will go to the main house.”
But the room—it was a child’s room, made for a little girl. The blankets and the pillowcases looked brand-new and the rug still had the price sticker on it.
So he hadn’t changed his mind. She had from now until morning to convince him to let her keep her daughter. Karina opened her mouth and said the only thing she could think of. “Are you hungry?”
Lucas nodded. “I could eat.”
“Any preference?”
“Meat would be nice.” He turned away.
“Lucas?”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Yes?”
“What’s going on?” Karina asked him softly. “What was that thing?”
Lucas grimaced. “It’s a long explanation.”
“Please. I want to know.” Whatever he would tell her had to be better than not knowing.
Lucas sighed. “The woman who poisoned you has friends. Her people are looking for our base, so they are sending scouts out. The lizard was one of them. It’s basically a walking camera—it records what it sees and then transmits the information to its owners in short bursts. Luckily we caught this one before any transmissions had gone out.”
“And if it had sent this transmission?”