True North (The Bears of Blackrock Book 4) (15 page)

Sinead made a sound that bordered on a growl. Theron felt inclined to do the same, but he wanted to be a bear when he made it.

“If Davenport didn’t let you on the Extension – how’d you get on?”

Charlie gestured off toward the east. “I made a god damn trench like I said.”

“But there are cameras? They didn’t see you?” Sinead asked, setting her mug down on the nearby desk.

Charlie shook his head. “Up on the Northeast corner, the two cameras closest to it point in opposite directions. I docked my boat about a mile north of the fence and trudged my way back down, found some loose boulders on the shoreline and made it happen. That fence is no joke, you know. You can hear that thing humming from twenty yards away!”

“Yes, we know it well,” Sinead said, frowning.

Theron stared at the windows, watching the swirl of white as the wind kicked up freshly fallen snow.

Sinead touched Charlie’s arm. “I’m amazed you made it, Charlie.”

“Well, why haven’t the lot of you done the sa -”

“You have a boat?”

Theron’s words stopped them both. Sinead’s eyes grew wide.

“I do. Yeah. Rented it from some ornery bastard down in Black Tickle. Was the only way I could get up here unnoticed.”

Theron remained still for a long moment. There was a way off the Extension. There was a boat to take him to civilization – at least somewhere away from Kilikut and the corruption that festered there. He could get help, get news to someone about what was going on.

“We have to go,” Theron said, taking off for the backroom to find anything of warmth to wrap Sinead in.

Sinead stood from her seat, watching him go. “Wait, you’re just going to leave? Just like that?”

Theron charged into her room, snatching her worn winter coat from the back of a reading chair, as well as two of the heavier sleeping bags from her bed. He stormed back out into the main room of the school house.

Sinead was shaking her head violently before he could even hold out the coat. “I’m not going anywhere, Theron.”

He stopped dead, staring at her in awe. “How can you say that?”

“I’m not leaving until I know everyone is leaving. How big is the boat?”

Charlie gave a shrug. “Not very big. It’s barely the size of a lobster boat, really.”

Theron moved toward her, holding the jacket out as though he could will her to put it on. She stepped away from him, glaring. Despite the difference in height, she felt like a tower as she stared at him.

“I am not leaving, baby. It’s not happening.”

Theron’s fingers clenched in the fabric of her coat, and he felt the fabric strain. He was on the verge of tearing it. “Damn it, Sinead! Why are you being so stubborn?”

Charlie moved across the room, already zipping his coat up as he readied himself by the door. The argument was weighing heavy in the air.

“You might not have any trouble marching off into the sunset, leaving your whole clan behind, but I’ve been with these families for four damn years – two of them on this godforsaken camp. I’m not leaving them! It’s not fucking happening.”

Both Charlie and Theron froze in the wake of her anger. Sinead Dalton could rattle the rafters when she was mad.

“How can I protect you if you won’t come with me?” Theron said, moving closer to her. He wanted to shake her and make her see reason, but he could see her resolve etched on her face as clearly as the freckles on her cheeks.

“You find help. You find a way to get us out of here – all of us!”

“You can do that with me!”

“No! You go. Get word to my parents. Let them know what is going on. They’ll help.”

Theron glanced toward Charlie, then back at Sinead, a sense of helplessness mingling with urgency. If they truly hadn’t seen Charlie sneak onto the Extension, there was no telling how long he’d go unnoticed – or if they’d find his boat docked to the north.

It was now or never, Theron was sure.

“I have to go, baby,” he said, moving toward her.

She took hold of his face in her hands, and he could feel how cold they were already. “I know you do. I know. But you have to let me do something first.”

Theron’s eyebrows shot up as Sinead marched toward the back of the small schoolhouse, disappearing into the bathroom. They could hear her clanging and moving around, searching for something. A moment later, Sinead reappeared in the hallway, coming toward them with a lighter, holding a flame under a small pen knife in her right hand.

“What’s that?” Theron asked, and he cringed. His apprehension was clear in his tone.

Sinead sat at her wide desk, taking up her throne as though she prepared to teach a class. “Come here. Lie on my desk.”

Theron didn’t move as Sinead pulled a small glass of water and the first aide kit from beneath her arm.

Theron moved toward her, slowly. What did she mean to do with that knife, he thought?

“Well, are you coming or not? Get over here so I can cut that godforsaken thing out of you!”

Theron’s eyes went wide as he remembered the tiny bump that moved just beneath his skin when he touched his chest. “What? You’re gonna perform surgery on me, right here?” He asked, taking a step away from her.

“No, I’m going to do a dissection. I’m not a surgeon, I’m a biologist.”

Both Charlie and Theron shuddered at these words, but Sinead didn’t flinch as she held the flame beneath the knife until it grew orange around the edges.

“If they see you heading toward the perimeter, you’ll be caught. Come on, Theron. Darrell did this to himself once! You want me to tell him you were too chicken shit to have me do it?” Sinead said, shooting him a glare.

The words were biting, but teasing, and Theron couldn’t argue with her logic. He didn’t give a damn about Darrell, but the tracker in his chest would betray him. It would betray them all. They’d be able to see that he’d left the Extension, maybe even track him north or out into the water. If this was their first real shot at getting off the Extension, he couldn’t blow it because he was afraid of a little pain.

Theron stepped up to the desk and settled himself atop it, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Oh shit, we’re really doing this?” Charlie said, squirming by the meeting house door.

“You go get me a glass of hot water. The kettle should still be warm. And here – take the thermometer. I need you to adjust the water temp to 103 degrees.”

Charlie came closer to the desk, hovering there for a moment as Sinead demanded Theron unbutton his shirt. Theron closed his eyes.

“103? Why 103?”

“Because it’s their average body temperature.”

Charlie made a strange gasping sound. “Jesus, that can’t be right!”

“Just do it, Charlie!”

“Alright -”

Blinding pain shot through Theron’s chest before he’d even realized she’d begun. Charlie made a soft retching noise and hustled away from the desk, his heavy boots stomping down the hallway toward the bathroom.

“God damn!” Theron hissed, gripping the edge of the desk beneath.

Sinead cooed to him, softly. “Grit through it, baby. I’ve almost got it.”

He could feel his blood pooling on his bare skin, then her fingers pressing down onto his still unhealed wound as she pried the pen knife under the tiny device. He began to think he’d be following Charlie’s example as his stomach turned at that sensation.

“Do you have that water, Charlie?”

The sound of boots returned, but Theron still refused to open his eyes. This event could pass without him seeing.

“Right here – oh for fuck’s sake!”

Charlie stomped back out of the room and proceeded to vomit in the bathroom down the hall. The sound didn’t help Theron’s composure.

Suddenly, there was a soft plip sound, and Sinead was up from her seat, marching across the room in a hurry. Theron finally opened his eyes to find Sinead stooped down beside the space heater, settling the glass of warm water just in front of it.

“I hope you weren’t planning on saying goodbye to anyone,” she said, and sadness registered on her face.

Theron winced as he lifted himself up from the desk, pressing the bandages from his wound back over the new viscera.

Sinead’s energy was strange. Her hands were bloodied now and clearly shaking, and she was moving around the space as though repelled by his gaze. She wouldn’t look at him.

“Shinny,” he said, moving across the room toward her. She turned toward the back hallway, smiling at Charlie as he reappeared. Even as Theron touched her arm, she turned her face away. “Shinny, what’s wrong?”

Her face contorted, and she tried to walk away. Theron held on, pulling her toward him to hold her as she covered her face with her hands. “I’m never gonna see you again, am I?”

Theron wrapped his arms around her and pinned her to him, ignoring the pain that shot through his wounded chest. “Don’t you say that.”

“It’s how this place works, Theron. You try to fight back, you try to do what’s right – they shoot you. Or they hurt you. Or they make you disappear.”

“Stop,” he said, trying to brush her hair out of her face.

“- You’re gonna get off the Extension and if you make it, no one’s ever going to believe you. No one is going to care about this tiny corner of the world.”

Theron took hold of her chin and made her look at him. “Sinead Dalton. If that is true, then I will come back here with an army. I promise you – look at me.”

She fought to turn away from him again, but he wouldn’t let her.

“I will find every Talbot, every Fenn - every single one of my kind, and we will come here, and we will tear this place to the ground. Do you hear me? I will die before I let them keep you from me.”

She met his gaze then for the first time since he’d said he was leaving, and her eyes welled over. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Theron’s chest grew tight. How long would this take? How long til they reached Black Tickle? Then from there, how long until they could get Mounties to come north and set things right? And would they even come?

Or would Theron be on the receiving end of the same disbelief that Charlie witnessed?

He’d seen how the government responded to injustice when it came to its native people.

Theron inhaled sharply as he realized something.

If they didn’t believe him – he would shift.

He would betray his clan, his family – every single shifter from there to the ends of the world. He would let them see what he was if he had to. He would make them believe.

Theron’s throat grew tight as he realized why. He’d known Sinead Dalton for less than two weeks – and he loved her.

The thought of leaving suddenly hurt far more than the searing blade Sinead used to cut the tracker from his flesh.

“If we leave now, we can hit high tide. It’ll be quicker.”

Theron’s heart stopped for an instant, and he kissed Sinead, holding her to him as though he might absorb her into his skin and hide her there.

Sinead wrapped her arms around him and shook as she cried. Then she released her hold, looking up into his eyes. The blue of hers was piercing now against the redness of her cheeks.

“Go now. The water won’t stay hot forever.”

Theron glanced back at the glass of water, its heat the only thing buying them time. Soon the tracker’s temp reading would drop. They’d know he’d taken it out. They’d come looking for him.

“Tell, Darrell where I’ve gone. Tell him I’m coming back for everyone.”

Sinead nodded as she watched them move toward the door. Theron stopped and pulled her into him again. He wanted to remember every tiny detail of her – from the smell of tea on her breath, to the feel of her tears falling onto his lips.

Theron opened the door to the meeting house just in time to find Buniq hopping up the front steps. The three of them startled, and Buniq took a long moment to stare at Charlie Black. It was clear the officer felt small in her gaze.

“Who’s he?” She asked.

Sinead leaned out the door into the cold of snowfall and grabbed Buniq’s hand, pulling her inside. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s let the gentlemen go.”

Buniq shot Theron a sideways glance, then another at Charlie, her brow furrowed. “Where you going, then?”

Theron grabbed Buniq’s hand and squeezed. “I’m coming right back, honey. I promise.”

With that, Theron turned for the door, afraid he’d lose control of his emotions if he stayed a moment longer. Just as he stepped outside into the cold, Charlie shrugged his pack off his shoulder and pulled two black boxes from inside. He turned and handed them to Sinead.

“Not sure if the signal will carry further than Black Tickle, but we’ll have communication at least. Don’t use it unless you have to – let us get past Kilikut before we flood the line with chatter. Don’t want to take any chances that they might have the ability to listen in.”

Sinead took the radios and clutched them to her chest, taking one last glance at Theron before turning her face away. “Ok,” she said.

Theron could hear her struggling to speak in an even tone to Buniq as the warped school house doors shut behind them.

CHAPTER TWELVE

SINEAD

Buniq sat content by Sinead’s desk, happily munching on one of Sinead’s leftover granola bars as she colored in a makeshift drawing of Snoopy that Sinead drew on a small whiteboard. Sinead hovered close to the space heater, watching the tiny thermometer to make sure it never dipped below 103. Theron had been gone for over an hour now – long enough to be off the Extension.

Oh god, he might actually be at sea by now. He might be free. Her heart raced and ached at the thought. It was almost enough to make her regret not going with him.

She turned back toward the front of the classroom to see Buniq humming softly to herself as she worked, something she did when she was deep in concentration. Affection for Buniq surged in Sinead’s heart and she smiled.

She almost regretted not leaving with Theron.

Almost.