Something of a Kind - By Miranda Wheeler Page 0,45
teeth. He tensed.
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she insisted, enunciating each word slowly. She put a hand on his cheek, looking into his panicked eyes. “Thank you for helping. Do you mind grabbing my phone?”
He nodded, running up the trail. By the time he returned, she was frowning, unsure what to do with the bleeding. Her leg pounded like a headache, stabs of pain rolling through the agonizing rawness.
This is so gross. I’ve got Band-Aids and tissues, but my bag’s in the car.
Sighing, she forced herself to look away, accepting the cell. She flipped through the pictures, a smile brightening her face. “It’s a black blur, but it’s definitely something. The trees are too yellowish to miss a thing like that.” Glancing up, she continued, “Did you see it?”
His brows knitted. “I saw something – movement, a shadow maybe. You should get that looked at. We should probably get out of here.”
She nodded, accepting his hand as she tried to stand. Wincing, she said, “Fair warning, I’ll look like The Hunchback of Notre Damefor a while.”
“Want me to carry you?”
Aly blushed, lips parting, shaking her head. “No, no, no. I’m good.”
“I don’t mind. I lift frozen meat like wrestlers bench. It’s really not a problem,” he offered.
“That’s an interesting mental imagine,” she teased. “But I insist on hobbling with dignity.” Offering her arm, she added playfully, “Be my crutch?”
Wrapping an arm around her waist, he promised, “Always.”
CHAPTER 12 | NOAH
“So you think your leg is okay to walk?”
Aly stretched it out in front of her, her shin covered in BandAids printed with various members of the Avengers. When Noah commented, she snickered, insisting that he shouldn’t ask.
“It should be fine. It doesn’t even hurt at this point. Thank you, by the way.”
He smiled. “Don’t mention it. So are you coming back to Yazzie’s or am I bringing you home?”
Aly was silent, nibbling her lip in thought. Suddenly turning in her seat, she blurted, “Do you know where he works – my dad – where the facility is?”
He raised a brow. “This is Ashland. There’s not much to know.”
Geographically, anyway.
“We should go there, right?” she asked, turning her phone side to side as though it could morph in the light. He couldn’t tell if she was mentally outlining the cover – hard plastic, an cartoon image of the Eiffel Tower and butterflies – or thinking of the pictures inside, which, at first, had seemed to make her ecstatic. Now, she looked concerned, on-edge, nerves rattled.
Wait– she wants to make a report?
“You said you don’t even believe he researches it – that you don’t know what he does.”
She sighed. “I’ve been trying really hard not to think about it. It seemed so crazy– he’s uptight and boring, the bigfoot-thing is eccentric at best…”
“But you thought about it anyway,” he finished, frowning.
“A little,” Aly admitted, “It’s all over this town – the woods, the tunnels, even Luke and Owen are up to date, and they don’t seem to listen to much of anything.”
“True,” he agreed, stifling a laugh. Sobering, he added, “Aly, I think a report is a bit extreme.”
The idea of dragging Alyson defenseless into his father’s territory, under the line of fire, was unacceptable. The Elders had been making threats for months, and after whatever stirred the embers the day Dr. Glass showed up with Aly in tow hadn’t been good. If Lee were any more aware of how Noah spent his time with Aly, everything would go south fast. There would be hell to pay.
But it hurt her.
“He’s researching it, though. He must be. Why else would he cross the country for a little town? There’s not a whole lot here. Nothing he couldn’t study out of a university in one of the cities, Anchorage even. Think about it.”
He laughed. “Aly, I don’t need to think about it. I know what he does.”
“And I trust you,” she murmured, eyeing her leg. “My conclusion is that there must be a particular population of whatever we saw today.”
“I…” he faltered, rubbing his neck. Forcing his eyes to stay on the road, he continued, “I don’t know what I saw.”
From his peripheral, he saw her lips part in shock. Blinking, she pleaded, “Yes, you do.”
“I wasn’t exactly jumping to the same conclusions the first night. We’ve heard stuff like that for years.”
“It’s hard for me to believe, too. You must know that. I’ve always said, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ about almost everything, and guess what? We have. What more do you