Kane was out there. Not in the forest, but somewhere in between all this madness, and I was going to find him. He was alive. I resisted the urge to reach out for him again, knowing I was better off focusing on the mission. Besides, I had lost our connection after the monster disappeared. Our ability to speak seemed to ebb and flow, like catching a radio station at certain times.
It was technically Lyra's job to rescue him, not even my assignment. But she doesn't have a psychic connection to him or know that I have one. No. I needed to focus on my team. They needed me more than Kane did, given the tensions within our group at the moment. Kane could handle himself; I was confident of that.
Holt's watch beeped. "Time for a shift change, boss," he said cheerfully.
We headed down the road and met up with the twins. Holt seemed stiffer than usual as he and Jones paired off together and started back to camp for rest. Jones, for his part, was perfectly cordial. He'd been that way since I’d reprimanded him for firing his gun at the monster. During our brief, he had even offered to take the first patrol while I recuperated from the monster attack. I’d declined, of course. I’d said that Sylas, Colin, Holt, and Jones would be resting for the night while the twins, Evans, and I took the late shifts.
"Did you bully him?" I asked the twins as we went to meet Evans and gather reports from the entrance teams.
"Oh, we might have said a few things," Jessie said with a little smirk. "He's so boring, though. I hope he gets a bit more life in him after some sleep. It's not fun to tease someone who doesn't react. What a jerk." That was unexpected. I was glad to hear that he was obviously showing some restraint with the twins, given how grating I knew they could be at times. Especially when they were trying to get a rise out of someone.
Jordan agreed wholeheartedly as he bit into an energy bar.
"Eat it quickly," I told him. "The monster has a crazy sense of smell."
"For granola bars?" Jordan asked with his mouth full.
“Maybe. We don’t know anything about it.”
Evans greeted us on the road. Nothing terribly interesting was happening on her side of things.
"The air feels strange, though," she admitted. We made our rounds up and down the road, setting back to where the monster had attacked me. This side was the most dangerous. If the beast came back, I thought it was more likely that it would appear where we had last seen it. Maybe it could only portal in and out of the Leftovers?
The twins wandered over to the lake, leaving Evans and me leaning against a boulder in full view of the abandoned house where the monster had waited for me. Seeing it now sent an instinctual shiver of fear down my spine. The body remembered everything that happened in battle.
"I hope it stays quiet tonight," I said, taking a stab at conversation. We had a long night ahead, and the twins looked more likely to explore than hang back for a chat. Besides, I needed to make progress on my working relationship with Jones, since he and Evans were tight. I wasn't blind to in-group politics, although sometimes it surprised me that they were actually friends.
Evans made a sound to acknowledge that she heard me, but her eyes were on the trees. Her skin was paler than usual, like she felt sick. "I hope we don't see it again." She paused. "Although I guess I only saw a flash of it for a second. It was strange-looking."
"It was very albino-ish," I said, crossing my arms. An awkward silence came over us. It was different than my time with Holt, but not the worst.
The Bureau might request me to attempt to describe the monster for one of our sketch artists who were compiling data, but I wasn't the best with words. Based on what I'd seen of monsters from the Leftovers, the Bureau might as well have just hired fantasy illustrators for this work when we couldn't get pictures. The biggest thing was to note whether a creature might be one of many… that would be a big problem. The red eyes came back into my mind. I certainly hoped this monster didn't have siblings.
Evans cleared her throat abruptly. "The teeth I saw, though. It reminded me of a chimpanzee." She turned to study me. A beat of anxiety flickered beneath her reserved gaze. "And yet it didn't try to crush you?"
"No," I admitted. "I don't know what to make of that." If I were a starving monster, I would've eaten me in two bites, but this thing had held me in its mouth for some reason.
She was quiet for a long time. All we heard was the occasional beep from my scanner and the twins talking quietly in the distance. Finally, she sucked in a breath.
"The Leftovers freak me out."
I hadn't expected her to be so candid. "They're weird," I agreed. "Far worse than the Immortal Plane, in my opinion. You know what you're getting in the Immortal Plane."
"Do you?" She appeared genuinely curious. "I've only heard stories. I was part of one team who helped with Moab, but it was after the infestation, just before the tear grew wider. We had to evacuate. I remember bite marks in the street signs."
Nodding, I thought back to how Lyra and I had made our way through that city. There were so many adventures that I had dived into, never knowing if I would return. I’d joined the Bureau for the sense of purpose and adventure, and I loved
