We had come a long way, the two of us.
"It's not easy. I find myself revisiting your perspective more and more," I admitted. "I'm glad you're here, Lyra."
We said our goodnights, promising to talk later. I was too tired to find the strength to keep going. I crawled into bed, where the twins had unofficially also stationed themselves, since they were family. Jordan was snoring loudly.
Tomorrow, I promised myself. I would tell Lyra everything.
27
Lyra
Sylas had sent Joseph to a medical clinic ten miles from the Leftovers. Roxy and most of my team made the trip to visit Joseph to see how he was and possibly speak with him about what had happened to him. We'd left Cam back in town, since he wanted all the details from the teams in the area for his reports, and Chandry had gone with him. I swore, Cam loved to do comprehensive paperwork more than anyone I'd ever met.
Upon our arrival at the hospital, the doctor led us to Joseph's private room. Since he was a rescued Bureau employee, everything was highly secretive. He had a limited number of nurses, and Roxy had to push for us to get access at all.
"He's stable now, but try not to tire him out," the doctor said. "The dehydration and fever caused most of his stilted speech. He's fully coherent now, and I'd like to keep it that way," he advised us, before leaving us just outside the door.
We found Joseph in his bed. He looked a million times better than he had when we’d left him. The mid-morning sun cast him in a much more flattering light, and the nurses had helped him bathe. Under all the scratches and dirt, he turned out to be a handsome older man with kind but sad eyes.
"Hello there," he said softly when we came in. Sike clutched the recovered laptop in his hands, and Joseph's eyes sparked with recognition. He waved Sike over. "That's mine. I'm glad you found it."
I glanced at Joseph's heart monitor. He was stable, but still looked frail. We needed to get as much information out of him as we could without hurting his recovery process. I asked him how he was feeling, but he waved me off.
Part of me wanted to find a moment to privately ask Joseph if he'd seen my parents. They were still missing somewhere out there. Dorian hadn't found their bodies among the survivors he and Cam had come across in the Leftovers. I couldn't rightly prioritize my parents over the others who were missing, but I had serious worries about the survivors of the Black Rock office.
I may not want to know… What if I found out my parents were gone? It would destroy me if they had still been at the office and Joseph saw them get kidnapped by the Ghost or something. My throat tightened as I waited anxiously for Joseph to begin his story.
"I've got a story to tell, and I know you're here for it," Joseph said bluntly. "An IV drip does wonders for the mind. I can't remember what I said to you when we first met, but thank you for returning my knife." It was sitting beside him on the table, out of reach. "It was a gift from my father when I was a boy. He passed away, so I'm happy you found it."
"You're welcome," I said and glanced at the blade. It was rusty, just like the last time I'd seen it. Joseph caught my stare. "I was surprised by the state of it. It seemed to age terribly in the Leftovers."
"There were a lot of surprises waiting for us in Black Rock," Joseph said cryptically. "That place works like nowhere else I've ever been. The physics don't make sense. It was utter madness when the first wave hit us. People screamed. I knew it was bad when the trained soldiers cried out. I was part of a group of fifteen people who were left afterward. There were a few other researchers, but it was mostly soldiers. They insisted on patrolling around the camp. We started hearing the monster after the first few days, and it started picking off the patrols."
We arranged ourselves around him. Roxy and I took the only two chairs available by his bedside. Dorian and Sike stood to the side, perhaps anxious about how he would be affected by their appearance. Bryce stood by the door, conveniently blocking anyone from looking inside. The nurses and doctors had already signed special nondisclosure agreements at Bryce's request, and the Bureau would ensure their silence about the presence of vampires.
"Most of the Black Rock population had already disappeared, and we all hunkered down inside the building because of the monster. It showed itself early, but I never had a run-in with it. I had another researcher with me, but one day, he took off into the night. I think he just had a mental break. I chased after him but couldn’t find him, and then… when I came back, all the soldiers were gone." Joseph shook his head sadly. "I continued my research to keep myself sane. There was nothing else to do. I kept studying the monster and observing it whenever I could find it. I thought that if I learned everything I could about the monster, then I’d have a better chance of surviving it. It didn't seem interested in me, at first."
At first. What changed, and what was this thing after?
"I've got lots of data for you here," Joseph said, and attempted to open the clunky device. Roxy jumped up to help him raise the screen, and he slowly typed in his password. "I never planned on parting with the laptop, but the monster had other plans for me. I have all my research on it, since we couldn’t update wirelessly without internet. There were a few cameras set up in the woods before the chaos started. Using
