Carol placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a calming smile. “If we have to up their dosage, so be it.” She bent in closer and lowered her voice, “I’m not holding you to the caveat I placed earlier. You don’t have to wait for the drugs to leave their system before upping the dosage.” She gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. “We know now that you were correct.”
He sighed and lowered his head. “Forgive me, cherie, but that is not what I most worry about.” He pushed away from the monitor and stretched his neck. “I worry that I may be giving them too much, since it is absorbed through the nasal passages, the mucosa and the lungs.”
“They’ll be fine.”
“Hey, where’d the pain in the ass go?” Tammy asked, pointing to the examination table.
All eyes turned and gave her a confused look. Carol stepped toward the door and looked at the lone guard standing by the steel blast door. “She couldn’t have left. Could she?”
Broussard exited the lab and gently approached the armed soldier. “Did the subject…er,…senator leave here?”
The soldier gave him a confused look. “A few minutes ago. She said that you okayed her return to quarters. My partner escorted her to her old room so she could change.”
Broussard rolled his eyes. “She was not permitted to leave yet.” He lowered his head and held a hand up. “It’s not your fault, nor your friend’s. I should have watched her more closely.” He looked up and sighed. “Could you have her returned at once please?”
The guard nodded and reached for his radio. As he spoke into the other end, Broussard returned to the lab. “Sacré bleu!” He stormed into the lab and had to force his blood pressure down. “These people and their notion of entitlement…”
The soldier appeared in the doorway of the lab. “Sir, they’re returning her now.” He seemed to flush a bit as he spoke. “She insisted on changing clothes.”
“Merci.” Broussard turned back to the researchers. “If I were less professional, I would say that we needed to increase our messiness in the lab to soil her precious clothing…but I am not.”
Carol chuckled as she patted his shoulder. “Too bad you’re sleeping with a total klutz.” She winked at him. “I wonder how iodine solution would work with her woven silk Versace?”
“Dr. Broussard!” Randy called, pointing to a cell. “He’s coming around.”
All eyes turned to the man in the plastic prison; he had his hands pressed to the wall, his eyes wide with wonder. “Can somebody help me, please?”
Broussard nodded to Dr. Carlson and he opened the door of the acrylic cell. “Easy now.” Randy said as the man stepped down from the raised gurney.
The man stepped away from the other cells and held his hands out as if somebody had just thrown a shit slushee at him. “Oh my god…is this blood?” He gagged as his own stench hit him then looked to the researchers. “Is this shit?”
The click of heels across the concrete floor caught Randy’s attention and he spun to see Senator Winegard marching toward the soiled man. Before anybody realized what she was doing, she raised her hand and pointed a pistol at the man, firing as she walked.
Randy ducked to the side, using the cells as cover. The filth covered man buckled where he stood as red blossoms appeared across his chest and midsection. The crazed woman continued firing until she stood directly over him, clicking the pistol on spent cartridges.
She seemed genuinely surprised as the soldier tackled her to the concrete floor.
Simon sat quietly at the dinette as a shadow appeared across the windows of his RV. Show time.
He slipped from the chair and held Hammer’s gun at his side. The large man seemed more than eager to loan the suppressed pistol to him. He claimed that it was as quiet as a duck fart, and Simon hoped that he wasn’t exaggerating too much as he cocked the weapon.
He could hear the door to the RV rattle slightly then quiet as the would-be intruder removed his lock picking tools. A moment later, he heard the light scratching at the metal door knob as it was being picked.
Simon side stepped and clung to the wall of the RV. As the door knob twisted and opened slowly, he brought the pistol up and held it at about mid abdomen. He wanted Trent to suffer before he died.
A dark figure stepped into the RV and Simon squeezed the trigger three times.
True to his word, Hammer’s pistol barely made a ‘pfft’ sound as the subsonic ammunition exited the barrel and shredded Jake’s liver.
If he’d been as tall as Trent, his small intestines would be Swiss cheese, but alas, the shorter man would bleed out more quickly as his liver spewed nearly black blood.
Jake gave him a surprised stare, his mouth opening and closing rapidly as he stumbled back out of the door and fell to the ground, his hands grasping at his ruined midsection.
Simon stepped out of the RV and squatted next to Jake. “Where’s Trent?”
Jake’s jaw quivered slightly and he tried to form words, but the sheer surprise of the attack left him speechless.
Simon sighed and bent lower. “This is your last chance, shitstain. Where’s Trent? Where’s Tommy?”
Jake swallowed and coughed, a red spray erupting from his mouth. “Tommy is…” His hand pulled away from his midsection and pointed to the edge of the camp. “In the trees. Waiting.”
“And Trent?”
Jake’s eyes glassed over and his head fell back. Simon sighed and glanced towards the trees. “Maybe Tommy will live long enough to tell me.”
He bent low and rolled
