The Beginning Chapter 29

A Novel - Book One - Text and Audio

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Chapter 29

Dak wiped his feet on the welcome mat, shook off the worst of the raindrops and let them land on the porch, then pushed open the front door and stepped out of the cool, damp air and into his parent’s house, taking off his jacket as he kicked the door closed behind him. “Mom, Dad. I’m here.”

“Your father’s still at work,” Tracey called from somewhere just out of view. In the time it took Dak to drape his jacket over the hook by the door, his mother had appeared a few feet away, standing with her hands on her hips and a rare frown on her face. She offered him no better greeting than a quick wave of her hand through the air then hustled down the hall, yelling as she went. “Cal, get down here!”

Dak made his way to his normal seat at the family’s table but remained standing, peering at an angle into the next room where he caught a glimpse of his mother as the middle-aged woman took two shaky breaths and rubbed her hands over her face.

“If you’re not here in thirty seconds,” Tracey began again, “we’re having supper without you.” With that, she moved toward the staircase and disappeared from Dak’s view.

Price, already seated at the dinner table, gave a silent, emphatic nod of agreement at his mother’s threat, ever unwilling to waste time. Dak took the seat next to him, listening for the approach of Cal or their mother.

“Seems like something’s wrong with mom,” he whispered, keeping his volume low.

“What do you mean something’s wrong with her?” Instantly on edge, Price stood, rounding the table then awaiting his brother’s response.

“She looked like she was crying,” Dak murmured.

Price took a deep breath in, exhaled it almost silently, then returned to his seat, pressing three fingers against his right temple in a way that suggested he was deep in thought. “It’s easier for the two of us to hide it, but she always knows when Dad and Cal are gone. And they’ve both been needed on Command business more than usual lately. I don’t think she suspects anything LO related, though.”

Dak understood Price’s concern for the secrecy of the organization, but his focus was elsewhere. “I’m not worried about her being suspicious. I hate when she worries.

“I don’t like it, either,” the MidCommand grumbled, offended that Dak might even hint otherwise. “But there’s nothing I can do about it. You know how things are right now.”

Reluctantly, Dak was forced to give a slow nod of agreement. “Any chance we can bring in some help from another district?” He had found himself asking the question at least once a week lately but couldn’t keep from asking again, just in case.

Price shook his head. “It’s crazy everywhere right now. We’ve got nearly half of Rescue following up on an incident two hours west of here. It’ll probably be a week before things are settled enough for most of them to come back. And I sent a few dozen people to the Northeast district this morning. They’ve had two huge attacks in the past three days and are desperate for help. I nearly had to cancel this dinner or at least cause one of us to miss it, but Cal wasn’t back from his last mission when they left this morning, it didn’t feel appropriate for me, as MidCommand, to leave our district as unstable as things have been here, and I sent Ollie instead of you because he’s more familiar with that area.”

Dak breathed out a frustrated sigh. “We’re gonna need more numbers if things stay as they’ve been lately.” He hesitated. “Or if they keep getting worse.”

“Stella tells me she’s working on it.” Price moved his gaze just to Dak’s left, watching for any signs of Tracey’s imminent return. “Recruitment’s been sending people out for Informings all day every day for a while now. We’ve added thirty Enlists this week, but we’ve got to get them trained before it does us any good.”

“Might help if you stopped trying to ban Undetermined Enlists from choosing Rescue.” Immediately, Dak told himself he should have kept his mouth shut. Their mother’s house was not the place for Lucky One’s related discord, especially when Tracey was already on edge.

Besides, now that Willow was training with Rescue, as she wanted, he saw no real benefit to reliving the old argument. Regardless of his brother’s reckless attempt to keep her from choosing Rescue, Price was the best trainer he knew. Dak had no doubt that she was being taught well.

“Don’t start.” Price answered with an irritated glare. He looked, for a moment, as if he might say something else, but they were interrupted before he had the chance.

“If you let them eat before I get here, there’ll be nothing left.” Cal’s words resounded through the hall as he landed at the bottom of the stairs then staggered drowsily into the dining room, Tracey right behind him.

“That’s what you get for taking a four-hour nap in the middle of the afternoon.” Tracey hustled over to her usual chair and practically fell into it, looking nearly as exhausted as her youngest son.

“I’m tired. I was—” the quick glares from both Dak and Price cut the younger man’s words off mid-thought. “I was up late last night. No big deal.” Cal shrugged, reached over Price’s head to grab a roll from the plate in front of him, and took a bite from it, not bothering to chew and swallow before speaking again. “I’m here now.”

“Uh-huh,” his mother replied, clearly unimpressed with the defense of his actions. “You’ve been exhausted all day because you stayed at Dak’s apartment.” She sent a glare in her middle son’s direction. He replied with an innocent smile, then feigned distraction when it did little to soften her clear annoyance. “Much like what happened a week ago when you stayed with Price.”

Price sent one quick look in their mother’s direction, then looked away to take a sip from the glass of water in front of him.

“If you three can’t figure out a way for the teenager in the room to get to sleep at a decent time, then he will be staying here every weeknight from now on and only be allowed there on weekends. Am I understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cal answered quickly.

Tracey was unappeased. “That question was addressed to all three of my sons. Not just the one still living under my roof. Dak, Price, am I understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they both replied simultaneously, so the agreement seemed to echo in the dining room. It might have amused them on a better day, but it was not funny when their mother was barely keeping her tears at bay, and none of them had the power to truly meet her demand.

She took a deep breath, then nodded.

“Good.” Tracey sent an irritated glare at the clock on the wall.

“It looks like your dad’s going to be late getting home again.” She shook her head, grumbled something under her breath, then pushed back from the table. “Let me check on the cake in the oven. Then we’ll go ahead and have dinner without him,”

“You got back earlier today, right? I thought you spending more time here would make her feel better.” The question came from Price and was delivered in the tone of an exasperated boss rather than concerned older brother the moment their mother left the room.

“I did,” Cal agreed, “but only by a few minutes.”

“Why,” Dak wondered.

“Stella asked me to meet her for something, then she got held up, so she was late getting to me.”

Price rolled his eyes. “Why is Stella meeting you? Is she trying to add you to Recruitment like she did with Dak. If she’s so intent on taking Rescue trainees for her segment, I wish she’d put the same effort into keeping Willow there. Make my life easier.”

“Funny,” Dak replied, glaring at the other man.

“No.” Cal moved his gaze back in forth between his brothers, appearing to weigh his next words carefully. “She just needed a favor.”

Price narrowed his eyes. “What possible—” he turned the rest of the words into a reasonably believable cough as Tracey re-emerged from the kitchen with her face flushed in residual annoyance, ready for the meal to begin.