Subject Seven

Chapter Thirty-nine
Kyrie Merriwether

The sun was shining and the air had warmed up a bit. They had left the hotel room and were sitting outside in the parking lot, where the traffic from the road was a little subdued and the wind didn’t cut across them too hard. Joe had called the room and said he’d found a car and would be there soon. Because they had no other clothes, they’d taken the sweaty garments they’d all worn the night before and shoved them into trash bags, which were bundled near their feet.

Tina had given Kyrie the cell phone and told her to call home. God, she needed to talk to her family. Her stomach twisted into knots as she waited for an answer.

“Hello?” She barely recognized her father’s voice.

“Daddy? Dad, it’s me. It’s Kyrie.” She had to stop herself from crying. She wanted to be home, wanted to hug every member of her family.

“Kyrie? Oh my God. Kyrie, baby girl, where are you?” His voice broke. Her daddy, the strongest guy in the world, and his voice fell into crackling pieces.

If you’d asked her two weeks earlier, Kyrie would have said that she loved her father but that he was sort of goofy and could embarrass her at the drop of a hat. Would she have believed she could miss the man as much as she did? Not in a million years.

“Dad?” She blinked back tears and looked over to where Tina and Gene were doing their best to pretend they were somewhere else. “Dad, just listen, okay?”

“Honey, we’ve been scared to death! Your mom’s been crying herself to sleep every night. Jesus, last week they found a teenage girl’s body and we were so scared it was you… ”

“Dad. I don’t have a lot of time. I can’t stay on the phone for long-a borrowed phone.”

“What do you mean? Where are you, Kyrie?” His voice was confused, hurt, and she could imagine the expression on his face, the heartbreak.

“Dad. I’m gonna try to get home soon, okay? But first I have to take care of something. Something to do with my birth parents.”

“What? Kyrie, I know we agreed you could look for them, but I meant we’d hire you a detective, honey. I didn’t mean you should go chasing after them yourself.”

She wanted to laugh and she wanted to yell and she wanted him to hug her and promise that all the monsters would be kept away, like he had when she was just a little girl.

“Dad, it’s complicated. Listen, I can’t get into details, but I think… I think I’ve got some kind of genetic infection from them, okay? I’m trying to find the cure.”

“Kyrie, damn it, this isn’t funny! You need to tell me where you are, honey. You need to come home right now.” His stern voice. She knew it well. She closed her eyes and took a deep, deep breath before she tried speaking again.

“Dad. I love you. I have to go, okay? Tell Mom I love her too, and I’ll get back with you as soon as I can.”

“Kyrie?” His voice broke again. Her dad, the best man she’d ever known, was starting to cry. She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes against the tears. “Kyrie, honey, please come home. Whatever we did wrong, we can work it-”

She killed the call before she started actually crying. Her breaths came in hitches and gasped out in sobs and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

This time it wasn’t Gene who offered comfort. Tina put her arms around Kyrie’s neck and leaned over her from behind. “Shhh. It’s okay. It’ll be okay. You just… You need to get those answers and then you can go back home. We gotta keep them safe, right?” Her voice cracked a bit on that last part. “You gotta make sure they stay safe. Family’s all we got. All we get.”

Kyrie turned and wrapped herself into Tina’s arms and the smaller, thinner girl hugged her fiercely.

“Come on, girl. You gotta be tougher than that.” Tina’s words were whispered. “They’ll eat you alive if you show’em you’re weak.” The words were a chastisement, but the voice was soft and understanding and Kyrie nodded and held on even tighter, and Tina let her.

When she’d calmed down a bit, Kyrie wiped her eyes dry and blinked at the irritation from the tears and remembered to hand the phone to Gene, who grabbed it quickly despite his efforts to look like he wasn’t noticing her turning into a big baby.

She returned the favor. She pretended not to listen in when he called his family.