Sleepwater Static: Blue Helix, #2

1

THERE WERE VERY few days now when something didn’t hurt. Bernadette sighed as she shifted the commercial-sized van into park, knowing her knees would give her hell the minute she stepped out. She let herself sit there just a few seconds longer.

"This is your safehouse?" In the middle row of passenger seats in the back, Cameron almost pressed his face against the window.

It’s not officially registered or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. Bernadette glanced up at the rearview mirror and smirked at him. He didn’t see her.

Randall nodded in the passenger seat beside her. Looks good to me.

As long as there’s a bed big enough for this baby, I’ll be happy. Mirela let out a long sigh and rubbed her hand in circles over her swollen belly.

Beside her in the first row of seats, her husband feigned insult. I hope you’ll let me share it with you.

If it’s big enough. Mirela turned to give him a slow, exhausted smile. Spooning’s a little out of the question at this point, don’t you think?

Brad chuckled and rubbed her belly with her.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Cameron rolled his eyes but didn’t turn away from the window. Get a room.

That’s literally what we’re talking about, Mirela told him.

Ya think?

All right. Randall slapped his long, lanky thighs and opened the front passenger-side door. Let’s check it out. He didn’t wait for anyone else’s agreement before slipping out of the van and closing the door behind him.

Brad slid open the van’s single back door and helped his pregnant wife out first. She groaned a little, having to duck through the doorway, and steadied herself on the side of the van when her feet landed in the dirt driveway studded with browning crabgrass. Cameron puffed out a sigh and followed after them.

Bernadette stayed in the driver’s seat, watching Don and Tony in the third row all the way in the back. The twins were still struggling with the massive wall between them, she knew. Six months on the road after they’d broken Tony, Kaylee, Leo, and John out of that fucked-up lab, and Tony still hadn’t said more than a few words a day, if that. Whatever else Vanguard Industries had done to the poor guy couldn’t be summed up in any amount of words anyway, but they all got the gist of it.

Some people were just damn unlucky. Some people were snatched up from their homes or their jobs, carted off to the middle of nowhere, poked and prodded beyond imagining, and forced to endure a kind of torture she could never fathom. Tony was one of those people. He was one of even fewer who’d had his beat stripped from him while the rest of the world lauded the excellence of scientific advancement. It was all bullshit, and every person here knew it. Tony more than any of them.

Like an amputee who hardly remembered how he’d lost his limb, the guy was still working through the scars left by that severed part of him. Bernadette wished she knew how to comfort him—both of them. Don was just as clueless as to how to be with his twin when the entire dynamic between them had changed. But there wasn’t any way to fix something like this.

The others might have known, maybe. But the others had either turned against the small tribe this faction of Sleepwater had made for themselves, or they’d run from the pain of losing one of their own. Who was to say if any of the scattered others would come looking for them again? Bernadette wasn’t a pessimist by any means, but she didn’t screw around with wishful thinking, either.

The driver-side door opened, startling her out of her thoughts. A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed her only an empty seat. She hadn’t even noticed the twins getting out of the van.

Randall stood there beside the open door, smirking at her, his thick, black-framed glasses slipping down over the bridge of his aquiline nose. I don’t think we can get inside without you.

She smiled up at him. Oh, I’m sure you could. Nobody locks their doors down here anyway. Can’t remember if I did or not. She left the keys in the ignition and pushed herself out of the driver’s seat. When Randall extended a hand to help her out, obviously expecting her to take it, she snorted and waved him off. Put that hand away. I’m not senile, and I’m definitely not handicapped.

Randall chuckled as she managed to get both of her brown loafers onto the ground. Not yet.

Bernadette ignored him, fighting back most of a grimace at the sharp pain in her knees but refusing to comment on them or bend to try rubbing out the pain. That never worked, anyway. Randall shut the door behind her.

I thought anyone over sixty-five was a senior citizen, Cameron said, his arms folded as he watched Bernadette and Randall step away from the van. The others made their way slowly toward the cabin at the end of the dirt drive. "You’re way over that, aren’t you?"

Bernadette raised an eyebrow at him and pointed. Watch it.

Yeah, I’m watching. To anyone else, Cameron’s impassive expression looked a lot like apathy and condescension. She knew him well enough to recognize the tiny flicker at the corner of his mouth that served as his small smile. Gotta make sure you don’t fall and break a hip.

Oh, Lord. Bernadette shook her head and headed toward the cabin. When she passed Cameron, she lashed out to slap his arm with the back of her hand. And if I did that, you’d still just be watching me, wouldn’t you?

Maybe.

She chuckled and fished around in the pocket of her denim dress. Did you try the door? she called to Brad and Mirela.

It’s definitely locked. Brad slipped his arm around his wife’s waist and whispered something in her ear.

Mirela just shook her head with that small, tired smile. She removed one hand from her hip to wipe at the sweat on her forehead. Is everyone else this hot, or is it just me?

Bernadette reached the front porch with its semi-rotted wooden steps and the rocker missing one of its armrests. A sharp, painful longing twisted her gut. Karl would’ve made fixing that chair his first job when they got here. But Karl was gone, wasn’t he? And no one but Leo had gotten a chance to say goodbye.

Swallowing, she shot Mirela a sympathetic smile and nodded. That’s just the South in August, honey. We’ll turn the fans on first thing. The key in her hand stuck in the doorknob for a few seconds, and she had to jiggle it a little before it finally turned. Assuming there’s still power running through the place.

Mirela sighed. Oh, boy.

Hey, we’ll figure it out. Brad rubbed her back. If we have to get a generator, I’ll pick one up, no problem. Not gonna let you cook in the heat, okay?

I’m already cookin’. His wife closed her eyes and took a deep breath. And the timer on this kid’s gonna go off at any minute.

The door jammed on the warped boards of the cabin floor, and when Bernadette grunted against it, Randall reached over her shoulder and gave it a little shove. The door creaked, and then it opened. Bernadette immediately stepped back and turned her head away, covering her mouth and nose. Her eyes fell on the twins, both of whom flared their nostrils and leaned away from the door. At least with something like this, they were their old, synced selves again. They’d be fine.

"Oh, no." Mirela heaved and waddled off the porch, followed quickly by Brad.

Are you gonna puke? he called after her. Can I get you anything?

Not smothering me would be nice... The sound of dry heaving came from the bushes on the side of the cabin.

Cameron folded his arms again and stepped inside. Okay, what died?

Bernadette cleared her throat, made an effort to breathe only through her nose, and waved a hand toward the dust-covered furniture in the cabin’s main room. Just check everywhere, she said. Or follow the smell. You’ll find it.

Without a word, Cameron went to the light switch on the wall first and flipped it up. The yellow, dusty bulb in the ceiling fixture flickered then came on. Guess there’s power. Then he stepped down the single step into the living room and went looking for the source of the stench.

Randall met Bernadette’s gaze and shook his head. Nothing phases him, huh?

Well, almost nothing. She fanned the air in front of her nose. It’s been a while since I’ve smelled death like this.

The man leaned against the outer wall just beside the door and folded his arms. How long’s it been since you were here?

Bernadette ran a finger over the windowsill between the door and the rocking chair, swiping up a thick layer of dust and a few streaks of mostly dry mold. A long time. With everything that’s happening now, though, it feels right to come back.

He studied her with slightly squinted eyes, the corners of his mouth lifting in a smile that was half admiration and half intense curiosity. We’re not here just for the safehouse, are we?

Wiping her dirtied finger on the side of her dress, Bernadette swallowed and glanced up at him. Well aren’t you Mr. Observant.

Randall chuckled. 

2

I’M STANDING RIGHT here. Not outside. She put her hands on her hips and smiled at Darrell.

He turned from the window of the cabin with wide eyes and laughed when he saw her raised eyebrow. I know where you’re standin’, girl. Slowly, he stepped across the small living room decorated with a historically eclectic mix of nineteenth-century muskets, buck antlers, her family’s coat of arms, and the quintessentially Southern framed photographs of live oaks, palmettos, the Cooper River at sunset. I always know where you’re standin’.

Bernadette stepped toward him, holding his dark, shimmering gaze with her own. So why are you staring out that window like you’re looking for someone else?

"It’s who I ain’t lookin’ for." Darrell stepped toward her until they were only inches apart. His dark brows flickered together as he studied her and raised a hand to run his fingers through her light-brown hair.

She gently gripped his wrist; the sight of her pale fingers settled around the smooth, dark-amber skin of his forearm made her heart beat a little faster in her throat. It was impossible to be anywhere with him—right where she belonged—without some flutter of tension rising in her belly. Almost impossible. Bernadette reached up to cup his cheek, moving her thumb along the thick stubble following his jawline. I told you he went down to Virginia.

I know. Darrell licked his lips, staring at her. And you can’t blame me for wondering just how much your daddy tells you about where he’s goin’. When he’s comin’ home.

Smiling, she gripped the back of his neck and pressed herself against him. "Good thing this isn’t home for anyone, then. I can blame you for thinking about my daddy when I brought you here..."

His snort of laughter made her grin. I always knew you was trouble, girl.

For everyone else, maybe. Not for you. Bernadette wrapped both arms around his neck, against the cords of muscle stretching down to his broad, rounded shoulders. Nobody knows we’re here. Right now, though, I don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks. She pulled him down and pressed her lips against his. Darrell grunted, his hands slowly sliding down her ribcage and over her hips. Then he wrapped her in an embrace far gentler than most might have guessed for the size of him and the hardened strength of those soft-skinned arms. When she pulled away, Bernadette blinked up at him and narrowed her eyes. Come on. She grabbed his hand from the swell of her hips and moved backward through the cabin, pulling him along with only a hint of pressure. But she wouldn’t have had to pull him at all toward the bedroom; they both knew Darrell would follow her anywhere. And Bernadette, for all her restlessness, had only stayed this long because of him.

Darrell stepped up onto the slightly raised landing into the kitchen, his dark eyes burning as they moved straight back toward the largest bedroom that had been the cabin’s only bedroom for the last fifty years. Now there were two. Trouble, girl. He shook his head and bit his lip when she opened the bedroom door behind her. Too much trouble.

Then come make trouble with me.

You plannin’ on talkin’ me up into a sweat? That it? He shut the door softly behind him and stood there with a barely discernible smile on his slightly parted lips.

Wasn’t plannin’ on it, no. Bernadette grinned. But I will if you want me to.

His gaze flickered over her from head to toe, and he shook his head. Naw. You and me? We gon’ talk a different kinda talk. Ain’t no words for that.

Bernadette kicked off her wedges and ran her hand down his tight t-shirt, his chest hard beneath the brown cotton broken by zigzags of bright orange and yellow. She lifted the bottom hem of it from beneath his brown slacks. Then stop talking.

When she lifted the shirt just above his navel and the patch of dark, curly hair dipping below it, Darrell covered her hands with his own and stopped her. Smirking, she removed her hands, and he brought his lips just an inch from hers again. Yes, ma’am.

Then he pulled the t-shirt over his head, tossed it on the floor, and stepped toward her until she had no other choice but to lie back on the bed that no one knew she shared with Darrell Wilkins from Columbia, least of all her daddy.

3

I CAN’T BELIEVE you took him there, Bernie. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I didn’t think you’d really do it. Part of me wishes I’d come with you, just so I could give this town the one-fingered salute right next to you. When your next letter rolls around, you better give me the skinny on everything. I mean it. Don’t leave anything out.

Everything’s pretty mellow for me over here. That sounds like nothing’s happening, but I guess that’s a straight-up lie. I met someone. It just happened. I wasn’t looking for it. Went to this disco in Birmingham, and she just... found me, I guess. Maybe it was the booze got me to chill, but she’s far out. Donna. I thought she was a dancer that first night, but it turns out she just knows them all. At least where we were.

We’ve been going around for almost two weeks. There’s too much booze with her, Bernie, so I can’t tell her about my words yet. Maybe when I come down off these vibes a little more, I’ll bring it up. I think some of the other dudes she knows at the clubs are already in on it. Like, they know. Or they can do the same thing we can do. Maybe I’ll ask. Maybe they’ll ask me. Not sure I’m down to talk about it with anyone else. You’re still the only one who knows.

Write me back about D. I want to hear everything. I could tell you to be careful too, but we both know you’d just tell me to quit being such a drag. I’m trying.

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—Janet

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P.S. Did you hear about that test-tube baby? It feels freaky and heavy at the same time. Like, what if those doctors end up making babies like us? Different. Who can do what we do. Or maybe the question is what if they figure out how to do something different to people like us? Or maybe I’m just stoned.

4

THE SINGLE OVERHEAD fan swung back and forth below the ceiling of the screened-in porch. The crickets and cicadas droned in a never-ending buzz, pulsing, crying out that they were here too. That they’d never left in the first place. That Bernadette had.

She sipped on the bottle of poorly sweetened tea from their stop at the gas station off Highway 17 before the longer, much more hidden stretch down 165. The drive she’d made countless times in the back seat of her parents’ car, in her own Oldsmobile when she’d gotten her license, in the passenger seat of Darrell’s Monte Carlo after her dad had stolen her keys from her purse and refused to give them back. So many drives and adventures. So many nights spent on this porch in the heat of so many South Carolina summers. This time, though, Bernadette had come to this cabin looking to escape a lot more than the everyday boredom with which life had plagued her when she was young.

Not to say that it hadn’t been dangerous almost every time she’d waltzed up those warped wooden steps and heard the screen door slam shut behind her. Back then, she’d pretended she didn’t give a damn about any of the consequences. In more ways than one, revisiting this place now came with very much the same warning—they had to keep it quiet, couldn’t stay long, couldn’t let anyone they didn’t trust know where they were. The consequences, too, were just as real and maybe more severe. And Bernadette cared very much about what might happen if the wrong people found them.

The second door from the cabin onto the porch opened with a soft, sticky peeling away from the mostly insulated frame. Bernadette paused in the rocking chair and turned slightly to see Mirela stepping slowly through the doorway. She didn’t look at the older woman until she’d closed the door behind her—a soft whisper and thump in the thick humidity. Rubbing a hand over her swollen belly, she used the other to brace her lower back and waddled barefoot onto the porch.

Can’t sleep either, huh? Bernadette asked with a knowing smirk.

Mirela settled herself onto the wicker bench and the old, lopsided cushions they’d pulled out of the shed. A little groan escaped her. All that work to get the sheets on that queen-sized bed, and Brad’s the only one who gets to enjoy them.

Bernadette nodded in understanding. She’d told Randall more than a few times as they’d readied the cabin to be slept in—if nothing else that night—that she didn’t need to take the second bedroom in the back. That she didn’t sleep much these days anyway, and it would only be a waste of a good bed. But he’d insisted that the couch was better for him anyway. Cameron had passed out in the recliner, Tony and Don had each taken one of the twin beds in the corners of the living room, and there had been no one else to debate giving the old lady her own room. She wanted to think that the memories of sharing that back bedroom with her sister growing up had nothing to do with the fact that she’d only been able to lie in that bed for a few hours before having to get up and step outside.

Men are idiots, she muttered into the top of her tea before taking another sip. Mirela snorted, as if she’d followed the older woman’s thoughts with perfect clarity, and they shared a short-lived chuckle. Maybe that’s why they’re all asleep in there without a care in the world.

That wasn’t necessarily true, but she was willing to make the concession that a person’s troubles could momentarily disappear in the darkest hours. If that person ever managed to get to sleep.

Mirela leaned her head back against the frame of the wicker bench. I can’t remember the last time I slept all the way through the night.

Bernadette chuckled, resumed her rocking, and sipped at the bottle that would never hold up to the standards of homemade Southern sweet tea. That might be the only part of motherhood you’ll be prepared for once that little one gets here.

The younger woman rolled her eyes and leaned back against the cushions, though her lips still curved in a fine line of amusement. They must’ve skipped that part in all the birthing classes we didn’t take.

With a hum, Bernadette gave her a dismissive wave. Women have been having babies forever. Most of them without birthing classes or doctors, if we’re looking at the entire history of women having babies. Definitely makes it easier if you’re around someone else who’s done it before, but it’s not a requirement.

Mirela smoothed her long, thick curls of dark hair away from her face. It took more than one try before she managed to peel most of it from the sweat-slickened flush along her forehead, cheeks, and neck. The oversized t-shirt she’d picked up at a Goodwill in Mississippi the minute her own clothes stopped fitting now stretched incredibly tight over her pregnant body, distorting the printed image of an electric guitar on the front. It made Bernadette think of Kaylee and the girl’s collection of overlarge shirts with heavy metal band names peeling from the cotton.

Well. Mirela let out a heavy sigh. I guess I’ll be one of those women having babies without anyone else around who knows what they’re doing.

The rocking chair paused mid-swing. For a few seconds, both women became intensely aware of Bernadette’s frozen movement before the rumble and creak of the chair picked back up again. Bernadette stared at the dusty wooden slats of the porch, her heart pounding painfully in her chest above the hollow emptiness in her gut. She’s spent two decades trying to ignore that emptiness, and she couldn’t blame Mirela for having brought it back to her attention. Mirela couldn’t have possibly known, because Bernadette had never said a thing about it to any of them. And she hadn’t planned on it.

The drone of the warm-weather insects suddenly felt a lot less relaxing and a lot more stifling than she remembered.

John’s a nurse, right? Mirela stared at the floor too now, still rubbing her belly. The tight, attempted cluelessness in her smile wasn’t fooling Bernadette at all, and they both knew it.

All right. They could play the game. Bernadette had been doing it for most of her life anyway.

That’s what he said. Bernadette nodded and rocked. The bottle of tea sat forgotten in her lap, cradled by a hand that had become quite cold, now. I don’t think he spent much time in the maternity ward. When she looked up at Mirela with a wry smile, the younger woman burst into laughter, then quickly covered her mouth and glanced at the door into the cabin.

John had to have been six-foot-five at the very least, built like a football player. It had surprised them all at first to learn that he’d been a nurse in his old life, before abductions and experiments and Sleepwater. Before the only option left to any of them now was to run and just keep running.

Have you heard anything from him? Mirela’s large brown eyes glistened in the faded yellow light of the fan’s single dusty bulb.

Bernadette liked to think that glisten was hope—if not for word of the few who’d become like family to them in such a short amount of time, then at least for the immediate future. A new baby could always bring more hope, no matter the circumstances into which they were born. As long as the people in that child’s life actually let themselves feel that hope again. Brad and Mirela were the kind of people who let more joy and love into their lives than most. Both of those things were so hard to come by these days.

She shook her head. Last time I talked to John was when he shipped out to find Leo in Aberdeen.

At her bar, right? Mirela chuckled. I never would’ve expected that from her. Good for her, though. If Leo found a way to slip under the radar after all this mess... She shrugged and let the open-ended thought speak for itself.

They all knew why John had decided to head out on his own just a few days before they’d left Mirela’s sister’s house in San Antonio. That stop was only ever meant to be a temporary reprieve, just like every other stop between there and here over the last five months. But the giant of a man with a nurturer’s softness wasn’t quite like the rest of them. Not anymore. Sure, he had that inexplicable power in his words, could spin a beat and call himself one of them in that way. But his beat was changed. He was changed, just like Leo and Kaylee and Tony after Sleepwater had busted them out of that awful place. Now they were all scattered to the wind again.

Bernadette figured the guy just didn’t want to be dragged around with a bunch of people reeling from Karl’s death, walking on eggshells around Tony’s stolen beat, and expecting Brad and Mirela’s little bundle of joy all at the same time. She couldn’t blame him. After all, Leo was the only other one who knew exactly what had been done to them in that hellish lab the rest of the world knew as Vanguard Industries. Then again, her beat had been affected just like John’s. Not stolen, as Tony’s was, but strengthened, somehow. John could connect with her that way.

The women were silent on the porch in the middle of the night. The bugs and the hollow rustle of palmetto fronds in the breeze and the rhythmic roll of Bernadette’s rocking chair, back and forth, formed a different conversation.

Finally, Bernadette looked up at the younger woman and swallowed. Her thin smile felt tight and heavy, and that was only because she hadn’t spoken the words she was about to say in a very long time. "I do know what it’s like, actually."

Mirela took in a sharp breath, paused, then met her friend’s gaze. What do you mean?

Glassy, light-blue eyes trailed down Mirela’s jawline, her neck, over her chest, until Bernadette settled her gaze on the other woman’s swollen belly. She didn’t have to say anything at all.

Really? Mirela’s dark eyebrows flickered together, as if she couldn’t for the life of her imagine the woman barely in her seventies at one point in her life young and beautiful and filled with that same kind of hope.

Bernadette just raised her eyebrows and kept rocking. It was hard enough to admit to herself, in front of someone else, that she’d been in Mirela’s position before. Apparently, it was still too hard to form the actual words. Of course, she hadn’t been running from government agencies at eight and a half months pregnant in 1995, but the looks people had given her then were the same Mirela received now. The fear of bringing a child into this world—a child who was so different than everyone else and who didn’t deserve to be hated for it—was very much the same too. So were the types of people who’d come after them for years, just for being who they were. The only difference now was that the catalyst for the world’s hatred had changed. These days, Sleepwater and anyone else who could spin a beat like they could were the targets, and the electricity in the air was starting to feel like the Miami Riots all over again.

Shifting forward a little on the bench, Mirela blinked and pressed her hands against her belly. She looked at Bernadette now almost as if through new eyes, as if they’d just met and this shared secret between them was the first and only bond they had. And the... having babies part? She licked her lips.

Bernadette just kept rocking, though she did dip her head enough to hint at a nod. It could also have been taken as the motion of her body in the chair. That too.

"I... had no