Hungry Independents (Book 2) (23 page)

“Catherine! Catherine, wake up! Mark needs
you!”

Catherine lay silent on the cobbles. Scout
saw the purple bruise on her forehead even in the growing
darkness.

Mark coughed and kicked, his life sputtering
out beneath Scout’s useless hands. And then Mark’s struggles
ceased, his eyes open to the night sky. Scout couldn’t look down,
but refused to release the man that loved his sister.

Dylan had been knocked around pretty good by
the tall kid. He lay on the ground dazed. The light covering him
dimmed.

Samuel glowed like a bonfire, pressing the
tall kid hard with shots to the body and face. Scout never realized
Samuel was this good in a fight. Samuel the clown was wailing on
the tall kid, hammering his head, knocking him sideways. Then he
followed with an uppercut and the kid landed on his back. Samuel
dropped, driving both knees into the creepy dude’s ribs.

No one could keep struggling after that, but
the creepy dude was made from some type of durable steel. He swiped
Samuel in the side of the face, flipping him headfirst into the
pavement. Samuel’s light flickered and died.

Dylan lay quietly. The loss of light left
Scout blind. He hoped the creepy dude wasn’t making the rounds,
finishing everybody off. Scout wanted to help his friends, but he
still believed that pressing the bloody shirt over Mark’s
motionless throat was saving his life.

Scout heard dragging as someone moved away,
one slow step at a time. The noise had receded when Scout’s eyes
adjusted. Samuel and Dylan still lay where they had fallen. Samuel
rolled over and sat up, shaking his head.

“Are you okay?” Scout asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I can’t believe that dude
wouldn’t go down.”

“Where did you get the light from?”

“Molly. She’s been holding out on us.”

“What?”

“Never mind, we’ll deal with that later.”
Samuel hobbled over to Dylan and checked his pulse. “Dylan’s alive.
Is that Mark?”

Scout’s sorrow burst wide open. He wept as
hard as the day his mother and father died. The pain tore through
his body and soul. Nothing in this world would ever heal him. No
magic or little girl wielding it.

Samuel dropped next to Mark and placed a hand
on Scout’s shoulder. “You can let go. You don’t have to do that
anymore. He’s gone.”

Scout refused for a moment before his resolve
faded into the pain. He swayed in a circle and blubbered
nonsensical things.

Samuel removed the shirt and exposed a
horrible gash, darkened by a final spurt of blood. He tossed the
soaking mess aside and removed his own shirt. Wrapping it around
Mark’s lifeless throat, Samuel tied off a half-hitch that resembled
a bowtie.

For some screwed up reason, Scout laughed.
More tears streamed to the forefront of his sanity. He crossed his
arms and rocked, closing his eyes against further stimulation that
would make him laugh or scream.

A hand gently touched his head. “What’s
wrong, brother?” Molly asked.

Instant clarity fired and he knew. He knew
that everything would be all right. He had forgotten in his pain
and struggle what he should never forget. The Lord works in
mysterious ways, but He’s always working, and Scout had forgotten
to pray and ask for His help.

Scout looked up through tears at Molly’s
smiling face. She showed no concern over her twin brother’s death.
He blinked away the rest of his sorrow and pain. “What do we
do?”

“We do His will, always.” Molly knelt beside
him.

She laid her hands on her brother. One on his
forehead and the other over the knot. “Guys, I need your help.
Please lend me your strength by laying your hands on Mark.”

Scout and Samuel did as required and Molly
bowed her head and prayed aloud. “Dear Heavenly Father, please
return Mark’s spirit to us. Amen.”

A bright pink light flowed from her hands,
encompassing Mark’s body like a pulsing field of vibrant energy,
crackling with new life. The light tingled up Scout and Samuel’s
arms. Mark bucked and his chest began to rise. The light pulsed and
Scout knew underneath the bowtie the gash across Mark’s throat was
healing, and his soul was returning. Miracles happened every day,
and Scout thanked the Lord for every one He blessed them with.

The light flowed from their arms and Mark’s
body into Molly. Darkness came again and then she released the
light through her eyes with a solid burst. One by one, Scout,
Samuel and Molly fell on the bloodstained cobbles beside Mark’s
breathing form.

After Molly left, Jimmy went about the
business of seeing to his family. Luis had their medical needs
covered, so Jimmy righted the bed and swept all the broken glass
and dead bugs away from Ginger and his son. James nestled in
Ginger’s arms, latched onto his favorite spot. Jimmy did his best
to focus on the work.

With the windows broken, Jimmy worried the
baby might catch cold, but the August night clung to the leftover
afternoon heat. Luis restarted the generator. He found light bulbs
in a cabinet to replace the busted ones. Luis stored trash bins in
the back. Jimmy quickly filled the first and was halfway on the
second when the baby started crying.

“Billy,” Luis said.

Jimmy kept sweeping up the last bit of
debris.

“Billy!”

Jimmy turned to find Luis staring at him. It
took him a second to realize he was being called. He set the broom
in the corner and hustled over.

“Can you hold the baby for a minute? I need
to run some tests on Ginger.”

Jimmy shrugged like it was no big deal.
Inside, his emotions performed back flips. It was all he could do
to keep himself from cart wheeling around the clinic. He reached
out with shaky hands.

Luis mistook Jimmy’s excitement. “You don’t
have to be nervous. Just make sure you support the baby’s head. The
muscles in his neck aren’t strong enough.”

Jimmy crooked his arms and received the
handoff. There was life, warm sweet smelling life. Little James
looked up at his father and cooed.

“Oh,” Ginger said from her clean sheeted
hospital bed. “I haven’t heard him make that sound. He must really
like you, Billy.”

Fresh tears swam into Jimmy’s eyes. His son
liked
him.

He wanted to tell Ginger who and what he was
to her and little baby James. But he didn’t know exactly who or
what he was yet, or how long his current arrangement would remain.
The last thing he wanted was to cause her more distress. He would
have to straighten this out with Catherine first.

Jimmy knew he should go out and see what was
happening and who needed help, but right at that moment everything
that was important to him was in his arms, and as long as this
moment could be extended, Jimmy wanted it to continue forever.

James rolled his head, closed his eyes, and
farted.

Jimmy cradled his little angel and hummed a
lullaby from memory.

Luis asked Ginger all kinds of questions
concerning pain and discomfort, moving around her bed and checking
her temperature, pulse and blood pressure.

“I feel perfectly fine.”

“So I’m noticing. Everything checks
normal.”

“I am kind of hungry.”

Luis pulled the blood pressure cuff off
Ginger’s arm. “I know. I’ll go over in a bit and see if Brittany
has some food for us. The inside of their building was worse than
this one.”

“Was anybody hurt?”

“No. Thankfully Scout showed up. Everybody
was just standing around gawking. He made us move to the back of
the place and use the tables as a protective barrier. That right
there saved us when the glass broke and the bugs came pouring
in.”

“What’s wrong?” Luis asked.

Jimmy glanced up from his inspection of
James’s face. Ginger’s face was pinched in what looked like
anguish.

“Are you in pain?” Luis placed his hand on
her forehead.

She brushed his concern away. “No, I didn’t
have a table when the bugs broke in. Scout barely had time to save
James. I didn’t make it.”

“But you look fine,” Luis said.

“Yes, thanks to Molly.”

“What?”

“Molly healed me just like Catherine. That,
and the way she helped with James’s delivery. She’s not the same
Molly.”

“She’s not mean again, is she?” Luis
asked.

Jimmy smiled. No, Molly hadn’t reverted back
to being the self absorbed person she was a year ago. Thank
goodness. Jimmy barely survived the old Molly.

The thought of surviving seemed very odd now.
He lived inside another kid’s body, but living was probably not the
best description. Haunting spirit might be more accurate.

Jimmy felt a rumble underneath his son’s
bottom. James squirmed in obvious discomfort.

“I think James just pooped. Where are the
diapers?”

Luis’s unhinged expression crossed the gap
between horror and shock. Ginger’s smile lit the room brighter than
sunshine.

“Would you like to change his diaper, Billy?”
she asked.

“Yes, please.”

Luis pointed to the changing table with a
confused look. Ginger giggled.

Jimmy laid his son on the changing mat and
unfastened the disposable diaper, noting how everything fit
together so he could put the puzzle back correctly. “What do I use
to clean his bottom?”

Luis fanned his nose. “Use the wipes in that
plastic container next to the clean diapers and drop everything in
that blue bin. Make sure the lid goes back on quickly.”

Jimmy held his son still with one hand. James
watched his father with large round eyes, earning the little guy a
smile. Jimmy made quick work of the mess and dropped the soiled
diaper in the blue bin, grateful that he didn’t have trash duty
tomorrow. Jimmy didn’t know what Billy did around Independents.
Maybe he was still in school. Another dose of Vanessa lecturing
about compound fractions was worrisome. Maybe he could graduate
early if he revealed his true identity to her. And maybe she’d
think he was crazy and have Mark lock him up.

“You’re really good at that,” Ginger said,
leaning on a metal walker. Even hunched over, his girlfriend was
taller than him now. Jimmy still thought of Ginger as his
girlfriend, even if she didn’t know he was back. “I might need your
help until I’m on my feet again.”

“I would love that.” Jimmy smiled. “You’re on
your feet now, you know?”

“I meant more on my feet. Luis wants me to
get my circulation flowing. I don’t really need this.” She picked
up the walker and shook it. “He feels better if he thinks I’m
safe.”

“You’re recovering fast,” Jimmy said, and
finished putting James’s clean diaper back together. He wrapped the
baby in his blanket and cradled his son close to his chest once
again. “Should you be messing around like that?”

Ginger smirked at him and he wondered if
she’d been hanging around his little brother too much. “I believe I
have Molly to thank for that. It seems her intervention took care
of all my aches and pains.”

“That’s enough walking, Ginger,” Luis said.
“Get back in bed.”

“Is that the doctor’s orders?” she asked.

“What?”

Jimmy laughed as Ginger hobbled back like an
old woman. James fell asleep in his arms. Each little breath puffed
in and out. Jimmy would have held his son forever, but Ginger
beckoned for her baby to be returned. Grudgingly, Jimmy
complied.

Ginger brought James in close for a kiss then
she laid back. “Can you raise the head of the bed for me, Billy?
This lying down is driving me crazy.”

“Sure,” Jimmy said and turned the wheel,
slowly raising Ginger into a sitting position. “I hated lying in
this bed.”

“Oh, what happened?”

Jimmy looked up and remembered that he was
about to mention the time his ribs were kicked in by that monster,
Patrick. That was before he died and became somebody else. He
shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to come up with something
good, but found himself against the blank wall of his imagination.
“I got a splinter once.”

Ginger nodded slowly. “I hope Luis didn’t
make you stay overnight for that.”

Luis returned from tinkering around his desk.
“I’m going to see if there’s any food and check on the others. Will
you stay with Ginger?”

“Not a problem. You better check on Mark and
Catherine first. And be careful. There’s some crazy kid wandering
around out there. Hopefully Samuel took care of him. We’re going to
have to wait until morning to figure this mess out. I don’t like
the way those bugs went after the fields. I don’t want to
speculate, but it can’t be good.”

Luis stared at Jimmy funny.

“What?”

“You seem different.”

“I’m noticing that too,” Ginger said.

Jimmy didn’t know how to reply. The kid they
knew as Billy was different. So he just shrugged instead.

Luis left, moving into the still night air.
Jimmy guessed it to be around nine o’clock but he didn’t know for
sure. The sun had lowered out of sight about an hour ago and
everything turned quiet on Main Street. He grabbed a chair and
scooted close to the bed next to Ginger and little James. He turned
the chair around and sat, leaning his arms up on the back. It was
an uncomfortable stretch because his new body didn’t quite fit.

Ginger wouldn’t stop staring.

“What?”

“You remind me of someone.”

“Who’s that?” Jimmy said, guessing at the
answer and feeling nervous about it.

“James’s father,” Ginger said, and brought up
her hand to wipe a stray tear from her beautiful eyes. “You barely
met him before everything happened.”

“He seemed like a great guy.”

“He was the best person I’ve ever known. I
loved him so much. I miss him every day. I’m just thankful he left
me little James before he passed on. It’s a blessing. I only hope I
can raise him to be as good a man as his father.”