“Simultaneously the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen and quite possibly the hottest,” Danny said. “How exactly do you plan on studying that, Calamity Jane?”
She didn’t know how to answer. She hadn’t really thought that far ahead. “We can learn a lot from it,” she said, looking back at the two of them. She could feel Will’s eyes on her. He was still far from convinced. “I’m tired of thinking about these things like they’re supernatural creatures. I don’t think they are. And that hand might hold the answer…tomorrow, or a week from now, or maybe even a month from now. It’s an opportunity we have to take.”
She prepared herself for a bombardment of questions, doubts, maybe even accusations. But instead Will just grinned at her and said, “Looks like you just lost your title, Danny.”
“Oh, she can have it,” Danny said, grinning at her, too.
“What are you talking about?” she said. She looked at Will, then Danny, then back at Will. She grew quickly annoyed. “What title?”
“Captain Optimism,” Danny said. “Because you’re already assuming we’re going to survive tonight. That’s kind of precious.”
With Vera and Luke sleeping soundly in the office, Lara and Carly gathered in the lobby with Will and Danny. They sat across from the men, Carly keeping one eye on the barrier over the front doors and the other on the backpack lying on the floor next to her.
Every now and then, Lara felt the hand moving inside the backpack, stretching against the fabric, as if seeking a new route of escape.
“You’re really going to study it?” Carly asked.
Lara nodded. “We don’t know anything about them. What they are. Aren’t you curious?”
“I’ve always been pretty good at concentrating on what’s ahead. Right now, I don’t care about what makes them tick.”
Not wanting to know was not in Lara’s nature. It was why she had been so drawn to medical school, and why, despite the fact that it was a severed hand moving on its own, she couldn’t take her eyes off the backpack.
“I thought lizards did that,” Carly said. “You know, if you cut off a limb, the limb still keeps moving for a while. Or even grows back. Or maybe that was just some movie I saw.”
Lara nodded. She was half right. “A lizard can regrow a tail if it has to shed it to, say, escape a predator, but the tail won’t be the same. It can’t actually grow a new leg, that’s just a myth. Invertebrates can, though. Like flat worms. You cut off twenty pieces, and you’d get twenty smaller worms. Even crickets can regrow legs. Some amphibians can regenerate limbs, too. But these things… It’s sentient. It can actually think.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t just flopping around? I’ve seen dogs that got run over and were still moving their heads afterwards, even though their body was crushed.”
“I don’t think so. But there’s a way to test that out.”
“Ugh,” Carly said, unconvinced. She stood up. “I’m going to check on Vera and Luke, and…” she gave the backpack one last look, “…get the hell away from that thing.”
Lara smiled as Carly disappeared into the hallway.
“To what end?” Will asked from across the room.
“What?”
“The hand.” Will was watching her closely. He had very soft brown eyes. “Study it to what end?”
“The more we know about them, the more we’ll know about how to kill them. You’re interested in knowing that, aren’t you?”
“Silver does that.”
“Maybe there’s an easier way. A less dangerous way for us.”
“‘It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.’”
“I don’t know what that means,” Lara said.
“Sun Tzu. From The Art of War.” He shrugged. “I read sometimes.”
“And sometimes I watch TV, but you don’t see me bragging about it,” Danny chimed in.
Will ignored him. “You need to be careful with it, Lara. We don’t know what it’s capable of. If you’re right, and it is sentient, you need to always take precautions before you do anything with it.”
“I will,” she said defensively.
“We need to make an agreement,” he insisted. “No bringing that thing out unless either Danny or I are there. Or Kate or Ted. Anyone with a gun.”
“I have a gun.”
“It’s going to be hard reaching for your gun with that thing’s fingers wrapped around your throat. You said it yourself. It’s sentient. It’s thinking. That makes it extremely dangerous.”
He was right, she realized. She had been so giddy about acquiring the hand, about all the tests she wanted to perform on it, that she had temporarily forgotten what it was, or where it had come from.
“So we’re agreed,” he said.
“Agreed,” she nodded. “I won’t do anything without someone else there with a gun.”
Will looked satisfied with her answer.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For not shooting it.”
“You made a compelling argument.”
“Blonde hair and blue eyes don’t hurt, either,” Danny said. “Willie boy’s a sucker for blondes.”
“Shut up, Danny,” Will said.
“Don’t try to deny—” Danny stopped suddenly and glanced over at Will. “You hear that?”
“Yeah,” Will said.
“I don’t hear anything,” Lara said, suddenly feeling very anxious.
Like the others, she had become attuned to Will’s and Danny’s reactions. When they were calm, so was she. And when they were alarmed, panic klaxons went off in her head.
Will and Danny stood up quickly and peered through the peepholes into the parking lot beyond.
“What do you see out there?” she asked. She stood up and walked across the lobby.
Will said, as if he couldn’t quite believe it, “Sonofabitch.”
He turned and ran toward her, his rifle in one hand, shotgun in the other, and shouted something at her. But she didn’t hear it because the entire wall behind him and Danny — who was also running — suddenly exploded, and a massive boom overwhelmed all her senses.
A split second later she felt something hit her in the right temple and knew instantly she was bleeding. She didn’t have time to reach up and feel the wound, to gauge how deep it was, because Will had rammed into her with his shoulder and they both flew backward and down to the floor as the wall behind him — or a million pieces of it — flew through the air at them like heat-seeking missiles.
Fragments of concrete whistled past her face. Big chunks hit her in the chest, and maybe the face, too, though she couldn’t be sure. Pain and noise and white light from one of the LED lanterns flashed across her universe, splashing its heat across her face as it went. Somehow the lantern missed her head and crashed into the wall behind her, sparks flying into the air. She expected the entire room to go dark, but the other lanterns stayed in position.
Loud crashing sounds, like thunder, slammed very close to her ears, and she realized Will and Danny were shooting their rifles, even as a hand grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to her feet. She had trouble assuming control over her legs, and she felt herself dragged along the floor as a result.