Bonus Scene: Panic
Originally, Bluebeard's Children was supposed to follow the same third person perspective as The Eyes of The Sun. I wrote nine chapters before I decided to scrap the story line and switch to first person for the sake of jumping into Lucy's head. The following would have been Chapter eight. Part of what was scrapped was the location of what would become Blackthorn Plantation. The area south of the city is mostly open and flat. Not a very good place to hide a secret compound.
Panic
“What are
you still doing here?”
Andre
regarded Lucy with an amused curiosity. “Nice to see you too. I was just coming
to tell you the equipment is packed and we can leave as soon as you’re ready.”
“Oh. I
thought you were going with everyone else.”
“Whose
equipment did you think we were packing? You’re the one who told me to drag
half my lab down to the swamp.”
“Sorry,”
Lucy opened the door to her room and motioned for Andre to follow her. “I
assumed Abe would send everything with one of the med techs.”
Lucy
sidestepped Andre, who was taking up far too much space in the small foyer, and
grabbed the two small backpacks she had prepared earlier. Her eyes trailed to
the open bedroom door wistfully as she remembered the last time she and Andre had
been in this room together.
“Oh?”
Andre scowled, “Hoping for the new guy? I hate to break it to you but he seems
smitten with Lance.”
Lucy
dropped the bags on the counter and shot Andre a withering glare.
“That
might be because Darren is Lance’s boyfriend. I you want to play head games
with me you should probably do your homework first.”
She
stalked around to the kitchen and checked to make sure everything was off,
yanking the coffee maker’s cord from the outlet with more force than necessary.
Satisfied that she wouldn’t accidentally burn the building down in her absence,
Lucy scooped up the bags once again and gestured to the door.
“After
you.”
Their
journey south was punctuated by torturously quiet. Lucy’s last shreds of hope
of salvaging their relationship slipped farther away with every silent
mile. Andre’s accusation, the second
since his return, stung. The more she thought about it, the more she started to
believe that his own guilty conscience was causing Andre to grasp at straws,
hoping to catch her when clearly, he must have been unfaithful.
Almost an
hour after they left the sky suddenly became as dark as Lucy’s mood.
“I didn’t
see any storms on the radar earlier,” She muttered, pulling out her phone and
checking the weather map. A band of storms had appeared out of nowhere and
appeared to be covering the entire southern region of the state. She ventured a
glance at Andre, who appeared just as puzzled by the sudden weather shift.
“This could get ugly.”
A moment
later the windshield was being pelted by fat drops of rain and Lucy’s phone
rang.
“Hey
Evan,” she answered.
“Hey Lucy,
has the storm hit yet?”
“It’s just
started raining, but the clouds came out of nowhere. Any idea what’s
happening?”
“The
national weather service is saying that it’s a freak storm, but warned that it
could develop into hurricane like conditions. If you haven’t hit the marshes
yet I strongly advise that you pull over.”
A bolt of
lightning flashed somewhere in front of the van, followed rapidly by the
loudest thunder clap Lucy had ever heard. Andre swore and jerked the steering
wheel back to the left as temporary blindness had caused him to drift off the
road. Almost immediately the rain became a wall of water that the windshield
wipers had little effect on.
“Evan says
to pull over,” Lucy relayed, her voice pitched higher than usual.
“I don’t
think we have any other options,” Andre said tersely.
The van
had slowed to less than five miles per hour, but with no visibility Andre was
having a difficult time gauging where the shoulder was.
“It just
hit us, we’ll call back once it’s safe!”
Lucy
disconnected the call, gripped the armrests on her seat and didn’t let go until
Andre had maneuvered the van as close to the guardrail as he could get it.
Andre called Evan back and Lucy sent a message to Miles, alerting the team to
their whereabouts. Miles replied and assured her that everyone at the facility
was safe, but that there was a good chance the area would flood. She tried not
to think about the fact that the entire mission could end in failure simply
because the weather decided to take a turn for the worse. Instead she leaned
her already throbbing head against the rain cooled window and tried to calm
down.
Andre
reclined his seat back and let out a sigh.
“Are you
starting to feel like the powers that be are telling you something?”
“I don’t
believe in omens,” Lucy snapped. “It’s going to take a lot more than weather to
make me turn my back on those kids.”
“I never
said you would, Lucy. I was merely commenting on the fact that we’ve only been on
this mission for half a day and so far everything that can go wrong has and I
can’t say that I’d be surprised if this trend continues.”
Lucy
shifted away from the window and turned to look at Andre, reclined in the
driver’s seat with his eyes closed as if he had simply pulled off the road for
a moment of rest. Lucy wasn’t fooled.
She knew that despite his relaxed pose his mind was busy calculating every
future disaster and planning around it. It was as infuriating as it was
admirable.
“How would
that be different from any of our previous missions?”
Andre’s
eyes snapped open and he turned to look at her. His expression was stern, but
there was an underlying tenderness that sent a bittersweet jolt through Lucy’s
heart.
“It
bothers me that you chose to accept this rather than learn from it. There’s a
reason it’s called being fatalistic and in this line of work the emphasis is on
fatal.”
Lucy was
about to reply that this was the reason she wasn’t a hunter anymore when the
already bad weather took a turn for the worse in the form of hail. Large chunks
of ice ricocheted off the roof and windows. Andre immediately pushed his seat
upright.
“Get
behind the seats in case the windows break.”
Lucy
wasted no time scrambling over the armrest and wedging herself into the small
space behind her seat. Andre followed, folding himself behind the driver’s
seat. With their knees bent nearly to their chests, their feet still touched in
the middle. After ten minutes the hail showed no signs of letting up and Lucy
began to panic in the cramped space. Her breathing became shallow and her heart
felt like it was going to pound right out of her chest. Andre noticed with
alarm that her skin had gone from pale to waxen and she was shivering.
“Lucy,
what’s wrong?”
“I…I can’t
move…I can’t breathe! I hate this.” Her voice was a hysterical squeak.
“Here,
lean forward, on your knees,” Andre stretched forward and pulled Lucy toward
him, stretching his own legs and turning her so that was seated on his lap with
her back against his chest, giving her room to stretch her own legs out between
his. “There we go, just breathe with me, okay? Deep breaths.”
Unable to
speak, Lucy nodded, leaned back against Andre’s chest and took a deep,
shuddering breath.
“That’s
it, deep breaths,” Andre murmured, “It’s okay, we’re safe, Lucy.”
After a
few minutes Lucy’s heartbeat had returned to normal and the panic had subsided,
leaving her too drained to be embarrassed. She tilted her head to the side and leaned it
against Andre’s chest, listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart.
“Thanks,”
she whispered faintly.
“You’re
welcome,” Andre whispered back, grazing her temple with the faintest suggestion
of a kiss. “What happened? I thought you weren’t claustrophobic?”
“I
wasn’t,” Lucy replied with a shiver, “but being locked in a cage for three days
then being buried alive scarred me a lot more than I like to admit.”
“Jesus,
Lucy,” Andre’s arms tightened around her waist instinctively, “I’m so sorry, I should
have realized.”
Lucy
chastised herself silently for the hope that swelled with Andre’s protective
gesture. Her rational mind knew that the last thing she wanted was for their
relationship to reignite based on a vulnerable moment, but at that moment she
didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was the fact that despite the deadly
storm raging around them, and despite the uncertain future of the mission they
were about to embark upon, being in Andre’s arms made her feel more whole than
she had in a very long time and she allowed herself to indulge in the moment.
“S’ok,”
she half yawned, giving into exhaustion, “We all have scars. Even if you can’t
see ‘em.”
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