Page 21 of Avenging Kelly

I was wasting time, and I wasn’t one to hide from a fight. It was time to get the fucking show on the road.

Dallas returned with a TASER Pulse in his hand. “You ready?”

The three of us went outside, the sulfur odor from Puget Sound strong on the breeze. I definitely wouldn’t want to live near that stench.

My body locked up as I took a few steps forward. I saw the deck coming closer to my face before two powerful arms caught me and lowered me for a much softer landing.

“What the fuck, Dal?” London’s voice was about two octaves higher than usual.

I assumed London had fired without me knowing, and I was grateful. I didn’t really want another broken nose.

“It was better if he didn’t see it coming. This way, he didn’t tense up, and the paralysis will wear off faster. You gotta trust me, Lon. I’m not new to this shit,” Dallas protested.

I was still on the ground trying to clear the fog from my brain that the shock induced, but as my muscles unlocked, I could finally roll over. As soon as I could move my arm, I reached down to find, much to my relief, that I hadn’t pissed myself.

“You okay?” London asked as he helped me sit up, resting my back against his chest where he kneeled behind me.

I nodded. My jaw hadn’t unlocked yet, but that was fine. Dallas put the stun gun on the metal table and walked over to me, kneeling in front of me. “You coming back around?” he asked.

“Y-yeah,” I finally answered. The shock wasn’t the worst I’d ever experienced. I’d climbed over an electric fence once, and it was a hell of a lot worse. It was supposed to keep bears out, and I thought it was going to kill me.

The shock I’d just experienced had me wondering if it had even worked. How the fuck would we know?

* * *

Rafe returned around lunchtime with a few bags of groceries. “I talked to Nathaniel Crossley while I was at the market. He’s doing a deep dive into Operation Jackpot and that Dr. Ritchfield. I’ll go over tomorrow and call him to see what he’s found out.”

“I’m leaving here in a little while if I have to swim,” I announced, still feeling shaky on my feet from the earlier shock. I figured I’d get my strength back as the day progressed.

I went to my room to pack my duffel and take my shot, not surprised when London came in without knocking as I tied the tourniquet around my left arm and palpated the inside of my elbow to get a vein.

“Why don’t you wait a day or two until we figure out if the shock shorted out the damn chip?” London asked, his concerned tone offering a bit of comfort that he actually gave a shit about what happened to me.

I quickly filled the syringe. “I don’t have time. Two weeks, remember?”

I slid the needle into my arm, seeing the flash of blood that signaled I was in the vein, not through it. I slowly pushed the needle further before I pressed the plunger with my thumb to release the magic juice that allowed me to survive another day.

“I’m going with you,” London insisted as he rushed out of the bedroom and down the hallway.

I followed the man, hell bent on refusing help from anyone. “No. I’ll move faster on my own.”

“No! You’ll get dead faster on your own. Before we go anywhere, we need to know if that chip has been shorted,” London said. Well, I damn well couldn’t disagree with that.

London changed directions and almost crashed into me as he rushed down the stairs to the kitchen, me hot on his tail—and it was a very nice one, I might add. Rafe was at the counter making hamburgers in a huge iron skillet while Dallas sliced a large onion and placed the rings into another. My stomach growled at the idea of a thick burger to eat.

“Do you know if the Park Rangers track any of the wildlife on the island?” London asked.

Rafe stopped forming patties and looked up at the ceiling. “They’ve just opened a fox study, as a matter of fact. They were… Figlio di puttana! On the way back from the mainland, they were talking about it. The island is becoming overrun with rabid foxes, and with the campground on the other side, they worry about tourists getting bit. They’re euthanizing the ones that test positive for rabies, and chipping the ones that have been vaccinated because they chew off the electronic transmitter collars. They’ve been relocating many of the males to the Northern Cascades,” Rafe explained.

“Of all the…” Dallas remarked before he chuckled. I agreed, but that was beside the point. If they had chips, they had chip readers.

“What are we waiting for?” I asked. I had places to be and things to do, and it appeared I had a partner-in-crime—London St. Michael.

9

LONDON

“Eat. Shift change is at dusk. They have a ranger’s shack with bathrooms and showers for the campers, and above it is the station where they keep equipment. They work eleven-hour shifts—dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn. For one hour, twice a day, there are no park rangers on the island, so we can break in and do a quick check on Kelly’s chip this evening,” Rafe suggested.

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