Read Online The Variables by Shelbi Wescott - Free Book Online Page B

people lined up outside the pearly gates. Must be quite an intake list. But let’s be honest, skip yourself the work and let Spencer rot in hell. Amen.” Darla lowered the gun. “Get in the truck, Dean. Get in the truck or I’m leaving you.”
    “You think I don’t have a sense of urgency?” Dean asked, unmoving from outside the cab.
    “We should have left hours ago.”
    “This trip will take three days with no hiccups. But what if we get stuck? Sick? Trapped? I’m not out here trying to waste time. I’m trying to safeguard success.” Dean sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He squinted into the sky black with smoke and ran his tongue across his teeth. “You’re right. We need to get past the back-ups and find some open road before dark. But we’ve got time...not much...but some. And I’ll use all the time we have, because,” he raised his eyebrows, “you’re not the only smart one.”
    Darla looked incredulous.
    “Generator. And then we’re gone. I promise,” Dean said pointing to the backyard and motioning for Darla to follow. “Come on, tough gal. I can’t carry that thing by myself.”
    For a second, it appeared like Darla wouldn’t budge, but then she rolled herself out of the truck and trudged through grass and past the wreckage of the house. Heat still radiated from the collapsed wood, but the King house was nothing more than a heap of blackened lumber. Only the fireplace stood unscathed; standing erect, like a beacon to their tragedy.
    Darla tried not to look in the corner of the front yard where she knew Spencer’s body was still slumped against the shrubbery. He was very dead. His gunshot wound to the stomach bled out and Darla took a morbid satisfaction in knowing that his final moments had been painful. She had not wanted to take his life—despite the pain he’d inflicted—but she had not wanted him to survive, either. He’d lived long enough to reflect on his actions. The man who valued personal survival above basic humanity had invited his own demise. Whether or not the men who came for Ethan would have found Teddy on their own was beside the point; Spencer had handed her son’s whereabouts to them on a silver platter—damning Ainsley and Doctor Krause, sacrificing Joey, and leaving her and Dean to escape. Just barely.
    Reeling from the loss, Darla couldn’t quite wrap her head around the last few hours. Her heart had not stopped aching. There was a pain lodged under her ribcage, and it nearly crippled her every time she thought of Teddy’s face—wide-eyed, freckled, a tangled mess of wavy hair, uncut and growing longer by the day. How she longed to tousle that hair again, plant a kiss on his forehead, or discuss Star Wars or the meaning of life.
    One time he had asked if she would color him a rainbow fish. She told him that she would later.  
    She never drew that fish, and it haunted her.
    In her memories of Teddy’s kidnapping, the militant strangers at the heart of the siege were faceless shapes. Ghosts. As she tried to recollect a feature, a concrete detail, they slipped from her grasp like she was trying to hold on to steam.  
    Dean walked into the backyard. A smoky haze lingered, creating the illusion of fog. He walked toward the middle of the grass, where the generator sat unplugged. He bent down and reached out to the metal handle and then drew his hand back quickly.
    “It’s hot,” he announced. “The house went straight down, didn’t touch the trees...but this thing is sitting here scalding?” He shook his head.
    Darla hadn’t heard him.
    She looked out into the wooded area behind the house. It was a small expanse of untouched wilderness, just along the edge of the tract housing. While cookie-cutter homes popped up on either side, this backyard was a comparative jungle. The trees spanned no more than twenty yards before the development started up again. Still, Darla peered.
    “What?” Dean called, and he took a step forward, cradling his