Goldilocks Forever

Chapter 62

IDF Headquarters, Kansas

June 2013

Toby and Vida bent over the body.

"Grab her legs," Vida said. She gave orders to the other IDF agents who ran from the house at the sound of the gunshots. Inside the barn, Burt blocked the door, preventing the leaders from leaving, keeping them safe within.

"It's okay!" Vida shouted at him. "Give us a few minutes to take care of this." She and Toby carried Casey's body to a sandpit at the back of the yard. They used it as a shooting range, and sometimes, to play horseshoes, but now it would be funeral kiln. "Get some firewood and gasoline," she ordered. Agents ran and returned. They stacked wood, covering all but one pale hand which lay exposed.

Vida emptied a gallon of gasoline over the woodpile and turned to Toby. "Go."

He ran into the house.

Thad rushed toward him. "What happened?"

"Where is she?"

"Is she dead?"

"WHERE IS SHE?" Toby yelled. From outside, a flash of explosion lit the house for one bright second. While Thad was distracted by it, Toby followed the trail of blood into one of the bedrooms. Sabian and Ricardo bent over the bed.

Ricardo saw him. "A knife. A small knife."

Toby ran into the kitchen and opened drawers, threw them onto the floor. "A knife! Small!" His hands fluttered in a panicked blur.

Thad ran in with a toolbox and a bearded man wearing a plaid western shirt. "I'm the surgeon," the man said. He took the toolbox and tucked it under his arm. "Where's my patient?"

"Here!" Toby ran to the room and held the door open for him.

Ricardo stepped aside and let the surgeon approach. Sabian leaned over Anna on the bed, his bloody fist clenched over her half-naked chest. They'd already torn her shirt open. Toby moved closer, feeling sick. The bullet hole was about two inches above her left breast. Too far from the heart, right? Blood dripped off Sabian's arm and elbow as he held it above Anna's wound.

The surgeon opened the toolbox. Metal surgical tools clattered inside. "Here." He pulled out a small pliers-like tool and a scalpel and sat on the bed, maneuvering himself over his patient. "What do we have here? Gunshot wound?" Scalpel in hand, he cut away at the entrance of the wound and pulled back a flap of skin with the pliers-like tool. "Ease back, gentlemen. This isn't my first rodeo." He looked up and only resumed his work when they shuffled back to give him more space.

"Get it all out." Sabian's voice was steady despite his heavy breath. Beads of sweat dripped down the side of his face. Ricardo, too, was covered in a sheen of sweat. Both men were spattered and streaked with blood.

"Seen worse than this on the battlefield, son." The surgeon needled one of his instruments into the wound. "Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg." He leaned in further, his forehead creased in concentration as he worked into the wound. "All the burgs." His face eased, and he gave a wry smile to Toby. "Check her pulse, son."

He found Anna's wrist and put two fingers to it, but he couldn't concentrate. His own heart beat so rapidly he couldn't feel Anna's. His mind in a panic, he flinched, shuddered, and forced himself to focus on the feeling of her skin under his fingertips. Soft, smooth skin, blue veins visible.

She can't die. He couldn't fathom his life without her. Didn't want to imagine it, not even for a second. Please. He pressed his fingers to her veins and felt it, a gentle throb. "She has a pulse." Toby watched, mired in the surreal feeling. His life hung in the balance, a balance now held by an old surgeon he wasn't sure was taking the saving of Anna's life as seriously as he should.