Chapter Two

"Stop!" an deep gravel voice with an Australian accent boomed at them in the darkness as Sienna, Mia and Beth ran blindly for a way out. Men chased after them or so Beth assumed from the voices shouting at them and sound of heavy footfalls behind them. They just had to find a door and as the lights flickered on, she saw a door. The zing of joy knowing they close snuffed out quickly as a soldier skated between them and the door. Bringing the three to a stop.

"I said stop." the Australian told them and Beth froze in place as the lights flickers on, she saw three men in military dress and guns pointed at her and the girls. One was a brunette beast of a man while the other was a slightly leaner redheaded man and the third was an African American man. She quickly pushed Mia and Sienna behind her not sure what to think of these men. But she knew better than to run when a gun was pointed at her. Intense pain pulled at her insides reminding her that the pot was wearing off, nausea rolled through her as she felt desperate to escape but they couldn't. The exit was so close.

"Please, let the girls go. I'll do anything you want, please just let them leave." Beth begged, the soldiers had lowered their weapons but it didn't mean anything. She felt so incredibly pitiful as she felt overwhelmed at her want to leave and need to protect the girls.

"We're here to help you, Ma'am and to do that you gotta stay." he told her, dread sank into Beth's bones as she felt like the walls were closing in. They wouldn't help her or the girls, they were just poaching the best of the people and leaving the rest to die. She'd seen it happen in California.

"Please,-" Beth started but instead of a plea for their escape; vomit came up instead.

"Holy Shit!" Burk said as he took a step back as the woman before them spewed blood onto the floor. A sentiment shared by Wolf and Miller as it wasn't a little amount of blood on the floor. It was a good size puddle of bright red blood with small darkened chunks that didn't look like food or bile but blood clots. Not good and definitely stomach churning to see in real life.

"This is Taylor, we need a medic in the south east corner of the building now!" Taylor said over his radio as he moved to the woman, she'd fallen to her knees and coughed up more blood but judging by the pale skin, sheen of sweat she was about to pass out. The girls she'd tried to protect hugged the wall looking on in pure fear. The girls he and Miller recognised as Captain Slattery's daughters Sienna and Mia, they were older and skinnier than the photos they'd been supplied with but Wolf would bet his left nut they were the Captain's missing kids.

The woman however was not Christine, she was definitely not in good way. He'd barely touched her arm when Sienna came at him.

"Don't touch her." she told him bluntly she tried to push him away but Wolf caught the girl by the shoulders and held her away. She struggled in his grip and tried to kick him but Wolf was stronger and Sienna was too skinny to really do any damage.

"Hey, I'm trying to help her not hurt her. You're safe Sienna." he said trying her name to connect with her. The girl stopped in trying to hurt him and frowned. " My name is Wolf and that guy over there is Miller. The green one looking away is Burk. We work for your Dad, he's been searching for you, your sister Mia and your Mother for over a year now. Please let me help this woman." he implored her, Sienna sagged in his grip and nodded as Beth was struggling to breathe between vomiting blood on the floor.

"Her name is Beth and if you hurt her I'll kill you." She told him as she stepped back to let him help Beth.

"Ok, that's fair." Wolf said he moved to Beth's side careful of the mess on the floor. "Beth?- Oh shit." he said as he saw her limbs go out. He quickly pulled her up by the waist and pulled her back from the vomit and laid her on the floor in the recovery position as her eyes closed.

"Is she dead?" Mia asked him as Wolf checked her vitals. Wolf looked up to the girl still shaken by how frail and emaciated they all looked. The woman was practically skin and bones. He wanted believe this was some new horror but it wasn't the first time they'd shut down a factory in the past months and found the workers in the same conditions.

"No," Wolf assured her, "She's passed out but still breathing." he left out the 'barely' part as he could see both girls were frightened and clearly had a strong bond to the woman.

"I'm here," Rios said as he arrived with a team and med bags. Wolf stepped back and gave Rios the run down of the woman's symptoms as the man and his team pulled on fresh gloves and worked on her. An IV was put into the woman's arm and Rios called on his radio for a stretcher and Helo medi-vac for the patient. He looked to Mia and Sienna and turned to Wolf, they shared a look of acknowledgement that they'd found Slattery's kids.

"Is she going to be ok?" Sienna asked.

"I don't know, have either of you been having stomach aches? feeling hot?" he asked them as he could see they wanted nothing to do with them. It was still unnerving to be seen as the enemy by their own people.

"All the time, the guards keep us separated from the others." Sienna half lied because she didn't want to leave Beth's side and knew they would be quarantined together if they believed it was the virus.

"Ok, we're going to take all three of you to a hospital to be treated." Rios said as he spoke into his radio organizing the proper protocols were in place. He looked to Wolf "You'll have to come with given you've had physical contact with the patients. Miller, Burk; you too." he informed them.

Mike rushed into St Louis General hospital and was immediately greeted by Miller who had been cleared by the doctors upstairs and Tom and Danny who were obviously looking for a debrief. He'd gotten the call from Tom telling him they'd possibly found Sienna and Mia. Kara had happily agreed to babysit Kaito for him while he rushed down to see if it really was his girls or not. His heart pounded in his throat as he really wanted it to be them. But he was also afraid of how they would look, how they would react to him, would he be welcomed or scorned? a question that nagged at him just as much as his fear of what they'd been through.

"What's going on? Is it really them?" He asked them.

"We think so," Tom said as he dismissed Miller and Danny, the young man looked grateful for the escape and Danny looked happy to go home not bothering to ask if they might need him. "I only caught a glimpse of them, but they match the photo and my memory of them. But prepare yourself, they've lost a lot of weight. The majority of people liberated from the power plant are not in good shape." Tom told him, though he'd slipped into a civilian role he still went on missions to shut down the sweat factories that still plagued their country. It wasn't that Tom wanted to but it was out of necessity. They just didn't have enough armed forces to get the job done swiftly.

"What about my wife?" Mike asked him, Tom shook his head, Mike's stomach sank and his heart ached as his thoughts went to the worst place.

"She was registered as being transferred there but no sign of her." Tom told him, not bothering to lie as they knew what it meant. Once the paper trail ended it meant the person escaped the factory or died. Mike knew Christine would never leave the girls which left only one reason why she wasn't there for the headcount. "I'm so sorry Mike." Tom told him.

"Yeah," Mike said nearly choking on the word as he grappled on his emotions trying to keep it together. His wife was gone, he'd lost not just his son but his wife now too.

"Captain Chandler, Captain Slattery." Rios said as he came out of one of the rooms and joined them.

"Rios, how are they?" Mike asked focusing on the girls as there was nothing he could do about Christine. No matter how much he wanted to.

"Mia is suffering from food poisoning so I'll need to keep her overnight. Sienna is holding up better but I'd like to keep her too given that she ingested the same food as Mia. They both are malnourished and dehydrated but doing better than the others I'd seen come out of that site." Rios informed him,

"Can I see them?" Mike asked.

"Yes, follow me." Rios said to him without the slightest hesitation.

"I heard they were quarantined?" Mike asked.

"The woman they were with vomited blood, she had other signifiers that were worrisome. I was concerned for their health but since learned it's not poison or a contagion." Rios assured him, Mike felt a wave of relief wash through him as that knowledge.

"Is the woman ok?" Mike asked.

"Yes, she's in a stable condition. Your daughters' insisted on being in the same room as her." Rios informed him as they reached one of the four bed rooms. The curtains were all drawn back, only three of the beds were occupied. His eyes went directly to the bed where his daughters were sleeping. He moved quietly into the room not wanting to wake them, half afraid they were a mirage as he part of him couldn't believe they were there. But they were, Sienna and Mia his baby girls were older than he remembered, in fact they looked more like younger versions of Christine.

Their features were soft in sleep, they'd been cleaned up some but their hair was dirty and there were streaks of what looked like engine grease. They had IV drips in and vitals monitors that beeped softly. It broke his heart to see them so unhealthy and guilt gnawed at him as he had taken too long to find them. He felt he hadn't searched hard enough, that he should've taken Tex's advice and gone off on his own and found them.

"Dad?" Sienna murmured drowsily as she woke up, Mike moved to her bedside and gave her a soft smile. Tears filled his eyes as she looked like she'd aged 20 years by the way she looked up at him. Unsure mixed in with relief and disappointment.

"Yeah, it's me." Mike said as he took her hand. He didn't miss how she'd flinched at first at the contact. His gut twisting in fear as his imagination went places he didn't want to go.

"I thought they were lying to us." Sienna said as she pulled her hand away from his and pushed up in bed. She wanted hug him so badly but she didn't want to get attached to him because she was afraid he'd leave. If he left and Beth died she'd be all alone in the world, she'd be the only one to look out for Mia.

"I'm here and everything is going to be ok." He promised her, pained at how distant she was acting from him. It was like they were strangers instead of family. He ruefully reminded himself that she might see their reunion as joyous given how long he'd taken to find them.

"How can it be? Mom's dead, Lucas too and no one will tell me if Beth is ok." Sienna said looking despondent and riddled with fear. She was afraid. Beth was the only constant she'd known for months after Mom had died. She was afraid of being in this place, afraid of where they'd be taken even with her father there. She looked at his uniform knowing he'd leave her, he always left them. It was how they ended up in that plant.

"Who's Beth?" Mike asked.

"She is." Sienna said pointing to the woman in the bed across the room from them. Mike had seen her but not really looked at her as his focus had been on the girls.

"Doc Rios says she'll make a full recovery and be fine." Mike half lied because 'ok' didn't seem like a comforting response, he saw her lips set into a firm line that said she didn't really believe him. He didn't blame her as Sienna was always the child who asked a million questions. She always needed to know everything and have an explanation for everything. 'Fine' wasn't enough to comfort her. "The doctors here are very good at their jobs. She'll get the best care." Mike assured her.

"I want to live with her." Sienna told him, not even bothering for the conversation to be broached.

"Sienna-" Mike started, his heart broken that he hadn't even mentioned home and she was already dismissing him.

"No, you abandoned us. You left us to go to sea and Lucas died, Mom died. The only person who was there was Beth, she cares for us, she took care of us." Sienna told him harshly.

"I care for you too." Mike said gently.

"So you say but where were you Dad?" Sienna demanded in a low and angry voice. Mike's lips set into a firm line as Sienna's words stabbed into his heart and ran ragged over his soul. His daughter hated him and was well within her rights to, she now trusted a complete stranger over her own father.

"Compromise, if Beth would like to; she can live with us while she recovers." Mike said, he couldn't believe he was inviting a complete stranger into his home but he was desperate for any way to mend the bridge between him and Sienna. He just hoped it didn't backfire on him.