Chapter 24: Doubt

Penny had already grown used to the usual shutter of Calico's facility that occurred roughly every half hour or so. It was simply a result of Calico having started his collection of natural resources, or Mark had told her. But even now, it still caused her an involuntary shiver. It reminded her all too much of what stood between her and Emily. She inched closer to Adam on their cot and held his hand tightly. He kept his eyes on her intently, ready to console her as he always seemed to be when she was disheartened. She couldn't find the right words to say to him, not that she ever had to in order to receive his care. Still, she wanted to just talk to him, to hear his voice, even if it wasn't necessarily reassurance.

It took her a few moments to find any words at all. "I wish we'd just hear something about her already," she whispered to him. "It's been too quiet."

Adam shrugged. "That's a good sign. She's probably stayed out of sight, and out of danger."

Penny was right. His voice alone was soothing. But it was not enough to shake her doubts off. "She should've come close by now. She was supposed to have... found something that would lead her here. I thought that—"

"Was supposed to?" Adam repeated, his expression changing from reassuring to incredulous.

"What?" she asked, sensing his sudden and growing anger.

He lifted his head slightly from his pillow, releasing his grip on her hands. "What did you mean by 'was supposed to'? Like all of this is part of your plan?"

He rose further from the cot, resting on his elbow and still giving her a now annoyed look. His feelings of comfort were starting to vanish from him. Penny looked at him somewhat confused. "What are you talking about? You know what I had in mind for Calico. We'd let ourselves be captured so that Emily could—"

"So that she could what?" Adam cut her off, raising his voice. "What is it that you have in mind for our daughter. Our daughter, Penny! What have you been planning for her? To use her in your plot to bring Calico down? Is that what she's become to you now? A tool? A playing card?!"

"Adam!" Penny snapped, shifting to lean on her elbow also. What had come over him? Why had he seemed so sensitive less than a minute ago and now was so reproving of her? "We've been through this. It was the safest way we could manage in the time that we had. This way, she'll be—"

"In even more danger than if one of us stayed with her!" Adam finished her sentence again, his rising tone suggesting that he had completely disregarded their surroundings. "Instead of being there to comfort and protect her, like we as parents were supposed to be, we left her to be hunted by Calico alone!"

That was the statement that cut Penny the deepest. "I have been there for her! I have provided for her!" she roared, sitting all the way up and staring daggers into Adam. "She's not alone! I've given her everything she's needed! Don't you dare accuse me of leaving her to die!"

"Then why are you in here?!" Adam shouted, still lying on his side. His voice hadn't lowered, but his physical appearance showed he had been taken aback by her outburst. Maybe he hadn't expected her to be so defensive at this point, or perhaps he didn't realize the volume of their voices. Penny didn't care.

"You know damn well why I let her go! Because there'd be a greater chance of Calico searching for her."

"Yeah, that worked out well, didn't it?"

She ignored him. "Because we've given her everything she needs, because she's not alone in this, because she is intelligent and resourceful enough to survive out there! She and Lightning have enough determination than any of us to stay alive and keep moving forward!"

"Calm down, both of you!" Mark spoke in a stern but moderate tone. Penny turned her head towards him, finding him sitting on the edge of his cot, facing them. He wore an exhausted expression, laced with annoyance at their argument. She knew he was only trying to keep their minds calm and focused—as he always had done for Penny's childhood and through Emily's entire life—but that didn't excuse Adam's hostile accusations. "We've already discussed everything there is to discuss about the plan, and it's already well in motion. What's done is done. Bickering about it isn't going to help either us or Emily."

Penny stood up while Adam sat on the edge of their cot, still looking at her. "There's still more we can do for her," he said, to both of them this time. "We don't have to just sit here and hope that she can handle it. Especially when we know she won't be able to for much longer!"

"You should have more faith in her," Penny replied in a flat tone, not facing him. "I told you, she's strong and she has Lightning. I know she'll never give up."

"Everyone has their breaking point, Penny. Emily's strong, I know, but she can't keep up like this. It's just getting too dangerous." Adam held a neutral expression, but only barely lowered his voice. "We need to act, or this plan won't work."

"You said yourself you believed it would work," Mark noted, still in a moderate tone.

"I said I hoped it would work, and so far, it hasn't been going well. We need to start making some sort of backup plan if our first assumptions turn out to be wrong."

"We can't know for sure. All we can be certain of is that Emily will endure."

"We can't even be certain of that much! All we hear about this is what Calico lets us hear! We need to know exactly what is happening out there!" Mark was about to speak again, but Adam didn't give him the chance. "I want to know what's happening with my daughter!"

Penny's only reaction was a sharp inhale, keeping her face out of Adam's sight. She was tempted to turn around and see what Adam's expression was, but she didn't want to face him at the moment. It was a handful of painfully silent moments before Mark spoke, now in a stern tone with an edge to it. "She's Penny's daughter too. And you ought to have faith that she's doing what's best for her family. She certainly has faith in you."

Penny heard Adam lay back down on the cot again after several more seconds of silence. He wasn't going to object again. Finally, she sat down next to her father on his cot, careful to keep her eyes off of Adam. It took her a few seconds to find her voice back. "He's... not completely wrong," she whispered, her eyes beginning to water. "We have to get to her. One of us... has to make sure she's okay."

All of her father's resentment seemed to evaporate at that moment. None of it had been directed at her, she knew, but it still scared her. As long as she could remember, he had always held a collected and steady composure, aside from the time when he was first captured. She didn't want to believe that their family was beginning to fracture. It can't...

"Are... the vents... Could we still use them?" she inquired.

"Yes," he responded coolly. "I checked them just the other night after I broke the grate off. They still haven't noticed. You should be able to get out undetected through there."

At last, she felt some reassurance that they were in control of something. "Then what? How do I find her?"

Mark pulled a small, black rectangle from under his cot and handed it to her. "They never found it in the search," he said, with some level of satisfaction, pressing a button that showed a map of their area. "Do you remember the charms for Emily's bracelet I got last summer?" Penny nodded, remembering Emily's great enjoyment with the charm bracelet . "This device will track one of the 'charms', specifically one I gave her recently."

Penny felt her heart leap with joy inside her. She could find her daughter back.

She made a small sack out of two of the pillow cases, sticking the tracker and her family picture inside, not asking if Adam wanted the latter to stay—he was laying on their cot on his side, staring down at the floor—and waited while Mark eased the grate off of the ceiling. Moving her hands across both sides of her head, she gathered her hair and formed it into a ponytail, not looking at Adam whenever possible. Mark set the grate on his cot and then hugged her tightly. "Stay safe," he whispered into her ear.

Backing away, he cupped his hands into a foothold for her below the vent. "I'll find her," she promised, stepping onto his hands and jumping up to the vent.

Before she climbed through, she permitted herself one last glance at Adam. He was sitting up now, and their eyes met. She almost waited for a "Be careful," or even an "I love you." Instead, she held his gaze for a moment, then ascended into the air duct.

I'll always be here. You'll have me whenever you need me. Her own statement sounded as clear in her head as ever. She wouldn't break that promise. Not again...

I'm coming, Emily.

Emily was well aware of the saying "Life isn't fair." Her parents had made no small note of reminding her of that throughout her childhood. Fairness, of course, was relative. Sometimes, "unfairness" was used to explain dissatisfaction, not achieving a desired result. Life just wasn't fair.

None of that made her feel any different towards Mittens's death. She had been with her, traveling with her, for all that time, and one incident later she was dead. A month earlier, she was living a wonderful and comfortable life. An hour earlier, she had been perfectly healthy. Frail and old—nearing twenty years of age, an unimaginable lifespan for a household pet—but still healthy. She didn't exactly have a full life ahead of her, but she could have easily lived for several more months, and she should have lived out her final years, or months, of life the way she had been before: happily in her safe house with her family. That's how she should have lived, and that's where she should have died.

Instead, she had been killed while her best friend Emily, and her canine offspring, Lightning, were being hunted by the same man who had hunted Penny and Bolt before them. Emily drew a shaky breath in realization, almost ignoring Lightning as he leaned against her leg in condolence. Mittens hadn't even died while they were being actively hunted. Those vehicles she had spotted entering the base weren't even looking for her. No one had even noticed them. The only evidence that Emily was anywhere on the premises would be the destroyed Humvee a short distance away. It was her own paranoia that resulted in her companion's death. Despite her best efforts to convince herself otherwise, she couldn't shake the feeling of responsibility. Lightning wouldn't blame her, but could she do the same? It shouldn't have been this way, she thought. She didn't deserve to die her like this. It should have been peacefully, with her family—her entire family with her. None of this should have ever happened. She could have lived... she should have...

Emily finally turned her gaze off of Mittens's grave, barely fighting back another wave of bitter crying so that Lightning wouldn't be any more upset. He was all she had now, the only part of her family and her life she had left. She bent down and hugged him tightly, shivering as the wind gently blew through the tall grass around them. Gray clouds were beginning to form overhead, not necessarily storm clouds, Emily thought, but they reminded her of the passing time. As she released him from the embrace, her eyes fell on her charm bracelet. It had served as a reminder of her family and a symbol of reassurance for her, but now, it only reminded her of one thing: what had happened to her world.

Her family was gone. Lightning was all that was left. Not only had her parents been kidnapped, but she lost one of her family members as a result. Her emotions began to swell inside her. She felt uncertain and scared in the time following Penny's message to her, but now, she was feeling betrayed and even more frightened. Penny told her she would be safe if she laid low, but she didn't mention how they would ever reunite with her again. She didn't want to live without her loving parents, so she had to attempt to save them, and now it had cost her a friend. A member of their family. It was an event that never should have happened and no one was there for her when it did. Lightning and herself were alone and abandoned, left to fend for themselves in a blink. It's her fault... all of it...

Anger and grief were all she could feel at the moment. In the middle of it, there was the inescapable feeling of hatred for her mother. She never told her anything about Calico. How could she ever think her daughter would be ready if this arose again? And why would she only explain it in a rushed message before leaving her to run away on her own? Mittens was dead now because she was alone, because there was no one there to guide her! She shouted in tearful rage as she tore the bracelet off and threw it away. It landed only a foot or so away from the grave. Lightning gave her a look of melancholy concern, almost as though he were saying, "You don't have to do that. It's going to get better."

She couldn't accept it. Not now. "Come on," she barely whispered, kissing him on the head." She stood, swung her backpack around her shoulders and looked back down at the grave. "I'm sorry," she thought out loud, with only the wind to break the long silence preceding it.

Stopping Calico wasn't her quest anymore. Nor was saving her parents. The only thing that was important to her now was preserving what was left of her life: obeying her mother for the last time and staying out of Calico's sight.