AN - This one was originally supposed to be one chapter, but it got way too long so I cut it up :) Hope you like :)
And hello/thank you to new readers/subs!

Chapter 9: Close Watch

Casey was up off the gurney in a flash, but she slumped back down almost immediately. Her head spun and a hammer banged between her temples. Cursing, she reluctantly did as Anne was instructing and stayed seated even though her instinct was to get moving.

"Weaver's already out looking for Etta," Anne attempted to soothe Casey. "Along with all the scouts, including Maggie, Hal, Grace and Ben. They left about two hours ago and followed Abigail's trail through the woods."

"Why?" Casey asked, fidgeting. Anne relented slightly and allowed Casey to sit up. "Why the hell would she take Etta? To give her to the skitters? Some sort of trade so they'll take her back even though her harness is messed up?"

"I don't know," Anne said honestly. "But it doesn't matter because they're going to find her. Now sit still, I have to fix your bandage"

Casey winced as Anne adjusted the bandage on Casey's broken wrist. Casey didn't know what to think. Her head was still a foggy mass of nothing. Etta was gone. Gone? Taken by some deranged skitter girl? That was just not possible. That meant Abigail had just wandered into Casey's tent, whacked Casey over the head, picked up the baby, and evaporated into the forest. And all the while, Casey just slept; oblivious to everything.

Oblivious no more, Casey was already plotting what she had to do. "You said the scouts left two hours ago?" Casey asked Anne, who nodded in reply. "That means Etta's already missed one feeding." Ignoring Anne one final time, Casey got to her feet. "I'm not going to lie around here while she misses another."

With that, Casey headed out of the medic bus but in her haste at shoving aside the door, she almost knocked over Matt Mason who was waiting outside. "Jesus!" Casey hissed as the closing door nearly clipped his finger. "Keep clear of the door, Matt."

"Is your head okay?" Matt asked Casey, jogging to keep in step with her.

"It's fine." Casey ignored the sharp pulsing in her head and made a beeline for her tent. Matt followed her the whole way.

"I wanted to go to look for Etta," Matt said breathlessly as he ran to keep up. "They wouldn't take me with them."

They arrived at Casey's tent where the crates Casey and Pope had played cards on the day before were still out front, and even the umbrella covered in red hearts was still sitting where Casey had left it. But inside, everything felt strange and out of place. For starters, Casey's pillow had a big splotch of blood stained on it and a rifle laid on the tent floor. Casey didn't carry a weapon; so she figured that's what Abigail had hit her with. But if the skitter girl had been holding a gun, why not shoot Casey?

To the right of the camp bed was Etta's empty basket with her purple alien toy still clipped to the side. With a slight pang of relief, Casey noticed her satchel bag of baby formula and bottles was missing, too. Abigail was smart enough to know she would have to feed the baby. Casey hoped that meant something.

"I came to get you for breakfast and you were hurt," Matt spoke up quietly from behind Casey. "We made oatmeal, I wanted to make sure you got some."

Casey was only half listening to him, her focus was on something at her feet. Kneeling down, she picked up Etta's discarded pacifier. The baby had been sucking on it when Casey had put her to sleep last night, it must have fallen out when Abigail snatched her out of the tent. Without it, Etta would scream bloody murder. At least that would make her easy to find.

But what if Abigail got frustrated with Etta's crying?

"I'm sorry," Matt said.

Casey spun around on her knees so she was at eye level with Matt. She could see the guilt all over his sweet face, guilt as if he had just been silently standing there watching Abigail take Etta. "Don't be sorry, it's not your fault," Casey assured him. "She waited until I was asleep to take Etta, she made sure she wasn't seen."

"I still feel bad."

Casey knocked his shoulder with her fist and tried to smile. "So do I."

No matter what Anne strongly advised, Casey knew she was always going to go looking for the baby. It was the same feeling she'd had when she knew she had to find Etta some food. It was her responsibility. If she was charged with taking care of Charlotte, despite her known reservations, then she couldn't let other people do all the work when something went wrong. So bump on the head or not, she was going out there.

But she also knew she couldn't do it alone. Casey had no vehicle, no gun and no idea how to track someone's path. All the scouts and fighters were already out searching, along with their cars and weapons. So, as a light rain began to fall, Casey approached the only people she figured could help her.

The Berserkers were huddled together by the river skipping stones across the water, eating oatmeal and cleaning their guns. Boon was trying to teach himself to skip stones, but he was no good at it. All his stones immediately hit the water with a bloop and sank right to the bottom. However, his efforts did seem to be entertaining his comrades who were animatedly watching him when Casey walked over.

"You gotta fling it," Pope said whilst demonstrating what he meant. "It's in the wrist."

"I am flingin' it," Boon argued as he tossed away another rock.

Crazy Lee was the first to notice Casey arrive. She was chewing a mouthful of oatmeal and greeted Casey her by pointing out her injury. "Nice bump," Lee gestured to Casey's forehead with her spoon.

"Abigail knocked me out." Casey said, trying to move her hair over her face enough to cover the bump.

"The skitter girl?" Tector looked up from the handgun he was reassembling.

Pope raised his eyebrows at her, questioningly. Similar to how he did when she added to the pot in poker. "Why?"

"She-She took Etta," Casey involuntarily stammered. "She took Etta and I have to find her."

"Why would a skitter kid steal a baby?" Pope asked her.

Casey wanted to smack him for his pointless question. "I don't know. And I don't care. But now it's raining, and she's already missed two meals and-" Casey's voice caught in her throat and she was startled with the foreign sensation that she would crack into tears. Clearing her throat, she tried to look stoic and blink the moisture from her eyes. "I am asking for your help." Her voice wavered. "Will you help me?"

Matt was red with fury when he was told he had to stay behind again. Casey didn't have a problem bringing him along, and Lee was happy to have him ride on her bike with her, but Anne just flat-out refused. With his siblings already out searching, and his father missing, Matt was solely under Anne's protection. The doctor took her role very seriously, to the point where she clung to Matt's hand to make sure he stayed at her side as Casey and the Berserkers headed off.

It had been easier than Casey's anticipated, getting the Berserkers to help her. Whatever camaraderie Casey was developing with Pope during their card games didn't seem to hold up when he was at the helm of his crew, but it wasn't Pope that seemed to make this decision. Lee was up for it, Boon was thrilled to go exploring, and Tector and Lyle wanted to show up Weaver; so Pope kind of just had to go along with what his Berserkers seemed to have already decided.

But even if Pope hadn't been bouncing up and down in excitement to help, he was more than comfortable taking charge of the search process. After Tector located the trail Weaver and the scouts had followed, Pope announced that they would be going in the opposite direction. Pope theorized that skitters were naturally always going to mess with humanity, and any trail left would be a fake. Casey reminded him of Abigail's broken harness, to which he replied: "Once a skitter, always a skitter." And that seemed to be the end of that.

So, Casey and the Berserkers headed into the woods. Overhead the trees were thick and flourishing, they prevented some of the rain from leaking through the leaves, but everything was still damp and slippery. Every few minutes one of the group would stumble, swear, and right themselves again.

There was a road parallel to the path they were taking through the woods, but Casey thought Abigail might hide with Etta up a tree or something. Plus, she didn't want to wander out on an open road and alert Abigail that someone was following her.

That was, of course, if they were heading in the right direction. Tector assured Casey that there was definitely a trail to follow this way. No clue whether or not it was Abigail, but it was a trail.

Two hours later, and nothing. No sign of Abigail, but also no sign of any skitters. The rain kept on through the afternoon and into the evening. The chitchat between the Berserkers quieted as time went on. Everyone was waterlogged and dejected, not keen to waste energy on teasing each other.

Casey was plodding through the thickening mud when she heard Tector whistle, the alert they had all settled on should one of them find something. Casey met up with Lee and the group all converged towards Tector, but Casey could hear what he had found before they arrived. The gentle trickling sound of running water up ahead. A river.

"Break time?" Tector asked Pope as he washed the mud off his hands in the river.

"Sounds good," Pope agreed, leaning his rifle against a tree trunk. "Five minutes."

Casey just wanted to keep going, and said as much to Pope. "It's stupid to stop, what if Abigail walks all night?"

"Five minutes," Pope repeated. "Unless you want us all to die of exhaustion?"

Casey huffed to herself, she was way too jittery to sit still. Instead, she told the Berserkers she was going to follow the river for a few feet to see if it lead to a bigger body of water. It didn't, and Casey knew it wouldn't almost immediately because the water started to thin out the more she walked. But she didn't turn back, not yet. She could still hear the Berserkers chatting, but she felt better standing on her own. Of course, it didn't take long for her to start chastising herself for having to be out here in the first place. And now she'd brought five people along with her. What if they walked straight into a skitter swarm?

The main point that kept swirling through Casey's rattled mind was that this would not have happened if someone else was caring for Etta. Casey liked to be alone, so even with Etta she kept to herself. Someone else would have probably thought Etta should be around the other kids, or keep to the safety of the inside of the camp, or asked a soldier to guard the tent. Something, anything. The more Casey thought about it, the easier she realized it was for Abigail to take Etta. No one had checked on them until Matt came to see her the following morning. Hell, if she'd even just set up her tent near the Berserkers and all their guns, that might have been enough to deter Abigail.

Casey kicked a hunk of dirt into the river, as she thought of Anne. "I told her."

"Told who, what?"

Casey jumped at the sound of Pope's voice, she hadn't heard his footsteps. But the rain was picking up and splattering against the water, so she didn't hear much else anyway. "Anne," Casey said, happy to prove to someone else that this whole baby thing was not her forte. "I told her I couldn't take care of a baby. I knew this would happen."

Pope looked amused. "You knew a messed up skitter girl was gonna steal the baby?"

"I don't have the..." Casey had to think of the right word. "The skills for this. My first night alone with Etta, she gets kidnapped. Kidnapped. Who'd have thought we'd have to worry about a kidnapping after aliens invaded?"

"Who'd have thought we'd have to set a whole city on fire?" Pope reminded her. "Crazy breeds crazy, always has."

"Why did you come with me?" Casey wondered out loud. "It's not 'cos I almost cried, is it?"

Pope gave her a hint of a smirk. "We played so much poker. All the hands I lost, had to give you something. And," he added. "I wouldn't mind seeing the look on Weaver's face when I show up with the baby he's got all his minions out looking for."

"So you'll think we'll find her?"

Pope nodded slowly. "We'll find her. You just gotta take all that crap in there," He tapped his temple. "And focus it on finding that kid."

A swift gust of wind accompanied the rain through the trees, scattering leaves into the water. The setting sun briefly shone through and glinted off the water, but it also illuminated something out of the corner of Casey's eye. It glimmered like a jewel in the sand, and was snagged on a log on the opposite side of the river. Something white. Paper.

The water was only ankle deep and considering she was soaked from the rain anyway, Casey didn't think twice about wading across the river. The paper was soaked, of course, and Casey had to sort of unwind it from the log so it wouldn't break into soggy pieces. But she already knew that she was looking at a label.

A baby formula label with number 1 written on it in Anne's handwriting.

Anne had sorted the cans from earliest expiry date to latest, and then numbered them all so Casey wouldn't have to search for dates every time she got a new tin. The cans were then stored on the food truck, but the satchel Casey always carried, the one Abigail had stolen along with Etta, was stacked with only number 1 tins.

Energized from the confirmation they were at least on the right side of the woods to be searching, Casey hurried back to the Berserkers to get right back out searching. But they weren't just looking anymore, they were listening. It was still raining, and there was no shelter aside from the trees. Etta and Abigail would be as soaked as Casey and the Berserkers were. So, Etta would be damp and miserable. And man, did that kid like to make sure everyone heard that she was miserable.

xxx