MARK OF THE BEAST III: GUARDIAN
The silence was as tense as a mousetrap. My brothers and I were poised around the phone, eagerly anticipating a call. For hours, we'd been in our stakeout in the living room, TV volume cranked down low just in case. Video footage of a massive, bipedal crocodile smacking NYPD aside with his tail and swimming off into the sewer replayed on the news, and I felt relieved to know Leatherhead was safe, at least for the moment. My feet tapped with unconscious nerves. I stared at the phone on the end table, and as if manifesting it with my eyes, ringing filled the room for a moment until Raph picked it up and hit the speakerphone button.
"Case?" he questioned.
"Noah Tyler Jones. Seven pounds, eleven ounces, twenty-three inches."
"It's a boy!" I cheered, and the room filled with our hoots and hollering.
"How's April holding up?" Leo asked.
"Took it like a champ. The doc says we'll be outta here tomorrow morning."
"The baby's healthy?" Don inquired. "No complications or anything?"
"Came out tough and already kicking, just like his old man." I could sense the paternal warmth in his voice. "There is one, uh, cosmetic thing, but nothing to worry about."
"What, he's got two heads or something?" I laughed.
"It's a surprise, alright? You guys are gonna flip when you see it." He teased, and we gave our well wishes as he hung up.
"Seven pounds seems light." I noted. "Think I've had burritos bigger than that."
"Those eleven ounces put it above average weight. Not everyone's born with a thirty-pound shell on their back." Don corrected. "Twenty-three inches is pretty tall, too."
"That explains why Ape was looking like Snorlax the past week." Raph chuckled. "Tough to fit all that baby in one small lady."
We crashed in the same places on the couches, falling asleep to the gentle drone and flicker of the TV. When daylight started to seep in between the blinds, we were startled awake by the crunching of truck tires up the driveway. In seconds, we leaped to our feet, crowding around the door as Casey stepped in, April in tow carrying a cocoon of soft white blankets.
"Boys…" she smiled up at us, looking tired but victorious. "Meet Noah Jones." Gently pulling back a corner of blanket, she revealed his grapefruit-sized wrinkled head, decorated with a few wisps of dark auburn hair atop his sleeping face."
"Little dude's a stud." I murmured in awe, as April gingerly took a seat on the couch.
"Gets it from my side of the family." Casey puffed his chest out, hands on his hips as he locked the door behind him.
"He's perfect in every way." April cooed, delicately pushing a strand of hair out of his eyes. "The doctor asked if we wanted to consider surgery on his hand, but…" She unwrapped the outer blanket a bit to unveil his tiny, curled left fist. "…No point in changing something beautiful, right?" I held my breath as I leaned in to look closer. Between his pointer and middle fingers was a bridge of pink skin reaching up to his last knuckle, as was another between his ring finger and pinky.
"Holy shit!" Raph exclaimed. "Kid's like a quarter turtle." He was right. Non-green hue aside, the little hand looked like a mirror image of my own.
"The doc says it's just webbing; all the bones and muscles are…" he stopped mid-sentence, head turning back to the screen door as he registered a noise from the street. Through the curtains, I saw six vans careening up the driveway, leaving a trail of dust in their wake. Screeching to a stop, their doors slammed open and an army of black-clothed figures burst out. Some of them clutched towering plastic shields emblazoned with 'SWAT' along the middle, and scattered among the armored cops were a handful of scarlet Foot crests. Casey rushed to snatch his shotgun from the dining room hutch.
"How the fuck did they find us?" Raph snarled. "Thought we weren't followed."
"The satellite." Don panicked. "They couldn't have cracked my computer…but the lair's full of our DNA. All they had to do was scrape the shower drain. Dammit…" He slammed his fist into the wall. "How'd I let this happen?"
"This is the Massachusetts State Police." A megaphone crackled through the window. Dozens of assault rifles were aimed menacingly at the windows. "You're under investigation for harboring unknown non-human life. Come out with your hands up."
"If it were just the Foot, I'd say run." Leo told Casey, putting a hand on the barrel to set the gun down. "But the cops won't hurt you three if they can't find any mutants." He turned to us. "We need to get out of here."
Without so much as goodbye, the four of us hurdled through the house and out the back door. Between the barn doors we slid, the animals paying us no mind. Raph started heaving a few bales of hay from the stack in the corner out of the way, revealing the green metal of the Battle Shell in its hiding spot.
"We can't take the Shell." Don panted. "They'd spot us." He put the hay bales back in their place, and we sprinted out the back, where the yard met the fringe of the untamed forest. We rushed in, paying the vibrant reds and yellows of the trees no mind as we ducked under branches and dodged saplings until the farmhouse was lost between the leaves behind us. Even then, we didn't stop, dashing madly through the woods until all that stood before us was the shimmering blue of the Connecticut River and the forest on the opposite side.
"Where now?" I gasped, head darting around to make sure our hunters weren't in sight.
"North." Leo pointed upstream. "We need to get out of town. Out of state, even. Anywhere but here."
Drawing in a deep breath, I shut my eyes tightly and jumped forward, being swallowed up by the cool water as I pushed against the lazy current and channeled my inner salmon. My own heartbeat and bubbles of my breath was all I could hear.
Cliffhangers for days!
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