Chapter 24

It was all about Ben. Karen's sudden reappearance, her whole sorry victim act - it was all so Ben would take her to his skitter rebellion.

When Pope woke up, he told Tom that the skitters had him pinned down. A 'fish-head' started questioning him about the Second Mass, about Ben and about the skitter rebellion. He had a blonde girl with him doing the talking. Suddenly it clicked. Karen. This was their plan all along.

By then it was too late. Karen was gone and so was Ben. Grace was screaming for help, holding a bleeding Maggie in her arms, when Tom and Dai burst in. Grace explained what happened, and then the search began.

When Doctor Glass came for Maggie, Grace was out like a shot, calling for Ben. She knew they must be long gone, but she had to try. Eventually, Tom found Hal unconscious on the roof and realised they must have jumped to their escape, towards the woods.

Grace knew what it was like to be treated differently, to be whispered about, to be thought of as a freak. Not to the extent that Ben did, granted, but she couldn't fathom what the boy was thinking. Did he so desperately want someone to understand him that he would trust Karen, after everything he knew about her?

Clearly, Karen had been an expert manipulator, playing on both of her brothers' vulnerabilities: Hal's feelings for her, and Ben's isolation as a de-harnessed kid. She'd attempted it with Maggie and Grace, too, touching on their fears, their insecurities. She had won. Grace lost her cool attacking Karen, and subsequently lost her brother in the process.

Now they had to get him back again.

The search party immediately headed after them. As determined as Grace was to join them, Lourdes practically dragged her back in to get checked over. Grace's voice was hoarse from screaming - and being strangled - so she could hardly protest. Lourdes had a tiny frame, but a strong will when she needed it. Grace gave in. She was feeling pretty sore from her scrap with Karen, though the adrenaline masked it well. Lourdes confirmed she only had a few scrapes and bruises and gave her some medication for the pain. Matt came in and watched over her until she was given the all-clear, then he made his way over to the window with his rifle, waiting for their dad to come back with Ben.

"I should have gone with them," Grace sighed, feeling guilty as she downed the meds with a quick swig of water.

"Karen nearly killed you, Grace," Lourdes stated as she placed the bottle of painkillers back in a crate ready to pack for Charleston.

"Exactly - she's out there with Ben right now. I let them leave. He's out there because of me."

"You're hard on yourself."

Grace turned to see Maggie in the doorway, a hand over her new bandages. It looked like Doctor Glass had sewn her back up, good as new.

"Maggie." Grace jumped to her feet. "Are you okay?"

"Well, I won't be winning any bathing suit contests any time soon, but I'm doing okay."

Grace cracked a smile, but it was short-lived. She kept seeing Maggie thrown against that wall, the blood spilling from her stomach. "I'm sorry you got hurt."

Maggie shook her head as she entered the room. "I knew the risks. Just bummed out she got away."

"I know the feeling," Grace muttered, her gaze lowering to the floor. Karen's stupid insults kept playing in her head. Most of all, she was worried about the insinuation that Grace had been bugged back in Fitchburg.

"Hey - don't let any of that crap she was spewing get to you," said Maggie, reading her mind. "She's a good liar. Aliens picked a good mouth-piece with her."

Grace forced a half-smile. "Thanks…and same. Nobody thinks those things about you - especially not Hal. You're part of the Second Mass now."

Maggie smiled back, looking around before releasing a heavy sigh. "Did he tell you why I don't like hospitals?"

"He mentioned something about you being in them a lot as a kid…"

"Yeah," Maggie said under her breath. "I had cancer. I still have the holes in my skull from all the surgeries. Every time I walked into a hospital, I was terrified I wouldn't make it out alive."

That explained her weird behaviour, thought Grace. What an awful trauma to go through at such a young age, and then to survive it and have war be your reward in adulthood?

"I'm so sorry," Grace said. "My mom had cancer. Did Hal tell you that?"

Maggie shook her head.

"Breast cancer. She beat it. She was in remission for three years, and then it came back." Grace lowered her voice so Matt wouldn't hear. "Just before the invasion, I heard my mom and dad arguing about it." She heard her voice break, retelling it. It felt strange talking about it, as they rarely talked about it as a family, let alone to people who didn't even know her. "She was so strong. She wanted to beat it once and for all. But in the end, that choice was taken away from her."

There was a beat of silence as Grace swallowed the lump in her throat and Maggie watched her, a soft expression on her face.

"Your mom sounds tough," said Maggie. "Maybe that's where you Masons get it from."

Grace couldn't help but chuckle at that. Maggie smiled at the reaction, but they both jumped when they heard a little voice pipe up on the other side of the room.

"They're coming back!"

Matt was shouting at Jamil and Lourdes, for some unknown reason. The poor kid was worried, as they all were.

"I've gotta deal with this," Grace said to Maggie.

"See you later."

"They're bringing Ben back and we're not leaving until they do," cried Matt, clinging to his rifle as Lourdes and Jamil stared at him, speechless.

Grace headed over to see if she could pacify him when another voice interjected.

"Damn right."

Captain Weaver limped into the room with his entourage behind him, dressed in his cap and uniform. You wouldn't have been able to tell he was at death's door only hours before, apart from the cane he now used to walk - but that didn't seem to dampen his old fighting spirit. He seemed keener than ever to get to work. The procedure must have worked even better than planned.

"Jamil, what are you doing when we still can't get the GTO working right?" he demanded, making Jamil immediately straighten up.

"I'm on it, sir," he said, leaving Lourdes' side and hurrying away to his duties.

"You better be, because we're moving out as soon as Tom's back," the captain declared purposefully.

"Captain Weaver," Anne exclaimed with surprise, coming into the room with her stethoscope around her neck and a clipboard in her hands. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"My job," the captain replied as if it were obvious.

"You have no business walking around after what you've just been through," the doctor advised, shocked with his behaviour.

"Noted," Weaver declared loudly, before returning back to business. "Now, is the med unit gonna be ready to move out?"

"Lourdes just sent the last stretcher down."

"Good."

"There's still a lot of medical supplies down in the basement we could use," Anne suggested. "No telling when we'll come across a cache like this again."

Weaver nodded. "Take Lourdes. Liberate what you can. Be back in twenty minutes."

Anne and Lourdes left for the basement, leaving Matt staring up at Captain Weaver hopefully. Grace knew that look. The kid looked like that a lot lately, desperate to help, eager to make his mark.

Captain Weaver returned Matt's gaze and his expression softened. "They're gonna need security. That's you, Matt. Start moving, soldier!"

"Yes, sir!" Matt darted after Anne and Lourdes towards the basement, leaving Grace with that worried expression she so often had.

"He'll be fine," Weaver smiled at her. "I could use you to help with packing up, if you're feeling up to it, Grace?"

"Sure, captain." She nodded and followed him down the hall, when they heard an engine pull up outside.

"Sounds like that might be your dad," Weaver speculated, swiftly limping towards the main hospital doors as Grace followed closely behind.

The cold hit them immediately as they hurried down the steps. Grace hadn't realised it had been snowing and there was now a frosty layer on the grass banks and on the road around the hospital. She wrapped her jacket around her tightly as a truck pulled up in front of them. Her face lit up as she saw Ben hop out the passenger side. She ran for him immediately and wrapped her arms around him.

"Ben! I'm so glad you're safe! Are you okay?"

Ben squeezed her back. "I'm fine. I'm so sorry, Grace. I should have listened to you. I screwed up."

"It's okay," she said softly, leaning back to check him over. "As long as you're alright. What happened? Where's Karen?"

"She led me to an ambush as soon as I told her what she wanted to know. She got away when Dad and the others showed up."

She could see the anguish in his eyes at being played by Karen. She had tricked him into betraying his own family, and he felt the guilt and embarrassment of that - she sensed it. But there was something else.

"What's wrong?"

Ben hesitated, as if he were a little unsure how to respond. "There was a bit of a stand-off between us and an Overlord and…well…"

"Have you seen our catch of the day?" hollered Hal from beside the truck, as Tom and Captain Weaver were peering inside.

Grace looked at him, confused, until she walked over to the back of the truck to see what had captivated them.

She let out a small gasp, recoiling so vigorously that Tom had to catch her before she fell backwards. Stashed in the back of the truck, locked in chains, was a damn fish-head.