Tuesday Teaser 2/19/19 Gina’s Wolf Part 35

Sorry I missed last week. It was my mom’s birthday. She’s not as old as I thought she was. She was born in 1935, not 1933, so she is 84. She has dementia, which is an awful, awful disease. She is not as bad off as some people. That is, she dresses herself (when she feels like it. She often stays in her jammies and robe all day) and uses the bathroom herself. She says the same thing over and over, and over. She asks the same question every few seconds because she has no idea she already asked that. Anyway, I brought over supper and my brother baked a cake and stuck a whole forest of candles on it. When we carried it in singing Happy Birthday her whole face lit up. Seeing her big smile always makes me happy.

We’ve had a few days of warmer weather. I think it hit 17F this week. Of course, we’re expecting 2-4 inches of snow tonight. The weather man said he doesn’t expect it to get above freezing until the first week of March. The last day above freezing was January 7. Remember me saying I love winter? Well, I do, but there can be too much of a good thing!

I have been writing quite a bit. Well, actually, I’ve been mostly deleting what I write, since my idea isn’t panning out the way I hoped it to. I’ve decided to just push forward and get something written. I can edit garbage but i can fix a blank page.

Who do you think should kill President Todd? Or should he live? On with the story:

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It was good to be moving in the chilly air.  Gina wasn’t nearly as smooth and confident with her blade as Rose, Carla and Patia, but she knew she was better than the first time she had picked up a knife. Wouldn’t her stepfather be surprised by her increasing proficiency? Surprised? More like horrified. She bared her teeth in a smile at the thought.

Her body slowed as a new thought came to her. She knew how to set Cole free. All she needed to do was get out of Omaha and into her stepfather’s camp. Taye would never let her go. She turned to her mother-in-law and blurted out her plan.

“No.” Carla’s voice was as firm as her husband’s. She looked away from Gina and sheathed her knife. “I will not tell the gate guards to let you leave. Taye would never forgive me. Even if you managed to free Colby, he wouldn’t forgive me either. Taye will make a plan to rescue Colby.”

“But not in time!” Gina looked imploringly at Rose and Patia. They appeared sympathetic, but not encouraging. She turned back to her mother-in-law. “Carla, do you know what Todd will do to him? He’ll study him. Maybe stab him to see how quickly he will heal or cut off a finger or two to see if they grow back.”

Carla shuddered visibly. “I can’t,” she said, slightly less firmly.

“Please,” Gina begged. “Please, just go to one of those little gates Cole told me about and tell the wolf on guard to let me out. I can go to the camp and let Cole go before he gets experimented on.”

Carla pressed a fist to her mouth. “Even if you made it to camp, how could you set Colby free? There will be guards.”

Gina tilted her knife so the weak March light gleamed along its edge. “I know where they’ll keep Cole, and I know where the guards will be. I’m not very good with this yet, but I know where to stab a man now.” She looked at Rose. “You can drill me in it again. We have time since I can’t leave until dark.”

Rose nodded, but her pale brows pulled together. “We can’t just stroll out of the house to the wall. Running Fox won’t allow it.”

“I am Lupa.” Carla’s shoulders went back. “I will be obeyed.”

“Yes!” Waving her hands triumphantly, Patia did a little dance.

Rose shook her head. “Do you think an order to open the gate for Gina to leave will be obeyed? Even coming from you?”

Carla faltered. “No,” she admitted, stopping Patia’s dance cold.

“Mom!”

“So we’ll have to be sneaky about it,” Carla went on.

“Mom, maybe you could just distract the guard for a minute,” she suggested. “Long enough for Gina to slip out.”

Rose looked Gina up and down and tapped a considering fingertip against her lower lip. “The guard will smell you,” Rose said. “We’ll have to disguise your scent.”

A breath she hadn’t known she was holding rushed out of her. “You’ll do it?”

Carla’s mouth tightened. “I don’t like it. If anything happens to you…”

She hadn’t had long to think about it, but Gina knew what she was about to say was true. “I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t try to help Cole. I’d rather try and fail than not try at all.”

Carla sighed. “Okay. But this won’t be easy. We can’t leave The Limit without a guard, much less prance through the city on our own.”

Gina’s shoulders sagged. That was true.

“You can ask for Shouting Rain to escort us,” Rose suggested. “His hearing isn’t as good as some. I think I have an idea.”

Rose’s idea wasn’t much. All Gina would have to do was slink along behind Rose, Carla, and their guard through Omaha until they got to the wall, wait until Carla lured the men away from the door, and sneak out. It could work. It had to work.

After supper the women spent the hours before full dark rubbing Taye’s T-shirts and sweatpants all over Gina in an effort to cover her scent with his. She and Carla practiced synchronizing their walking rhythms so only one set of footsteps would be heard.

“We’ll make as much noise as we can while we walk, so no one will hear you following us,” Rose said encouragingly.

“I want to go too,” Patia protested. “Aunt Rose is going.”

“No.” Carla shook her head. “Your father will be furious enough.” She bit her lip and looked at Gina. “This isn’t a good idea,” she began.

Gina rushed to cut her off. “Don’t change your mind. Please. It will work.”

Carla gave in. “Alright. Patia, stay here and make sure everyone thinks Gina is in her room.”

Patia reluctantly agreed to stay back. “But only if you promise to talk dad into letting me go visit Ray in the hospital tomorrow.”

“Promise. That will be safer than this.” Carla cast Gina another uncertain look. “Okay, you slip out to the garden while I pitch a fit and demand to go to the wall. Be ready to follow us.”

It worked. In a few minutes Carla and Rose came out of the house with a tall, stocky man Gina vaguely recognized. Both women were talking animatedly and walking heavily, almost stomping, really. It made it easy for Gina to walk in time with them, hiding the sound of her footsteps. The streets were completely deserted. The eeriness of it sent a shiver down her back. In all her months in Omaha she’d never seen the city empty. She kept about fifteen yards behind Carla, Rose and their escort, but she wished she could follow more closely, just to be near other breathing humans.

It seemed the wall was just as deserted as the city, at least until a shadow moved from the narrow walkway near the top.

“Lupa?” called a man softly.

The man who came quickly down to the ground was also vaguely familiar, but what caught Gina’s eye was the outline of a door in the wall.

“Lupa?’ he said again with concern. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed to see the door my son left through,” Carla announced in a loudly tragic voice. “Colby,” she choked out, covering her face with her hands. “Oh, Colby.”

Rose put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her away from the door. “Don’t cry, Carla. Come on, it will be okay.”

“Colby,” wailed Carla.

She allowed herself to be pulled several yards away and fell into deep, raw sobs. The two men went with her, making timid, ineffectual sounds of comfort. Carla’s grief and anguish sounded too real to be pure acting. As she moved stealthily toward the door, Gina inwardly promised her mother-in-law that she would free Cole or die trying.