Page 11 of Chaos Destiny
“What was what?” I asked.
“You didn’t hear that? It almost sounded like,” he frowned, “a baby.”
“Really, Omar? A baby?”
He chuckled. “You’re right. I think my blood sugar’s getting low. We need to get back.”
No gunshots followed; we tried to shoot as little as possible due to noise and ammo preservation. However, there were four thuds, and I held my breath until Memphis returned and poked his head out into the hallway.
“All is safe, Your Majesty.”
I rolled my eyes, entered, and nearly fell to my knees.
It was a pharmacy.
An extremely well-stocked pharmacy.
“Grab whatever you can,” I said. “We’ll have to find a way to secure this before we leave. Tomorrow, we’ll send another team out to collect more.”
We filled our backpacks.
I started to look toward the hallway, just in case our unannounced visitor decided to have a change of heart, but something caught my eye.
I rushed forward and grabbed a can.
“Baby formula?” Tasia asked, walking up behind me. “Think we need that?”
“Just because we don’t have babies now doesn’t mean we won’t,” I pointed out. “Our place is growing. There are bound to be babies.”
“That’s what breastmilk is for,” Tasia added.
“Breastmilk might not always be available, especially in an already undernourished population.” I dropped a few cans in my backpack, found an empty box, and collected a few more. “I’m here. Might as well listen to my advice.”
She laughed. “Might as well.”
I pointed to the hallway. “Phil, you already cleared that room there, right?”
He glanced my way. “Uh...yes. Yes, I did.”
“It looks like an admin unit. I’m going to take a quick peek and see if there’s anything we might be able to use. Memphis, Dallas, your packs are full, right?”
The twins nodded.
“Guard the front entrance. Make sure whoever killed that bugger out front doesn’t come back.”
Memphis and Dallas made their way to the front.
I headed to the room where I’d heard the coo, my heart pounding so hard that it gave me an instant headache. Theperson hadn’t yet shifted, and with how neatly they’d obscured themselves in the darkness, I realized I might have been wrong.
This wasn’t an amateur.
They simply had precious cargo.
All I could see through a sliver of light coming through a boarded-up window was a shock of blond hair.
“I won’t tell them you’re in here,” I whispered, setting down a couple of cans of formula, a few bottles of broad-spectrum antibiotics, and anti-inflammatories. “I just want to leave these. I know you have a baby, and trust me, I’m not here to hurt the baby. This formula? It’s specially formulated for children with low birth weight, dietary restrictions—things like that. I don’t know what shape the baby’s in, but this can only help.”
Silence followed.
