Chapter 69

Leaving Rain to rest, Adam rushed out of the room, not exactly sure what she was getting at as far as the last part of the scrambled message she’d given him, but he didn’t have much time to think about it at the moment. He needed to make sure Esther and Seth understood the problem at hand. The fact that Mist had attempted to remove her IUD had put them all at risk. Both pieces of the IUD were now sending a signal back to the Mothers to let them know exactly where Mist was located. They needed to find a way to get rid of it. Immediately.
He found Esther and Seth in the kitchen, both chunks of metal from the IUD on a towel on the table as the mother and son hovered over them, talking in hushed tones. “How is Mist?” he asked, thinking of her health first.
“She’s resting,” Esther nodded. “Mary gave her something to help her sleep. How is Rain?”
Adam wasn’t even sure how to answer that question. “Loopy” was the first word that came to mind. “She’s asleep, too,” he said, not daring to let what she’d just said linger. She was delusional and wasn’t even making any sense. “We need to get rid of that thing quickly.” He gestured at the IUD on the table.
“We were just discussing our options.” Seth dragged his hand down his face, gripping his chin before he let go. “Is there some way we can destroy it?”
“No, I got the impression that’s not possible, and it can’t be turned off. I’m hoping that the Mothers will simply get the latitude and longitude, so they’ll be sending their drones and other air forces to wherever the tracker is signaling Mist is located on the surface of the mountain. Whether they’ll get there and think they’ve been tricked or figure out that we’re actually inside of the ground, I can’t say, but you are confident they can’t get in here to us before I can get it out, right?”
“Get it out?” Esther echoed. “What do you have in mind, Adam?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I can’t leave it here. If I can get out of here, and take the tracker with me, I can lead them away from Judea. They’ll likely follow.”
“On foot?” Seth asked, placing his hands on his hips as he stared at Adam. “They’ll catch you and cut you down before you can get five miles’ distance.”
Adam swallowed hard, figuring he was probably right. They’d likely send a heliobird in if they thought they had a clear location on the group. He doubted they would actually shoot him if there was a chance they could take him hostage and torture the truth out of him so that they could find the others, but either way, it wouldn’t be a happy ending for him. Still, he couldn’t leave the tracker in there with Rain and the others, and he couldn’t ask Seth or anyone else to risk taking it out. It had to be him, and all he had was his own two feet. “Yeah, maybe,” he finally said in response to Seth’s statement. “But I don’t know what else to do.”
The room was quiet for a long moment as Adam contemplated his chances of getting the IUD far enough away from their current location so that the rest of the party could make a run for it and not be found. Would the Mothers continue to comb the area where the tracker first went off, or would they send all of their forces after him? He knew his chances of drawing them all away from their present location weren’t good, but he had to try. It wasn’t until he’d already resolved himself to the fact that he’d just have to run as fast as he could, as far as he could, and hope for the best, that he realized there was a silent conversation going on between Esther and Seth, one he assumed he wouldn’t have been able to decipher even if he would’ve been paying attention from the beginning.
Esther was shaking her head, her eyes penetrating into her son’s eyes. He was nodding, just as assuredly. Esther broke the silence. “It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s the only way.” Seth’s voice was just as measured.
“No, it’s not,” his mama retaliated. “It’s not our fight.”
“It is now. Grandfather would disagree with you, Mom. He said….”
“I know what Grandfather Abel said.” Esther leaned back, her arms folded. “He was my father. You don’t have to remind me of his philosophies.”
Seth leaned on the table, both palms flat. “Then you know. He believed, more than anything that it wasn’t enough to patrol our border, that we needed to make a difference. That’s why he brought us here! That’s why he dedicated his life to trying to do something--anything--to make their plight better. He died before he got that chance, Mama, but we have the opportunity now to do it. So. Let. Me. Do. It.”
Esther’s eyes narrowed to slits as she breathed heavily through her nostrils, her lips pressed together in a thin line. Adam looked from one of them to the other and then back again before he quietly said, “We need to move. Quickly. Whatever it is you wanna do, Seth, I’ll do it. I’ll take the IUD. I’ll go wherever I need to. But we need to act.”
Esther’s mouth dropped open, but then, as Seth continued to stare at her, she closed it, turned her head for a moment, her lips moving in what Adam could only assume was some sort of a silent prayer. When she finally spoke, her voice was a harsh whisper. “Fine, Seth Samuel. You can fulfill the duties you spoke of yesterday, but you will let Adam take the IUD.”
Seth’s eyebrows raised as he stood upright. He contemplated her response and then said, “Mom, he won’t know how to ride the motorbike. It’s the fastest way to the river.”
“You will do as I say.” Esther had her confidence back.
Slowly, Seth nodded and then turned to Adam. “We were discussing our options, before, when you were with Rain. There is a large westerly flowing river about a day and a half’s ride on a motorbike from here. I was hoping to take the IUD and toss it in the river. That way, it will be moving away from Judea. It would give the four of you a chance to let Mist recover for a bit and then strike out north. I wanted to let you take my grandfather’s pickup. Originally, before this happened with Mist, I had planned to drive you myself, but now, I want to take the IUD and let the four of you have the pickup. Mom doesn’t like either of those plans. She thinks they are too dangerous.”
Esther interrupted. “They are too dangerous.”
Seth breathed hard but didn’t swivel his head to look at his mother. His face turned a slight shade of red, from anger or frustration. “Mama says you can take my bike to dispose of the IUD while I drive the others north. This concerns me because I’m pretty sure you don’t know how to ride a motorbike.”
“I don’t,” Adam said quickly. “But I can learn.”
“It’s not easy,” Seth replied, turning his head to the side and looking at him through one eye as he spoke. “It took me weeks of practice when I learned.”
“You were ten years old.” Esther had her arms folded now, clearly not liking any of the discussion but also not shooting them down.
Again, Seth didn’t look at her. “I’ll try showing you. But if it doesn’t seem like you can handle it, we’ll have to come up with another plan.” With that last bit, he turned and looked at his mother. Her chin was in the air, still defiant.
Adam nodded. “Yes, that sounds good. I’ll… do whatever you recommend. I’m sure I can learn.”
“All right then,” Seth said, letting out an audible breath. “Then… let’s go.”
Esther sighed loudly. “I’ll have your brother, Peter, prepare the gas cans. He won’t be able to make it all the way to the river without refueling, but there will be no place to stop along the way.”
“I’ll need some as well,” Seth reminded her. “If we need more, I can buy some. I have plenty saved, Mom.”
“That money is supposed to be for land, Seth,” she said, that motherly tone back.
“There are more important things, Mother.” Seth’s feet were moving now. Adam followed, ready to have the heated discussion over with and move on with the plan. Whether or not he could actually learn to ride the motorbike quickly enough remained to be seen. Doubt entered his mind since he had no idea what a motorbike even was. But he’d figure it out. He had to. The quicker he got that ticking time bomb away from Rain, the better they all would be.