When the phone rang again, she half listened and half didn’t. It was Merk again on the other end, but she couldn’t hear all the conversation. Just as she was deciding if she should give it up or not, she felt sleep crashing in on her, and she slowly closed her eyes and went out.
*
Damon walked over to check on Tasha. At least this time she was finally out cold. That was good because she was one of those people who worked hard and then crashed hard, as if somebody had literally just pulled the plug. It was a fascinating thing to watch, and something that he himself had cultivated as a skill for when he was out on missions. But he didn’t see very many other people doing it themselves, and it was his first opportunity to see it working on someone else. It was kind of freaky.
When he walked back over, Terk looked up and asked, “Any change?”
His friend shook his head. “She’s still out cold.”
“And that’s probably the best way for her to be.” Terk added, “They did get x-rays on Celia, and Ice’s father agrees that she’s fine without surgery, but she’ll need time to recuperate. Well, that’s probably the best-case scenario because she’s safe where she is, with Levi.”
“How safe can they be?” Damon asked, looking over at Terk.
“They’re on high alert, fully aware that she was sent to them on purpose.”
“And why would they do that?”
“A message. That I can get to you, wherever you are, anytime, and all of those around you. I didn’t even know she was important, and here she was, already tortured and a captive.”
“But it’s not your fault,” Damon stated. “You didn’t know them. Hell, you didn’t even know Celia.” He looked closely at Terk’s face for confirmation.
Terk shook his head. “I don’t know her.”
“Did you ever do a sperm donation?”
He winced. “Yeah, don’t worry. I already thought of that, but I didn’t do anything formal.”
“So, … you want to tell me how they got your sperm?”
He glared at him. “I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure that out.”
“Sex with somebody who might have done something funky to keep it alive right away?” Damon asked, trying to make it a little more delicately understood.
Terk snorted at that. “You know that I’ve kept myself separated from all relationships.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t hire somebody for an hour,” he suggested. “Nobody would blame you.”
“I would blame myself,” he said. “Things have been in a shithole for a while.”
“I know you felt that way because you couldn’t resolve a couple cases in the best way possible and then this issue with the bosses. You can’t control others.”
“We’ve done so well,” he noted, “and I fought so hard to keep the department open. I thought we were good and then boom. We’re not good.”
“What are the chances that they told you that they were fighting for you, but they were really just pushing the timeline so they could shut you down?”
“That’s exactly what they did.” He stood, stretched, rotated his head and neck. “The only thing I can think of, and I really hate the thought, is on the one mission about nine months ago,” he explained, “when I was injured.”
“And?”
“Remember? I was put into private nursing care for a few months, until I recovered.”
“Months? I think that was only a few weeks.”
“Well, it felt like months. Anything that kept me off work felt like an eternity.”
“And you’re thinking that maybe that’s when your sperm was harvested?”
Terk tested that phrase out in his mind and realized this was probably what had been done to him. “I don’t know what else it could have been,” he stated. “Aside from being knocked out cold when I didn’t know about it at another time, that’s the only time I can think of that somebody could have gotten their hands on me. You know what? I almost had a vasectomy when I was younger because I didn’t want children.” He shrugged. “And now to think that a child of mine is growing in a strange woman’s belly, who probably had no choice in the matter either, that is some kind of freaky.”
“You think she was inseminated?”
“Well, let’s just say, I didn’t do the job.” He frowned. “I mean it. I have never met her before in my life.”
“What if she looked differently?” he asked in an odd tone.
“You mean, like they changed her appearance, or she did? Like maybe she was working for somebody and was the person they utilized for this? I don’t know. I don’t know what else to say.” He paused. “I don’t remember her, but I can also tell you that, on an energy level, I don’t know this woman.”
“Ah, that’s a completely different story then, isn’t it? God, what the hell does that actually mean then?”
“I don’t know,” Terk muttered quietly. “But it’s pretty damn frustrating to think that this is what my life and my offspring has come down to. Already my child, nonexistent in most people’s minds at this stage, is being held hostage by some asshole with a plan all his own.”
And, for the first time, Damon could see the absolute fury among the intense emotions rolling through his friend, as he verbalized what he thought had happened.
“That—” Damon stopped. There were no words to describe how something like that could even feel. He knew perfectly well about Terk’s attempt to have a vasectomy when he was younger because he didn’t want to procreate, didn’t want to add anybody else to his family who could then be used against him. “How likely is it that somebody knew that’s how you felt?” Damon asked quietly.
Terk looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Well, that’s a huge issue for you, right? I mean, that’s why you wanted the vasectomy, and that’s why you were so disciplined to make sure to never leave any offspring anywhere around the world,” he murmured, “because you felt so strongly about it. What if this was done deliberately because somebody knew that’s how you felt?”
At that, Terk crashed into the chair closest to him. “God, that would be like having actually created this with my thoughts.”
“Well, I wasn’t quite considering that,” Damon said, “and I know that anybody in this type of work knows perfectly well that keeping your thoughts open and contained and within a positive force was damn important in order to keep a balance and to keep an eye on everything churning around them.”
Damon stood and paced around the room. “It’s just a thought that came to me when you were so adamant about not having done this—that the one thing happening is the thing you worked so hard to prevent. It doesn’t seem coincidental, you know? Do we even know if this woman wanted a child?”
“Who knows?” he replied absentmindedly. “It would come down to whether she believed that this was an absent anonymous donor or if she had any idea that she’s already been inseminated or if she thinks it’s her boyfriend’s child or something.”