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“I just mean…” Garin glanced at the clock again. He had to get going. “I’ll talk to them about it later.”
“Why?” Beaty frowned and the stubborn glint in her eye told Garin he really didn’t have time for the conversation. “The Labs are the perfect opportunity for them. It’s exactly what their degrees are for.”
“I know that.” Garin held up a placating hand to his sister. “I know that. I just want to make sure it’s what they really want.”
“Alright.” Beaty rolled her eyes and carried him back through the living room and into the kitchen, where Garin spied the tops of grocery bags.
“Alright. I’ll call back after I get Mom’s meds sorted.” Garin mentally added to his growing to-do list the task of talking sense into the twin boys, then returned to his room. “Anything else I should know? Need anything?”
“No, we’re good here.” Beaty started unloading the grocery bags. “Thanks, Kev.”
“Of course, Beaty.” Garin paused long enough to smile at his little sister, despite the near spat. “Love you.”
Beaty smiled back, her pretty face lighting up. “Love you, too. Talk to you later.”
Beaty disappeared and Garin stuffed his bulky old tablet into the hip pocket opposite his gun. He didn’t expect trouble on the tiny research compound, but that was even more reason to be ready for it.
It used to be people wanted to kill or kidnap the Turner brothers for a chance at their obscenely massive fortune. But ever since Dominic Turner had engineered a biological weapon and seen it unleashed on an entire continent, people were as likely to take a shot at him on ideological grounds. And the ideological types were the worst.
Garin stepped into the hall and locked the door behind him. He’d left Dom in the laboratory wing of the compound, under the care of Patrick Smith. Smith was more than capable of keeping the younger man safe, but Dom was Garin’s responsibility, so he quick-stepped it from the living quarters and out into the dry air of Qesha’s dead land.
Dust immediately clogged his nostrils, and he scrubbed them with a scowl. There’d been a time when he wouldn’t have blinked at a harsh landscape, but years in the Turner Family’s employ had softened him. Now he wrinkled his nose as every footstep on the dirt road between the labs kicked up little toxic clouds.
The only paved road in the compound ran perpendicular to his, carving through the smattering of low-lying buildings. A freight cruiser trundled along it, barely visible over the top of the roofs, likely carrying supplies for the scientists and soldiers insane enough to have requested this posting.
Scientists like the one twenty paces ahead, ambling in the same direction as Garin. He walked so slowly, Garin would catch up before they reached the lab. A qesh by the look of him, but not dressed like any qesh Garin had ever seen. No robes, for one thing. He wore only dirt-streaked and well-worn field clothes: a tough-looking jacket and pants that hugged his narrow hips so snugly Garin’s eyes lingered far longer than they should have.
Above his well-attired ass hung the expected long white hair sported by most qesh, but instead of a loose, sweeping curtain, this scientist wore his hair in a practical braid. It swayed back and forth as he tilted and turned his head to study the rack of test tubes he held in his long hands.
Garin snorted.
The man was lucky their road was straight and smooth. His little glass vials completely absorbed him. He wouldn’t notice if he stomped right through a puddle. A sink hole maybe. Garin’s lips quirked. What was it like to be so intensely focused on a single thing? So captivated the world faded away?
There had been so many things to worry about for so long, Garin couldn’t remember the last time he’d only thought about one. A carousel of faces needing tending spun through his mind: Mom, Beaty, Ethan, Lucas, Oliver, Dominic, his security team, his old Vanguard unit, anyone else looking to him for anything at any time. Then back around again to Mom, Beaty, Ethan, Lucas, Oliver, Dominic and again and again.
But that qesh with the long braid and the great ass saw nothing but the colorful liquid refracting the light of the blazing sun above them.
Garin huffed.
How nice for him.
Motion in the upper right of Garin’s vision cone caught his eye. The freight cruiser lumbered down the road, crossing his and the qesh’s path. It didn’t speed by any means, but something that heavy didn’t need to speed to do damage. So, it would be nicer if the qesh saw a little more than his pretty test tubes.
“Hey!” Garin picked up his pace. “Excuse me!”
The scientist cocked his head and held up a purple vial to the light as he walked.
“Hey, sir!” Garin waved an arm as he broke into a job. The cruiser dipped out of sight behind a building, but its engine rumbled as it hurtled toward them. “Hold up!”
The scientist’s slow pace and the freighter’s blind momentum perfectly timed them for a catastrophic collision the moment the scientist stepped out from the shadow of the building, and still the qesh moseyed along.
“Shit!” Garin did not want to see the silly, pretty scientist reduced to a smear on the street of a shitty research station and he shot forward into a run. “Wait!”
He dashed the final dozen yards and lunged for the scientist as he reached the edge of the street. His palm wrapped around the qesh’s upper arm and instantly the surprisingly strong biceps under his fingers tensed.
“Get off me!” The qesh yanked away and spun around with wide eyes. Fear flashed through those large, dark orbs, before fury drove it out and the bursts of red on his cheeks shifted into blue.
Garin’s heart stopped as the qesh stumbled back toward the oncoming freight cruiser and he grabbed the qesh’s wrists. “No, hold on?—”
