Page 137 of The Story of You

Dr. Price was in the middle of more instructions when a woman walked into the room. Her nametag said, Virginia Anton. “Hello, Mr. Randall. May I have a word with you?”

Darius nodded carefully in a silent exchange we had. He’d replace me on the bed. Oliver wasn’t having it. “Nooooo! No, Darry. I want, Baba.”

Dr. Price had taken a strong liking to Oliver. “Virginia, what’s this about?”

“Mr. Randall looks awfully young to have a son that age. I made some phone calls.”

The blood drained from my body. Miss Anton was one of the hospital’s social workers. She was just doing her job, but it was really fucking inconvenient for me at the time.

“I know Silas is his older brother,” Dr. Price said.

“Yes, but did you know that he’s a reported runaway,” she said indicating Darius. “I did some further digging. Their parents are dead. Just an uncle listed in case Darius was ever found.”

Apparently, she was a fucking sleuth too.

But wait, had she saidparents?

The questions were wild in Darius’s eyes too, but we didn’t dare ask.

“They’re nice boys, Virginia. Silas is an adult. I’ve seen no reason for alarm.”

“You might be so callous, Dr. Price, but they’re not leaving until I can be sure he’s in proper care,” she said indicating Oliver. “You two, come with me. I have questions. If I get satisfactory answers, I might allow you back with him.”

I stood slowly. Darius says that it was that day I truly earned my eagle name as Harpy. As I walked toward her, she backed away. “You are not separating us. And you won’t be getting another step closer to him.”

It could have gone a lot of ways. She could have had me apprehended by hospital security since I was threatening her. She would have had a good case.

Darius disagrees. He said the look in my eyes only dictated one outcome.

She nodded. “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Randall.”

We would later learn she’d been watching us since we arrived Friday and she’d been a very busy bee making calls since then.

I watched her walk away. She’d ignited my predatory switch. I wanted to clip her spine with my talons.

“I’ll talk to her, boys. I’m sure we can figure this out,” Dr. Price said.

I don’t know what was normal for doctors to do. This seemed above and beyond, but he’d taken a shine to us.

When he left, Darius let out a breath. “Do you think he could be dead?”

“I don’t know.” And I didn’t know if that was better or worse. Someone was threatening to take Oliver. Suddenly, with only Dad chasing us, it seemed manageable. If the state got involved, what if they put him in a home where I couldn’t access him? If we needed to, we could try another hospital. “We need to get out of here.”

“I’m with you on that, bro.”

Simon ran into the room. “Shit. You guys. Did you say your dad was blond, looks a lot like Darius, green eyes?”

“Yeah,” Darius said.

Simon pulled out a walkie-talkie from his jeans. “Ash. Dark eagle has landed. Over.”

“Where did you get walkie-talkies from?” I asked.

“Radio Shack,” Darius said.

“Those were not approved in the budget.”

“We didn’t have time to go through the regular channels,” Darius said. “We really should have had them all along. I have a long list of other stuff we’re going to need after this.”