Falling Skies Invasion Alone

Hostage

My hands fiddle with the IV to one of our sleeping patients

"Where's Tom gone?" Lourdes came in with her hands on her hips. She had really stepped up after Anne left. Which I guess meant I had to as well, which I wasn't loving but nevertheless grudgingly did. But Lourdes kept me right.

"Is this you just noticing he's gone?" I questioned, heading out of the room, passing her as she stood in the doorway.

"I asked you to keep an eye on him, Cassie."

"Yeah. And my eyes watched him get up and leave." I shrugged, helplessly. When she gave me her stern doctor look, I groaned. "Lourdes, his wife and daughter are missing. The only way I would have stopped him would be physically restraining him to the bed. You know Tom Mason. He's stubborn as hell."

With a sigh, she conceded. "I guess. I just-"

Like many sentences said in our little Charleston hospital, it wasn't finished.

Rapid gunfire rang out in the grounds outside. The Masons had gone to speak with Paint Face, the rebel Skitter leader. None of them had come back yet.

Lourdes and I barely exchanged a glance before heading to the stairs to get out into the open dark rubble filled land. My eyes shot anxiously across the land, nervously looking for someone who I thought was in danger.

"It's Hal." Peralta came stumbling towards us, clutching her bloody head.

"He's hurt?" I rushed towards her. when she spoke again I jolted back in surprise.

"No. He hit me and grabbed Tom. He's turned." She spat.

Hal had kidnapped his father.

-

Hal's hostage game went on through the night and by daylight, it was clear that there was a real possibility that not every Mason would survive.

I had been excused from my medical duties to go outside with the others to join the waiting game. I could feel the nervousness radiating off of Maggie. Along with a hell of a lot of guilt.

I kept an eye on her as Weaver spoke. He kept going on about how unlike Hal this was. And he was right. It was very unlike Hal but not unlike an Espheni invader.

And then she told Weaver what she had kept to herself, the Hal had been concerned that he had something in him, something alien.

"But then this last week he stopped worrying about it, so I backed off." Maggie's voice strained as she tried her hardest not to make Hal look any worse.

"Maybe that wasn't Hal. Maybe that was the bug taking over him. I mean, you did say he changed quite quickly." I offered. I didn't know if that was helpful or not to say.

And then Pope started. "This is just as much your fault as it is his." He stabbed his finger in Maggie's direction. In my space between Ben and Matt, I could feel the anger moving between the two. "You're just as much the reason why our illustrious president has a gun to his head."

Weaver hesitated before he spoke. "Well. Doesn't matter. Pointing fingers helps nobody right now. The objective is still the same. We try our hardest to get them both out alive."

"Alive?" Pope settled back a little bit, looking at Weaver in horrific shock. "Hal Mason killed Arthur Manchester."

"You have no proof of that!" Maggie snapped at him. I leant my back against the Humvee we were using as a barricade to get out of the verbal firing line.