Shielding Instinct, page 23
“I have my own untested theories and would be happy to speculate based on brain science and lived experience.”
“I’d be interested.” He pulled the ruck back into place, and they started off again.
“Researchers are only now starting to get the funding they need to better understand what’s been true of our society since the beginning of time—people are wired differently. Now, we say neurotypical people and neurodivergent people. Primitive societies understand that some people are better at hoeing the ground, pounding the corn, tanning the leather, and making spearheads. And there are others whose efforts benefit their clan in a different way. Finding and honoring what your brain is tuned for and having those expectations of yourself are ways that help neurodivergent people and neurotypical people function as a cohesive and beneficial whole.”
As the path opened up, Petra waited for Hawkeye and Cooper to take a step, so they were side by side and she was back holding Hawkeye’s hand.
Hawkeye popped his brows and sent her a grin. “Those with micro-amygdala shouldn’t look down on people who experience a healthy amount of fear.”
“That goes without saying.” Her eyes were a funny combination of laughter and pain.
They walked a while in silence, and then Hawkeye redirected her thoughts. “Hunter-gatherers?”
“People who are comfortable don’t explore. Those who need a dopamine hit have a chemical push to get them up and searching for something new. That works for both hunters and gatherers—the chemical prod.” Petra squeezed her hand around a leaf she was passing, then brought her palm up to her nose to sniff. “It would also be true for the healers who created cures—herbal or otherwise—observation, curiosity, drive to know and understand, test and assess, laser-focused on a specific niche expertise like energy meridians.”
“What would happen if I stuck a needle in this guy's foot?”
Cooper stilled, ears on a swivel.
“I wonder how to use this root. I wonder if I can eat that berry. What happens when I prepare it like this and mix these things together?” Petra added.
“I mean, whoever figured out chocolate was a mad genius.” Hawkeye pulled a bar from his side pocket and offered it to Petra. Cora had told him chocolate was a dopamine hit that helped her regulate her system like coffee was. That might be true of chocolate for Petra, too.
Petra smiled as she pulled back the wrapper and broke off a couple of squares before handing the rest of the bar back. “Thank you.” She took a bite and pointed toward her mouth. “People with neurodivergence often have heightened taste perceptions, which has its good sides and its bad. That tasted so good, thank you.”
“If that’s true,” Hawkeye said, “then exploration isn’t just ‘what’s on the other side of this hill.’ It could be ‘I’ll try that plant, but it subtly tastes of a chemical that made me sick before, better to spit it back out.’”
Petra said, “Which leads me to another unusual trait. Neurodivergent people typically forget to eat or drink throughout the day.”
Hawkeye chuckled, “Cora says she isn’t hungry until we put food in front of her. Then she’s inhaling it like she’s been starved for days.”
“You ordered pizza that first day after I said I hadn’t eaten. Once it arrived in front of me, I realized I was famished.”
“Fascinating when you think about all of this big picture.” He lifted his free hand in a sweeping gesture. “We were talking Darwin yesterday. When you think about it, yes, not having an appetite until the right time is game-changing. I’m thinking about being on missions where my stomach became a distraction during the boring points, on most long walks, for example. If you can forget about your stomach, life is that much easier, right? And hunting, how does that play here?”
“A heightened awareness of how systems work, which helps the hunter capture their prey; and heightened attention to details, which helps them—”
“Stay alive while hunting prey,” Hawkeye said. “I’m scanning through my brothers and on that piece alone, I’m starting to see patterns of who we relied on—and not to diagnose—but let’s just say I have a bit more clarity on who rose in leadership because of elbow rubbing and who rose because their skills kept us safe.”
“Right and thinking of the military, there are those who were at the base and those who sought out roles where they’d be far afield. Those who don’t mind being away from society to accomplish their tasks. They probably prefer it to some extent.”
Hawkeye thought back to all the books he’d read about anthropology, and he wanted to read them again through these new lenses. Petra was right; it took a village. Those who stayed, those who wandered; they had a variety of interests and talents, each doing what they could to keep their community safe—just like in the outposts when he deployed.
Survival of the fittest could very well have meant survival by doing the thing you were fittest to do in a community.
And now he had a good reason to answer that ice-breaker conversation, “Living or dead, if you could have a conversation with anyone, who would it be?” Hawkeye didn’t have a go-to answer for that. His answer was usually tied to whatever caught his interest at that moment. Right now, Darwin would be top of the list.
“I’m still thinking about soldiers. Here’s another trait,” Petra said. “Neurodivergent people often have very high pain tolerance, and when called on in an emergency, they become laser-focused on resolving the crisis. Seemingly pre-trained strategic moves come fully formed into our heads, and sudden super strength.”
“I really want you to meet Cora,” Hawkeye said, his gaze casting out over the vista, where he could see a flash of blue ocean amongst the leaves as they approached the ridgeline. “I think she needs to hear your perspective on all this. I think my parents would benefit from hearing it, too. My parents did everything possible to ease Cora’s life and help her fit in. But they were always told that she had to fight against her disability, which is—from what you’re saying—an ability that isn’t understood or properly utilized. We’re back to the fish climbing a tree meme.”
“Teaching someone to mask who they are to make others feel more comfortable and ‘fit in’?” Petra used finger quotes. “That’s exhausting and leads to burnout—like going to bed for five or six months, barely being able to crawl to the bathroom, being too tired to chew, kind of burn out.”
He stopped and turned to her. “That happened to Cora. They said it was chronic fatigue, and they thought it was some virus that did it to her. She was fine. Highly successful at her work, a brilliant surgeon. And then she wasn’t. And isn’t. She’s still brilliant. She’s just not able to handle the surgeries anymore.”
“Yeah. That’s how it happens.” Her voice sounded beaten down.
Hawkeye stopped to make sure Petra heard him say this and took it in. If Petra was anything like Cora, she’d be second-guessing every second of the day and finding all the ways that she didn’t live up to the moment. “Petra, this whole weekend has been nuts, and you’ve been amazing.”
She blinked at him.
“Not sarcasm—Cora always thinks my compliments are sarcasm. I say this with sincerity. You were remarkable in every way possible.”
And instead of saying thank you and accepting his praise, Petra deflected by telling a story.
“Ever since I was a kid, it’s like a switch goes off in me. I remember a friend was getting bullied out in the middle of the lake on the diving platform. I remember diving into the water, and the next thing I knew, I had this teenage boy in a hold with his arm locked up behind his back. I knew what word he was saying as I dove in. He hadn’t finished the sentence when I had him constrained. Of course, I was in the middle of the lake with this guy’s arm behind his back. I didn’t have a next action in mind because I never knew I was going to do that first one. And the crisis was over, so the good idea fairy had flown away.” She shrugged. “I don’t remember how that resolved.”
“One of my Cerberus brothers, Ridge, is married to an artist named Harper. She does that. She’s moving along, and then her body is in motion, doing heroic things. She’s put herself in peril to save lives that way. Often to her great detriment. Her actions have led to complications that have had dire ramifications for her.”
Petra let her hand rest on Cooper’s head and looked up at Hawkeye.
There it was, that sensation of—the words “hitch” and “coupling” were coming to mind. And Hawkeye could see it in his mind’s eye how two pieces were brought together and connected. He’d never considered those words and how the physical, tactile meaning was a good representation of their emotional meaning. Like the word “click,” he’d thought before.
But the intensity he felt toward Petra wasn’t the same energy he was getting back from her. He knew what he wanted—time to get to know her, a relationship that grew warmer and deeper. But he wasn’t convinced that Petra was interested in him beyond this weekend and the calming of the hoopla.
Change the energy, change the outcome, a personal truism. Hawkeye would have a direct conversation with her. Tell her his thoughts, ask her about hers. Maybe they could do that over dinner.
Standing very still, Petra’s gaze focused on the ground.
Petra mentioned that she didn’t like surprises, so Hawkeye decided to ask her now if they might talk that through. He wanted her to have time to think, or maybe she didn’t need to think. Maybe she’d quickly shut him down. He had to be prepared for that. “I—” he started.
“Shh,” Petra yanked his arm. Her eyes flashed up. “Do you hear that?” she whispered.
Before he could answer, her eyes were on the ground again. She was holding her breath.
He didn’t hear a damned thing. But after all the doors he’d breached in his career, his hearing was in pretty bad shape.
“There, that.” She looked up at him, and seeing his blank expression, turned to Cooper.
Cooper stood rigidly, posture thrust forward, ears rotating then stilling. He obviously heard something, too.
“Could Cooper find it for me?” she whispered.
Turning to look over his shoulder at Hawkeye, Cooper waited for a command.
“Cooper, find it,” Hawkeye said, wondering just what they were going to be chasing after.
When Cooper took off through the woods, Hawkeye and Petra raced to keep up.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Petra
When Cooper got his order to “find it,” things happened fast.
Hawkeye was crashing through the foliage, heading after his dog.
Petra didn’t know how these things worked, but she got the general impression that this was not it. She tried to recall what she’d learned about K9 searches. It seemed to her that the dogs would go out sniffing around as a K9 handler walked in the general direction.
If the dog found something, they’d hustle back to their person and signal them. Then they’d track to the spot.
But that was a scent, wasn’t it?
Was there a different technique if a dog was going after a sound?
To be fair, Hawkeye didn’t hear it.
And Petra wasn’t sure what it was she’d heard. Injured animal? Local bird?
She’d never heard that sound before. The cry was unmusical. It didn’t repeat in the same way any of the three times she heard it.
And there was that essence to it—that quality of “call to the universe.”
Melissa had done that yesterday when she’d stood on the rocks. She’d been holding hands with Terry one moment, a wave came and snatched him from her the next. She saw his head in the sea. Then he was gone. She was sure that gone meant gone.
And Melissa’s calling to his soul was what brought Petra to the scene.
That event reminded Petra of the time she was in Hawaii on a perfectly beautiful day. She was looking over the cliff. The Pacific was like a lapis lazuli below her. Gorgeous.
When the group was called over to eat, Petra turned and as she stepped forward, she knew something unexpected was happening, but didn’t have time for her brain to process. It felt like a water giant reached out its wave hand and tried to snatch her off the cliff. Her then-husband reached out and grabbed the camera strap that was around her neck, and that was enough of a counterbalance that Petra didn’t plunge backward over the cliff to her death.
So even though he was a shithead, he did ostensibly save her life. Yes, she was glad to be alive, but still, she wished that wasn’t part of their shared history.
She didn’t really want to remember that day.
Or her ex.
But after yesterday, it was inevitable.
Not every relationship was like her marriage. Sometimes people could be mutually respectful and caring.
She certainly didn’t have to think that if she tried for a relationship with Hawkeye, it would be destined for pain and grief.
What did he call her? Amazing. Remarkable.
That had been her experience with him. I mean, here he is chasing through the dense rainforest with no clue what he’s going after because I heard a noise.
“Oh shit,” Hawkeye said, coming to an abrupt stop. “Petra, maybe you need to—”
He stepped out of the way, reaching for Petra and guiding her forward.
There, on the ground, lay a little girl. Curled into a ball, she used an exposed root as a pillow of sorts. There on her neck was a bright red welt. The same welt Petra had seen at the tidepool when the child had yanked her necklace off and tossed it seaward. This was the Johnsons’s daughter.
This was not one of the scenarios Petra had envisioned and offered to Rowan, who was probably about to land in St. Croix with two fellow FBI special agents all because of the picture of that necklace.
Petra swallowed down her emotions. “Hello, sweetheart. Do you remember me? I met you the other day when you and your mommy were at the tidepool.”
The child didn’t turn toward Petra but scowled ferociously at Hawkeye. Anger and fear filled her eyes. Her body was fierce. She was a tiny warrior in a mud-covered bathing suit.
“My name is Petra. What’s your name?” She took a step closer.
The child focused on Cooper who stretched out as a barricade between her and Petra.
Petra thought Cooper was using his body to give the child a sense of safety from the adults. But he was doing it strategically. He wasn’t guarding her. If Petra reached for the child, it would be allowed.
Cooper’s origin story came to mind, how he stopped Hawkeye’s truck and kept the baby on the blanket. Cooper seemed to know what a youngling needed.
Petra would defer to Cooper and stay on this side of his body barricade.
“Where are your brothers?” Petra slowly lowered herself until her butt was on the ground.
“She has brothers? How many children are we talking about?” Hawkeye handed Petra his water bottle.
“It was a family of five,” she said as she unscrewed the top. “And older brother maybe six or seven. And younger brother maybe three or four?” Petra showed the bottle to Cooper, then stretched it past him to set it down beside the child. “Parents in their mid-to-late-thirties.”
Hawkeye shifted to the side and started inspecting the foliage and the dirt. Petra assumed he was looking for tracks.
Petra pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs, and, in this position, remained perfectly still.
Just like earlier with the Rotti, Petra wanted to give this child a moment to acclimate. After all, two adults and a dog had burst through the foliage.
Something traumatic had obviously happened to this child between this moment and the last time Petra had seen her without her necklace on the cliff.
Did this have something to do with her necklace being missing?
Petra looked through her lashes as she scanned the child’s body. There were no marks or bruises that looked like blows. Mostly, she was filthy, and her hair was wild with debris.
She had two white rivulets where her tears had cut through the dirt on her face, and her eyes were red and swollen from crying.
“What are we doing, Petra?” Hawkeye asked, his voice warm and low. He stood away from them, seeming to have taken the “who do you want in the woods, a man or a bear” responses from women quite seriously as he kept his distance.
“Did you find tracks?” she asked in return.
“They’re single barefooted tracks that go on for a short distance. I don’t want to go farther right now.”
Petra pulled out her phone but before she looked, Hawkeye said, “No bars, no satellite.”
She turned back to the child and showed her the photo from the day before. “That’s you at the tidepool. There’s your little brother. Did you hike out here with your brothers?”
The child glanced at the phone with disinterest. There was no spark of recognition. No “Where is my daddy?” Instead, she scooted closer to Cooper and threw a leg over him as she clung to his ear.
A thumb went into her mouth.
Call-back to self-soothing as a baby?
“You’re out in the woods. Can you tell me how you got here?”
Nothing.
Petra was done pestering the child. These questions obviously weren’t going to give her the answers she wanted. The child needed a hospital. The authorities needed to track down her parents.
Could the parents have left her behind purposefully if they were leaving the country?
Wow, that was a dark thought.
Sure, if Petra was making up a story about that, the family could have decided this was the throw-away child. They left her to be found, dead or alive, to further the story that the family had succumbed to some terrible event. No reason to look for their live happy bodies doing the rumba in South America.
That was how they’d treated her, like a black sheep. Kind of the outcast. And looking back, that could be why the child looked at her mom with abhorrence and why she’d dragged off the necklace.
Another crazy idea was that the child pulling off her necklace meant she was going outside of some teachings of “the bigger family’ the mother had talked about. And so, she was dismissed from the fold.
