Read Precinct 11 - 01 - The Brotherhood for Free Online

he do that? Didn’t he still work miracles?
    Wasn’t it enough that he and Nikki had lost the most precious gift they had ever received? Was there not something in modern medical science that could allow Nikki to grow tissue, get eye transplants, keep her limbs, even her fingers and toes? Boone didn’t care if her dramatic beauty never returned. He loved that about her, of course, was proud of her, had never tired of just gazing at her. But what he really loved was her person, her character, who she was.
    “You’ve got to be hungry,” Pastor Sosa said. “You didn’t get any lunch, did you?”
    “We didn’t,” Keller said. “I’ll get us all something, but you know it’s gonna be something out of a machine.”
    “I couldn’t eat,” Boone said.
    “Even if you don’t feel hungry, you need nourishment,” Sosa said. “Just something to keep you functioning.”
    “I need to see Nikki. I just know someone’s going to come in here with the bad news, and I’ll have missed any chance to say good-bye.”
    “Murari won’t let that happen if he can help it, Boone. You know that.”
    Keller stood to go get the food. “I’ll see what I can find out, too.”
    Boone felt himself beginning to hyperventilate and puffed his cheeks to blow and try to slow his respiration. “What’m I gonna do, Pastor? I can’t live without them.”
    “You’re going to find out what the body of Christ is all about, Boone. You will not believe how your brothers and sisters will rally around you, stand by you, minister to you.”
    It was all Boone could do to keep from slamming both fists on the table and cursing the pastor and God. He knew the man meant well, and he had little doubt that the people of Community Life would do just what Sosa had said. But nothing would be enough to dull this pain, and Boone couldn’t imagine attending that church alone.
    “I’ve got to call Nikki’s parents. How am I going to tell them?”
    “You need me to do that?” Sosa said.
    Boone shook his head. “They have to hear it from me.” He dialed their home in Alaska, where her father, Steve McNickle, was stationed at the Elmendorf Air Force Base as an attorney with the Area Defense Counsel. Nikki’s mother, Pam, was a nurse at the base hospital.
    The phone went to voice mail, and Boone panicked. “Uh, yeah, Mom and Dad McNickle, I’ll try to call you on your cells or at work. We’ve got a serious emergency here, so call me on my cell if you get this before I reach you.”
    Boone tried to reach Steve at his office, only to be told that he was researching a case in the field. He left a message and, while dialing Pam McNickle’s cell, got a call from their home.
    “This is Boone.”
    “It’s Pam. What’s wrong?”
    It sounded like such a cliché to urge her to sit down, but he didn’t know how else to start. He knew she could tell from his voice that this was no broken arm or ordinary emergency room visit. “Pam, this is the hardest call I’ve ever had to make.”
    Boone heard her stop breathing. To spare her even worse agony, he gushed the news of the fire, that Josh had been killed, and that Nikki was not expected to live.
    “Oh, God, oh, God,” she prayed. “No. Boone, no.”
    He told her he was at the hospital and gave her the address and phone number.
    She sounded hollow and spoke in a monotone. “I’ve got to reach Steve. We’ll get there as soon as we can get a flight. Would I be able to talk to Nikki? Could they put her on the phone?”
    “She’s in surgery.”
    “Boone, you tell her we love her and to hold on and that we’re coming.”
    “She doesn’t know about Josh.”
    She hesitated. “Stay strong for her.”
    Too late.
    Keller returned with three perfectly awful plastic-wrapped bologna sandwiches that felt, looked, and tasted three days old. Boone chewed each bite till it was mush and still had trouble swallowing. How could anyone eat at a time like this?
    “Okay, listen,” Jack said. “Here’s what I got