“What are you talking about?” Lu made it to his feet and began to edge toward his blade. “Wait, I don’t care.”
“You should,” Cole said with a smile. He directed his attention at Jason, who was eyeing Lu, readying himself for the second round. “Jason, why don’t you show him what else you can do.”
The being formerly known as human ran at Lu without a second’s hesitation. Lu made it to his weapon in time to meet the attack. Jason grabbed him again, but this time his long arms clamped around Lu’s forearms, pinning them to his sides.
Lu tried to bring up the saber in his right hand. He struggled to break Jason’s grip but he was too strong. Then the most unexpected thing happened.
Lu began to feel cold, like a wave of mist was striking his body from all directions. A shudder ran though his core as his very life began to escape. While Lu struggled to understand what was happening Cole moved forward from behind his desk with a handheld mirror.
“I’m sure you’re confused right now so allow me to explain. You see, Jason is far more than what meets the eye. Not only did the Dread change him to match you physically, but it also gave him a weapon to combat your Elite gene.”
Cole stood beside them now. With one hand he stroked Jason’s bald head, with the other he raised the mirror for Lu to see.
His reflection was horrifying. His smooth skin was lined with wrinkles like a swatch of worn leather. His long brown hair was slowly turning, gray, then white. He was rapidly aging before his very eyes.
Jason smiled, flashing large square teeth. Black, purple, and red irises studied his handiwork as he watched the years come and go second by second.
Lu understood he had a very finite amount of time before he would be staring back at a corpse. True to his nature he acted on instinct. Arms clamped down to his sides he brought both legs up and hammered his booted feet against Jason’s face with every ounce of strength he possessed.
While the blow wasn’t enough to do Jason any serious harm, it was enough to stun him and allow Lu to drop free.
Already Lu could feel the effect aging had had on him. He was moving in slow motion. Hand still on his saber he thrust the weapon into Jason’s stomach and twisted.
Inky black blood gushed from the wound like a geyser long overdue to erupt. Without missing a beat Lu grabbed Cole around the waist. He carried the stunned man across the room and threw them both through the second story window.
The windowpane shattered into a million pieces, sending tiny shards down to the street below. In that moment time seemed to stop for Lu. Noise, pain, any emotion took a back seat to the tiny glass pieces that accompanied their descent.
That was it. That last final act of propelling himself and Cole through the window had sapped his energy. The Elite and Dread lieutenant fell from the window as one.
The impact that should have been nothing to Lu rattled his teeth. The air in his old lungs rushed out leaving him gasping. Whether it was fate or chance, Lu had landed on top of Cole. The latter’s neck twisted at an impossible angle, ebony blood spreading around him like water from a leaking hose.
Despite his condition, despite the guards already surrounding him, Lu laughed out loud. He had done it. The last thing he remembered was the stock of a shotgun aimed at his face, then blackness.
***
The sound of the drill spiraling at a deadly speed was enough to send any cool headed person into a panic. Taylor strained against her bonds searching desperately for the power that lay dormant within her. It was the only chance she had of escaping now. Lu had to pull through. One last glance at the clock told her to abandon all hope. It was past eleven now. Valery was already beginning the procedure.
The drill bit touched her skin, breaking the surface. The steel bit welcomed the warm flow of blood. Then Taylor felt heat surge within her once again. With a roar of thankfulness she broke free from her restraints sending the entire gurney crashing into the wall behind her.
She levitated in place reveling in the warmth her power brought. She was whole. Complete in a way she never knew she missed until she had lost and regained her power.
Valery was blown to the side of the room along with the gurney. She stumbled to her feet trying to comprehend what was taking place. One glance at Taylor told her everything she needed to know. “Oh, shi—”
She wasn’t allowed the time to finish her thought. Taylor impaled her with a bolt of white explosive energy that generated from her hands. The beam caught Valery mid-body mass. The sent of burning and charred skin entered Taylor’s nostrils. Valery was hurled backward into the wall.
As much as Taylor wanted to stay and make sure the job was complete, she knew events were now in motion that required her direct attention.
There was not a free moment to enjoy her returned power. Not only her friends, but the slaves of the compound were depending on her to succeed.
Taylor blasted the front door off its hinges with an outstretched hand. Still hovering in midair she entered the chaos in the street. Guards were running everywhere. Spotlights were roving wildly inside the compound.
The way the guards ran to the front entrance toward the slave pen and others to the large warehouse in the corner told Taylor they were without a leader. Panic was taking over as they ran this way and that, unsure what was happening.
Then Taylor spotted him. The sergeant that had kicked Melissa earlier that day, the same man who had watched her change with hungry eyes. He was trying to bring some kind of order to the chaotic scene.
“Hey!” Taylor shouted, making her way toward him through the air.
He turned to her with a shotgun already drawing a bead on her voice. One thing was certainly different. Where a smug, bullying attitude lived before, terror was clearly written across his face.
Before he could pull the trigger, Taylor blasted the gun from his grip, taking his hands in the explosion. Stunned, the sergeant fell to his knees looking at the stumps of flesh where his hands used to exist.
“Please,” he managed through wide eyes. “Please don’t kill me.”
By now a group of guards had arrived on the scene, all standing in shock as the hardened sergeant pled for his life.
“Cole’s dead. You all know what I can do,” Taylor said. She lowered herself to the street until her feet touched down on the pavement. “I was trying to give you a chance before. As you can see, I’m done playing now. Life is too valuable to leave in your hands. I’m freeing the slaves and taking the compound. Anyone who would rather die for the Dread can die now.”
Unsure expressions were exchanged between the guards as they looked to Taylor then their crying, handless sergeant.
Apparently the Dread still held some influence amongst the guards. A hand grenade was lobbed at Taylor from a middle-aged female guard who shouted, “The Dread is our future!”
Taylor lifted the grenade from the ground and cupped it in both hands to her chest. She made eye contact with the woman who had chosen death over life. The grenade went off in Taylor’s grip, sending a shudder through her body. She gritted her teeth against the pain. But a show like this was exactly what she needed to convince the guards there was no use fighting.
“You made your choice,” Taylor said through the evaporating smoke. “I’m sorry you chose the wrong side.”
She sent a beam of energy that severed the guard in half. Taylor looked everyone else in the eye. “Is there anyone else who’d rather fight for tyrants that would use and enslave humankind?”
The only sound was that of weapons dropping from their owners’ grips to the pavement below.
Taylor had dealt with Valery herself. Her powers returned meant that Lu had killed Cole; Jason was still a threat.
These thoughts crossed her mind as she ran to the slave pen at the end of the street. All the slaves were standing on their feet, wide eyed.
“I told you she would come,” Cidney’s familiar voice cut through the tense silence as Taylor reached the pen. “Taylor, here! We’re here
!”
Taylor skidded to a halt. “I hear you, kiddo. Stay back, away from the bars.”
Cidney and all those around her obeyed, retreating a safe distance.
Taylor blasted the steel lock from the metal bars with a wave of her outstretched hand. “Everyone out.”
Cidney was leading the group, forcing Taylor on her knees to give her a hug. “I wasn’t worried at all. I kept telling them you’d save us.”
“Thanks, Cid.” Taylor embraced her young friend. “Sorry I took so long.”
Frank and Melissa reached Taylor at the same time. “What about the Dread and the guards?” Melissa asked.
“Right,” Taylor said. She looked at the group of slaves around her. “Follow me.”
***
Lu wasn’t sure what woke him. His skull pounded, his body ached like never before.
So this is what it’s like to feel my age, Lu thought to himself. This sucks.
He struggled to his feet. His own blood mingled with the black liquid that oozed from underneath Cole’s broken body. He reached a hand to the spot above his right eye where the stock of the weapon that knocked him unconscious had landed. His fingers came back sticky with blood.
From the corner of his eye he caught movement and turned to look. Sharp, shooting twinges lanced down the left side of his neck. Lu ignored the discomfort. He realized what had stirred him from his comatose state.
Jason wasn’t dead. The monster had leaped from the second story window, a large hand pressed to his stomach where black liquid sputtered. Although he had landed next to Lu it appeared the Elite human was no longer his main concern. The creature moved away from him, down the street.
Some instinct born from years of dealing with shrewd enemies told Lu to follow. The urgency with which the monster moved was unnerving. Jason wasn’t trying to escape the compound, he was traveling away from the gates. Anything he could be hoping to reach inside the compound would not bode well for Lu and the human survivors.
Lu followed, forcing his body onward, ignoring his wrinkled hands and the gray hair that blew across his vision. His Elite gene would soon see him healed. It had to.
He refused to think about what his life would be like if the effect Jason’s powers had on him were permanent. Allowing himself a moment of respite, his right hand came to rest on the compound’s steel wall, his labored breaths coming out in shallow, steaming puffs. The Washington night air chilled the wall’s metallic surface. It sent prickles up his arm.
Lu examined his surroundings. No guards were in sight, no noises of violence at hand. Something was either horribly wrong or perfectly right. Taylor was already in control of the compound or dead. There was no other reason for the eerie silence.
Hunched over with pain, he imagined his aged insides broken and bruised. But he had to move on. Already half a block ahead of him Jason staggered forward, a trail of black blood in his wake.
Lu took a deep pain laced breath and began to move again. Like two tortoises bent on winning a race they moved forward.
The first clue he had of his powers returning was his enhanced hearing beginning to pick up voices. A grin cracked his lips as he was comforted by the fact he would heal. His youth would return.
The noise was garbled and unintelligible, but there was no denying the fact he was picking up voices from a distance. Whether it was his own belief he was healing by the second or it was the truth, Lu felt stronger with every step.
His head was clearing from the pain. He looked forward with determination as his strides came longer. The object of Jason’s eagerness was obvious now. A large warehouse stood near the corner of the compound, its doors closed and bolted.
With a sense of foreboding, although he couldn’t know for sure what was kept in the warehouse, Lu knew it did not smell right. Whatever was in there was sure to cause him and those with him harm.
One look at his hands and Lu knew he was well enough to run. Leathery skin had given way to a younger, healthier olive tone. His breathing came easier. The spot bleeding above his eye stopped leaking dark red.
Lu began to jog forward. His eyes told him he was too late. Jason reached the warehouse doors. Even now he was fumbling with the large steel locks. Hell bent on releasing whatever darkness lay in wait behind the doors, he began striking the lock. Deep, angry grunts erupted from his chest as he beat at the steel padlock with clenched fists.
Something from within the warehouse answered his actions with screams and wails of its own. It was soon obvious to Lu that it wasn’t a what or who inside the locked building, it was a mob of Dread infected humans.
A quick glance to his left showed him an empty slave pen. The idea that the slaves were already free meant Taylor had succeeded. It was a victory, but if he didn’t stop Jason from releasing the army of Dread, it would be for nothing.
Lu was close enough now to see the warehouse doors swaying as a force he didn’t want to meet pushed from the opposite side. Everyone in the compound had to know by now that something was horribly wrong. A thousand trapped throats screamed, laboring to gain their freedom.
A few more seconds and Lu would be on top of Jason. How he was going to fight a being that could steal your youth was a question he didn’t have an answer to. As if a solution was making itself known, he realized his saber was still embedded deep inside Jason’s stomach. Pommel to point were covered in black liquid.
Whether out of haste or something else, Jason had been content to allow the blade to stay where Lu had placed it.
Lu pounded down the pavement, mere feet from his target. He had nearly regained all his strength. Ready for round two with Jason, Lu reached the monster. With an outstretched hand he grabbed for the hilt of his saber.
Then he was airborne. The warehouse doors opened so violently he didn’t even see them moving. Numbness spread across the left side of his body as he was lifted up into the night and propelled backward. The Dread within cascaded out in a flood of howling madness.
***
The freed slaves all around Taylor were traumatized by the unfolding events. Tears of joy were falling from some faces, looks of shock on others. They didn’t know how to react.
Taylor couldn’t blame them. Dirty and feeble, they assisted one another from their cell and into the world that waited for them.
“So what do we do know?” Frank asked. “I mean we’re free, so…I guess we get some food and chill?”
Ahead of them the compound gates were opened as guards rethought their position. Now leaderless, and in the same compound with Taylor and the freed slaves, most chose to relocate.
Taylor was fine to let them go, there was enough happening already without worrying about capturing fleeing guards.
It seemed she was alone in this thought. The slaves who before had been wide eyed, weeping on one another, and murmuring thanks woke from their daze. At the sight of their captors bolting to the world outside the walls, they started with a jolt. It began with a few righteous shouts and avalanched into those well enough to run giving chase.
Shouts ripped through the air as slaves turned the tables on their persecutors. Some guards had decided to stay and try and reason with their former workforce. That was a mistake. The slaves began beating guards, who begged for mercy.
“We have to stop this,” Melissa said, looking around in horror. “They’re going to tear the guards to shreds.”
“Hey you guys, cut it out!” Cidney screamed at a group of former slaves that cornered a young guard and began kicking and striking the prone figure. “This isn’t right. You’re only repeating the cycle.”
Taylor stood torn as her three friends took action around her trying to separate the two factions. It seemed all the fight had been taken from the New Olympia guards. Weapons were now in the hands of the freed slaves, who threatened their previous captors with death.
“Enough!” Taylor rose into the sky throwing two separate explosions of energy into the pavement beneath her. “If you kill these men and women, you’
re no better than they are. Yes, they have to pay for what they’ve done, but not like this.”
“You don’t know what they did to us!” a woman cried from somewhere in the crowd. Shouts of agreement gathered behind her outburst.
“You freed us and we will be forever grateful,” Tilk, the slave Taylor had worked with earlier that day at the vault door said. He stepped forward. “This isn’t your decision to make.”
More and more voices added to those already voiced until the outcry became overwhelming. Then another sound drowned out any other.
It was like a thousand torn and bleeding throats crying for destruction. The shouting from those around her immediately stopped. Worried expressions were exchanged from one face to another.
From her high vantage point Taylor knew what it was. She could see the warehouse doors housing the Dread swaying and buckling against their restraints. She was a fool for not having dealt with the situation earlier. When would she have? There had been no time.
She lifted herself even higher to get a full view of what was happening at the warehouse. Above the tops of the houses she could see a twisted, beastly figure fumbling with the warehouse lock. Someone else was racing toward it.
She was too far away to tell for certain but she could guess by the person’s movements it was Lu trying to reach the creature at the doors.
The large steel doors of the warehouse moaned along with the Dread inside. Then they broke.
Taylor watched stunned as a tide of Dread avalanched outward. It seemed like the turned humans inside had climbed on top of one another to add pressure to the door. Now squirming body parts separated from one another as they took to the streets in a sprint.
Taylor’s first thought was for Lu’s safety. Her worries were unfounded when she witnessed the Elite human recover from the blow he received from the warehouse doors. He was already looking toward her and running. His mouth was moving, shouting a warning as their eyes met. Taylor could only guess as to what he was saying. The noise of the mob behind him was far too loud.
All The Broken People (The Dread Series Book 2) Page 16