by Schow, Ryan
“Put these in that refrigerator,” he said, handing the samples to Brayden. “Mark the contents with an A using the black sharpie.”
A for Abby.
Brayden did as he was told, then put the samples in the fridge. He returned to Abby’s side, his face a bloodless sheet of white, speechless. Gerhard cut away the rest of her clothes, flung them on the floor.
Together Gerhard and Brayden lifted Abby into a glass canister. Gerhard sealed it and selected the most concentrated of pink gels. After pushing several buttons, they watched the levels of the watery gel like substance rise.
Filling the container seemed to take forever.
“She’s dead,” Brayden said. His eyes had that glazed, faraway look. Georgia took his hand into hers. They stood in mourning, praying for a miracle, asking God to intervene, praying that Gerhard was right, that he could do something.
But the truth was, Georgia knew he couldn’t. He wasn’t a god. He was just a man. A heavily flawed one at that. In her heart, she knew no one survived two point-blank shots to the head and a shot to the heart.
Gerhard’s efforts, they were going to be for naught. Still, he moved quickly, efficiently, and with very little emotion. As if he believed…
When the canister was upright, Georgia and Brayden moved their faces within inches of the glass, watching Abby intently for signs of life.
When—after half an hour—there were no signs at all, the new and improved Gerhard asked Brayden to fetch Nurse Arabelle. Brayden couldn’t move. He was paralyzed behind lost eyes.
Georgia went instead.
In the lobby, Georgia found Arabelle shot dead. She didn’t know the woman like Abby knew her, but Georgia imagined she never had a chance against the young assassin. Still, something within her said she should be sad for her. Georgia returned to the lab where both Gerhard and Brayden were staring at the very naked, very ruined, very dead Abigail Swann.
Gerhard glanced up at Georgia; Georgia solemnly shook her head, no. Her body was starting to shut down. Or to replenish itself.
Gerhard visibly faltered. Like all the air was sucked from his lungs. His good looking new face drained almost instantly, leaving him listless with damp, heavy eyes. He walked past her like a zombie, into the hallway.
Moments later he returned with Arabelle, her body draped across strong arms, limp, lifeless. He carefully placed her on the table, and before preparing a second canister, he took blood, spinal fluid, and brain tissue.
“Brayden,” he said, “mark these samples with a D, and put them next to Abby’s samples.”
D for Diederich.
Brayden did as he was asked.
By the time the new Gerhard had Nurse Arabelle Diederich in a canister, neither the girl nor the woman were showing signs of life.
Total failure, Georgia thought.
The air in the room tasted damp and heavy; it was almost impossible to breathe. Perhaps it was the physical embodiment of so much chaotic destruction. Or maybe it was how disappointment dulled the senses, save for grief, which was amplified to the point of total emotional shut-down. Then again, it could be the nastiest most Satanic of souls working silently, invisibly to pry the roasted boy’s soul from his body and drag him down to Hell.
“What are we going to do?” Georgia asked. Deep down, she knew Abby was gone, that hope was not only futile but an unhealthy obsession. Best to accept the truth, she told herself, even if she didn’t want to.
The psychotic, tormented doctor looked at neither Brayden nor Georgia. He stared at Arabelle’s corpse. His face was distorted against the weight of a terrible agony, his entire body boneless with grief. Georgia refused to take her eyes off him. He was a handsome, awful man, she thought. A monster. Yet he felt. She wondered, how can he feel? She thought, monsters don’t cry. But he was a monster.
And he was crying.
“I have not been this upset in sixty years,” he said to everyone, to no one. His voice was somber, defeated. It sounded so heartbroken, so impossibly…human. He wiped his eyes, dried his hands on his pant legs.
“What are we going to do?” Georgia repeated. She was resigning herself to the fact that Abby was never coming back. That there was nothing anyone could do.
Brayden slid his hand into hers, intertwining their fingers, and it surprised her in that it felt good. That she could feel at all. She told herself she was connected to something else, to someone else. That she was not alone in this. The reassurance was there, then gone. A fleeting thing.
The doctor still didn’t answer her, so she asked the question a third time, now more insistent than ever: “Doctor, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” the new Gerhard said, unable to tear his watery eyes from the very lovely, very dead Arabelle Diederich. “Honestly, Georgia, I don’t know.”
END OF BOOK IV
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The saga continues! Keep reading for a brief synopsis of book five in the Swann Series novels, entitled WEAPON, or simply head to your favorite online eBook retailer, purchase the book and begin reading immediately!
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Book 5 of the Swann Series Novels:
WEAPON
The way carbon atoms need intense heat and pressure to change structure and become a diamond is the same way some girls need mind mapping and genetic modification to become unstoppable weapons. As in love, nothing comes easy. And nothing in life will ever be the same again. Such is the nature of cause and effect in genetics.
In the wake of an horrific, inevitable tragedy, everyone is forced to be someone they’re not. Brayden sinks into the Vegas nightlife learning hard lessons in love and sex; Georgia struggles to cope with the mutant changes taking place in her, specifically the death of her emotions; Dr. Holland must correct his own genetic cocktail lest he descend into a madness more reminiscent of his earlier, more homicidal days; and Margaret and Christian must face their own dire truths, not only about who they are becoming as a couple, but if they will even have a family once the truth about Abby comes out.
WEAPON is very much a book of love and humanity, the will to endure the unthinkable, the necessity of friendship in the darkest of times and what it means to prepare yourself for the backlash of a reckless life. When love is a choice, and life is a choice, but madness and torture head toward secrecy and conspiracy, what you have is a riveting tale that begs the question: can normalcy and paranormal power co-exist? Especially if that power is otherworldly and indomitable, something most humans could never comprehend? With a slight of hand, a rash of deception, and some life-threatening choices that seem impossible in retrospect, the heart-stopping fifth novel in the ground-breaking Swann Series begins.
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sp; Don’t wait, download your copy of WEAPON now!