“No. Not special. Are you deaf?”
The voice battered her ears. Harsh. Mean. Not a nice voice at all.
“I said Lukas won’t think you’re special—won’t believe you’re some kind of princess. Not anymore.”
Briar felt her forehead crease. She lifted her eyebrows, but her lids wouldn’t budge. They were too heavy. Made of solid concrete.
“Lukas is so far out of your league.” The voice gave a bitter little chuckle. “Personally, I can’t figure out his attraction to you. Pity is the only thing I can come up with. He feels sorry for you. The way Dr. Frankenstein ended up feeling sorry for the monster.”
A motor whined, jarring Briar’s eyes open. Was she in the dentist’s office? Through a haze, she saw—Reid? Holding something. What was it? She tried to rub her eyes, but her wrists wouldn’t move. Neither would her neck—her head, turned to one side, was clamped to the table. Her brain roused enough for her to panic. She struggled to bend her knees, but her ankles were restrained. “Help,” the scream came out a whisper.
The whirring motor died. Reid’s footsteps clicked across the floor toward Briar. She kicked something out of her way. “That’ll teach you to wear such ugly shoes.”
Briar tried to move her head, but could only cut her gaze to the floor. A loafer slid to a stop against the baseboard. Cleo! She flicked her gaze over the tile, heart sagging as she spied her friend’s hand beside the wheel of the exam table.
“I love him, you know,” Reid said. “I’ve loved him for years. He never seemed to notice. Then you bounce into Stone Labs like some puppy without tags, and he’s head over heels.”
Hot tears slid over the bridge of Briar’s nose.
“I’m not so sure he’ll like your new haircut, though.” Reid stepped to the side of the table and slid a gloved hand over Briar scalp. “I decided to take it all off. Smooth as a baby’s bottom.”
Briar’s eye sockets stretched as she recognized the tool in Reid’s hands.
Tracing her terrified gaze, Reid tapped the drill with her finger. “This?” She smiled. “Oh, yes. It’s exactly what you think it is. I’m going to rid you of those pesky—and oh-so-special—God-zones, once and for all. Once they’re gone, you’ll be unremarkable. Then the playing field will be level.” She poked a wad of gauze into Briar’s mouth. “And Lukas will be mine.” She leaned over Briar and pressed the drill to the side of her head.
The drill whirred to life, humming like a thousand bees inside her skull.
Please, God…please, God…please.
Briar bucked against the restraints. She strained her neck, but her head wouldn’t budge. This time, the scream came out a scream, blasting from her lungs like a foghorn, matching the intensity of the spinning icepick sinking into her skull. Bolts of thin red lightning zipped behind her eyelids. Her senses exploded, perceiving the crunch of bone.
Her skull was punctured. Somehow, her lungs were too—she couldn’t breathe. Nausea punched her stomach like angry fists.
The bees silenced. The icepick slid from her skull. Relief shuttled through Briar, so intensely she nearly thanked Reid for showing mercy. Her eyes misted. Around the gauze she whispered a prayer of gratitude.
“Don’t thank Him yet.” Reid placed the drill on the implement tray and held up a hypodermic with an extra-long needle. “That was only the access port.” She turned the syringe in her fingers, giving Briar a good look at the milky serum. “On second thought, go ahead and give thanks now. After I inject the abstergent, you’ll never talk to your God again.”
“No,” Briar mumbled. Her neck popped and cracked as she strained against the head restraint.
“Don’t worry. There are no pain receptors in the brain.” Reid tapped the syringe and leaned in. “Although,” she whispered, “there might be a few in the surrounding tissue.”
Briar’s eyelids jumped and fluttered as her eyes rolled back. Her brain searched frantically for something with which to compare the pain, but her memory banks came up dry. No past suffering paralleled this white-hot agony.
All at once, the pain was gone. In its place, something slithered. Some foreign thing, squirming deep within her brain, as if the hypodermic needle had come to life. She squeezed her eyes, frantic to block the sensation.
“There.” Reid’s voice barely out-sounded the ringing in Briar’s ears. “Halfway done.”
Maybe she’d fainted. Perhaps Reid had given her another sedative. All Briar knew was that suddenly her head was clamped down in the opposite direction—and someone was yelling.
“Put the syringe down, now!”
Briar opened her eyes. The guy was red as a cactus flower. He would keel over of a heart attack before he could stop Reid. “Caster is on his way.”
“It’s too late, Max.”
Reid lunged for the table, plunging the needle into the side of Briar’s head, blinding her with agony.
The pain was unbearable. Briar hoped she wouldn’t live through it—prayed to God she’d open her eyes to find her grandmother there beside her, smiling, ready to escort her through the pearly gates of heaven. Granna Grace would hold her hand and take her to meet…to meet…
Something was fading deep inside her. Something significant—the most important thing she’d ever known. A loss so great, her heart ached for its return. Tears drenched her face and pooled beside her on the table. Someone had died. The One she loved above all others. But she couldn’t remember His name.
~*~
A black vehicle pulled up, and Lukas climbed in.
“You look different in person.” The guard behind the wheel held up his cuffphone, allowing Lukas to glimpse the photo onscreen. In red, the word “clearance” blinked above the I.D. picture.
Lukas shrugged. “That was taken on a bad hair day.”
“Armed guards and EMTs to laboratory wing B, immediately!” The command blasted through the guard’s cuffphone.
Lukas’s pulse revved along with the security vehicle’s motor. “Can’t this thing go any faster?” he yelled at the driver.
“Sure, and we can crash right into the front entrance and explode in flames.” The guard screeched to a stop in front of the building.
Lukas leapt from the car.
“Stay here,” the guard yelled, holding his fleshcard to the front sensor, disabling the locks.
“Not on your life.” Lukas bolted past him in a dead run. Inside, armed guards shouted for him to stop as he tore down the hallway. “Caster Stone! I have clearance from Brown. Check your cuffs,” he puffed over his shoulder.
Lukas ran the same direction as the guards. He had no idea where he was going. He only hoped the chaotic parade would come to an abrupt halt with Briar standing safely at the end.
Lukas burst through the double doors of the laboratory wing. He rushed to an open doorway surrounded by guards with weapons drawn.
“Move back, before you get hurt,” A harsh voice whispered from behind. He turned to find a half a dozen more guards rushing into the area.
Lukas ignored the man and pushed against the throng of uniforms in the doorway. He lifted to his toes, straining to see over the shoulders of the guards. His heart seized as he glimpsed Briar strapped to the table, and Reid holding an empty syringe.
Five minutes, maybe less, before Briar’s soul was lost forever.
“Brown,” he shouted hoarsely. “Caster Stone. Let me through.”
The guards tightened their barricade, some elbowing him, others ramming him with their shoulders.
“Let him in.”
Lukas shoved a hand in his pocket, grabbing Caster’s surgical mask.
The guards parted at Brown’s command. Lukas tied the mask behind his head as he rushed to Briar’s bedside.
“No!” Reid screamed, lunging for Lukas. Her shouts became a shrill operatic scream as the electric current of a stun weapon arrested her vocal chords. Two guards maneuvered her to the floor while another secured her in handcuffs.
Lukas searched the implement tra
y for the antidote vial. It wasn’t there. His blood chilled. What if Reid had destroyed it?
The medical kit—where was it? Maybe the vial was still in the case. He dashed around an unconscious woman and two medical technicians to reach the counter, where the kit lied open on the surface. Relief flooded him. The antidote was there, loaded in a syringe.
He snapped on a pair of gloves from the box on the countertop, wove around the EMTs and security guards, and returned to Briar’s side. She was unconscious. From a sedative? From the pain? He didn’t know. Willing his hands not to shake, he inserted the needle into Briar’s cranium, injecting the antidote.
She didn’t move. He wondered if something had gone wrong—even more terribly wrong than he’d assumed. Had Reid done something more heinous than he’d anticipated? Had she injected Briar with something other than abstergent? Something lethal? Lukas immediately crushed the thought to dust.
From the implement table, he retrieved the preloaded inserter, and quickly implanted the tiny collagen plug into Briar’s skull. He unfastened the head restraint and gently turned her head, clasping the other side to the table.
He positioned the needle above the hole as Reid’s laughter raked over his spine. He glanced up as two guards yanked her to her feet.
“Max, you idiot. That’s not Caster Stone. It’s his brother, Lukas.”
Brown glared at Lukas. “Seize him,” he ordered.
The guards moved toward him.
Lukas lowered the syringe to Briar’s skull, concealing the needle behind his palm. “The needle is in her brain. One wrong move could kill her.”
“And this death will have witnesses.” Aided by emergency techs, the woman with braided hair rose from the floor. “Unlike the hundreds of others you’ve covered up.”
A vein in Brown’s neck bulged.
“The ARC’s going down, Max,” Lukas said. “So are you. Briar Lee’s death will be the nail in your coffin.”
A guard turned to Max. “Sir?”
Max shook his head.
Lukas nearly collapsed with relief. He inserted the needle, draining the antidote into Briar’s brain.
“Come back to me,” he breathed, implanting the second plug. He returned the inserter to the tray and unfastened each of her restraints. “Come back to me.” He removed the surgical mask, snapped off his gloves, and took her face in his hands, his vision blurring as he willed her eyes to open.
There must have been sound in the room—the technicians helping their patient to the door. The anguished cries of Reid, restrained in handcuffs. The incessant ring of Maxwell Brown’s cuffphone. Lukas heard nothing. Activity took place silently around him. Life was on mute. The only sound, the thickening air pushing and pulling from his lungs.
“Briar,” he whispered, caressing her cheek with his thumb. “I’m so sorry. Please stay.” His tears fell to her face—that beautiful face he’d hoped to wake up to every single day, for the rest of his life. Only God could have fashioned something so perfect. A priceless gift. A woman custom created for him. He knew that now. And he didn’t need functioning Agathi to recognize it. “I love you.”
He closed his eyes. “God—please forgive me. Please bring her back to me. I believe in her. And I believe in You.”
“Lukas? You’re here?”
His eyes snapped open. “I’m here.”
Briar’s brow furrowed. “Did you fly?”
“I flew. Can you believe it?”
“You must really love me a lot.” Her eyes crinkled as she grinned.
Lukas laughed and cried at the same time.
The noise level returned. Guards struggled to escort Reid from the room as she thrashed violently and called them names.
A nurse approached Briar’s bedside. “I’ll take your vitals.”
“Is Cleo all right?” Briar asked.
“She’s fine,” the nurse said, tapping Briar’s fleshcard. “Resting in the next room.”
“Thank God,” she whispered, closing her eyes.
Lukas leaned down to kiss her forehead.
Her eyes flew open, shining like stars “Lukas! He’s here,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest.
“Who?” Lukas asked.
“God,” she breathed.
“Yes.” Lukas nodded. “I know.”
27
Briar glanced around the beige hospital room. “I don’t know why I’m still here. I feel good, physically.” She wished she could say the same for her emotions. But wounds of that nature mended slower than a couple of jabs to the brain. She doubted they ever truly mended at all.
“Relax,” Lukas said from her bedside. “Your evaluation will be finished soon, and you’ll be free.” He gave her hand a gentle kiss.
You’ll be free. She couldn’t imagine three more beautiful words. She gazed up at Lukas. Then again, maybe she could.
Lukas aimed his cuffphone at the wall, filling the space with images and sound.
“Ugh, turn it off.” Briar covered her head—her bald head—with the thin hospital pillow.
“Off?” Don’t you want to see Maxwell Brown and his wife, Vanessa, forced into the police car for the zillionth time?”
“No!” Briar peeked from under the pillow. “They’ve been showing that clip for days.”
Lukas grinned and flipped through the channels.
“Stop!” Briar shouted. “Go back one.” She sat straight up in the bed.
Lukas switched to the previous channel. An African-American woman with silver curls sat in a softly lit room, conversing with a brunette anchor from a nightly news program.
“Harper!” Tears fell from Briar’s eyes as she gazed at the screen.
“Experimentation?” Harper asked the reporter. “Oh, yes, ma’am. The scars on my back are the worst. But this is the only mark I’m willing to show on television.” Harper lifted the back of her hand to the camera.
Briar rubbed a thumb over her matching emblem.
“My lion. The ARC symbol. They branded us so we could be identified.” Harper lowered her hand to her lap. “Always made me think of that Scripture in First Peter about how the enemy is a roaring lion, seeking to devour.” She caressed the tattoo. “Today it makes me think of the Lion of Judah. A mighty conqueror.” She gave a little grin. “Most folks have no idea what I’m talking about. But now—praise be to God—they’ll have the opportunity to find out.”
The reporter offered a somber smile. “As a society, what can we learn from this horrific event in American history?”
The camera closed in on Harper’s lined face. “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. Romans, chapter eight, verse six. And a mind governed by the government ain’t worth two cents. I made that part up.” She winked. “People can destroy our bodies, but they can’t destroy our souls. God is faithful. His commandments are the only ones that endure.”
Briar wiped a tear and applauded. Granna Grace wasn’t here to see the fall of The Commandment, but Harper Ross was.
Epilogue
Ten years later
Briar watched her husband from the doorway, loving the way his hair fell across his brow as he worked. She walked to his stool and kissed his cheek. “What’s cooking, Dr. Stone?”
He glanced up. “Well, Prettier Dr. Stone, we’ve received another large order for SAP antidote, and have once again run out. I’m preparing to make more.”
“Ran out since yesterday?”
“Impossible, right?”
Briar perked an eyebrow. “Caster Stone is an ordained prison minister. Nothing is impossible.”
Lukas grinned. “You left off the important part—nothing is impossible with God. Running out of SAP antidote is definitely a God thing.”
Briar agreed. Since the fall of The Commandment, the demand for anti-SAP was never ending. All three Stone Labs locations were preparing antidote around the clock, and still couldn’t catch up. People were taking back their Agathi—and their God.
; “Dr. Stone?”
Lukas and Briar both turned to see Derby in the doorway, wearing his “Holy Floats” ball cap and t-shirt with hot air balloon graphics.
“Mrs. Doctor Stone.” He motioned to Briar. “Someone’s here to see you.”
Briar squeezed her husband’s shoulder and walked to the door.
“Derby, remind me later, I have a permission slip to give you from one of my patients. I recommended your hot air balloon ministry to his mother as part of his therapy plan.”
Derby gave a wide grin.
As Briar entered the waiting room, a young man jumped to his feet and stuck out a hand. “Michael Owens.”
Briar shook the man’s hand. He was tall and handsome with a few boyish freckles. She’d seen him before…hadn’t she? But where? Her eyes went wide. “Mouse!” She yanked him in for a tight hug.
Mouse chuckled. “It’s good to see you, too, Briar.”
“I’m so glad you’re all right.” Briar released him and stepped back. “What happened? I tried to contact you. It was as though you’d vanished.”
“I know. I’m sorry. After the whole thing with the ARC, my mom went a little nuts. Took herself—and me—completely offline. I’m still convincing her to wire back in, a little at a time. These days, I buy my own technology. He glanced at his cuffphone. “Find me online—under Michael Owens, not Mouse.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Anyway,” His eyes turned serious. “I saw your picture on the Stone Labs advertisement—you haven’t changed much, by the way—and looked you up. I had to come. To say thanks. For helping a sad little kid find some happiness.”
“I enjoyed our online visits. I’m sure you helped me as much as I helped you—maybe more.”
“You’re still helping me. When I saw you on that ad, I clicked onto the website. I watched the video about everything you’d experienced, heard you talk about how God brought you through it.” Mouse took a deep breath. “I did some research on anti-SAP, and had an injection a week ago. My grandmother’s taking me to church next Sunday.”
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