Paroxysm (Book 2): Paroxysm Aftermath
Page 19
She was gone. Even if she wasn’t quite yet, in a matter of minutes the love of his life would no longer be a part of his world. To hell with the human race. They would be on their own the second she took her last breath.
He pounded his fist into the cement. Then the other one. Again and again until his knuckles split open and his blood mixed with hers. The world closed in on him, creeping in until the only thing he could focus on was her lifeless face. Everything else was red around the edges, distorted into an alternate reality he couldn’t care less about. His back bent and a scream erupted from him, pointed straight toward the heavens.
They had underestimated everything from the start, underestimated Dagmar. All it left them with was broken pieces to be cleaned up.
Jaxton was so consumed with his grief, he had no time to register the odd-looking device until Jefferies had slammed it into her chest over her heart. Her eyes flew open as she dragged in a ragged breath. One breath. That’s all it took for the icy blue color to spread across her skin. In a matter of seconds, she lay still. No longer breathing. No longer the color any human should be.
“What the fuck did you do?” Jaxton rolled into a crouch and launched himself at Dr. Jefferies, knocking the old man onto his back.
“Stop it!” he yelled, his face mere inches from Jaxton’s.
“What did you do to her?”
Dr. Jefferies pushed Jaxton off of him, but he didn’t fight it. His fight was gone. He rolled onto his back next to Gemi and stared up at the sky. Her skin was emitting a coldness that even a newly passed individual shouldn’t. “What did you do?”
“I bought you time.
EPILOGUE
Jaxton sat with his head resting on Gemi’s bed. They had managed by nothing more than sheer will to get her back through the tunnels and into the safety of the base. It shouldn’t have worked what with how narrow they were, but he would have blown a hole in the building before he would leave her behind.
It was a cryogenic shot Dr. Jefferies had said. Something new. An updated mobile version he had been working on. That’s all he got before his brain shut down.
The two doctors walked into the room behind him. Jaxton left his head down, pretending to still be asleep. Who could possibly sleep a whole day was beyond him, but no one disturbed him. No one had the guts or the heart to approach him. And he wanted to keep it that way.
“We’re going to need a good surgeon and a lot more meds than we have here. It looks like one of the bullets might have hit her spine.” Dr. Askel’s voice cut into the silence.
“Well, the freeze should work until I counteract it, but I never got to try it on a human before now so unfortunately I have no way of saying for sure.”
“Should she still have brain waves?”
“No. That’s the weird part.”
“You don’t think that the chip…”
“I don’t know.”
The men moved to the desk in the corner, their voices fading into a whisper, but still loud enough for Jaxton to overhear their conversation.
“Now that Dagmar knows we have a way to shut down the chips, it’s not long before he finds a way around it. There’s no way we’re going to be able to fix her until we take care of him. We need a good medical staff and as of right now they’re still batty. I can’t believe that son of a bitch slipped right through our fingers.”
“Were the effects on the people outside permanent?”
“It should have been.”
“The fire is spreading this way fast. If the wind direction stays the way it is, we’ll have to move soon.”
There was a small pause in the conversation before Dr. Jefferies spoke.
“He hasn’t spoken since right after I injected her. Is he going to be okay?”
“He’s strong. He’ll be fine once he’s working toward something.”
Jaxton tuned out of the conversation. His mind flipped to Dagmar and that bitch Kai. Help or no help he was coming for them. He would make them pay for every atrocity that they put people though. If he had it his way, they would be begging him to take their life by the time he was finished.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
PART 1
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
PART 2
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
PART 1
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
PART 2
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE