The WereGames II - Salvation

by Jade White

  THE WEREGAMES II

  SALVATION

  A PARANORMAL DYSTOPIAN ROMANCE

  JADE WHITE

  Copyright ©2018 by Jade White

  All rights reserved.

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  About This Book

  This is Book 2 from “The WereGames”.

  A romance series set in a dystopian future where humans lived alongside werebeings. But only after a werebeing had won their freedom by participating in “The WereGames”. If you win you are set free, otherwise you spend your life in captivity. Survival of the fittest at its worst.

  If you are new to the series start with Book 1

  In this book, Ryker and Alexia realize that love in a time of struggle is never ideal.

  As the two begin their fight for freedom they head towards the Washington in order to find salvation.

  They both thought the game was over, really it was only just beginning...

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  Twelve years ago

  “You’re not taking away my son,” the slender and dark-haired woman insisted. “You’re not taking him!”

  Magnus Caledon stood quietly, watching Juliet, his wife of more than twelve years, cling onto their youngest son, Jared, while she knelt on the floor. Her face was tear-streaked, and so was her son’s. Jared was shaking out of fear and confusion, and his mother held onto him tighter than ever.

  “Juliet, we must. He is an aberration-" Magnus began.

  “He is our son!” she reasoned; her embrace was tighter this time. “Why are you doing this? You aren’t your father!”

  Magnus’ eyes narrowed. “Of course, I’m not,” he told her. “But he could be of use to the expanded M.I.D.A.S program.”

  “He’s just a boy,” she murmured, fresh tears trailing down her face.

  There was something unreal about the whole situation. Juliet had denied it since the shifting had happened a day ago, but Magnus was not in the mood or the position to plainly ignore what had transpired.

  “Let go of him, Juliet,” Magnus said in a near bleary voice.

  She shook her head, embracing her third born. “Don’t do this to us. It’s not his fault!”

  Don’t do this to us? Had she forgotten how the country had regained its military strength? Had she forgotten that tragic and nearly apocalyptic civil war? Their son, even if Jared was their flesh and blood, was destined for the program. He would be honed into a fine soldier -- if he survived the tests.

  “Whose fault is it then?” Magnus asked her.

  She trembled at his question. Whose fault was it? Hers? She had given birth to someone who was waiting to shift but who had turned out to be an animal in the end. “He’s just a boy.”

  He’s just a boy, but then again, so were the many children that had been rounded up. They had to be controlled, unlike those previous werebeings that had rebelled by the thousands, plunging the country into unrest and, eventually, into war. It was something that the world had never predicted would happen, the evolution or eventual reemerging of a recessive gene.

  “Come, Jared,” Magnus said in his deep and rich voice.

  His third son looked up fearfully into his father’s eyes. He hesitated to say something, swallowing saliva in the process. He stammered. “F-father.”

  “Come,” Magnus intoned once more.

  Jared took a tentative step forward, but his mother’s hand shot out to grab his. “Stay with me; stay with mommy,” she implored to him.

  Magnus calmly pressed a button on his table, and, in a few seconds, armed men stormed in i uniformly, all holding special rifles meant to maim any werebeing or human that intervened. Another man slipped in, wearing a white doctor’s coat.

  Magnus nodded once, and two men approached his son.

  “Stop!” Juliet screamed. “Let go of him!” She fought against the soldiers whose hands were holding onto her son’s arms. “Magnus, don’t!”

  Someone else held onto her, and then she felt a sudden sharp prick on her arm. She looked up in horror to see a thin man with silvery spectacles and a warm smile.

  Dr. Wallace nodded at her. “Sweet dreams, madam.”

  She felt her grip on her son loosen, and her vision blurred. She lost her sense of hearing soon after, but she mumbled her son’s name. “Jared-" she cried out one last time before lapsing into unconsciousness.

  Magnus took no step forward to aid his wife, but there was a team with Dr. Wallace who gently took her from the floor and laid her on a stretcher, ready to transport her to her quarters. He saw his third son who was now violently shaking.

  Dr. Wallace readied something in his hand as he observed the little boy who was about to shift. Saliva began to drip involuntarily out of his mouth, and his normally light brown eyes turned into a russet color, gradually shifting into a blood red hue. He choked, dropping onto all fours, and the two soldiers that held onto the seven-year-old stepped back as Dr. Wallace took a step forward.

  Fur began to appear on a microscopic scale at first, and then it started to cover his whole body. His limbs broke to accommodate his growing length and height. Dr. Wallace’s eyes widened as he smiled. Here was another werebeing to add to his roster of children, all ready for experimentation. He eyed the president, who showed no emotion whatsoever. He sighed, knowing full well he couldn’t let the child shift in the president’s office.

  With a single aim, he shot at the child’s neck. The child growled and crumpled to the ground, reverting to his human form; his clothes and shoes were tattered from the partial shifting. That had been a strong cocktail of anesthetics to ensure the trip from the presidential White House to the laboratory was smooth. Two soldiers lifted the boy and placed him inside a stainless-steel cage, just like an animal. Dr. Wallace nodded at the soldiers, who quietly exited the room, heading for a chopper just adjacent to the president’s office.

  It was the dead of night, and the entire complex was quiet. Dr. Wallace turned to face the second Caledon president he had served.

  “Now that that’s settled,” Magnus began after a long period of silence, “there’s the matter of my other children.”

  Dr. Wallace had been given explicit and undisclosed instructions to test the president’s other children, even his wife. The three other children were asleep. He was to extract DNA from them and bring it to the laboratory as well. An aide of the president’s, General Laxly, walked up beside Dr. Wallace.

  “This way, doctor,” General Laxly beckoned. Dr. Wallace followed the general out of the office, heading for the kids’ bedrooms.r />
  Magnus took a deep breath, his brows furrowing. He had done his best as a father and as a leader, had he not? Difficult decisions had to be made, and even family was not to be spared. He stared out at the expanse of the presidential house’s grounds, with guards posted every few meters from each other. They had to go soon, as they were bound to find out what had happened to his family.

  He looked back at the expanse of his office, modeled after the vintage photos of the oval office that had been unearthed after years of turmoil. The previous presidents, before his grandfather had won by a landslide, had promised order and military might, something that hadn’t been achieved until the first Caledon was elected. From then on, his father had been groomed to take over his own father’s place, putting an end to elections and the chaos of voting. It had been no easy feat, but, with sheer force and wits, he had done the unthinkable, with the necessary sacrifices, of course.

  Now, it was his turn. He saw the images of his father and his grandfather on a wall. They both had the same stern mouths and high cheekbones that ran prominently in the male side of the family. He had that look, too. He looked at the smaller portraits of his grandmother and mother on the walls, realizing that Juliet’s face was too kind to be placed beside theirs.

  He had married Juliet fifteen years ago, and it had been the closest thing to love. He enjoyed looking at how beautiful and cultured she had been. She was also the daughter of a large private weapons manufacturing company, one that had previously supplied the Soviet States and some of those African Unions. It had been a perfect match of power and money. To top it off, she was a socialite with good bearing and education, a near-perfect first lady. Except, she was weak when it came to their children.

  He shook his head. There was a weakness in everyone, even in him, but it came easily for him to protect his image as the country’s only capable leader. Only a Caledon could lead the country, and he hoped his eldest son, Magnus II, would do the same. The test results would be quick, and, in the morning, his other children would have forgotten about anything that had happened to their family.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Three hours later in another room in the White House

  Magnus II, or JJ, as his mother fondly called the precocious fifteen-year old, suddenly woke up to the shuddering of his bedroom. Was there an earthquake? He sniffled and forced his eyes wide open, looking around. Suddenly, his door burst open, and a light shone on him from an assault rifle.

  “We have Falcon. I repeat, we have Falcon,” one man radioed. He quickly approached the bedside of the president’s eldest son, who looked at him in bewilderment. “Sir, we have to get out now; there’s an assault happening.”

  JJ quickly flung his duvet away. “Mom, my sister!” he gasped. “My brothers-!”

  “They’re all taken care of, sir. Now, please,” he said urgently.

  They ran down dark corridors. Somewhere, JJ could smell acrid smoke, and his heart pounded loudly. He was taken to a secret passageway, where he went down three flights of stairs (a vintage feature that his grandfather didn’t want removed). They stopped momentarily as the building shook, sending a rain of dust falling on them.

  He coughed, but one soldier pushed him on, and he felt the dust on his feet, as well as chips of wood. He hadn’t gotten the time to put on shoes. “I need a gun,” he said through the din and the trembling. Yellow lights swung above them, flickering as artillery hit some part of the presidential house.

  “No need for that, sir,” another replied gruffly.

  He saw people running down the stairs, and he glimpsed Stephen, his second brother, escorted by another military personnel. Where were Jared and Alexandra? They reached the bottom of the steps and were ushered immediately through a thick door that could withstand three nuclear fallouts in succession. The underground room was as large as a ten-story building, and they were led further down the shelter, the brothers’ young faces masked in confusion once they met face to face.

  “Have you seen father?” JJ asked Stephen.

  Stephen shook his head. “Where’s Lex and Jared?” he asked his older brother.

  JJ shrugged. “I didn’t see them. Maybe they’re here somewhere.”

  They had never been inside the bomb shelter, although they knew about its existence. It was last used during the Second Civil War, back when his father hadn’t even been born yet. It surprised JJ to see that the bunker was filled with state-of-the-art equipment and stocks good enough for the entire crowd inside.

  “They didn’t give me any weapons,” Stephen said in a hushed tone.

  “They didn’t give me one either,” JJ replied.

  “Sirs, this way, please,” one Colonel said, holding out his arm to the left.

  They were ushered one floor down into a room without windows. Their father was inside, but his back was turned. The door closed behind them with a quiet click.

  “Father,” JJ began, “what’s going on?”

  “Where’s mom? And Lex and Jared?” Stephen asked.

  They heard their father, the country’s third president since the Second Civil War, clear his throat. “Your mother is in the infirmary. She suffered quite a lot. At the moment, we’re bombing rebel hideouts in the outskirts of the city.”

  “But you said there were none-”

  His father raised a palm up to stop him. “We lost your brother and sister. We couldn’t get to them in time.”

  JJ found himself shaking his head. “What?” How could his father say this with a poker face? Was he really serious? Were they really dead? He had seen them only yesterday when his youngest brother had shifted for the first time…

  Stephen’s eyes were blurred with forming tears. His tried to blink them away but found a few dropping down his cheeks. His father spun to look at his eldest children, what remained of his brood of four. Stephen quickly wiped the tears from his face.

  “I trust you two will be strong and that you will not let this affect your future,” Magnus told his children. “For now, we wait for the airstrike to finish.” He excused himself for a meeting with his military cohorts, leaving his two children behind.

  They found themselves quiet, unable to say anything to each other. What else were they supposed to say? Condolences? They had lost siblings, and their mother was terribly injured from the attack. JJ took a deep breath.

  “We have to see mama,” he told his younger brother. They headed for the infirmary but couldn’t even see her despite their status as the first children of the country. They were relegated to a grey room, with grey walls and rickety beds to wait in.

  There, they waited for forty-eight hours.

  *

  “The trauma was too much,” someone murmured.

  Stephen woke up with a pounding headache. Where was he? He saw lights overhead, dimmed down, but they hurt him all the same. He looked around, realizing he was somewhere unfamiliar.

  “He’s awake,” another said. “Kindly tell the doctor.”

  Awake? What did that mean? Then, he remembered the attack on the White House, the air raids, and the crumbling of ceilings and walls. Did the whole place fall apart? Were they buried underneath the safety of the bunker?

  “Good afternoon, Sir Stephen,” a young woman greeted him. “We’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

  “Where-" he croaked. Even his throat hurt. He heard the shuffling of shoes in the room, and then he felt nausea overcome him. He reeled over his bedside and began to choke.

  “That’s just the vitamins,” the young doctor told him. “You’ll be in good shape in no time. You and your brother took quite a hit a few days ago.”

  Days? Had he been asleep that long? “Where’s JJ?” he spoke again, feeling his throat burn. Was there smoke in that bunker? Had they infiltrated something that could have withstood an atomic bomb?

  “He’s awake, but he’s in another room. The President visited you two while you were asleep.”

  “Father? He wasn’t hurt?” he whispered. Then, his eyes widened
again. “My mother?”

  “Safe and sound, although she’s asleep at the moment,” the doctor replied. “I’ll be placing some vitamins in you.”

  Stephen looked at her warily, but she gave him a comforting smile. “This won’t hurt. We’ve been giving you drip vitamins every eight hours, apart from your IV fluids. You may move around if you wish. There’s a wheelchair set out for you.”

  She motioned towards a sleek, black wheelchair that had no wheels; rather, it hovered a few centimeters above the ground. “It’s a prototype, but we figured we’d use it today while we’re here in full force.”

  “Where is here?”

  She said nothing, but she smiled and excused herself out of the room. Stephen waited for a few moments, watching the yellow fluid drip into his vein. He saw a window but didn’t want to stand up just yet. He waited for the vitamins to make him feel better. He felt bruised, like he had taken a direct attack. He felt lost without a weapon. Their father had taught them young, but he was helpless at the moment, helpless in all his thirteen-year-old glory.

  He wanted to see his mother and his brother, the two people who mattered most. He knew his father was busy fortifying the capital and, perhaps, the rest of the states, being the adept leader that he was. Stephen took a deep breath and pushed himself towards the edge of the bed where the wheelchair waited. He didn’t need assistance; he could do this on his own. He still had all of his limbs. He took a deep breath and hoisted himself onto it, surprised at how easy it was after being in a coma-like state for many days.

  The door slid open, chiming once. He looked around and saw he was in a hospital-like setting. There were doctors and nurses and other technicians scurrying about. He wheeled himself down the hallway, pressing tabs on the chair as he did, trying to get the hang of this new mechanical marvel. Then, he saw an open door, and, at the end of the room, he saw his brother’s figure dressed in hospital pajamas, staring out into something.