I heard the four that had taken care of our attackers returning and instinctively turned around to see that one of them was Daniel. It was odd to see him in uniform and being so ‘normal’. That was when I realized that Jay and his team hadn’t just taken weapons and explosives from the armory, but also bulletproof vests. Daniel gave me a long stare before reporting to Jay that all was clear.
We moved out and were incredibly fast. Peter was carrying Nina, while Daniel dragged White along with us. He was out again, so I figured that someone had put him out once more.
Before I actually realized it, I found myself in the garage. Everyone around me was busy as bees, spreading out to fulfil their tasks quickly and with precision.
If White could see this he would be proud, because this group of soldiers was exactly what he had envisioned. Thinking of him I looked around to find him being taped to one of the pillars, a charge of explosives on the next side of it, at the height of his chest. When this thing went off, it would rip him to tiny little shreds. Apart from the injuries Nina and I inflicted, he was unharmed.
That fact said so much more than a thousand words. Despite what he had done to all of us, that every one of us actually had the right to wreak their wrath on him and no one had touched him, meant so much more. We weren’t monsters, even though a monster had created us. We weren’t solely driven by instincts like the beast in us, the very one he had put there.
Looking at him my feet stopped walking when I was close enough to squat and pat his cheek in order to wake him. He had to be aware of his situation, that we had won and he had lost, that his life’s work would go up in flames, that no one would ever learn about his success and that he would die along with everything he had worked for.
While I took his wristband from him, White finally came around, blinking heavily until he could recognize who was right in front of him. Austin was waiting close by, but I had to do this.
“I wanted to say goodbye,” I told White with a smile, closed my eyes and took a deep breath to wake my beast and let it partake in the conversation.
When he saw the green glow with the darker green patterns in my irises he realized what I had become. And, much to my astonishment, he was speechless.
“I’m going to leave now with my friends,” I pointed around, “and when we do, this whole compound with all its files and data will blow up into tiny little pieces, and you right with it. I’m sure there is a very special little place in hell for you. Farewell.”
I got up and turned around, nodding towards Austin that we were leaving.
“I will always be a part of you now, Meghan!”
I tried to shake off those words as I marched on, but in a way he was right. What I had gone through here and what I had become, it was all thanks to him. It was true, but what I would make of it was mine and mine alone.
Austin and I started jogging. I knew that I had wasted time with waking up White and talking to him, but I just needed him to be awake and aware of his situation, and even if he might feel pride about what he saw, he would live his last moments with the knowledge that no one would ever know.
We ran through a short and dimly lit tunnel that was not even large enough to fit a car through, but it was more than enough for us and the others. I lifted the wristband I had taken from White, and placed it against the scanner. With a humming beep the door unlocked and I pushed it open so forcefully that it smashed against the wall it was set in. Slowly I made a step outside into the shining sun. We stepped out onto a freshly green meadow. The grass reached up to my hips. It was such a stark contrast that it felt like a dream. I couldn’t help but close my eyes and lay back my head to enjoy the sun.
“Meg,” Austin urged.
I pulled myself back to reality, reached out my arm and ducked down to move forward and Austin mimicked me. He was right, my task was to get him to the car safely and take care of any threat there possibly was.
There was no path through the grass, which was a sign that no one had used the door we had come from.
“Stay close,” I whispered and started moving.
My eyes were scanning for larger heat signatures, which wasn’t as easy on a warm day and in the sunlight because everything had warmed up, but I would still be able to recognize a human body. I also tried to fade out his and my heartbeat in order to hear someone coming, but there were a lot of crawling and scuttling, which distracted me.
Austin had told me that if we walked a straight line for half a mile we would reach the cars. I forgot how long that could be, but I saw where we were heading because further down there was a line of trees and I placed a safe bet on the cars standing below them. I was right.
Apart from wildlife there was no one but us there. I stopped right in front of a black sedan with red seats and I smiled. This one was ours, Jay’s and mine. I opened the wrapper, found the key inside and pressed the unlock button. Instantly the snapping sound of the door locks filled my ears. I opened the door and placed the leather wrapper on the driver’s seat. There were two different sizes envelopes on the passenger seat, but I didn’t give it any attention. Val had said the bank information and our new identities were in the car.
I shut the door and went over to Austin.
“You’re good?”
He looked up briefly and nodded.
“You need me to stay with you?” I asked again and his answer was a shaking of his head.
So, I decided to go back and see if they would need any additional help. The faster we all got out of here the better. I needed to make sure that Nina was well, or at least okay. Quickly and with my head down, I ran back to the high grass towards the open door. I couldn’t see any movement in it, which meant they hadn’t finished yet. Just slowing down so that I would walk, I entered the escape tunnel and almost smacked into Jay, who stepped in the way.
“Hey, anything I can help with?” I smiled at him.
“No, we’re almost set,” his expression was uncertain, but I could relate to that, with freedom that close, with this plan working, we have managed to break free and that felt just like a dream.
Suddenly he grabbed my face and kissed me intently, and even as he stopped his lips kept lingering on mine for a little longer, before he looked at me so softly, that I felt a tiny crack in my heart.
“I love you,” he whispered hoarsely and seemed to get lost in my eyes.
“I love you, too,” I answered, my smile turning radiant.
“Now go ahead and tell Austin that his signal is us blowing up the garage,” he said, his hands sliding down across my halfway bare arms, briefly touching my fingers, before he let go.
I nodded, turned around and started walking back into the sun. For a November day the weather was perfect, as if Autumn tried to show its most beautiful side, just for us. With my eyes closed, enjoying the warm sunlight I walked until I was halfway to our cars. Then a gust of cold wind rustled through the grass and created goosebumps on my arms. I don’t know what it was what made me turn around and decide to watch everyone leave the short escape tunnel before the garage would be blown up.
What I saw was Jay standing at the door, watching me walk away. The expression he had on his face was tearing me apart and I instantly knew what he was up to.
“No!” I screamed, but he looked down and pulled the door shut.
I could see the light of the magnetic lock switch to red and I just stared in disbelief for two heart beats before I set my body into motion and a loud drum like thunder tore through the peaceful silence of the meadow I was standing in. A blink of an eye later the ground before me broke open, debris flying around and flames reaching to the sky. The blast of the explosion almost swept me off my feet, and a wave of dust rolled over me.
That was when I remembered what Jay had told me. This explosion was the signal for Austin to blow everything and everyone up. I was about to turn around and run towards him, but a series of mumbled thunders made me freeze and look back.
It appeared as if the ground was dancing,
but as I looked further down the field, I could see black smoke and fire crawling up from what Jay had called the ‘pit’ and then the ground simply sunk in, almost as if it swallowed itself. And I knew the compound was gone, everyone was gone, including Val, including Peter, and Nina and ... Jay.
I just stood there watching the ground crumble, fire gnawing, consuming, and taking over everything. I didn’t care for the dust or the smoke or that my eyes were burning.
This just wasn’t happening.
I don’t know for how long I just stood there in shock, but I knew it had been too long as Austin suddenly popped up next to me.
“Where’s everyone?” He asked incredulously.
My finger seemed to lift itself as I pointed to the spot where the metal door had been and now there was nothing more than rubble and fragments of metal.
Austin joined me in my muteness of disbelief for again a timespan I wasn’t sure of. All I knew was that suddenly the watch on Austin’s arm was beeping.
“We have like five minutes left,” he blinked once and spoke monotonously, as if his mind wasn’t really there.
I knew that we had to leave, especially if I didn’t want my child to end up as a pincushion guinea pig. But I just couldn’t bring myself to move.
“Meg,” Austin said and touched my shoulder.
It was as if he had cut through the strap that had held me back. I ran. And I ran to where the door had been. I could feel my beast break free and take over my body, but I didn’t care, we had the same goal: save Jay, save my mate.
I found the door which was strangely intact and now leaning against what once was the frame that held it. My clawed hands grabbed it and simply tossed it away. All there remained was more debris and earth. My heat vision didn’t see anything but I still dug with my hands, tossing and throwing rubble aside until they touched something soft. I couldn’t believe it. I continued digging even faster as before, clearing free a hand. Cautiously, but impatiently, I started to grab the stones and throw them away to free a lower arm, an upper arm, a shoulder, the back of a head. The color of the hair was indistinguishable because of the grey dust, but my heart still made a jump. It was a dark hair color and a short, military cut. It took me quite some strength to lift a heavy part of concrete from his other arm, which was gruesomely shattered, and then I grabbed him by his armpits and pulled him out to roll him onto his back and see his face.
My breath stuck in my throat. It was Daniel.
And he was breathing.
Again I just stared in disbelief, but it was the sound of Austin’s steps approaching me that made me snap out of it.
“We need to...” he broke himself off. “Is he alive?”
“Yes,” I answered, realizing that I had shifted back without realizing and made a quick decision.
Today
After we got Daniel into my car, Austin led the way to the safe house that had been set up by him for Jay and me. It was a former factory building that had been modified so that it would still appear as forlorn, but had been enforced and converted to a two level apartment. It was Spartan and functional, but something I was strangely used to, because it reminded me of the reconstructed cell I had spent the last months in.
Austin didn’t leave me alone, he showed me the codes to open the gate and there was enough room for two cars to fit in. He stayed with me and used his connections in the dark web to get a medical team to take care of Daniel whose body had been shattered into countless pieces.
Before they left, leaving me infusions, pills and instructions how to proceed, the head of the team told me that he would stop by once a day, but he didn’t give Daniel a surviving chance and I was fine with it.
It was then, when I closed the door and locked it with a 10-digit code that I remembered the two envelopes on the passenger seat. To avoid forgetting them again, I opened the door and got them.
I instantly froze when I say that one was nothing but a mailer with my name written on it.
Jay’s Letter
Meg,
I asked Valerie to place this letter into the car in case I wouldn’t make it. She didn’t know that I never planned for any of us but you and Austin to make it. I couldn’t tell you about my decision because I know you wouldn’t agree, you would want all of us in control to escape and I’m sorry that I gave you no say in this. Just as I know that you will eventually understand, because you always do.
I just hope that you will be able to forgive me one day.
All of us but you are tainted by what happened to us, what we did to others, what we have become. We all shouldn’t exist. We are too dangerous. Valerie knows far too much about the whole project. And she already had betrayed our trust by involving her new employer and I can’t guarantee that she would have kept her promise regarding you if I hadn’t offered myself in return for the two shots of anti-virus that you will need. She didn’t explain to me why two were necessary, but she told me that you would understand.
If whoever has funded this project found out we were still alive they would hunt us down and you along with us. You would end up right where we started. Without us, you can take the anti-virus and go back to your life unworried. You can tell a story as close to the truth that everyone will believe you, or a completely different one. You will have enough money to make a free decision about that. But, without me, without any of us, you will have a chance at a normal life without any threats, without any secrets, and all of that happened to you down here will be nothing more than a nightmare, which will slowly fade away until you might doubt it ever happened.
I can only imagine how you must feel right now, because I know what I am feeling having made this decision of tearing us apart forever. I know that this will not mend your pain, but please never forget that I loved you with my entire being, you were my salvation, my hope, my strength, my everything.
Yours forever,
Jay
This is not the end...
Meg will be back with a vengeance in...
The Beast Is Me
Set up directly after the events of The Beast In Us, Meg is incapable of accepting the outcome of her prison break. As an imminent result of this, she seems to lose more and more control over her own beast, risking not only her own health, but also the ones that have remained with her.
After struggling with herself for days, having only one person to really talk to, Meg decides to give in to the urge inside of her. Having broken free from White’s clutches and the organization he worked for, shouldn’t mean that she would have to continue to live in hiding; again feeling like being a caged prisoner.
So, instead of going mad and crawling up the walls of her safe house, Meg sets out to bring down Rook and the rest of the people who were responsible for White’s sadistic experiments, not knowing that she will be in for some shocking surprises.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
D.S. Wrights was born and raised mostly in Germany.
She speaks three languages fluently: English, German and Dutch.
Her name is a pen name and she describes writing as her passion and calling. Two short stories were published during high school, one as a school project and one in a regional newsletter.
Later she worked at a publishing house where she earned insight into the work, process and production of publishing books.
In the last few years she has published several fan fictions to which the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Her first novel was The Beast And Me.
Visit: www.dswrights.com
Twitter: @DSWrights
tumblr: www.dswrights.tumblr.com &
www.thebeastandme.tumblr.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dswrights
www.facebook.com/thebeastandme
Goodreads: https://t.co/0AfMj3PaWa
Amazon: http://t.co/9klFxrsQOU
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The Beast In Us (The Beast And Me Book 3) Page 19