I pulled my eyes open the next morning to the sound of dishes clattering in the kitchen. I wasn’t sure of the time, but sunlight flooded the room, telling me I’d slept late. Ash would be impatient for his breakfast.
Milly stirred beside me. “Mornin’,” she yawned.
“Morning.” I wondered how Jude was doing. I climbed from the bed, pulled on my boots, and slipped from the room.
Ben and Micah’s door was still closed. I headed toward the front of the house, thinking I’d sneak Ash some spätzle before anybody woke up, but stopped when I heard voices.
“…Sera and her friends should stay with us,” Hilda was saying.
Micah replied, “It’s too dangerous, for her and for you.”
“He’s right, my dove,” the doctor answered. “We are a Europa hospital after all.”
“I’m sure the 1st Cascade will be more than happy to take them in.” This new voice, a woman’s—probably the nurse’s—pulled at my memory.
“That’s the best option,” Micah answered. “When Jude’s ready to travel, I’ll take them to Vivica Davis.”
Milly came up behind me. “What are—”
“Shh!” I hissed at her, bringing my finger to my lips.
She clamped her mouth shut and leaned forward to listen with me.
“That will make it easier for you to protect her,” Hilda conceded.
I frowned. Protect me?
“I don’t know,” Micah responded. “It wasn’t easy when they were living at the cabin.”
“Maybe if you told her the truth…,” said the doctor encouragingly.
“She’s not ready,” Micah answered.
“She is not ready to hear it?” Hilda countered. “Or you aren’t ready to tell it?”
“We must always be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within us,” the familiar female voice counseled.
“Perfect verse, Eliza,” Hilda replied.
Milly’s eyes rounded. “Eliza?” she mouthed.
I clenched my jaw. Eliza Cole, Micah’s Spathi friend.
I strode out of the hallway, Milly at my heels. Ignoring Hilda’s surprised “Good morning,” I marched toward the pile of guns by the front door and snatched up an AK-12.
Eliza Cole sat beside Jude’s cot. I pointed my weapon at her. “Get away from him.”
Milly, fit to be tied, glared at the doctor. “This is your nurse?”
The Reinkanns, looking confused, stood from the sofa. “I…I’m afraid I don’t understand,” the doctor said. He looked at me and Milly, then at Micah.
“Seraphina.” Micah stood by the fireplace, a steaming mug of precious coffee in his hands. His tone was dark and threatening. “What are you doing?”
“Ending this ridiculous charade.”
Ben walked into the room and stopped short. “What’s going on?” He spotted Eliza. “Whoa.” He looked at Micah, his expression tightening. “What is she doing here?
“She is my nurse,” the doctor answered. “And indispensable.”
“She’s a Spathi,” Ben countered.
“So is Micah,” I added.
The Reinkanns stared at me in shock. Just when I thought I’d broken their hearts with my revelation, they both burst into laughter. “Micah most certainly is not a Spathi,” the doctor chuckled.
Their humor irritated me. “I saw them, along with Ken Sheridan and John Voss among others, in the old Roslyn church the night before Micah was executed.”
“Executed?” Hilda blurted. She looked at Micah.
“It’s a long story,” Micah grumbled.
“One they deserve to hear,” I retorted. “Will you tell them or should I?”
“What you should do is put the gun down and stop jumping to conclusions.”
“Sera,” Hilda began patiently, “there are no Spathi here.”
Eliza stood from her stool. “That’s not entirely true.”
Micah tried to stop her. “Eliz—”
“It’s okay,” she interjected. “This needs to be said. I’m ashamed to admit that after the eruption and earthquake I fell into despair. My husband was gone—it was looking more and more as if God had taken him and left me behind—and I was angry and humiliated. I wanted answers. The Spathi were the closest thing I could find to Christians. I didn’t agree with their methods, but they lived by a rigid set of rules that made me feel like I could earn my way into Heaven. Their hate tapped into my bitterness and, for a while, I felt purged. And then they decided to blow up a café full of soldiers.”
I gripped my weapon.
“You,” Milly accused. “You tried to kill us!”
Eliza shook her head. “While the others made plans for the café, I went for a walk to clear my head. I found myself standing outside my husband’s old church and there was Micah.” Tears filled her eyes. “My story spilled out of me, the Spathi, the bomb, my anger. Micah told me that God hadn’t left me behind because He hated me. He’d left me behind because He loves me.”
I shook my head in disgust. Nothing she said made any sense, but Christians rarely did—especially fanatical Christians. I looked at Micah. “She was your informant?”
He nodded.
“And the Spathi poncho I saw you with that night?”
“It was mine,” Eliza responded. “A week after the bombing I worked up enough courage to attend one of Micah’s meetings. Once he started talking, I realized I’d been faking it my whole life. I handed in my poncho and never looked back.”
They seemed to have an answer for everything.
“Hold on,” Milly spoke up. “Are you sayin’…are you sayin’ that Micah isn’t a Spathi?”
“Of course not,” Hilda sputtered. “Micah is verschlossen—a friend of God.”
Milly, Ben, and I exchanged looks. I knew they were thinking that we’d handed over an innocent person to be executed, but I’d heard Micah’s speech in the church. Death equals promotion. Micah was a fanatic, not to mention a Skagg. I refused to lower my weapon.
We all glanced around at each other. Eliza watched me carefully while Micah sipped his coffee. Finally, the doctor spoke up. “How is this to be settled?”
Micah looked up from his mug. “Oatmeal.”
“Oatmeal?” asked Ben.
“Yeah.” Micah strode past me, nudging aside my weapon and heading for the kitchen. “I’m starving.”
Ben shrugged. “Oatmeal.”
Hilda grinned and clapped her hands. “Who wants breakfast?” She walked past me for the kitchen.
I stared after them both, angry that they weren’t taking me seriously and frustrated that Micah kept talking his way out of everything. I looked over at the doctor. “He’s got you all fooled.”
“No,” Doctor Reinkann replied. “He’s got us all awake.”
I scowled.
Micah and Hilda returned with bowls of steaming oatmeal. Hilda handed me one, but my hands were full with an AK-12. I could either refuse her or put down my weapon. For the sake of manners and my growling stomach, I chose the latter.
I made my stand, however, by not eating with Micah or Eliza. While the others—including Ben and Milly—gathered across the room by the fire, I sat alone on the floor by the front door.
I took my first bite and remembered Ash. “Is it possible to get something for my wolf?”
“I fed him.”
I looked up at Micah in surprise.
“And you’ve still got all your fingers and toes?” Ben joked.
Micah shrugged. “He and I have an understanding.”
“Aren’t you the charmer,” I grumbled.
“It’s called kindness, Seraphina,” Micah retorted. “Something you used to appreciate.”
Doctor Reinkann cleared his throat. “Micah, what news do you have about the rebel summit?”
Ben’s head popped up. “We heard rumors about that summit. Is it for real?”
“It is,” the doctor answered. “Hundreds of fighters are gathering to strategize the taking of Ellensburg.�
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“It’s a waste of time.” They all looked at me. “The praetor has five times as many men and a hundred times as much firepower. The only thing the rebels will succeed in doing is getting themselves slaughtered.”
Micah scowled. “You’re quite the optimist.”
“It’s called reality, Micah. Something you used to appreciate.”
He smirked and shook his head.
Hilda smiled. “God might have something to say about your version of reality, Sera.”
“God certainly hasn’t had much to say about all this death and destruction.”
Hilda blinked at me. What I’d said was rude, but I’d had it up to my eyebrows with all their God talk.
Micah dropped his bowl onto the coffee table. “I guess manners don’t mean much to you anymore either.”
Angry and embarrassed, I lowered my head and focused on my oatmeal.
“Sera…” Doctor Reinkann began.
I’d heard too many religious lectures from my mom not to sense one hanging in the air. “How is the 1st Cascade doing?” I interrupted, hoping to head the doctor off.
Eliza set her spoon in her bowl. “They’re the plague of Europa. I have a brother in the 1st, and he—” She frowned at me as if suddenly realizing something. “How is your brother?”
Emotion tightened my throat. I swallowed hard.
“Yes,” the doctor joined in. “Where is David?”
Milly cleared her throat. “David left us to join Europa.”
I closed my eyes and kept breathing, deep and even. It was still hard for me to believe that my brother had betrayed me—but then that seemed to be the going trend.
Hilda turned wide eyes on me. “Is this true?”
I swirled my spoon through my oatmeal, determined not to care. “He’s in Ellensburg by now.”
Hilda gasped. “Lord, no!”
I looked up. She had tears in her eyes and was trembling.
The doctor shook his head. “This is not good. Not good.”
I could understand them being disappointed, even sad. But terrified? Something was wrong. “What’s going on?”
“Seraphina,” Micah began. “The praetor is doing terrible things to kids in Ellensburg.”
A tingle of alarm spread through my body. “What kind of terrible things?”
Hilda sobbed into her apron. The doctor put his arm around her shaking shoulders. “Da, da, meine liebchen.” He looked at me. “They took both of our boys four months ago. Only Alvin was returned.”
“Alvin?” I hadn’t seen either of their boys since we’d arrived last night. I’d assumed they’d both been lost to Viridea.
“Alvin stays in his room.” The doctor answered with such clinical candor that I almost missed the pain in his eyes.
I looked at Micah for an explanation.
“Europa is experimenting on them,” he told me.
Private Calhoun’s words came back in a rush. “Some genetic thing. Makes ’em really big and really strong. Praetor calls it the Goliath Code.”
A chill raced through me.
“They’re changing them into something…not human,” Eliza clarified.
My chest tightened. “You mean stronger? More powerful?”
Micah looked at Hilda and the doctor. “She needs to meet Alvin.”
But I’d met Alvin and Stephen Reinkann several times. The last time, Stephen had been a typical thirteen-year-old boy, bossy and arrogant. His older brother Alvin was on David’s Mathlete team at school.
Hilda’s chin trembled.
The doctor sighed, then nodded. “Yes. All right.”
While Eliza waited in the living room with Hilda, the rest of us followed Doctor Reinkann down the long hallway. He stopped at the room on the end. The door was closed and had a large latch with a padlock to keep it that way.
“No big movements,” the doctor warned. “No loud noises.”
His caution made me nervous. I searched Micah’s face. What was beyond this door?
The doctor knocked softly. “Alvin?” he called sweetly. He pulled a key out of his pocket, then knocked again. “Alvin? You have guests.” He opened the lock and pushed back the latch.
I heard a small squeak from inside the room. The doctor nodded at me, then eased open the door. The stench hit me like a torpedo—I almost gagged. It smelled like something had died and been left to rot. Not wanting to be rude, I resisted putting my hand over my mouth and nose as I reluctantly followed the doctor across the threshold.
The room was gloomy, with no lantern and thin curtains over the only window, but my eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light. There were books and toys scattered around the floor, along with crumpled pieces of paper and broken crayons. The walls were covered in pictures of Alvin’s first steps, Alvin’s first day of kindergarten, Alvin riding a bike, Alvin’s Little League poster. I saw dark irregular shadows on the walls and realized they were holes, like somebody had put a fist through the drywall.
The bed was unmade. The closet door was broken—hanging from one hinge. The air was heavy and the odor powerful.
Micah stepped on a train lying in pieces on the floor, and a dull CHOO CHOO bounced off the walls, startling me. A chain rattled somewhere in the room and a chill raced up my spine.
“Shh,” Doctor Reinkann whispered.
The stench got stronger the further in we walked. My eyes started to water. There was a large chair in the corner. I saw movement, heard more chains rattle, and realized Alvin must be sitting there. I saw him only in shadow at first. I thought he was wearing a large, furry hat. But then Doctor Reinkann eased open the curtains, flooding the room with light, and a scream lodged in my throat.
A creature stared back at me with enormous, bulging eyes that were bloodshot and oozing. His immense, misshapen head had little patches of golden hair sticking straight up from the roots. His scaly yellow skin was covered in pustules that wept a green, goopy liquid, leaving his face permanently coated in a thick mucus sheen. His flattened nose was pushed to the side and bent up at the end like a fishhook, and it, too, was leaking incessantly. His lips, set in a permanent snarl, curled back over four, sharp brown teeth. The endless stream of drool coming from his mouth explained the cloth bib that had been tied beneath his chin. He was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen.
He smiled—at least I think it was a smile—and greeted me. “Hi, Sera.” The deep, rough voice broke my heart in two.
“Hey.” I couldn’t manage anything more.
He shifted and the putrid smell wafted toward me in a big sickening wave. I realized that Alvin Reinkann was the thing rotting in the room.
A boy with limitless possibilities had been reduced to this monstrosity.
I noticed the chain around his ankle, secured with yet another padlock and bolted to the floor beside his chair.
“We allowed him to have the run of the room for a while,” the doctor explained, “but he started eating the drywall. His appetite is insatiable.”
Micah looked at me. “This is what the praetor’s experiment does.”
Reality dawned. David!
I turned and ran from the room. Alvin howled in protest. I shoved past Ben and Milly, who were standing in the doorway frozen in shock, and flew down the hallway.
Micah chased me to the front door. “Seraphina! Wait!”
I pulled my coat from the hook and yanked it on, tears pouring down my face. “I have to get to Ellensburg!” I grabbed my weapon.
I tried to pull open the door, but Micah slammed it shut. Then he took hold of my arm and I spun around to face him. “I know you’re worried about David,” he said. “But you can’t run off to Ellensburg and take on the entire guard by yourself!”
I refused to listen. I tried to shake off his grip. “I have to stop him!” Micah’s fingers were like steel. “Let me go!”
“Wait for reinforcements!”
“There’s no time!” I shouted.
“The rebels will be—”
I set the b
ore of my automatic rifle against Micah’s chest. “Let me go,” I ground out.
“Sera!” Milly shouted. “No!”
Everyone stared at me in shock.
Micah, however, seemed completely unfazed. “Go ahead,” he said.
“I will,” I yelled into his face. “I’ll do it!”
“Then stop talking and pull the trigger already!” he bellowed back. Finally, he wrapped his hands over mine and pressed his thumb over my trigger finger.
I resisted. “Are you crazy?” He didn’t let up. I tried to pull the gun away from him, but he only held on tighter. “What are you doing?” I cried. “Stop it!”
“I’m giving you what you want, Seraphina.” With one quick jerk, he made me squeeze the trigger. The gun went off at point-blank range. BAM! His body jerked and my heart stopped.
Milly screamed.
“What have you done?” I whispered. “What have you—”
And then I realized he wasn’t crumbling to the floor. He hadn’t even staggered.
I let go of the weapon. It tumbled to my feet. Micah just stood there—calm, unmoving.
I frowned at his chest. The bullet had left a hole and a powder burn in his shirt. He should have hit the floor. He watched me closely. I jammed my fingers into the hole and tore his shirt open. There wasn’t a mark on him.
My mouth went dry. I looked down at the automatic rifle and picked it up. I pointed it at the wall. And fired.
BAM!
Drywall exploded in a cloud of dust and gypsum flew everywhere.
The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. Micah had been uninjured in the hospital massacre, even though I knew he’d been shot several times. He’d survived the explosion at the citizenship ceremony, even though he’d been standing right next to the stage where countless others had died. He’d even survived a firing squad of Europa’s finest.
My eyes slid back to his face. He was waiting for me to say something.
I said the first thing that came to my mind. “What are you?”
A flicker of hurt darkened his eyes. He opened his mouth to respond, but, before he could say a word, a mournful howl echoed outside. My breath caught. Ash. He only howled like that for one reason.
A series of rattling bangs suddenly sounded against the door behind me. I leapt toward Micah. And then a loud shout turned my blood cold.
The Goliath Code (The Alpha Omega Trilogy) Page 26