With speed Gavil didn’t see coming, Creed yanked the remote out of Gavil’s pocket, ripping the shirt in the process.
A slow smile spread across Creed’s face. In one hand he still clutched the glass serum bottles, in the other, the means to blow them all sky-high.
Gavil backed up two steps, aware he just lost the upper hand, hate dripping in the form of saliva off his snarling lips.
“What are you going to do, Creed? Blow yourself up? Then who’s going to protect your precious Winter family?
Creed wasn’t listening to his brother’s words; instead he was watching his every move as he used his elbows to pull himself to a standing position.
“Look at you, you piece of wasted crap! You always were a useless shit! You have no idea what you’re doing. Things are different, Creed. Williams is different. A lot of shit has gone down since you left Germany, asshole, and I don’t have time to explain it to you. Just give me the damn serum—then you can blow yourself to hell, for all I care!” Gavil screamed.
Only a fraction of Creed’s brain was registering the venom Gavil’s demented mouth spewed. He was more focused on what he knew he had to do. As his brother ranted, Creed calmly typed the six–digit code into the detonator. Then, even as he swayed, maintaining his stance out of sheer will, he raised his hand holding the vials and with all the anger and determination of a man who knew he was going to die, slammed them against the cement countertop. The vials shattered, spraying their contents with thin shards of glass.
For a moment Gavil stared, jaw agape. Then his face contorted with rage. Knowing what he was thinking, with Creed’s last ounce of strength, he pushed the detonator’s “enter” button.
Chapter 11 Little Black Boxes in the Sky
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen—Captain Bob Jacobi with copilot Vince Trainer, here. Just wanted to let you know we’re flying 39,000 feet above sea level, the skies are clear and we’re on schedule to arrive in LAX in three hours, twenty minutes. That will be just before 8pm California time. Brenda, our flight attendant will be serving dinner momentarily. If there is anything Mr. Trainer or I can do to make your flight more comfortable, please do not hesitate to let us know. It is always a—well, an adventure—to serve you,” the captain chuckled good-naturedly before turning off his intercom.
Meg had been sitting next to Cole, reading a book aloud to him. Though she was tired, and her voice was starting to get scratchy from the dryness in the cabin, Cole was her friend and he needed to know he wasn’t alone. Periodically she would stop and close her eyes, not to rest, but to focus on Cole. She tried desperately to find him through the unconscious blackness of his emotions. So far, nothing.
She wasn’t giving up hope, though. Cole had to be in there somewhere. If only he could find his way out of the darkness.
Dr. Andrews sat with Cole for the first four hours of their flight before Margo insisted he go rest in one of the plush passenger seats up front. Meg offered to keep vigil at Cole’s side, so Dr. Andrews reluctantly agreed.
As Meg was about get back to the book, she stopped and forced herself to look at her friend. His usual handsomeness was hidden behind a mask of illness. His mischievous, laughing green eyes were closed and sunken in shadowed bruises. She cringed at the thought of never seeing his adorable dimple again. Without thinking, she reached out and ran her fingers lightly through his sun-kissed brown hair, and sighed.
She prayed for him over the last few hours, but now felt a surge of anger at his thoughtless decision.
“How could you do this, you idiot?” She scolded softly. “Do you have any idea how worried we were? That serum Evan made was never tested!” Once she started her whispered tirade, she couldn’t stop. “Evan doesn’t even know what consequences there will be for you! Do you realize what I’m saying to you? Probably the brightest mind to ever study metahumans has no idea what will happen to a sixteen-year-old who dosed himself with a serum derived from Evan’s own blood!
“You blasted dolt! What if you killed yourself? What if I never get to laugh at one of your stupid jokes again? Why would you do this? Did you think about how this would affect everyone who loves you? Did you even care?” Meg’s anger had her huffing.
“I miss you already, you dork,” she groaned and laid her forehead against his. He felt feverish and his breathing was shallow. With her eyes closed, half hugging him like that, she thought of the first time she saw Cole. She remembered him leaping down the front steps of his blue Kansas house. She smiled at the memory of the look on his face when he first saw Maze clamor out of his dad’s SUV.
Then she remembered him watching her smile at her brothers, breathing deeply after one of their many sparing matches.
Wait.
Meg frowned at the memory.
No, not at the memory, but at the image in her mind.
There was something different about it.
She breathed deeply and opened herself to the thoughts.
Then it made sense—the difference was the vantage point.
That one—the sparring match. It wasn’t Meg’s memory. It was Cole’s.
Forcing herself to relax, she opened herself to his thoughts. They were hazy and inconsistent, but now that she knew what to look for, she could tune into them more readily. Without thinking about the possible consequences, Meg cupped her hands on either side of Cole’s head while maintaining forehead to forehead connection.
With intense concentration, she spread her warm white blanket wide, and imagined it strengthened with iridescent threads of friendship and devotion. She swung the blanket, like a fisherman would toss a net out into the darkened waters. The blanket billowed across Cole’s weak glimmer of consciousness evidenced only in his disconnected dreams. When she sensed she caught something, she bundled the corners of the blanket and dragged the lump into her arms. This was different from anything she felt before. Whatever she caught wasn’t sadness or anger like what she found in Creed and Farrow.
Carefully, she unwrapped the bundle.
Held in her arms was a small black box. Not sure what she would find, but unable to stop herself, she mentally reached for the latch and lifted the lid.
The first thing Meg saw was a picture of a woman with Cole’s green eyes. She smiled as she held a little boy. Jenna. This must be Cole’s mother, Jenna.
Beneath the picture of his mother was a small, simple wedding band. Meg held it over the box, worried if dropped it would be lost in the black waters of Cole’s mind. There was an inscription inside the ring. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she struggled to read the tiny script: “Can I kiss you forever?” His mother’s wedding band. The last thing in the box was a folded piece of paper. Meg opened it carefully and saw it was a letter written in a child’s hand, with green crayon. It read:
Dear God,
My mommy is sick. I tried taking care of her, but nothing is helping. Please make her better. If you do, I promise I’ll take care of her forever. I’ll be a good boy, and not just for Christmas presents.
Love, Cole Andrews
Meg returned all three items to the simple box and closed the lid. Using it as her springboard of redefined strength; she poured peace and understanding into her blanket and tossed it out again across the blackened water of Cole’s soul.
Using the box and its precious contents amplified her link to Cole hidden deep inside his own mind. With a sense of power beyond herself, her blanket widened further and further until it was only by faith that she knew where the edges were.
She felt the blackness shift as though cringing from the love she poured over it.
She pulled the corners together, gathering them in hands that now glowed with the same white iridescent light as her blanket. Prayers for strength turned the impossibly heavy bundle into a giant balloon. With a firm tug, the bundle floated away from Cole’s heart. Holding it above her head, she leaped into the air, pushing the now buoyant bundle into the blue sky. She watched it float away, the blackness contained inside squirming
sickly, and knew God would dispose of the darkness that had locked itself onto her friend’s soul.
When she woke her vision was blurry and her head was pounding. Maze was draped over her lap, licking her face. Margo’s worried eyes watched closely.
“Oh, Meg. You have to stop scaring me like that,” she said cupping her daughter’s face with her cool hand.
“What happened?” Meg asked, her voice groggy.
“Maze tackled you away from Cole and started barking wildly.” Alik’s voice came from her left. She turned to see his tired, sky blue eyes.
“Is Cole awake?” She asked.
“Whatever you did Meg, it worked,” Evan said from her right. “He’s still really sick, but at least he’s regained consciousness.”
“Oh, thank God,” Meg whispered, completely worn out from her efforts.
“Meg, how did you do that?” Evan asked, determined to get some answers.
“I think I can intensify my empath connection with physical contact. The more contact, the clearer the connection. Cole has so much sadness over losing his mother. The blackness was strangling him. I prayed for strength to pull it away from him.” She was mumbling toward the end of her explanation as exhaustion crashed over her.
“Sleep for a while, Meg. You earned it.” Meg heard pride in her mother’s voice, but what really made Meg smile as she drifted off was the feel of her best friend snuggling his nose under her hand and letting out an exasperated huff.
Chapter 12 Farrow’s Choice
“You don’t have to do that,” Farrow said to the hands repositioning her blanket over her shoulders. Her back was still turned to the world. She had been staring at a speck on the galley wall seven inches from her nose.
“I know.” It was a male voice, but Farrow refused to turn around to look anyone in the eye.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“No.”
“I brought you a plate of food anyway. It’s nothing fancy, just rehydrated chicken noodle soup, some crackers. There’s also some applesauce, I think. It’s hard to tell. The mashed potatoes were edible, if you add a packet of salt and pepper,” the voice smiled.
Farrow could smell the food. It made her mouth water. All she had eaten in days was military MREs, but she didn’t deserve to eat, certainly not food given to her by these good people. She couldn’t speak.
“I don’t know if you heard the commotion awhile back,” the voice kept talking, “but the other person who was injured finally regained consciousness.” He paused, giving her a chance to respond.
“We are all pretty relieved. He’s still sick, but at least he can talk to his dad. Dr. Andrews has been so worried about him.” The voice kept talking. Farrow heard a cellophane wrapper crinkle and imagined the person opening the utensil packet.
Her stomach betrayed her and let out a determined growl.
The voice chuckled. “I think your stomach is trying to tell you something.”
Farrow sighed and rubbed the puffiness around her eyes with her fist. She looked like a little girl, so small and fragile, her frame barely lifting the blanket off the gurney.
She held still for a moment.
Her companion waited patiently.
“You’re not going away until I eat something, are you?” She asked, exasperated.
“Nope,” he said.
With a huff, she sat up and regretted it. The pain in her abdomen was still crisp. Her head spun with the sudden change of position. She closed her eyes against it and steadied herself. When she opened them she was staring into the concerned face of the target known as M61—Alik Winter.
“Take it easy on yourself, kid. Evan’s a great surgeon and you’re a meta, but it still takes time to heal,” Alik gently scolded.
Farrow took a slow deep breath, inhaling more of the delicious scent of food. Her eyes followed her nose. Watching her closely, Alik smiled smugly as he finished readying her tray and carefully positioned it onto her lap. “Eat slowly, Farrow. Evan says the bullet did some damage to your intestines he had to repair, which is why the semi-solid meal here. He wants you to sit for a few minutes between bites, just in case your body revolts.”
Alik smiled widely and continued, “Which is why I also brought an ample supply of these handy vomit bags.” He held them up like a host on a game show and waved his hand around them with flair.
Farrow couldn’t stop herself from giggling.
Alik was mesmerized at the sound of her laughter. He had to peel his eyes off her smile so as not to look like a dumb-ass by staring.
Farrow daintily stirred the soup before trying to lift a spoonful to her lips, but her hand was shaking too badly. She frowned as though accusing it of turning traitor before trying again, with the same messy result.
Alik tried not to watch, but couldn’t help noticing her frustration. Deciding it was too painful not to help, he started babbling to hide what his hands started to do.
“So, I should tell you about the first time Jacobi and Trainer tried flying us stateside. What a wild ride that was!” Alik kept talking as he gracefully lifted the soup bowl into his hands and maneuvered the spoon to Farrow’s lips slowly, allowing her time to savor and her body to adjust to the food. Farrow felt awkward at first, being fed like a baby, but after a minute, she was so immersed in Alik’s story, she didn’t even notice.
After she finished the soup, Alik opened the applesauce thinking she might like something sweet. All this he did without missing a beat in the retelling of the story—skipping the life-or-death parts and focusing on the excitement and adventure in a way only Alik could.
Farrow put her hand on Alik’s as he lifted another spoonful of applesauce for her.
“Are you full?” he asked, interrupting his own story.
“Well, nearly,” she watched his eyes, “but I wanted to ask you something.”
“Okay, go ahead.” Alik said, putting the spoon down and removing the tray from her lap.
“Your gift, it’s your memory, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“How detailed is your recollection?”
“Extremely.”
“How far back does it go?”
“All the way.”
“All the way till when?”
“I remember being injected with the Infinite serum when I was a baby. I remember getting branded,” Alik’s hand reached up and rubbed the back of his neck as though the thought of it brought back the pain. His thick biceps twitched. He sighed deeply and reached again for the container of applesauce and spoon before he continued.
“I remember everything, every conversation, every dream, everything I’ve ever read, seen or heard, down to the most minute detail.” He shrugged his muscular shoulders and slipped the plastic spoon to Farrow’s lips.
“What about you? What are your special gifts?” Alik asked.
Farrow self-consciously licked her lips and ran her small hand through her dark pixie hair. “I’m nothing special,” she mumbled, ears turning red.
Alik frowned at her. A quick glance at his face had her feeling the need to elaborate.
“I mean, I’m a normal metahuman. I have no heightened gift like you and M57—I mean Meg or Evan. I was given the serum when I was a baby, too, but they call my serum ‘Infinite II’.” Farrow shrugged demurely. “None of us from the second generation of metahumans have reported gifts.”
Alik stared at her for a few moments, unmoving. If his brother or sister had seen the expression on his face, they would have recognized it immediately as the look Alik gets when he’s putting pieces of a complex puzzle of memories and thoughts together to solve something big.
“Hum.” Alik finally offered.
“Hum, what?” Farrow asked.
“Well, you said none of the second generation reported gifts to the scientists at the Facility.”
“Right.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean that the gifts aren’t there; just that they haven’t been reported.”
“How cou
ld anyone hide a gift?”
“I suppose it would depend on the gift.”
“So you think there are metahumans out there capable of more than they’re letting on?”
Alik shrugged, “Think about it, Farrow. If it were you, would you offer yourself up as a lab rat to Williams and his whack-job scientists? What, so they can suck your blood and DNA trying to duplicate the desired mutation, all for their nefarious plans?”
Alik shook his head as he delivered another sweet mouthful of applesauce to Farrow.
It was Farrow’s turn to sit pensively.
“Creed,” she finally said.
“What about him?” Alik asked, not offering anything further.
“There’s something different about him, but I never put my finger on it before. I just thought he was one hell of a tough soldier. But he’s more than that, isn’t he?”
“Was. He was one hell of a tough soldier.” Alik stared into the half-empty container in his hands, face falling.
Farrow’s doe eyes widened. “Oh, no. What happened?”
Alik didn’t respond right away—only rubbed his face, looking immediately older as stress creased his forehead.
“What happened to him?” Farrow felt an overwhelming sense of loss, knowing, but still needing to hear Alik say the words.
“According to Meg, Creed is gone. She can’t locate his emotional signature anymore. She tried for the first three hours of our flight, and got nowhere. She is really upset; we all are. Creed insisted on staying back to face Williams himself.”
Farrow groaned.
“Yeah, I guess things didn’t go as he hoped.” Alik sat back and closed his eyes, lost in his memories of his friend.
“I’m so sorry,” Farrow said softly swallowing the emotional lump lodged in her throat.
“Me, too,” Alik whispered. “In the end, he turned away from Williams. He decided all the sick, brainwashing he grew up with was wrong. He chose to fight alongside us. He sacrificed himself trying to rid the world of the cancerous growth that is Dr. Kenneth Williams.”
The two metahumans sat in silence for a while, trying to absorb the impact of Creed’s death.
Winter's Wrath: Sacrifice (Winter's Saga #3) Page 7