Winter's Wrath: Sacrifice (Winter's Saga #3)

by Karen Luellen

  It screamed a deafening screech. The SUV flipped over the median and landed upside down, directly onto the path of oncoming traffic.

  The driver of the eighteen-wheeler would later describe the events as unreal, as if he was watching a movie. He saw the white vehicle flip up and fly over the protective cement median. And when he heard his wheels screeching to an ineffective stop as it careened into the inverted vehicle, he knew there was no way to stop his rig and its heavy load from ramming the SUV. He watched helplessly as the car flipped over and over down into the ditch beside the four lane highway on that Texas road. Its final resting place was anything but as the car spun eerily upside down at the bottom of the ravine.

  Cole’s body looked only like a wicked blood smear on the shattered windshield, still cracking and groaning under the effects of the accident. The black seat belt dangled uselessly above the crumpled and broken body of the boy with the green eyes.

  Chapter 35 Bad News or Really Bad News?

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” Creed began, eyes sweeping the room. Everyone was there except Cole. No one had seen him for a while and the SUV was gone, so the parents figured he was out running an errand. It was unusual that he hadn’t checked with anyone before leaving, and even stranger still that he’d left his cell phone sitting on the catch-all tray in the kitchen.

  Looking intently at Creed, Meg focused on his emotions and sensed something momentous was about to be said and it had everything to do with her.

  She swallowed hard and tried to brace herself, but the intensity of the secret was bringing about a cold clamminess that swept fast over her skin. The enormity of the unspoken secret pressed her chest hard enough to make her breathe only the shallowest of breaths.

  He leaned forward, draping his thick elbows on his knees, letting his hands hang loose between and looked down gathering his thoughts. “Before, I mentioned that Williams had some sensitive material he was holding against me to force me to obey his orders.” He looked around the room to be sure the others acknowledged his reference before continuing. “Well, I don’t know how to say this.” He looked back up at Meg. Her eyes had never left him, but her body began to shiver with adrenaline. This was going to be bad.

  He stood and walked across the room to sit beside her on one of the sprawling sofas. Though she didn’t see it herself, Meg could sense the room was feeling the tension building.

  “What is it? Just say it?” Meg’s voice quivered.

  He looked Meg in the eyes and nodded. “Williams sat me down with a couple of the scientist responsible for studying me after my return to the Facility. Gavil was also present. Though at the time, I didn’t know why. He started by bombarding me with questions—testing my amnesia. Then he told me what I did during my first assignment. He said I turned traitor against him so when he had a choice to kill me he only opted to let me live so he could experiment on me. He wanted to know how I could heal from those lethal wounds I received. Once he figured out I’d been exposed to an Infinite serum from the St. Paul lab that had awakened heightened abilities in my body, he only kept me to use as a guinea pig.

  “He told me he had ordered his scientist, Bjorn was his name, to extract semen from me while I was in a medically induced coma.”

  Meg blushed. “I’m so sorry they did that to you, Creed. During my last—empath reading into Williams, I learned of his plans to use your seed to father the start of metahuman embryo. It’s one of the reasons we were so determined to come help you.”

  “You were going to come for me?” Creed stared at Meg with wide-eyed revelation for a moment before looking across the room at Margo and Theo.

  “Of course we were,” Margo nodded earnestly.

  “We were trying to get Meg healthy enough and figure out a way to get you to come with us,” Theo added.

  Meg felt compelled to explain, “It was during that same reading that I found you had lost your memory. So we were trying to figure out how to come rescue someone who maybe didn’t want rescued and certainly didn’t even know who we were.” Her brow crinkled with the worry she’d felt so deeply. “We didn’t know you survived the Island until that reading.”

  Creed looked into his lap, still and quiet for a moment. “I’m…wow…I’m not sure what to say,” his voice was thick with emotion. He still didn’t look up. “I can’t imagine why you’d be willing to risk yourselves for me.”

  “You’re family Creed. Whether or not you remember us, we remember you.” Margo smiled warmly at the young man.

  Creed glanced quickly up at the woman who had treated him like a son and looked back down to his lap, nodding slightly.

  He took a deep breath before continuing. “Well, you know about what they did to me. Does that mean you know about what they did to you?” He looked at Meg, directing his question to her.

  Meg frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Your eggs?”

  “My what?”

  Creed shook his head, anguish slipping across his face like a well-worn mask. He took a deep breath. “I hate having to be the one to tell you this part.”

  Meg’s face drained of color. “Just tell me.”

  Creed swallowed hard and continued. “After he told me about what they did to me, Williams went on to talk about his first research lab. The original one in California and he talked about you three.” Creed looked over at Evan and Alik then back to Meg. “And about you Dr. Winter. He told me you welcomed me into your family. He knew how important family is to me…” Creed’s voice trailed as he stared off into space for a moment.

  “He’s not done punishing me for my betrayal. This is where you come in Meg. He talked about you at length. He has this sick fatherly pride in you.” Creed visibly cringed at the memory of the look on the bloody scientist’s face as he spoke of the beauty holding his hand. He wanted to kill that man so badly he could taste the copper of blood.

  Meg’s hands began shaking in Creed’s. “Meg, when you were a baby—when he first dosed you with the serum and realized you’d live—he did something,” Creed coughed, visibly shaking with anger. “He told me he harvested two or three hundred of your eggs and put them in a cryogenic freezer in Germany.” The words spilled from Creed’s mouth like vomit. He pinched his eyes closed.

  “HE DID WHAT?” Margo flew to her feet, arms waving frantically at her sides. “He took her eggs when she was just a baby? You were all just babies! He’s inhuman. Lord help us, he’s the devil incarnate!”

  “I’m so sorry,” Creed offered miserably.

  “It’s all true.” Gavil had let Creed tell the whole story, respecting the fact that this was his trauma, but now he felt compelled to speak up. “Like Creed said, I was there. I heard the whole thing myself. Williams means to combine the two and study the results. He wants to dissect metahuman embryo.”

  That set Margo and the brothers on an even more frantic tirade.

  “Oh, my God!” Theo gasped.

  “He’s a monster!” Margo was so mad the veins in her neck stuck out.

  Meg couldn’t speak—feeling like she’d been sucker punched in the stomach. All the air whooshed out of her and left her as empty as her ovaries.

  She felt numb. Creed’s hands were still holding hers, but she didn’t feel the warmth anymore. She felt shocked. Violated. Raped.

  The room spun in a flurry of angry voices for what felt like an eternity. Margo kept screaming her fury while Meg’s brothers and the others in the room started talking all at once.

  Meg forced herself to stare at Creed’s strong fingers and found her voice. Leaning closer to him Meg spoke directly into his ear so she’d be heard over the room.

  “Why? Why take my eggs?” Meg pleaded.

  Creed shook his head sadly, “Please don’t make me say it. Please don’t hate me for this.”

  Meg searched Creed’s anguished eyes. “No.”

  Creed said nothing, letting the shock and realization sink in.

  “No.” Meg’s dark eyes glistened with
pain, tears pooling and spilling down her olive skin. She swallowed what felt like a lump of pumice in her throat trying to get her words out. “He’s going to combine my eggs and your—sample?”

  Creed’s jaw locked tight. He looked afraid to speak. One clipped nod was all he could manage, anguish and rage barely restrained.

  Oh, dear God, we were both violated. Please help us stop him before it’s too late. Meg prayed.

  Neither Creed nor Meg had noticed the room had grown silent during their exchange. Everyone was feeling the shock and horror as the two metahumans sat side by side in their dread.

  “He’s going to create conception in a Petri dish and then what?” She coughed around the words.

  “He would have to impregnate a surrogate, unless he’s created an artificial womb.” Evan interjected, shaking his head miserably. He had walked to Creed and Meg and sat on his haunches between them. “I suppose I shouldn’t put it past him to have done that.”

  Maze, who had awakened finally from his sedative a few hours ago, yawned and stretched as he crawled out from under the coffee table and ambled to Meg’s side. The coyote leaned his shoulder against her leg, nuzzling his head under her arm, asking for attention.

  Absently, Meg rubbed his ears.

  “We need to hear more details of what Williams said,” Alik nodded to Creed. “What did he say he’d do if you brought us in?”

  “He said he mostly wanted Evan because he was given the most advanced version of the serum. That he just wanted you ‘home.’ His word.”

  “Then what would he do with the eggs and sperm?” Theo asked.

  “He said if he had you three he would be too busy figuring out the original serum from your blood to worry about creating a ‘new generation of thoroughbred metahuman embryos.’ Again, his words.”

  “That’s some messed up logic,” Slider blurted, then looked around the room apologetically. “Sorry, I just—wow—it’s nasty enough that the Facility keeps getting new recruits every month. These are just kids who fell into the wrong part of the system, like we did. But I didn’t know he tested on babies, unborn babies?” Slider was shaking his head, eye wide.

  “How do we know he hasn’t already done what he was threatening to do?” Evan asked the room.

  “What do you mean?” Alik asked.

  “I mean, he’s obviously not a guy with integrity. How do we know he hasn’t already caused the conception? For all we know, there are two-month-old embryos in an artificial womb somewhere in the Facility.” Evan’s quick scientific mind raced with the possibilities.

  Meg doubled over feeling as if she was going to throw up for sure.

  “Let’s not think that just yet. We have a lot of work to do, and the only way we can do it is one step at a time.” Theo had walked up to put a comforting arm around Margo, who was quieter now, though still shaking with silent tears. “I’m going to make a phone call to Greg Burns,” Theo said, worry lines deeply etched in his brow.

  “Who’s Greg Burns?” Gavil asked.

  “He’s a friend. We go way back. He also happens to be a former cop, now working for US Homeland Security. He knows some of the story, but I’ll need to get him up to speed. Maybe he can help.” Theo nodded to the room, excusing himself, as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

  “Well, as far as I’m concerned, this new information just eliminated the option to run and hide. The longer we give him, the more likely he’ll act on his threats.” Alik pulled out the maps they’d drawn and opened the plans they’d sketched so far.

  “Creed what can you tell us about the regular deliveries to the Facility? We were thinking we could gain access that way.”

  Still holding one of Meg’s hands, Creed turned to Alik and blinked hard, trying to clear his cluttered thoughts to focus. “From the window of the room I was assigned at the Research Hospital, I could see the commissary. I was monitored like clockwork, so I started to notice a pattern of delivery trucks coming to unload at 8:15 every Monday and Thursday night. Local time, of course. The truck would make a beeping sound as it moved in reverse. I remember I was usually reading at my desk and would get distracted by the sound. I’d look out my window and watch it ease into position. I could nearly set my watch by it. They usually stayed for an hour, and I’d hear the engine crank on again at about 9:15 as they’d pull away from the loading dock and drive off.”

  “Now that’s something we can use,” Alik grinned, ever the optimist.

  “Do you know what the truck looked like?” Evan asked, pulling out a pad of paper and handing it to Creed. “Draw it.”

  “I’m no artist but,” his hands moved easily across the paper and before long, he’d drawn a side view of a truck and its twenty-six foot trailer. “It’s all white except for one red stripe down each side that has the phrase in German, ‘Zuverlässiger Transport’ imbedded in the line.”

  His hands drew what he was saying making the image even more helpful.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It translates to Reliable Transport. They must be a local company,” Gavil offered

  Evan looked to Alik. The brothers’ silent exchange ended with Alik standing abruptly. “I’ll get my laptop. Maybe I can find the company online.”

  “Okay,” Margo walked over to them having patted her face dry of tears. “So let’s assume we can sneak onto a truck and get into the compound. Then what?”

  Meg watched her mother lift her beautiful human chin with determination. Her sharp eyes and brilliant mind had shifted to soldier mode, and Meg was thankful for it. Truth be told, she envied her mother’s ability to do that. She wished she could compartmentalize her emotions to deal with them when it was appropriate and not feel so ruled by them all the time.

  Meg listened to people around her plot and plan. After three hours, several internet searches, one interesting conversation with Greg Burns and a lot of notes, they had a plan. Well, as much a plan as was going to happen that night.

  Each of them was assigned specific tasks so they could accomplish all they needed to do in this short period. Meg looked around the room at the people willing to fight to the death alongside her and felt an overwhelming sense of strength in their unity.

  This time, they were going to put Williams on the defensive. All of them were sick of running, hiding and living in fear. He crossed too many lines.

  And now, Meg thought. He’s holding my unborn children hostage? No. I refuse to let him do that to me or them. It was time to end him.

  The tentative plans started to take a more defined shape as they worked. Germany was seven hours ahead of Dallas, Texas time, so it was 7pm Tuesday here, 2am Wednesday there.

  They had forty-two hours.

  Chapter 36 Filling in the Blanks

  The household retired to their rooms after dinner, most with the intent to study their part of the plan—committing it to memory. They were planning to meet again at 9pm to be sure no one had questions that had come up during their study.

  For now, the house was still, but Meg’s mind was racing.

  Though she was supposed to be committing everyone’s part in the plan to memory right down to the exact minute, all she could think about was Creed. The plan was intricate. It depended on everyone being exactly where they should be at the exact right time—it was almost like a dance.

  The assassination of Williams was like an elaborate choreographed dance among the eight meta players and though Meg felt desperate to be exactly where and when the plan dictated, her emotions kept overriding her thoughts and slipping back to the way Creed felt in her arms.

  She was sitting on her bed, notes and diagrams spread out, wishing like hell she had her brother’s eidetic memory.

  Groaning, she rubbed her stressed eyes and sat up straighter, stretching her back. Maze yawned from his spot beside her. Deciding the stretch felt too good to stop there, she crawled off her bed and stood, arms reaching high above her. She tried to focus on the plan again, forcing her highly distractible brain to wa
lk through every step from memory. She leaned over and put her nose to her knees, wrapping her hands around her calves to revel in the pull of muscles. Standing abruptly, she flipped upside-down into a perfect hand-stand.

  Maze decided at that very moment to hop down off the chair and join in what looked like playtime to him. He started by slobbering all over Meg’s face then jumped up and knocked her backward so he could wrestle properly. “Get off me, you crazy coyote!” Meg giggled only halfheartedly shooing her best friend away.

  A firm knock sounded at her door. Still smiling at her goofy canine, she popped up and turned the knob without thinking about who could be on the other side.

  Creed stood, hands held behind his back, legs spread slightly in the soldier’s standard ‘at rest’ position. Weird.

  “Hi. Is everything okay?” Meg watched him carefully, trying to read his intentions.

  He stopped staring straight ahead at nothing and allowed his eyes to look down at her briefly before returning to his soldier’s stare. “I was making rounds, making sure the house was secure, when I heard some suspicious noises coming from your room. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  Meg tried not to laugh at him. He was so stiff and nervous. Bless his heart!

  “You were making rounds?” She bit her lip hoping he wouldn’t hear the smile in her voice, because his eyes still were looking straight ahead a foot above her.

  “Yes. I don’t want us caught off guard.”

  “Were there any other rooms where you heard unidentified noises?” Meg crossed her arms, trying to sound serious.

  “Yes, Alik’s.”

  “And did you knock on his door to check on him, too?”

  Creed pursed his lips together, his jaw working.

  She couldn’t hold her giggles in any longer.

  His eyes darted down to look at the girl, brows knitted in consternation at her laughter.

  “I can see you’re fine. Good night, miss.” Creed spun on his heel and started down the hall.

  “Wait, Creed. I’m sorry. Come back here.” She hurried after him and reached out to touch his arm.