Winter's Storm: Retribution (Winter's Saga #2)

by Karen Luellen

  He reached out to the wall switch right inside the doorway with one hand and balanced the heavy vase of flowers with the other.

  Then the old man realized why he felt things were wrong the moment he opened the door. It was the silence. There was always the sound of her monitors beeping softly in the background. There was always a light on by her bedside, and Esther was always sitting right beside his daughter in that chair. None of these things were in place.

  As the light burst on, the gruesome scene was exposed. There was his precious little girl lying motionless on the bed. Her chest did not rise and fall. Her face was a sickening bluish-gray.

  And there on the floor beside her was Esther. The soldier he had given the most important assignment in the history of metas: to take care of his daughter. She lay motionless as well.

  It took the old man a moment to wrap his head around what he was seeing. His feet wouldn’t move from that tiled spot. He stood there shocked long enough for the heavy vase to slip from his arms and smash to the floor.

  People who had been on the first floor talked in whispers about the screaming they heard from the hospital’s mysterious basement. Some of the metas were sure it was the ghost of Mrs. Williams. Others believed they were torturing disobedient metas down there. And still others wondered aloud about what monsters the doctors in that hospital had created in an experiment gone wrong.

  Well, truth be told, parts of each of those ideas was right. A monster was created in the basement that very day, and it was absolutely haunted by the deceased Mrs. Williams. All of this did happen because of experiments gone wrong, very wrong.

  And the typed note found tucked in the front breast pocket of the impeccably uniformed meta, Esther, contained words that cut what sanity the grieving father may have maintained into slivers of glass.

  Sir,

  I could not stand seeing June suffer anymore. Watching her wasting away year after year waiting for you to save her was agonizing.

  Keeping June locked away in the basement of your life was selfish and undisciplined.

  I feel peace knowing I have been a true friend and protector to June and as such came to realize it was up to me to free her from your prison of shame.

  Now, even you can move on and focus on your brilliant scientific work here at the Facility.

  Esther

  M402

  46 U-Turns in the Sky

  “So that’s the plan.” Creed said, finally. He had returned from the pilot’s cockpit even as the plane was still angling the about-face to tell the others the good news.

  The brothers sat quietly for a moment before Alik spoke. “Well, this was one heck of a way to prove your good intentions.” He allowed himself a half smile of appreciation.

  “Thank you for doing this, Creed.” Evan rubbed the emotion out of his eyes wishing desperately to change the subject.

  Creed’s face blushed as he mumbled, “It’s the least I could do for her.” He was looking affectionately toward Meg.

  Clearing his throat first, Evan asked, “Alik, tell me exactly what mom said.”

  “She said, ‘Maze was sniffing around on the trail where Creed told us he found Meg when she collapsed. He found something, Alik. Maze found the dart that poisoned Meg. Theo, Paulie and I are trying to decode the poison so we can make an antidote.’ Then when I asked her how soon she could have the antidote ready she said, ‘Well, that’s hard to say. I could really use Evan’s help with this. He’s faster at equations than any of us.’ ”

  Evan continued to stare at his brother deep in thought.

  “Wow, how did you do that?” Creed said looking over at Alik with his head tilted a bit to the side like a curious puppy dog.

  “Do what?” Alik said absently. He was walking toward his sister and adjusting the straps holding the gurney safely to the cabin wall.

  “That sounded like exactly what Dr. Winter would have said—word for word!”

  “It was.” Evan stood and started pacing the aisle. He was much more worried about the implications of creating an antidote based on an unknown toxin and not having time to test it for accuracy or safety before his sister needed it.

  “Wow, that’s a cool trick.”

  “It’s not a ‘trick.’ It’s his gift. He’s got an eidetic memory.” Evan was only partially engaged in this conversation. His mind was whirling around thoughts of curing his sister.

  “What’s an ‘eidetic memory?’”

  “I can remember everything I see, hear or read, perfectly,” Alik answered for himself in a distracted monotone.

  “Everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “How far back?”

  Alik shrugged. He was starting to feel a little uncomfortable talking about himself so much.

  “Can you remember your parents? I mean, your biological ones?” Creed asked.

  “Listen, Creed. We can talk about that some other time. Right now, I need to go check on the pilots. I might know of a way to ration our fuel.” He rubbed his hands on his jeans before standing and wedging past his brother who was still pacing the aisle.

  “Let me guess, he’s read a few books on how to fly a plane,” Creed mused to no one in particular as he watched the meta close the cockpit door behind him.

  “Undoubtedly.” Evan murmured.

  “You said it was his ‘gift?’ I remember Dr. Williams mentioning that each of you had something special about you. Each of you had an enhanced gift. I guess, Alik’s gift is his memory? It’s pretty clear you’re a medical genius and Meg—” his voice trailed off as he looked at her beautiful profile from where he sat. “Anyway, he said these were the ‘gifts’ he wanted back. I hadn’t really thought about what he meant by that until now.”

  “Right. Well, as you mentioned, Alik has the eidetic memory as well as ultrastrength. Meg is an empath. And I am not as much a ‘medical genius’ as an engineer, though lately I’m inventing, building and problem solving the mechanics of the human and meta bodies more than anything, so I can appreciate the assumption.” Evan shrugged modestly. “I just see everything as a puzzle to be solved.”

  “No wonder Williams wants all of you back,” Creed found himself looking at the younger male meta in front of him with a whole new sense of awe and respect.

  “You said Meg is an ‘empath?’ What is that, exactly?”

  “‘Empath’ meaning empathy. Her gift is the ability to sense the feelings, thoughts and emotions of others, especially those to whom she is linked somehow. She calls herself an emotional superconductor.” Evan smiled at his sister remembering how annoyed she got constantly bombarded with everyone else’s feelings and struggling to untangle them from her own.

  “Can she read minds?” Creed was very afraid of the thought that she knew what he was thinking all along.

  “No. She reads emotions, not minds.”

  “You said she could only do this with people she is linked with?”

  “With people to whom she is linked,” Evan gently corrected Creed’s grammar.

  “Like who? You? Her family?” Creed asked ignoring Evan.

  “Exactly.”

  “Only her family?”

  “No. She has a really tight connection with Maze, too.”

  “Maze, her coyote?”

  “Yes. She hand-raised him when he was orphaned back on the ranch in Texas. They are quite a team, those two.”

  “Are we still playing, ‘This is Your Life?’” Alik was walking back toward the boys with one eyebrow raised.

  “Any luck helping ration the fuel?” Creed asked.

  “We’ll see. We could look around to see what we could dump. The lighter the plane, the less fuel it uses.” Alik was only half joking as he looked around the cabin for something heavy and expendable.

  “Now there’s an idea! Do we really need two pilots? I say we dump the heaviest one.” Evan offered.

  Not knowing the boys well enough to get that they were kidding, Creed’s eyes widened with surprise.

  Alik c
ouldn’t hold it any longer and busted out laughing. “You should see the expression on your face! That was priceless!”

  “Glad to help lighten the mood for you.” Creed chuckled good-naturedly at himself.

  Evan looked at his watch and said to the room, “We have approximately 3 hours 47 minutes before we land, and we have a lot of planning to do.”

  “Right. When is Dr. Williams expecting you to check in?” Alik asked Creed.

  “He wants status reports constantly. He will be expecting me to call when we were to arrive at LAX,” Creed looked down at his hands. “If I don’t call him, he’ll call me on this.” From his pocket, Creed removed a sleek-looking cell phone.

  “Okay, well, that gives us about four hours before he is aware something’s wrong,” Evan concluded.

  “What about Farrow?” Evan asked.

  “She’s ruthless. She’s probably stalking the house with her sniper rifle right now. Come dark, assuming she hasn’t had the opportunity to complete her objective yet, she’ll switch weapons and tactics. She’ll wear night vision, have a powerful handgun with a silencer and she’ll find a way into the house.”

  The brothers stared at him with wide eyes.

  “Which is why we need to get to the house with Meg before sundown,” Creed added sensing the level of anxiety bouncing off the walls of the small aircraft.

  “Four hours from now will be just before 7pm. The sun sets at 7:22 today,” Alik offered.

  “Not a lot of room for error,” Evan sighed.

  “No room for error,” Creed agreed. “Farrow won’t be easy to defend against. There’s a reason Williams sent her above anyone else. Matter of fact, once Williams gets wind something’s wrong he’ll have a whole platoon on a private jet headed right to us.”

  “Let’s not think about that yet. One thing at a time,” Evan said logically. “Our first concern is getting Meg back to the house before nightfall, then locking the house down so we can work on Meg’s antidote, safely.”

  “The most dangerous part will be when we’re outside the house trying to get Meg’s gurney out of the ambulance and into the house,” Creed thought aloud.

  “When Farrow sees us, she’ll contact Williams immediately. He may even order a complete take-down. It depends on how badly he wants your blood,” Creed added looking at the metas in front of him.

  “Then we can’t let her see us.” Evan said matter-of-factly.

  “How are we going to do that?” Creed asked.

  Evan had a far-away look on his face.

  “I’ve seen this look before. Give him a few minutes, then he’ll be ready to share the plan with us,” Alik smiled proudly at his little brother and waited.

  The more time Creed spent with the two Winter brothers, the more he liked them. It felt so good to know he was on the right team now, though it may only last a few more hours if Farrow has her way. There would be no reason for her to hesitate pulling the trigger the moment she saw his face. There was nothing Williams would want from a disobedient soldier who had betrayed his trust.

  Well, he thought to himself, if I’m going to die, at least I’ll die with honor fighting beside honorable men.

  47 From Illness to Antigen

  “Malaria?” Theo asked, sure he had misheard Dr. St. Paul.

  “Yes. Genus, Plasmodium. Species, still unknown.” Paulie was staring in to his high-powered microscope at the thin smear he made an hour before. There were definitely parasites there.

  “He had her shot with malaria?” Margo was stunned.

  “Evidently.” Paulie whispered.

  “But Malaria takes weeks to incubate before the infected person shows symptoms. Meg was hit with this dart and dropped to the floor immediately.” Theo hurried to the computer to look up malaria’s signs, symptoms and treatments.

  “Consider the source, Theo. Williams must have created an unbelievably potent strain of parasites. It’s also possible he had this dart tipped with a cocktail of toxins, one of which knocked her out immediately and/or weakened her immune system. ”

  “Oh, dear God,” Margo moaned. “How did we not see the parasites before? We’ve been studying her blood for days now!”

  “The parasites are most evident when the sample is taken during the infected patient’s highest fever.” Theo summarized from the article he was reading. “We studied the sample we took when she first fell ill. There must not have been enough parasites for us to detect yet, however super-mutated Williams made them to grow and spread. We didn’t see them because they weren’t there yet.” Theo was trying to maintain his cool, but he was angry.

  “Yes, this smear I’m looking at was taken right before she crashed. Her fever was up then.” Paulie said.

  “She has been sick for four days now. How effective will any known antigen for malaria be four days into the illness?” Margo asked.

  “Ordinarily, I would say she was still within the window of successful treatment, but these aren’t ordinary parasites. I really don’t know how effective the standard treatments are going to be on her. We probably need to prepare ourselves for the very real possibility that we’re going to have to create a unique antigen to fight these unique parasites.” Paulie just said aloud what the others in the room were thinking. “To make matters worse, Meg doesn’t have a lot of time for us to play scientists with trial and error.”

  “I know, I know…Paulie! You’re not saying anything I haven’t already thought of!” Margo was holding her head in her hands, so scared for her little girl.

  Margo’s short-lived outburst didn’t faze the old scientist one bit. He didn’t even look away from the microscope as he added, “Not to beat a dead horse, but on a side note, we all need to be treated against this strain of malaria, too. It’s highly contagious, and we’ve all been working directly with Meg’s contaminated blood.”

  Margo’s face was still buried in her hands as she sighed and said, “Now that I hadn’t thought of, Paulie. Crap.”

  Having stayed quiet for as long as he could stomach, Theo couldn’t hold his tongue anymore. “I want to wring the life out of that wicked, depraved, immoral, poor excuse for a man! How dare he attack that innocent child! She’s done nothing to deserve his evil! I am a God-fearing man, but this is too much! I want his head on a platter!” Theo couldn’t contain his rage.

  Margo looked up at her usually mild-mannered, sweet Theo and felt three things:

  1) Pride in his protective nature for this little girl who wasn’t even his own blood.

  2) Guilt for dragging him into her fight against Williams.

  3) Love for his kindheartedness, loyalty, gentility, sense of right and wrong and unwavering determination to see good prevail against all odds.

  In that instant, Margo decided she wanted to marry that sweet lug of a man, and she smiled to herself at the realization.

  Not having been a part of Margo’s amorous thoughts or epiphany, Theo was still seething and muttering under his breath.

  “Theo, would you please go to the kitchen and make a fresh pot of coffee for us? We’re going to need it.” She reached out and touched his arm affectionately.

  “Coffee. Yeah, right,” Theo breathed through clenched teeth understanding Margo was trying to help him calm down by giving him a menial task outside the lab. The stress was getting to all of them.

  Deep in thought, he didn’t even notice his son sitting at the kitchen table until Cole spoke. “What’s the latest?”

  “Oh, hey, Cole. Well, we think we’ve figured out what’s making Meg so sick: malaria.” His voice was strained and exhausted.

  “Malaria?” Cole turned in his seat to look at his father.

  “Not just a normal species of malaria, either. Williams created some mutant, super parasite and tipped that damn dart with it.” His hands were shaking with anger as he scooped the coffee grinds into the machine causing him to spill.

  Whether it was because he heard Meg’s name or just was lonely enough for company, Maze’s large frame came lumber
ing into the kitchen. His nails clicked softly on the tile floor as he made his way to the first lap he could find. He draped his head on Cole and whimpered, shamelessly seeking an affectionate scratch between his ears.

  “What does that mean, dad? Can she be cured?”

  “We’re still not sure. With four normal species of malaria, usually a smear of the patient’s blood would be sufficient to determine which parasite was present and subsequently, which antigen was needed to treat the illness.” The coffee maker was gurgling already and the aroma of coffee was beginning to fill the room.

  “This parasite has some of the same components as the known species, but not all. It’s those unknowns that could make curing Meg very difficult. We won’t know until we start to try.”

  “How soon will they get here?”

  “We have about two and a half hours before their plane is expected to land.”

  “What can I do to help, dad?”

  Theo was leaning against the sink, arms crossed. “I was wondering the same thing. Even I don’t know enough about all of this to be much help. We’re really going to have to lean on Evan, Paulie and Margo as this is more along the lines of their science. Mostly Evan, I suppose. That thirteen-year-old kid is smarter than all of us combined.

  “I’m just an ER doctor. If someone’s in a car accident and comes in with broken bones and blood coming out of everywhere, then I can help. Meg needs a completely different kind of science.” He paused for a moment before adding, “Wow, what I wouldn’t give to be able to think the way Evan does.”

  Theo walked over to his son and put his hand on his shoulder. “You’re doing everything you can already, kiddo by making sure the house is locked up, blinds and curtains closed and lights on. Maybe you and Maze could walk through the house again? I don’t know what else to offer. You’re welcome to join us in the lab, but there’s not much for you to do there, either.”

  “Yeah, right.” Cole mumbled.

  “I’ve got to get back. Heck, as it is I’m just the guy they send to go get more coffee. Talk about feeling helpless.” Dr. Andrews grabbed the pot of freshly brewed coffee, three clean mugs, and began walking back down the corridor toward the lab.