“Smooth,” Cole said. “I like how you ordered the malaria medicine buried inside an entire list of other stuff so as not to draw suspicion. Clever.” He smiled and closed his eyes. His energy was already depleted and though he wanted to stay awake and be a part of what was going on, his body had other plans. He drifted to sleep thinking how frustrating it was to be a human.
“Excellent,” Alik said looking at his watch. “We’ll be back in about one hour. I’ve got my cell, but I’d rather maintain silence in case she’s listening.” Alik gestured toward outside.
“Be careful, boys,” Margo said hugging Alik first then Creed just as though he were one of her sons.
Creed blushed deeply at her obvious display of affection. He couldn’t remember being hugged before. Ever. The burst of joy he felt because of Dr. Winter’s simple hug gave him wings.
“Sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be back,” Creed said determinedly.
Alik, Creed and Margo headed out of the lab and back through the house. It was already dark outside. “Are you going to be okay, mom?” Alik asked realizing his mother was still a primary target.
She turned to face her sixteen-year-old who stood towering above her. “You listen to me, Alik Winter. All you think about right now is getting your sister’s medicine and getting home safely. That’s it. Focus. There’s just one meta out there, and I’m hunkered down in here. I’ll be fine. Without this medicine, your sister will die.”
“Yes ma’am,” Alik said meekly.
And though she wasn’t even talking to him, hearing Margo’s sheer determination and spirit when she spoke brought out a “yes, ma’am,” from Creed, too.
“Do you want me to provide cover fire, again?” Margo had turned back to the window to peer into the darkness.
“I was hoping to just sneak out to the ambulance this time, but if she starts shooting, you go ahead and return fire,” Alik said calmly.
“You’re driving Creed?” Margo asked.
The eighteen-year-old boy stood just a couple inches taller than Alik and, though she didn’t have time to ponder it right then, she immediately saw the resemblance between the two and wondered how she had missed it before now. In response to her question, Creed pulled the keys out of his front pocket and held them up.
Feeling remiss for not already having the opportunity to tell them what she had discovered about their DNA mapping, she heard her voice say, “Boys, I know now’s not the best time to talk. But when you get back, I need to tell you two something.”
“Uh-oh. Are we in trouble?” Alik teased.
“No! Never mind, I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” Margo ran her fingers through her hair.
“We’ll be right back, mom. Don’t worry; we’ll have time to talk,” he reassured her.
“Okay, on the count of three we’re going to bolt. No strategy except run fast, get in the car and drive,” Alik instructed. “You ready mom?” He asked her as she positioned herself at the window, handgun cocked and loaded.
“I love you,” she said affectionately.
Alik nodded, “Love you, too.”
“Ready, Creed? One-Two-Three!” The boys flung the door open and ran to the ambulance. They each yanked their car doors open, jumped in and within fifteen seconds were peeling-out back down the long gravel driveway to the main road.
“We made it! I didn’t hear gunfire, did you?” Alik asked.
“No, nothing. Makes me wonder…” Creed said, thinking.
“About Farrow?” Alik asked.
“Yeah, but we can talk about that after we get Meg started on her meds. Now, you wanna tell me where this hospital is?”
56 Meg’s Medicine
“Did the pharmacist give you a hard time?” Creed asked when Alik opened the door to the ambulance holding a brown paper bag full of the items Paulie had ordered.
“Nope, he just handed the bag to me and said, ‘Tell Paulie the gang has been asking about him and that he needs to stop by the hospital sometime for lunch.’”
“Dr. St. Paul is a popular guy,” Creed thought out loud.
“I’m not surprised,” Alik said while shuffling through the contents of the bag. “Good, her meds are here. I just wanted to be sure. Let’s get home.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Creed said even as he was pulling away from the curb. “I hope it’ll be just as smooth getting back into the house as it was getting out.”
“Me too.”
The drive back to Paulie’s house was nerve wracking. The sun had completely disappeared past the horizon so there was minimal light to help the boys follow the winding road. Now that the cloudburst had past, the night sky was clearly visible. The bluish-white moonlight and crisp, starlit diamonds in the sky only left the two feeling small and insignificant. Creed found himself counting the yellow road reflectors strategically placed down the center of their two-way road to calm his nerves.
“You sure you’re okay?” Alik had been watching Creed’s face tighten. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple causing Alik to feel this uncontrollable urge to scratch his sideburn sympathetically.
Startled from his count he almost blurted “seventy-two” but caught himself. “Sure. I’m fine; just worried about everything.”
“I mean,” Alik motioned to Creed’s side. “You’re bleeding a lot again. Do you feel okay?”
Creed glanced down at his side and shrugged. “Just a couple scratches. I’m not worried about me; it’s Meg that I’m thinking about.”
“She’s going to be okay once we start her on these meds,” Alik said confidently.
“How can you be so sure?”
“You don’t know Evan like I do. If he says this is the answer, then it is. I trust him completely, and so does mom. And if Meg could give her opinion right now, she would tell Evan to just hurry up and do whatever it is he thought he should do,” Alik said smiling at the thought. “Not a whole lot of patience in that girl.”
Creed’s face softened at the memory of the first night he met Meg outside the Kansas hospital. She looked beautiful in the moonlight—luminous skin framed by long dark curls that had a mind of their own. “Even from the small amount of time I got to spend with her, I had no doubt she was a handful. She’s a fighter and opinionated, and reacts to everything in—” Creed paused searching for the right word.
“Extremes?” Alik offered smiling at Creed’s interpretation of his sister.
“Yeah, that’s it.” Creed was glad for the darkness if only to hide the blush he felt on his face.
“You have feelings for her, don’t you?” Alik blurted.
Creed didn’t have a chance to answer before the world blew up.
The ambulance flew off the ground and flipped over sideways so when it landed, it was upside down in a ditch off to the side of the road that had been rigged with an explosive. They had just turned onto Paulie’s long private drive.
Alik’s head was throbbing. He was suspended by his seatbelt upside down. In his right hand he still held the brown paper bag with Meg’s medicine, except now his arms were hanging so the bag was resting on the ceiling of the ambulance cab.
Moaning softly, he forced his arms to reach back to release his seatbelt. They were numb and as useful with the belt’s clasp as a mannequin arms would be. Somehow he managed to push the release button and his entire body fell the two feet to the floor (the ceiling) with a sickening thwump.
Feeling the blood rush from his pounding head made it clear they had been upside down for at least ten minutes. Ignoring his disorientation, he reached out to Creed who was also suspended by his seatbelt upside down.
“Creed,” Alik whispered not sure if Farrow was nearby.
“Creed, come on! Wake up!”
Ignoring the silence, Alik reached around Creed’s body and found the seatbelt release button with fingers that were tingling as they regained normal blood flow. He braced himself to catch his friend as soon as he hit the button.
“Oooph,” Creed moaned when he land
ed on top of Alik.
Trying not to get squished under the two-hundred-fifty-pound guy, Alik shook him even harder, “Dude! Creed. Wake up! We gotta get the hell out of here!”
Alik was already thinking through his options if he couldn’t get Creed to wake up. He could run up to the house with the medicine and get help to come retrieve Creed, but what if Farrow swooped in just then and finished off what the road bomb didn’t. No, he couldn’t leave him, but…Meg would die if she didn’t have this medicine.
“Oh, my God. What do I do?” Alik whispered his desperate prayer.
“Well, you could start by helping me open one of these doors so we can get out of here,” Creed whispered back, scaring the heck out of Alik.
“Creed, thank God you’re awake!” Alik grinned despite his startled nerves. “Check your door and see if it’ll open, ‘cause mine’s not budging without a fight.” Alik pulled the handle and pushed on the door with no results.
Creed tried his door and felt it give a bit then caught it before it slammed open. He slipped out of the overturned cab easily despite his injuries then stopped to help Alik out, too.
“Got the bag?”
“Yeah, let’s get moving before my mom tries to come to our rescue,” Alik wiped his brow with his shoulder. “And I think we should avoid the road in case Farrow left us any other surprises.”
“Agreed. Can you run?”
“Yeah.”
“Stay right on my heels. Let’s go.” Creed lead the way as Alik watched their backs and held on tightly to the bag containing his sister’s medicine.
Darkness enveloped their feet, but they kept walking toward the lights of the house visible through the thick foliage.
Snap!
The boys stopped, crouched and listened. That was definitely a twig or branch being stepped on, but the question was, by whom?
They exchanged worried looks and continued waiting, but the noise didn’t repeat itself.
Hesitantly, they began moving again this time walking as quietly as possible.
Then they heard another noise. This time it sounded like a thump and a voice let out a noisy breath.
“Oomph.”
The boys looked at each other confused and shrugged. This didn’t sound like the stealth meta soldier they believed was stalking them. This sounded more like—
“Dr. Andrews?” Alik whispered toward the sounds.
“Who’s there?” a scared, but familiar voice called back.
The boys grinned and moved toward the voice saying, “It’s just us—Alik and Creed.”
“Oh thank God,” Dr. Andrews sighed, obviously relieved. “Your mother heard an explosion and was insisting she was coming out here to check on things, but I talked her into letting me come instead so she could stay with Meg.”
Alik looked smugly over at Creed and whispered, “Did I call it?”
“Yeah, you called it.”
“Called what?” Dr. Andrews asked as he patted his sweaty forehead with the sleeve of his white lab coat.
“Never mind,” Alik whispered, grinning.
“What was that explosion?” Dr. Andrews asked as they turned toward the house and picked up the pace. Theo was cleaning off his glasses with a tissue from his pocket. The poor man had ripped a hole in the knee of his dress pants and had leaves sticking out of his hair. He was definitely not meant for this kind of work.
“Farrow left us a welcome home gift on the road. Let’s just say the ambulance company may be sending us a bill.” Alik glanced behind them anxiously. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. Someone was watching them.
Creed must not have noticed because he just kept talking softly. “You’re lucky you didn’t run into Farrow instead of us.”
“Yeah, I know. I wonder why she hasn’t jumped out of the bushes. We haven’t heard a peep out of our friendly neighborhood stalker since you all first came back with Meg,” Theo explained.
“I wonder what’s going on,” Alik mused.
“Me too, but for now, let’s just hurry up. I have the strangest feeling we’re being watched,” Dr. Andrews stopped for a moment, turned back and squinted in to the darkness.
“No arguments here,” Alik agreed, happy to see the house up close again.
From the darkness, Farrow grimaced painfully. She was furious at herself for getting shot. Even though the metas were right in front of her, she could not do anything to take them out because of her condition.
So, she had regrouped away from the St. Paul home and decided her best effort at this point would be to set some explosives on the road so anyone coming and going would trigger them. And if she were lucky, she thought to herself, she may just be able to pick off one or two of them before Dr. Williams arrived with the soldiers he told her he was bringing. What had he called them? His “perfecto rez?” Whatever that meant. She didn’t care what he called them. She just needed backup, and she needed it now.
She looked down at her stomach and stifled a moan. Blood was oozing through her makeshift bandage from the gunshot wound. She gingerly pressed her hand against her belly and curled up on the damp earth. Farrow found herself rocking back and forth, instinctively feeling some comfort in the rhythmic motion. And even as tears pooled and spilled over, she began drifting in and out of consciousness.
57 Changes
“Time?” Margo’s voice was groggy from her nap in the desk chair. She was rubbing her eyes trying to read the clock ten feet from her.
“Nine,” Paulie yawned.
“Vitals?” Margo yawned back.
“Stable. She’s looking good.”
“Is it time to draw another blood sample?”
“Nearly. Let’s give it another hour.” The scientist stood and stretched.
“You need to go rest, Paulie,” Margo patted her friend on the back.
“I think she’s out of the woods, Margo,” Paulie nodded slowly.
“I think you’re right. Thank God she’s such a fighter.” Margo reflexively reached out to stroke her daughter’s hair.
“She is one amazing little spit fire, isn’t she?” Paulie smiled widely thinking of the spunky teenager.
“She has so much life all packed into this small frame. She’s always been like this. When she’s awake, her personality just glows around her making her seem twice as large as she is, and then I go check on her in the night, and see her little body barely lift the covers off her bed.” Margo’s heart welled up with the kind of mother’s love that can’t be explained.
Paulie reached around his former student and old friend and squeezed her shoulder encouragingly. “You are a great mom, Margo. These kids are lucky to have you. No one could love them more. No matter what happens with that guy, Williams, you need to know you gave these children more of a chance at life than they would have ever had without you.”
“Thanks, Paulie,” she said. “For everything.”
Not being a man who discussed matters of the heart very often, Paulie shrugged and blushed before turning to head out of the lab. “Can I send in a fresh cup of coffee for you?”
“Nope. I’m good, thanks.” Margo smiled at her daughter’s still sleeping frame. “Okay, young lady. You have slept long enough. It’s time to wake up and get back to work.” She moved the sheet off Meg’s left leg and began rubbing it vigorously getting ready to start her daughter’s physical therapy. “Come on sweetie. We have to keep you battle ready,” her mom smiled.
Margo finished flexing and stretching Meg’s left leg, laid it back down on the bed and draped the sheet back over it before reaching for her daughter’s right leg to begin the process again. Her mind was wandering back to the days when the children were little. As a seven-year-old Meggie, loved to run around the ranch wearing shorts—only shorts, just like her brothers. She was fearless and headstrong with those large soulful eyes that commanded respect even way back then.
She finished working on Meg’s legs and rolled her chair around to work on her daughter’s arms. That’s wh
en she noticed Meg’s eyes were open.
“Meg?”
Meg turned her head slightly to look at her mother with those beautifully dark, knowing, eyes.
“Meggie, it’s okay honey. Oh, thank God, you’re awake!”
Meg tried to speak but all that came out was a raspy croaking sound.
“Hang on, honey. Let me get you some water.” She hurried to retrieve a cup and slipped a straw in place just as she held it up to her daughter’s lips.
Meg looked very worried, but obediently took a few sips before trying to speak again. Her voice was still scratchy, but she was able to get her question out. “What happened?”
“Well, you’ve been very sick for about a week now. We were only able to isolate an antigen for your illness last night. We weren’t sure it would work but,” she grinned widely. “Look at you! You’re awake!”
“Sick?”
“Yes, very sick. What is the last thing you remember?”
“Evan told me we were—that I was going to die because of the serum that changed me into a meta.”
“That’s right, and then you left the house…”
“…and went for a run to think things over.”
“Do you remember what happened during the run?”
Meg tried to remember, but got nothing for her efforts. Margo stood and walked over to a nearby counter where she retrieved an envelope from a refrigerated cabinet. Meg watched her mother sit back down beside her and carefully open the envelope.
“You were struck in the neck by this. It was tipped with a deadly parasite that quickly began taking over your system,” Margo explained, intentionally leaving out much of the details.
Meg reached out and took the dart from her mother’s hands. In that instant, she felt a rush of emotions. Like a movie being played at twenty times the regular speed, emotions linked with images flooded her, overwhelming her senses and causing her to draw her breath sharply as though she were in physical pain.
Winter's Storm: Retribution (Winter's Saga #2) Page 22