Designed with a Destiny (25 page)

“
You did a great job by the way,”
she
says with laughter in her voice, clearly enjoying the recall as
much as me. I’m about to continue, allowing the memory to unfold
just as it happened, when Natalie interrupts our mental love
scene.

“
That must be some memory you two have
going, Kennedy’s lighting up light a Christmas tree.”
She
points out her color screening of almost yellow, which doesn’t
excite me nearly as much as it does Cat and Natalie.

“Kennedy, can you open your eyes?” Cat asks,
getting back to business, softly shaking the girl's shoulder to get
her to wake up. When she finally opens her eyes, blinking hard,
there’s a collective sigh of relief amongst the military crew.

“Kennedy are you okay? Talk to me,” the
Lieutenant Colonel anxiously kneels between us to help a dazed
Kennedy sit up. She glances down at her torn blouse, and rubs her
fingertips over the left side of her chest, where a large bruise
has discolored the skin. At first there’s a brief look of
confusion, then she looks at me with wide hazel eyes as she recalls
how it got there. Surprisingly she appears more hurt than
angry.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Can you get them out of
here?” she says in a hoarse whisper, referring to the military
staff who are openly gawking at her. He silently obeys, motioning
the team out of the room—except for the medic who’s focused on
helping an incapacitated Zane—who continued to sip on his spiked
ice tea while we were occupied with Kennedy. It slipped everyone’s
mind to warn him otherwise.

Kennedy turns her attention to Cat and the
first thing she says as she attempts to reassemble her shirt is,
“You know— you look just like him.”

“Yeah I know—we’re twins. I want to see him
now,” Cat says, getting straight to the point.

“Are you Designers too?” she asks quietly,
becoming teary-eyed. Cat nods her head, where I would have been
inclined to tell her it’s none of her business. So far she’s
sustaining a light yellow energy field, but I’m still having a hard
time believing that it’s permanent. To go from the lowest
vibrational frequency humanly possible, to almost the highest is
like living at sea level your whole life then being plopped down at
the top of Mount Everest. There’s a high probability that sooner or
later she’ll end up coming back down.

“This is my uncle—Lieutenant Colonel Maxwell
Malcom,” she says, introducing him as he helps her to her feet. He
regards us with trepidation, smartly avoiding asking the obvious
question of how in the hell his niece goes from being pulseless to
walkie-talkie. Unfortunately, she’s not as discerning. “What did
you guys do to me?” she asks in a manner that rubs me the wrong
way. Her question sounds accusing rather than appreciative.

“Uh for starters—we saved your life. In most
cases, this is about the time when a person with manners expresses
their gratitude,” I lean toward her and whisper, causing her face
to darken with anger.

“In most cases, gentlemen don’t go around
hurling objects at women causing cardiac arrest,” she hisses,
standing on her tiptoes to get in my face.

“They do when she’s trying to kill their
wife! If I wouldn’t have stopped you, you would have choked the
life right out of Cat.” Sure I can be arrogant and hard-nosed at
times, but I’d never hurt a women physically unless it was a matter
of life and death. Kennedy takes a step back from me and looks
shocked, possibly even scared.

“What do you mean I would have choked the
life right out of Cat?” she asks, her voice trembling. At this
point, I can’t be sure if she’s just a hell of a good actress or if
her cardiac arrest event has left her with short term memory loss,
but she makes it seem like her actions against Cat were completely
unintentional.

“We can talk about this later. Why don’t we
take Cat to see her brother now—she’s waited long enough,” her
uncle remarks, stepping forward and putting a protective arm around
Kennedy’s shoulder. He says just the right thing to make us
momentarily lose interest in Kennedy altogether, and while I catch
her warily watching me as she’s led out the door by her uncle, my
focus is on my wife, whose face lights up like an angel—stealing my
breath away.

***

It’s obvious by the way Lieutenant Colonel
Maxwell Malcom speaks of his niece Kennedy that he has no idea just
how dark and dangerous she really was—up until an hour ago. He
paints a picture of her as a victim of tragic circumstances that
rightfully left her a troubled teenager, though she's now turned
her life completely around, becoming one of the most coveted
consulting interrogators for the military.

“She’s the only one who can get the truth
out of someone without resorting to methods of torture,” he proudly
claims, down-playing the seriousness of spiking someone’s drink to
incapacitate them mentally and physically. Zane was so doped up
that they actually had to give him a reversal agent to bind with
the sedatives in his system, even though Kennedy insists that the
drug she used was short-acting and should’ve been easily
metabolized out of his system, like it was on the rest of us. She
doesn’t know that I endured Alisha humming ‘Hush little baby’, for
a solid forty-five minutes just to keep my brain functioning
properly.

“What information do you want so badly that
it requires the services of a coveted interrogator and mind
altering drugs?” Natalie inquires accusingly as we follow Kennedy
and her uncle through building five. She grabs Zane’s arm and
drapes it over her shoulder supporting him when he staggers in the
hallway, still somewhat somnolent from residual drugs in his
system.

“We wanted to know which one of you is the
Golden GEM and what sort of capabilities you possess—that’s all,”
Colonel Malcom says matter-of-factly, owning his knowledge of the
Designers.

“Hmm—it’s too bad we’re not going to tell
you,” Cat replies with equal candidness, and he tosses his head
back laughing, surprising all of us, including Kennedy and some of
the uniformed passerby’s.

“You don’t have to say a word. Based on what
I witnessed back there, I already have a pretty good idea,” he
acknowledges and Cat grips my hand tightly, initiating an
inherently protective reaction that causes me to turn on him in an
instant.

“You leave us the hell alone, or I’ll break
every bone in your body,” I threaten, easily pinning him against
the wall with one arm. It might be overkill but better to
discourage any illusions he might have of exploiting us like
everyone else seems intent on doing. My actions instantly draw aid
from passing enlisted officers which might have resulted in a nasty
clash had Kennedy not intervened with a sketchy explanation on me
just showing off advanced martial arts move. She tentatively
touches my arm, and I let him go.

“Please don’t ever do that again—they take
insubordination very serious around here,” Kennedy murmurs, as her
uncle straightens his uniform, nodding in agreement.

“Why don’t you cut to the chase then and
tell us exactly what you want with us,” I demand, taking Cat’s hand
in mine, allowing her to balance me back out with neutralizing
energy waves.

“Believe it or not, my interest in you is
only to help Kennedy. She’s struggled for years trying to
understand her gifts, which we thought were triggered by her
experimental drug use. It wasn’t until we heard rumors of Designer
kids having similar special abilities that considered other
possibilities. It was Chord himself who contacted Kennedy for
help.”

“What do you mean, he contacted you for
help?” Cat swallows hard, glancing up at me nervously. Kennedy
takes a deep breath, avoiding eye contact with either of us.

“He contacted me telepathically. At first my
uncle didn’t believe me when I told him—he thought I was
hallucinating, but then Chord provided us with Charles Harrington’s
name, and it was easy enough to get him here for a meeting.” She
doesn’t even really need to tell us what happened after that—I can
picture it already. Harrington wouldn’t have been able to resist,
especially if they offered him an ice tea cocktail before his
interrogation. He no doubt confessed everything he knew about the
Designers.

“And you convinced Mr. Harrington to leave
Chord here with you?” Cat questions, skipping all the details in
between.

“Well yeah—Chord and I worked on that
together,” she muses. Lieutenant Malcom stops at the entrance to a
three story building and uses his thumb print to get us through the
security doors. Zane wasn’t kidding when he told us that the
Cheyenne Mountain bunker is like an underground village, completely
self-contained with eateries, dorms and a hospital. Every building
is connected by long tubular hallways that become increasingly
crowded with military staff the closer we get to the south side of
the complex.

“Did you know that Charles Harrington was
murdered?” Cat inquires, lowering her voice, even though Natalie
and Zane are a good ten feet behind us. Kennedy laughs out
loud.

“The whole nation knows that Mr. Harrington
was murdered.” When we don’t react much to the news, she stops us
in the middle of the hallway. “Do you guys really not know that the
four of you are the prime suspects in the case?” she asks, looking
at us incredulously.

“What?” Cat gasps. “Suspects—why?”

“Apparently you haven’t been watching the
news. Not only do they have video surveillance of you entering the
building, but they also have a witness by the name of Lauren who
came forward claiming to have overheard Zane threatening his
father.”

“Perfect—it’s going to be impossible to get
out of this country now,” I mumble, worried about how we’re going
to get to our parents in South America.

“Not impossible, just challenging,” Cat
says, forever reminding me to be more optimistic. I look down at
her and smile. Of course she’s right—Designers always find a
way.

“
You know I’m a little nervous that I
won’t meet your brother’s approval,”
I privately admit changing
the subject as we come to an intersection of hallways and the
Malcom’s take the one going to Caster Alley Dorms. It’s a weird
feeling worrying about what someone might think of me. I never
do.

“
He’ll love you like a brother,”
she
responds confidently, putting me at ease.

“I’ll take these two to the coffee lounge,
while you take Ronan and Cat on up,” Lieutenant Malcom states, when
we reach the elevators, thankfully not giving Natalie and Zane a
choice in the matter. I’d just as soon have them wait behind
too—Zane’s nowhere near sober enough to be helpful, and if Chord is
anything like me—he’ll have a hard time accepting the man that took
him away from his family. I pull Cat close to me as soon as the
elevator doors close behind us, wrapping my arms around her
trembling body, and she rests her cheek against my chest. She
doesn’t need to say a word, I can sense the plethora of emotions
emanating from her the closer we get to Chord—it’s only natural
given the circumstances. Kennedy watches us with interest, but
doesn’t interrupt, even when the elevator stops on the third floor.
She simply walks around us and heads south, down an empty corridor
lined with room numbers, eventually stopping at the last room on
the end—room 311. Cat draws in a sharp breath at what I assume is
the reference to the number eleven until she says,
“Ronan, she’s
gray again.”

A year ago, I buried my best friend and twin
brother Chord. Today he stands before me; very much alive, very
much a stranger, and very different than how I last remember him.
He’s topless, wearing just a pair of jeans that hang well below his
navel, and appears to be twenty pounds heavier with solid muscle,
making him almost as big as Ronan. The day he left to go sailing,
his hair was short, parted on the side in a conservative cut like
our dad's. Now it hangs straight to his shoulders, parted down the
middle, making him look hard, as if his cold black eyes weren’t
enough. He barely responds at all when I throw my arms around his
neck, bursting into tears, and callously pushes me away after a few
awkward seconds of a one-sided embrace. He color screens a solid
gray, matching Kennedy’s as she stands beside him with a smirk on
her face. Even Ronan picks up on the dark energy field, and
responds accordingly, subtly tugging me back to his side as he
cautiously steps forward strategically placing himself between us,
and politely introducing himself as my husband. Chord’s eyes go
wide, then he tosses his head back, and roars with laughter, not in
the light-hearted way that he used to crack up, making everyone
around him smile. His laugh now is cruel, almost vulgar.

“So, you went and got yourself knocked up
just so you could get somebody to marry you?” he accuses. Had it
not been my brother saying those words, Ronan would have certainly
gone for the kill, but amazingly stays in control, even chuckling
along.

“Yeah there’s no baby and I didn’t need any
excuses to marry your sister,” he says evenly. Chord rolls his eyes
and walks over to a desk, picking up a pack of cigarettes. He
lights one up and takes a long drag off of it before handing it to
Kennedy who does the same, plopping down in a corner chair, the
only other piece of furniture in the room, aside from a bed.

“Chord what’s happened to you?” I hoarsely
whisper, hating that tears keep rolling down my cheeks in spite of
my best effort to contain them. He shrugs nonchalantly.

“People change when they’ve been held
hostage for over a year—especially when their own sister betrays
them—selfishly living a life of freedom, burning through life
insurance policies while the rest of us sit in a dungeon,” he
sneers.

“How dare you Chord!” I shout, gritting my
teeth as I lunge towards him, fist raised. Ronan grabs me around
the waist, lifting me off the ground as he holds me back. “You have
no idea the pain Claire and I went through. We were separated and
thrown in to the foster care system and every single penny of life
insurance was spent trying to get us out! Not a day went by that I
didn’t regret not being on the boat with you guys that day!” I
scream. My throat burns with a hurt so deep it threatens to finish
what Kennedy tried earlier—to choke the life right out of me