Madness (22 page)

“Ahhhh,” Kolb screamed, raising herself up to her feet. Peacock charged her
, the shiv still lodged in her thigh. Kolb whipped something out of her pocket and blades cut into Peacock’s face alongside her right ear.

Peacock ignored the pain even as Kolb yanked the insidious weapon out tearing flesh off Peacock’s cheek. Peacock threw Kolb bodily
into the mirror over the sink. Glass shattered and flew like shrapnel. A sliver the size of a thumbnail lodged in Peacock throat to the right of her voice box and blood spewed skyward.

The door burst open and Pederson rushed in. Peacock glanced down to see blood pouring
into the sink. She tried to speak but everything around her dimmed into blackness.

Doctor Pederson flashed a light into Peacock’s eyes and then away. Her throat hurt as it had when The Sons of TIW had choked her half to death. She rode on a gurney heading out of an operating room.

“Kolb attacked me,” Peacock managed through the pain.

“We know. She managed to make three separate weapons to even the odds in a fight with you. But she failed.”

Peacock tried to sit up.
“She scarred me for life.”

“Relax. Let me talk.” Pederson pushed the gurney into her old room in the hospital. “Arthur’s been informed.
We’ll release you tomorrow, if you don’t develop further problems. I’ve patched the artery in your neck. Your thigh wound is deep, but superficial. It took twenty-one stitches to sew up your face. Skin grafts are possible, but the chunks that came off can’t really be grafted back.

“
Superficial? My thigh hurts like hell
.
”

“
Still superficial,” Pederson said. “Kolb’s head and neck suffered fatal injuries from the impact against the mirror. You’re one strong warrior, Laverna.”

She made a fist and raised it in response.
Good. The wicked witch was dead.

Pederson sighed. “Before you can heal your mind, Warrior Woman, the Laverna Smythe Pendleton you are today needs to forgive the Donna O’Conner you were when the accident occurred.”

She didn’t want to hear this, but she hurt when she attempted to speak.

“You made a huge leap today, Laverna. Kolb helped you remember your past. I’m sure Doctor Levi will agree.”

“To what will I agree,” Doctor Levi asked as he ambled into her room.

“That Laverna made great progress today.”

“Yes, you did. Our Doctor Kolb, sad to say, not so much.”

Peacock listened as the two physicians talked about her as though she wasn’t in the room.

“She’ll need several months of follow-up,” Levi said, “particularly now that she’s rediscovered her past. She’ll have issues with guilt.”

My psychological problem with my face
is what sucks right now.

“Nothing more needed on her medical condition,” Pedersen said examining h
er neck. “A couple weeks’ time will heal these injuries. Meet with me twice a month during the day. Healing your guilt will heal your rage as well.”

#

Two cups of coffee in his hands, Doctor Levi headed into his temporary office in Zurich. Doctor Pederson opened the door for him. Levi would be heading back to Israel in two weeks. “Good god, I need a drink,” Levi said. “I’m exhausted, mentally and physically.”

“Pendleton married an interesting woman.”

“Pendleton married a woman his equal. Her head’s straightening out, and I suspect she’ll have Van Meer’s job in three years tops.”

Pederson plopped down on a comfortable leather sofa and rubbed his arm. “I should be trained in Jujitsu.”

“Jujitsu won’t help you with Laverna. Being her friend will. She’s a genius who fell into the hands of Beatrice Kolb. I knew Kolb from before Hercules, pure evil that woman. Laverna will tear herself apart with guilt if not handled properly.”

“She could. But I’m betting she’ll throw herself into Pendleton’s arms, confide in him, and release all her guilt.” Pederson
grinned. “Her biggest challenge will be to keep her edge as the predator she is.”

Optimism wasn’t one of Levi’s strongpoints. “She’ll always be a predator. She’ll always be a siren.
The scars will make her that much more desirable to most men. The best she can hope for is to balance those givens with her intellect and self-control.”

“What are her odds of remaining cancer-free and sane?”

Levi shook his head and silently poured his friend a drink. “I’m not one to bet.”

#

A week after Kolb’s death and home from the hospital, Peacock rocked George to sleep and then held him close in the dark, more for her comfort than his. Most of her childhood memories flooded back after Kolb’s revelation, and they haunted her when she was alone. She’d been a spoiled brat, coddled by her mother and nagged at by her father, who bombarded her with his pulpit teaching while her mother rolled her eyes and said things like, “Give her a chance to learn about life on her own, Jim. Like you and I did, okay?”

Strange, she thought, I never saw the boy we were arguing about after the accident. I dated a lot of men, but not for love, only for the physical, and only until the physical happened once. Then I tossed them aside.

Arthur Pendleton gained a strong foothold inside her soul. He loomed larger and larger as a lover, protector, and father for their son. More than those things, she needed to hear his voice and feel him close at night. Donna O’Conner and Laverna Smythe Pendleton had fallen in love.

Peacock, unfortunately, had different wiring directing her. In her role as the defender of her leaders, love had no place. Respect, honesty, loyalty, and unwavering zeal drove Peacock. Yet, even with those things working in her, rage and passion made her effective and without conscience. Like an addict on crack cocaine or meth, her fix came
through combat, lust, and subterfuge. She and Arthur needed to talk.

She put her son in his crib and turned down the bed. Her husband might come home
tonight or maybe not. Until he’d filled the twelve regional government positions, the responsibility fell on him to attend meetings and make decisions.

She chuckled at the thought that he’d ever be unfaithful. He was too busy. If he
’d had an affair, she’d feel less guilty about her own sexual infidelity. He wouldn’t have an affair. He loved her.

At two in the morning, she awoke to the key turning in the lock. An exhausted Pendleton limped through the door and collapsed into his side of the bed, kicking his shoes across the room. Snoring soon filled the
silence.

#

In the morning, Peacock awoke to find Arthur in the same position he’d been in when he fell asleep. She made coffee and wrote down things to talk to him about. Occasional sounds of gunfire during the night reminded her not everyone complied with government orders, unfortunate for the disobedient.

With the smell of coffee filling the room, she whispered in his ear. “What’s on your schedule today, my love?”

He half-opened one eye. “Have you forgotten? You’re sitting next to me tonight. This is the evening we broadcast live the announcement of the formal Global and Regional organizations. By January 1
st
the duties of the regional governments will be placed in their hands.”

How th
is man could snap into his First Citizen role out of a deep sleep surprised even her.

“When can we have an hour or two to talk? I need you to help me in a difficult time.”

His face brightened, and he looked at his watch. “Five hours of sound sleep and coffee perking. Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll give you two hours of undivided attention.”

She realized she was sweating. God, how would he react to what she had to say?
Still, he needed to know, and he needed to know now. Peacock rolled her words through her mental filters and strived to find the exact way to explain her inner self to him. She knew who she was—three separate personalities in one frame. She heard the shower turn off and some glorious singing. The man had a solid voice. Then the door flew open and her husband came out smiling.

“Now, Lovey, I’m all yours.”

“I hope you’ll be when we’re done.”

He took her hand with a strong grip, yet surprisingly gentle. “I’ll hear you through the ears of love.”
He traced the lines of the scars Kolb etched on her face. “I love you.”

“We had a breakthrough in the hospital the day Kolb attacked me.” She watched his face. If Levi had called him, he didn’t let on. “Kolb revealed something about my past, and most of my pre-Hercules memory came back.”

He gazed at her as though absorbing her being with his eyes. “Then why are you afraid?”

“I know the real me. I’m not an innocent victim. I’m a nasty, selfish little girl, who caused my family’s death. Then I hid inside myself and denied my guilt.”

He cuddled her in his arms, as tears poured down her face.

“I’m sorry. I’m blubbering like an idiot.”

“Well, you’re a bloody good looking one.”

“But don’t you see? I use my body as a weapon. I’m evil, Arthur. I seduce, steal secrets, murder like a black widow spider, and Hercules saw the real me. They programmed me using the skills I already had.”

“So far you’re not telling me anything I haven’t expected.”

“I told Kolb the truth during a mental adaptation test my second day in Hercules.” Peacock pushed herself closer to her husband nestling in next to him on the bed
. “I didn’t remember meeting Kolb until a month after I started training. Yet I
had
met her and suppressed that meeting. I told her, ‘On the road that day, my father and I were arguing about a boy.’”

“That’s a normal thing to argue about.”

“But all I remember was him saying, ‘You’re too bright to waste your time with a boy like that.’” Peacock coughed and her throat tightened. “Kolb said I told her that I’d screamed at my father, telling him to mind his own business. Then I flung off my seatbelt and demanded he pull over and let me out. He turned to make me put it on and the accident occurred.”

Pendleton sighed deeply
. “I can only image how heavy a blow that revelation was to you.”

“I know now what Kolb said
is
what really happened. I remember everything clearly.”

“Lovey, you didn’t cause the accident. Circumstances came together in a bad way.”

“If I hadn’t been arguing with Dad, he might have avoided the crash. I buried the memories, so I wouldn’t have to face myself—the arrogant witch that I am—the real Donna O’Conner.”

She waited for Arthur to push her away. Instead, he held her lovingly in his arms and gently rubbed her back.
“What do I do? I’ve been running from the monster in my mind, and it’s caught up with me.”

“We all have our monsters, and you can’t go back and change what’s happened.” He sat her up straight and put a hand on each of her shoulders. “Here’s what I know about you. You’re everything you’ve said you are, and probably worse in some areas.”

Here it comes, she thought. Surely, he’ll divorce me.

“But I’ve seen another side of you. I know you as my wife, and I know you love me. I also know you love George. Even insane
, you tried to stop the missile launches to save peoples’ lives. Be less harsh on yourself.”

“I do love you. I love you the best I know how. I’m afraid
. The way my brain’s been wired when I’m under an attack, even imagined, I go into a rage and either become sexually uncontrollable or so violent I can kill anything and anyone around me.”

“You didn’t kill Polaris, or Magnus, or even Ursa. You didn’t kill Kolb for that matter until she forced you to.”

“How do you manage to be so forgiving where I’m concerned?”

Pendleton puckered his lips, scrunching them up as he thought. Peacock
almost laughed. He looked so silly. His face softened. “I believe God, not Hercules, brought you to me. I have what you lack. I like myself—and you. I don’t doubt what the future holds, and I don’t regret the past. You have what I lack. You read my moods and know when I’m mad and frustrated. You’re charming to my friends and more cunning than I.” He patted her hand. “You stole my plans and I never suspected.”

“See, I’m despicable.”

“You also saved my life. I married the best, and I’m never going back on my vow.”

“But what if I fail? What if on one of these missions under the tension of the moment, I give in to my lust?”

“On the beach in Athens you told me what you were. You stepped up and admitted it. Let me ask you a question.”

“All right.”

“Would you rather I divorce you and have you as a mistress and mother of my children?”

Not being married to Arthur was a thought she couldn’t
entertain. “I love you. I chose you over Hercules. My only regret is marrying you while knowingly being an agent. Maybe someday we could get married again.”

“The Archbishop of Canterbury is coming to see us in
a few weeks. We’ll confirm our vows when he comes.”

“How do I forgive myself?”

“Well, you’ve never bought in to my beliefs about God. If you had, you wouldn’t be struggling with that question.”

Peacock smoldered for a second. Her father drummed the Bible at her until the day he died. She’d fought to keep the Scriptures out, preferring not to be held accountable for her actions by anyone, particularly a
God who was always right.

But that’s my problem. Right
now, I need forgiveness from a God that’s always right.

H
er husband ordered the missile attacks. He murdered his partner, Throgmorton. Arthur Pendleton wasn’t a saint.