Winter's Scars: The Forsaken (Winter's Saga 5) (21 page)

Five minutes later, Evan heard his mother washing her hands, so he tapped on the bathroom door.” 

“You good?”

“Yes, Son.” Margo opened the door slowly, trying to maneuver her chair out of the path of the swinging door so she could make it through.

“Here, let me help,” Evan offered, feeling frustration for her at all she still struggled to do in a world made for the able-bodied.  Margo’s eyes looked bloodshot and her nose pink.

“Are you okay, Mom? Can I lift you to bed, Mom?”

“That would be great.  I’m feeling pretty tired.”

With the most skilled and gentle of maneuvers, Evan reached under his mother and lifted her easily in his arms.  He laid her carefully on the bed beside his little brother, fixed her blankets just right and closed the drapes to dim the light in the room.

He repositioned her wheelchair so she could transfer easily from the bed when she awoke, and thinking she had likely drifted off while he did so, he was walking on stealth feet toward the door when he heard her speak.

“Evan?”

“Yeah, Mom?”

“Why won’t you talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

“Evan.”

“Mom, I can’t—there’s nothing more to say about her.”

“Then let’s talk about you.  You’re a scientist—surely you have wondered about your evolution.”

Evan shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, but didn’t say anything.  He wanted to crawl into a corner and disappear at the pain he heard in his mother’s voice.

“You were burned so badly.  Could that have prevented your gift from evolving?”

“It’s possible,” he answered vaguely and shrugged.

“You haven’t found any changes in your abilities, Evan?”  Margo asked outright.

“Nothing to speak of,” he answered imprecisely.

“Evan,” Margo’s sharp, dark eyes saw right through her son’s evasiveness.  “Why wouldn’t you tell me?  Why are you so distant?  What are you hiding from me?  And
why
are you hiding?  This just isn’t like you, Evan.  I don’t understand.”  Margo kept her voice low so as not to wake Danny, but it was clear she was angry.

“Maybe that’s just it, Mom.  Maybe that was my evolved ‘gift.’  We always thought our evolutions would bring out even more good from our already exceptional abilities and some would say our heroic personalities.  But it doesn’t have to work that way, does it?” Danny mumbled restlessly and reached for Margo in his sleep.    Evan watched how easily his mother responded to the little boy and felt a wave of jealousy at being replaced by the new
, perfect youngest son.

“I was caught in a burning car,” he continued, ripping his eyes away from Danny’s perfection.   “I barely survived my injuries because we were dodging the US authorities and fleeing the country.  I had no time to salvage myself from the ashes—literally.  Maybe this
is
the evolved me.  Maybe I’m not all logic and problem solving.  Maybe that fire left me just as ugly and scarred on the inside as I am on the outside.”  Evan held up his left hand.

“Evan, don’t say that about yourself!” Margo’s eyes had widened in surprise at her son’s words.  “You can’t believe that’s true.”

“Maybe the fire burned me deeper than you originally thought.”  He shoved his hands back into his pockets and couldn’t look his mother in the eyes as he continued.  “My brother and sister have gifts that they use for the greater good.  Meg can will-away the hurt and heartache in someone’s soul.  Alik can reach back in time and touch the present with his retro-cognition.  And they do good with their gifts.  They protect the family.  They add to the family.  Me?  Do you really want to know what my evolution left me with?” He paced toward the drapes he’d shut moments before and yanked his hands from his pockets. 

Margo pushed herself up on her elbows to follow him, a gut-curling sense of foreboding made her watch every movement her son made. 

“Evan?” She breathed, terrified of what she was seeing.

He reached out toward the dimming sunlight with his left hand, the hand that was so badly burned and left with scars and curled his fingers around the air as though picking something up to hold it.  When he turned around he opened his hand and a blast of light shot out, striking the armchair in the corner of the room causing it to burst into flames.

Margo gasped in wide-eyed shock.  Danny woke screaming.

Over the sound of the smoke detector wailing and scent of charred fabric, Evan looked into his mother’s eyes and said, “I’m just a destroyer.  You may as well know how dangerous I am.” Nodding toward the wailing child clinging to his paralyzed mother’s shirt he added, “You may as well protect him from me.  Scar
ring him would just be too tragic.  Besides, I have enough scars for all of us.”

As he stormed past the blazing chair, he reached out and seemed to pull the flames in to his
left hand.  By the time he finished walking by the chair it was completely blackened, charred but not even an ember remained burning.  Evan shoved his scarred hand deep into his pocket, glanced one last time at his mother’s horrified expression and his little brother’s tear-filled face and burst out of the room.

“Evan!” Margo called to her son as she struggled to sit up and transfer herself to her wheelchair.  “Evan!  Come back, son!”

Evan heard her cries, but knew he wasn’t coming back, not that night.

With shaky hands, Margo reached into her breast pocket and pulled out her phone. 

“Theo?  I need to talk with you—it’s about Evan and it’s,” Margo swallowed the taste of acid slipping up her throat.  “It’s urgent.”

Chapter 42  Who Are You?

Gideon had been driving for two hours before he pulled into the airport parking lot.  He turned off the engine and sat still for a moment
, thinking about what he was supposed to do next. 

A shuffling noise behind him was his only warning.  Meg wasn’t just awake, she was attacking.  Without a word, she locked her forearm around Gideon’s throat and pulled with all the strength her aching body could muster.

Ordinarily she would be able to crush a man’s windpipe using this technique, but Meg’s muscles screamed in defiance at the abrupt demand placed on them.  Meg gritted her teeth when she felt the soldier reach behind him and grab her by the flimsy hospital gown, yanking her over his shoulder.  She fought using every ounce of strength she had, but Meg was more than outmatched in her condition. 

She fumed under his weight as he pinned her down on the passenger seat by straddling her to control her kicking and holding her wrists above her head in one strong hand.  With the other hand, he covered her mouth, muffling her screams in case it could be heard by others in the parking garage.

“Stop fighting me,” he barked in her face.  His honey, yellow eyes sparked with anger.

Meg glared at him, breathing hard against the edge of his strong hand. 

“MMMummmmffff uuuuuhh,” she screamed behind his hand.  Even Gideon could understand that to have been an instinctive response to his demand. 

“
Stop!
  I’m only trying to help you!”  He growled.  Her warm breath burst in huffs over his hand.   “I’m going to take my hand away.  Don’t scream or I’ll be forced to gag you.”  His eyes flashed a warning.

Meg’s fight-or-flight instincts were in overdrive.  She struggled, bucking her hips to get him off her before she snarled and bit his hand with all her strength.  She tasted blood as he screamed in pain.

“Calm the hell down, Meg!”

Meg was still as a stone, watching him with knowing eyes.  That’s when he realized what he had been doing.  He was touching her.

He leaped off her as if she were a pile of fire.

She cringed at the abrupt movement, but was struggling to get up
to her knees on the seat—a position Gideon recognized immediately as a fighting stance.  He had to admire her spirit.

“Who are you and what do you want with me?”

Just glad she wasn’t trying to cut off his breathing or bite his hand off at the moment, he responded: “I’m Gideon.  I was sent to rescue you.”

Just then Meg flew out of the passenger door.  She had been hiding her hand behind her back, to unlock and open it.

Oh, hell,
he thought angrily as he hurried out after her, blood dripping from his palm where the she-cat had ripped off a chunk of skin with her sharp teeth.

She was fast for a girl who had been kept incapacitated for
months.  He watched her dark hair fly behind her as she ran in the dawning sunlight toward the airport.  She was barefoot and wearing a hospital gown.  This was going to be a tough sell if she were noticed. 

“Wait,” he yelled deciding he needed to change tactics with her.  “I’ll tell you everything I know, just stop running
!”

Meg slowed and darted behind the back of an SUV.  Gideon knew she was listening.

“You are Meg.  Meg Winter.  You were kept by a sick guy who happens to be your biological father.  His name is Dr. Kenneth Williams and he only wanted to keep you for your blood.  You are special, Meg.  He discovered that your blood is a cure for him.  Williams kept you in a coma so he could drag you around—to use you as a blood donor for himself and to hide you from Senator Arkdone.”

“You expect me to believe that crap?”  The anger in her voice was unmistakable, but the sound of it came from a much closer location than the SUV she hid behind seconds before. 

“It’s the truth.  So is the fact that you’re a powerful empath and can read the emotions of others.  I was warned not to let you touch me because you would be able to see right through the story I was told to tell you.”

“So you admit you’re lying!” she hissed.  “Who warned you?” her voice was right behind him.  He spun to see her standing beautifully.  Though he knew her body must be hurting, she stood tall, chin held up defiantly.  Her fists were balled at her sides as though it was all she could do to control her temper and listen to him.

“I’m not lying now.  I can see the only way I can get through to you is by telling you the truth.  And I was warned by Arkdone.”

“Senator Arkdone?”

“He’s a powerful man.”

“I remember a lot of things now,” Meg’s voice came in a whisper. 

“The Senator has taken a keen interest in you.  He planted me in Williams’ trusted circle years ago but had me blow my cover just to get you back.  I was a double agent.  Now I’m just trying to get you back to the Senator.”

“Why should I believe you?”

Gideon held his one good hand out to the girl.  “See for yourself.  Senator Arkdone warned me against this, but he also ordered me to get you to trust me.  Here, hold my hand and do your empath thing.”

Meg frowned at the soldier.  “I don’t know if I can,” she hesitated to tell him she doubted her ability because she was exhausted and hurting all over.

Misunderstanding her hesitation, Gideon reassured the frail-looking girl.  “Arkdone was sure you would remember how to read my intentions once you had physical contact—something about your gift awakening that way.  Just try,” he nodded toward his outstretched hand encouraging her to step forward. 

Inside he was feeling waves of nausea as punishment for disobeying orders.  He’d never done this before; questioned his innermost voice.  He certainly never defied it.  He could tell there would be punishment for this, but he was determined to get the fragile-looking girl to trust him.  Somehow, Gideon was grasping to that part of his directive more than the other. 

Hesitantly, she stepped toward the soldier and reached her hand to take his.  The moment she registered his warmth against her cold fingertips, she felt something shift inside her mind.  She looked up at the soldier and felt his uncertainty about what he had offered her.

“Say something,” she whispered, momentarily fending off a wave of fear for what she may discover of this man who held her hand during a very weakened and vulnerable moment.  She wasn’t just risking discovering what he wanted, she was also risking him overpowering her.

“We need to get back to the car and get you some clothes.  You’re going to freeze out here,” he said feeling stupid and sick at the same time.

“You’re telling the truth.  You brought clothes for me.”

“They’re in the trunk of the car, yeah,” he nodded watching her, watching him.

“Why did you rescue me from Williams’ chateau?”

“I have orders to take you back to Arkdone.”

“Why should I let you take me back there?”

“You do know how special you are, right?  You know your blood has unique curative characteristics and you are a powerful empath.  You’re an asset and powerful men have uses for you.”

“And that’s supposed to convince me to go to him?” she asked incredulously.

“Listen, the Senator has the answers you’re looking for.  He’s the best chance you have to get your life back.  He’s already helped you more than you know.  Hell, Meg.  He ordered me to rescue you from Williams—the man who has been hunting you and your family your entire life.”

“I’m not buying it.  Answer my question: Why should I let you take me to him?”  Meg’s mind echoed the answer she already knew.