Winter's Scars: The Forsaken (Winter's Saga 5) (34 page)

Evan knew the truth, but said nothing.  Besides, they were partially correct. 

The lab wasn’t burned at all, but it
was
haunted by a godforsaken soul—by someone who could no longer separate dreams from reality. 

He knew he’d been pushing himself away from his family.  He knew why he had so many sleepless nights.  Why he found himself walking the dark streets alone.  So many nights he tried desperately to find a place to sleep.  He didn’t care about his own safety.  He was afraid for the safety of others.

If he could throw light in his sleep, he could kill someone accidentally.  He knew his scars were hungry for destruction, and he feared hurting the people he loved.  In his efforts to do the right thing, he was pushing everyone away, until now.

Now he felt afraid of losing everyone who mattered to him. 

Now, Evan realized he also feared himself.

Chapter 62 Images

“Things have changed
, Roth.”  Arkdone was watching the girl on his monitor as he spoke.  She was lounging on her bed flipping through a magazine.  The Senator switched his cell phone to his other ear, his black eyes following the outline of the girl on the screen.

“What ‘things’ could possibly make you want to revoke the arrest warrants on the Winter Clan?  That all happened a few days ago, sir.  The reporters are still on a feeding frenzy speculating the details.”
  Roth spoke through clenched teeth, trying to control his temper.

“Rein it in,” Arkdone reached out and caressed the image of the girl he had no intention of giving up.

“How do you propose I do that?” Adrian Roth was furious. 

Arkdone sat back in his supple chair and gazed at her image, remembering the absolute control he felt vibrate off her as she so completely controlled his mild-mannered, thick through the middle housemaid.  He felt the air around him thick with her gift and he was in awe. 

To Adrian, the Senator’s silence meant one of two things: He was pissed or he was thinking about being pissed.  So the spin doctor kept talking.

“Sir, I have happily helped you do everything you ever wanted.  I have reveled in the devious tactics we’ve taken to get you positioned so perfectly to become our party’s leading presidential candidate,” Adrian paused to take a breath, “But sir, this could kill your credibility in the public’s eye.”

“Not if we spin it just right, Roth.  Do this.  Make it happen.  I want your ideas about logistics by nine in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Adrian said, defeated.

“Can I depend on you, Roth?”  Arkdone looked away from the screen he’d just adjusted so he was as zoomed in on her image as the technology would allow.  “Or do I need to find someone else?”

“No, sir.  I’ve got this.  You can depend on me.” Roth squeezed his tired eyes shut, lifted his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Good.  Nine o’clock, then.”   The Senator hung up on his personal adviser knowing full well the snake would devise several brilliant plans to shift the attention from the Winter Clan onto something even juicier.  The court of public opinion on the matter would be adjourned as all heads would turn elsewhere.

He watched the girl for another
while, dreaming of the small curve at the back of her knees.  She had stripped off the stockings leaving her legs bare under the sweater dress.  She was waiting for Michelle to return from shopping.  Meg had sent her to buy comfortable clothing.  Michelle was none too pleased at being the girl’s gopher, because however little Meg remembered of the Monarch slave, Michelle remembered her.

Deciding he needed to busy himself until dinner when he could insist on the girl’s company again, he walked to the sitting room and began playing the piano.  The vibrations of the keys under his fingertips soothed him.

Chapter 63 The Punisher

Hearing the piano resume, Gideon took his chance.  He tapped lightly on the closed door to the room he’d been guarding all morning.  Before waiting for an answer, he slipped inside the room averting his eyes in case the girl wasn’t decent. 

“Gideon?” Meg whispered from across the room.

“Can I talk with you?” He breathed, not at all surprised to hear himself slightly out of breath.  He had started to notice being around her made his heart race like a thoroughbred’s.

“Are you okay?” Meg hopped off the bed and walked up to the soldier hiding his face from her.  Even as she did, she projected her emotional feelers to search his kaleidoscope of a signature for the problem.

“Me?  I’m worried about you!” His voice had taken on a raspy quality.

“I’m fine.  Why don’t you turn around and talk with me?” she suggested.

“Are you decent?”

Meg stifled a giggle at the question.  “Of course, I am.”

“I just didn’t want to overstep,” he murmured as he turned and looked into her dark eyes.

She had been bored enough to play with the makeup left in her powder room.  Not sure how to use everything, she just chose a select few things, climbed on the sink so she could lean way into the mirror and read the simple instructions on the back of the containers.  She especially had a
difficult time with the mascara. 

She’d never realized she had such long lashes until she tried to paint them.  She was moderately happy with the results and besides, it had killed an hour of her morning after that exhausting breakfast.  Besides, she knew she was safe from Arkdone’s spying camera in the powder room as the man hadn’t been so vulgar as to install a camera there.  Meg had searched the small space thoroughly. 

She knew he was watching her as she lounged on the bed reading, but what else could she do?  She was about ready to scream waiting for Michelle to return with the clothing she’d requested.  She
needed
her running clothes and shoes so she could at least get out and run.

“You’re not overstepping,” she smiled at him.  Gideon felt a wave of dizziness and realized he’d been holding his breath. 

“What happened this morning when he made me leave the room?”

“We made an agreement.”

Gideon’s honey eyes were expectantly wide.

“What kind of agreement?” 

“The kind you needn’t worry about.  But I will be staying here indefinitely.”

The news made the soldier want to leap for joy, but he maintained his composure and just nodded.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?  What about your family?”

“I know what I’m doing, and I’ve taken care of the family.  Part of my conditions for employment was to make sure they’re all right.”

Gideon stood staring down at the beautiful girl whose eyes seemed to capture nuggets of light and trap them in her dark irises. 

He stood, rocking on his feet for a moment, in silence.

“Was there something else, Gideon?”  Meg asked, worried the music would stop playing before he had a chance to say what she sensed he wanted to say.

Gideon blushed deeply and opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes dropped to look at his callous hands.  He breathed deeply before looking back up.  Meg was now looking into the black eyes of Sirus. 

“He should not be talking to you,” Sirus spat, stepping back away from Meg.

“Tell
him
that. 
He
came to
me
.” Meg shrugged as though Sirus’ words didn’t hurt.

“I
have
told him that, but he’s not listening to me, and we’re all getting punished for his interest in you.”

“He’s interested in me?” Meg asked innocently.

“Don’t play with me, witch!” he stepped up to her and wrapped his thick hand around her neck.

Meg stood on tiptoe to keep from being dragged off the ground. 

“You don’t want to do this, Sirus.” Meg’s eyes flashed with warning.

“What are you going to do, witch?  Anything you do to me hurts Gideon, too.”

Meg narrowed her eyes and said, “Let go of me, Sirus.”

His eyes flashed with doubt as she flung her will directly into his mind.  He immediately let go of her throat and stepped back toward the door, but stopped.  He looked away and when he looked back Meg was staring into a face that was neither Sirus nor Gideon.  She reached with her empath thoughts and saw this alter’s color was black, just black.  Sirus’ yellow and Gideon’s red were small splotches surrounded by the blackness.

“You stay the hell away from us,” a voice growled in a thick Southern accent.

“Who—who are you?” Meg’s question hung in the air as she watched this alter reach down to retrieve a knife from his boot. 

“I have no name.”  He played with the razor’s edge of the blade with his thumb.

Meg was trying desperately to figure out what to do. 

“What is your role in the system?” she managed to ask.

“I am the memory keeper, bitch.”

“Why have you never come out before?”

“I only take over when we’re about to do something the others are too chicken-shit to handle.  I take care of matters and hold the memories so everyone else can live happily ever after.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Meg was backing away from the dark alter, frantically trying to think of her options.

“Nothing’s fair inside here,” he shrugged. “So, let’s get this
over with.  You stay away from Gideon and Sirus or I’ll get to come out and play.”

“But Gideon came to me.” She said in a too soft voice.

“Then let’s make it harder for him to do that.” With the speed of a viper, the alter swung the blade high above his head and slammed it into his own thigh.

Chapter 64  Reproachful Eyes

“Three weeks?  I only have enough for three weeks?  That’s unacceptable!  Why wasn’t more harvested?  Answer me!”  The Director was about to crawl out of his skin, literally.

“Sir, the blood can only be kept for three weeks, maximum.  We had found there was severe breakdown of the cellular structure and thus the curative element past that date.  We had developed a routine of harvesting as fast as her body created.”

“So you’re telling me in three weeks my—allergy,” he chose his words carefully, “will be back in full force?”

“Unless we retrieve the source,” the lead scientist suggested delicately.

“That’s just not good enough,” the Director snarled.  “Put yourself and your sharpest minds on the task of isolating the curative factor in the blood and duplicating it artificially.  Make this happen or you’ll personally learn what it feels like to walk around peeled of your skin.”  Williams spat into the phone and angrily jabbed the touch screen to disconnect the call.

As he did, a bloody smear was left in his wake.

“Now, where were we, Gemi Johnson?” The woman’s dark eyes were wide with terror, though the neuromuscular-blocking drug he used on her had rendered her helpless.  Her body was paralyzed, but she was completely aware of what was happening to her.  As the sick scientist worked, he was careful to explain and show as though teaching an anatomy class.

He was working on something to do with her hands.  The poor girl who had just been asking for handouts at the gas station by the airport wished to God she would just die.  But the sick doctor had started an IV, heart rate and blood pressure monitor. 

“You see, my dear,” he explained to the formerly destitute, currently forsaken woman, “I want my toy alive and well—not so well, I suppose.” He had chuckled at his own humor.

“Let me tell you a story, Gemi,” he began, his black beady eyes utterly focused behind his surgical telescope lenses as he worked.

“You see, my dear.  There once was a little boy who adored his mother, but nothing he did ever pleased her.  The only time he saw her smile was when she had a drink in her hand.  Men flocked to her side at functions and would hang on her every word.  The boy would hear her laughter as it trilled beautifully above the throng of voices.  And as much as the woman reveled in her high-powered socialite world, she equally loathed her duties as a mother to the weasel of a boy to which she gave birth.

“You see, Gemi, the mother was breathtakingly exquisite.  Her skin,” he paused grabbing another instrument from just out of his horrified victim’s view, “was alabaster white and her eyes were dark like a velvet night sky.  When she smiled, they would scrunch up beautifully at the corners, making her look distinctly feline and regal.”  Thoroughly engaged in his motionless audience, the doctor continued. 

Gemi watched as he moved on to the other side of her body, presumably to work on her other hand.  Gemi was terrified beyond comprehension and started to imagine the smell of strawberries, fueling the macabre nightmare the sick man was creating with her as the centerpiece. 

His voice resumed, carrying an almost hypnotic timbre.

“But the boy rarely saw that smile and even more rarely saw it directed at him.  Instead, he would see her eyes dull with boredom when he tried to engage her in conversation.” He held Gemi’s severed finger up so she could see for herself what he’d been up to.