Winter's Storm: Retribution (Winter's Saga #2) (12 page)

The screen door closed with a solid whack behind me as I tried to bolt from the trauma in my heart. This was just too much. I just found out I was dying. Everyone I love was in that room and they all know. I had no time to swallow what was being shoved at me so I did what I always do, I start yelling at the world in an emotional tirade. My efforts to seem completely in control are always sabotaged by my inability to breathe.

But in the end, this isn’t about me or how I feel. I’m just a means to an end now. At least I get to decide how I’m going to end it. I refuse to just let myself die. This is not going to go well for Williams. Not at all. Now I know I have nothing left to lose.

My feet hit the pavement with a rhythmic determination.

My little brothers have more time than me. Maybe they can find a cure before it’s too late for them. As for me, I have already made my decision.

Let me break it down: My objective is to terminate Williams and destroy his work. How can I make that happen? How can I use what resources I have to put this man out of commission? What does he value? Power? Money?

The salty, thick air washed over me as I ran following the curves and hills of the road. And with every beat of my pounding heart I wished I were just a normal sixteen-year-old girl walking the halls of a normal high school where all I had to worry about was final exams and who was going to take me to the prom. I wish I could listen to music and write in a diary and make plans for college. I wish I could dream of growing up and growing old with the love of my life, but none of that was in my future. No. Instead, my future was primed and ready to be filled with metabattles, blood, evil doctors bent on world domination and imminent death before I even make it to twenty-one.

Crap!

I picked up my already breakneck speed, pushing away the self-pity and allowing myself to be enveloped in anger instead. Feeling my new determination wash over and empower me opened my mind to clarity. I knew what I had to do. I need to find Dr. Kenneth Williams, and God forgive me, I need to terminate him and his work.

21 It’s Not Just Nostalgia

The room was completely dark except for the images flashing on the large flat screen on the far side. In a supple, brushed, black leather recliner sat the aging Dr. Williams. His left hand was methodically rotating the metallic orbs—his self-soothing technique. The doctor’s face was only visible because of the reflection from the screen. He looked distinctly older than he had just two years before. Stress and revenge will do that to a man.

On the screen was the case study, M57, his first success. She was perched on her bed, her small, slender legs dangling several inches above the tiled flooring. In her dainty, three-year-old hands, she lovingly held a rag doll. The doll was nothing spectacular. To his memory, it was the only one he allowed her as he was more interested in honing her fighting skills, battle tactics, problem solving, and so on. He remembered being frustrated that the experiment continued to seek that one doll out instead of playing with the brain researched-based robotics, puzzles and mazes. There she was, singing to the faceless, yarn-haired, doll.

He scowled at the image wondering, not for the first time, why he even bothered with a female case study. Then, as though justifying himself, he made himself remember how much harder it was to come by the human samples on which he could carry out his research back then. Yes, times were tough, he thought.

On the screen, M57 looked up, as though she heard something, and scampered under the bed, bringing the ratty doll with her. The room looked empty for several minutes before the door opened and a lab worker who was there to collect a blood sample, walked in. He scanned the room looking confused.

Look under the bed, you idiot!
thought Williams, not for the first time.

Instead, the white lab coat looked down at the chart in his hand and flipped a few pages up before stupidly scratching his head, turning and walking out of the room. The door closed with a loud, locking click behind him and moments later M57 crawled out from under the bed, looking quite pleased with herself. She smiled widely, held the doll up into the air, spun, then hugged it tightly.

What just happened? Williams was thinking. He knew she could sense the emotions of others. That was documented and factual. But this one scene, of all the hours of footage he had videotaped of her time at the Institute, this seemed different.

Did she sense the worker’s hesitation to do his job and collect data from what he saw as a little girl and use that against him? Or was it something else? She was always able to sense emotions but it looked like, in this scene, she was able to manipulate his emotions so he didn’t search for her. Instead, he looked full of doubt and walked out of the room without so much as seeing the subject. And if that were the case, why had she only displayed this ability this once?

Why, when she came to the Institute last year, did she not just manipulate me into freeing her mother and ending our conflict?
He thought.

Dr. Williams grabbed the remote, clicked to rewind and began the scene for the umpteenth time. Though the event took place more than a decade before, something here was important to present events. The worry lines deepened in his brow. There was more to M57, and he needed to know what it was.

The cell phone in his upper breast pocket warbled announcing a call and interrupting his thoughts. Irritated, he answered, “What.”

“
Dr. Williams. Creed here, calling with a status report.”

“
Go on,” Williams barked, pressing pause on the video playback right where M57 looks up from her doll as though she heard something…or was it felt something?

“
Your assistant, Farrow arrived with the ‘gift’ right on schedule. We are on target for secured delivery, sir.”

“
Excellent. When?”

“
Fifteen minutes. But sir, I should mention that there seemed to be a change in their behavior today.”

Dr. Williams sat quietly, staring at the image of the meta child on the screen, and he wondered aloud, “what do you think you’re doing?” He rewound the scene and watched it again from the beginning. There was something here, he could feel it.

“
Sir?”

“
Nevermind. I know you have not initiated contact with them since you located their hideaway on the Big Island, correct? So, what brought on this change in their pattern of behavior?” Dr. Williams’ mind was racing on two planes of thought.

“
I observed the metas conducting themselves as usual until today when all three of them changed their routines. The oldest male looked angry and spent the entire afternoon lifting weights behind the house in the bungalow. The younger male went into the laboratory about the same time and has not come out all day. And the girl,…” Creed’s voice wavered slightly.

“
Yes, what of the girl?” Williams snapped impatiently.

“
The girl ran out of the house at 11:12am and kept running. It wasn’t her normal jogging pace. It was obvious she was upset, sir.”

“
Yes, well of course. She
is
the emotional one,” Williams mused.

“
If it were just her change in behavior, I wouldn’t have thought much about it; but the other two metas behaving the way they did—something happened to upset all three of them.”

“
No matter. After Meg gets our little “gift,” they’ll have a new reason to be upset,” Dr. Williams said, smiling to himself.

“
Sir, we could have just as much access to either of the male metas. Are you sure you want the “gift” given to the female?” Creed couldn’t completely put aside his feelings for Meg, however important it was that he did.

In the five months since he last saw her, all he could think about was her. He and Farrow tried to track them, but their trail ran cold. No one knew where they were. Not at the hospital, not the government, not the police…no one was talking. It was like they fell off the face of the earth. So Williams had ordered them to return to the Facility. He didn’t like having his meta operatives away from his influence for long. Creed was sure Williams worried that if left with too much freedom, he would lose them to the appeal of the American civilian lifestyle. It had taken months of private investigation from an outside source to locate the family that had gone so deeply underground. It was only because Williams had spared no expense in their hunt that they were found. Creed was sent ahead for surveillance and Farrow followed soon after with the special “gift” designed specifically for Meg.

“
It absolutely needs to be given to her. She’s the leader. You forget, Mr. Young. Combined, these three are the most formidable metas I have ever created. Alik’s strength and memory, Evan’s genius and problem solving, and then there is my M57—Meg is what they call her, isn’t it? Not very original of Margo,…” Dr. Williams’ voice dropped off.

“
Sir?” Creed wasn’t sure he was following the Director’s line of thought.

“
Well, Margo ‘named’ her Meg. M57. M, then the fifth letter of the alphabet is “E” and the seventh is “G.” M-E-G. Not very original,” he said condescendingly.

Creed’s mind easily slipped back to the hospital corridor when he stood so close to her he could smell the strawberry scent of her hair and looked into her deep, dark brown eyes. He had to force himself back to the present. “And what of Meg’s heightened ability?”

“
Now that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Williams half said to himself as he continued to stare at the image of the dark-eyed child on the screen. “She can channel into the emotions of those around her.” His voice sounded very far away to Creed.

“‘
Channel into emotions.’ Sir, what does that mean?”

“
It means she may be the most dangerous of them all. It is she who gives the other two directions; her personality is that of leader. Without her, the two males will flounder. It is she who intends to be my undoing,” he said with a strange smile in his voice that translated to Creed almost as pride.

He’s proud of her,
Creed thought to himself.
In a sick way, he is happy at the thought of Meg wanting to kill him. This guy is one seriously demented individual.

The director continued watching the image on his screen. “Such a delicious morsel. What a gift I gave her…”

“
Sir?” Creed heard every word the old scientist muttered, but he wasn’t making sense. Not for the last time, Creed grimaced at the thought of all the power this man had at his fingertips, yet how near the edge of insanity he seemed to hover.

“
Both you and Farrow have you’re your work cut out for you. Call to keep me posted,” he said with an air of effortlessness that left Creed feeling nauseous and uneasy.

Creed put his phone back in his pocket and picked up his binoculars. There she was. Her dark hair pulled back in a pony. Her long strides were graceful and poetic in their strength. She looked so hurt and angry. And then she wasn’t running anymore, she was spinning in the air and landing with a sick whack against a tree trunk.

“
Farrow!” he yelled.

Farrow was positioned about ten meters to his right. She had been following Meg through a scope of a long-range, sniper rifle.

“
Oh, calm down, lover boy,” she said snidely. “I just did you a favor by getting it over with.” She was already packing her gear.

Creed picked up his binoculars again and found Meg motionless on the ground. He was so struck by what just happened that he couldn’t breathe.

“
I got her in the neck, so you may want to go remove the ‘gift’ before you knight-in-shining-armor her back to her precious family,” Farrow was already walking away, rifle disassembled and inconspicuously set inside her hiker’s backpack. “See you back at the hotel. Oh, and you’re welcome!”

Creed was torn between chasing Farrow down to have it out with her and running down to check on Meg and carry her to safety. Since he couldn’t take his eyes off her, he opted to go to Meg.

Back in Dr. Williams’ darkened video viewing room, the images on the screen came back to life and he watched with horrified amusement as the child disappears under the bed, the lab coat walks in and shakes his head confused at the seemingly empty room and walks out. Williams watched the child’s face carefully when she climbed out from under the bed. She looked pleased with herself and relieved. She hugged her rag doll tightly and commenced her imaginative play. But what happened with the lab worker wasn’t in her imagination, or was it?

The old man sat in his chair and rewound the scene. This time he not only rolled the metallic orbs in his hand, but he worked his lips tight then puckered, tight then puckered, over and over. This little quirk of his he only showed during his most pensive, stress-filled moments. Yes, he thought to himself, this meta may very well be the most dangerous of them all.

She is my masterpiece—simply magnificent,
he thought, applauding himself.

22 Alik’s “Time Sense”

He was laying on his back, muscles taught and skin glistening with sweat. He was slowly lowering a bar to his chest with hundreds of pounds of weight draped on either side. His crisp blue eyes were steeped in worry and concentration, not for the eight-hundred pounds he shouldered, but for all the responsibility he felt for his family.