Double Helix Collection: A Genetic Revolution Thriller

by Jade Kerrion

  “She didn’t think of it?”

  Miriya’s brow furrowed. “You can yell at her later, but it won’t do any good. Her brain just doesn’t work like that yet.”

  Zara bit back the sarcastic comment on the edge of her tongue. Power and intelligence did not necessarily go hand in hand.

  “Jessica’s a good kid,” Miriya said, as if she had read Zara’s mind, which she probably had. “She just needs to grow up a bit more.”

  “Kid? How old is she?”

  “Fifteen. Or almost fifteen.”

  Zara’s jaw dropped. “Are you telling me that Danyael’s life rests in the hands of a fifteen…fourteen-year old? Is it even legal to send a fourteen-year old into a fight?”

  “How old were you when you made your first kill? Twelve?”

  “That’s different. Lebanon was in a civil war. When did America start sending cripples and children into battles?”

  “We are at war, Zara. Right here, right now. In a war, you send in your best people; you don’t get uptight about gender, age, or genetic makeup.”

  Zara ground her teeth and refocused on the real issue. “If you can’t create a dome large enough to contain all those people, will Danyael still be able to kill Thomas?”

  “Well…” Miriya dragged out the word. “Sort of.”

  “Yes or no? You either kill someone or you don’t. There’s no ‘sort of’ about it.”

  “Danyael will need physical contact if he can’t just drop his shields. That means he’ll actually have to reach Thomas. Can he fight his way through?”

  “He’s got forty super soldiers, maybe fewer. Those are crazy odds.”

  Miriya winced. “Okay, so we…ah…”

  “Tell Danyael. Tell him his window for error just vanished.”

  ~*~

  Danyael stood on the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bridge gazing out over the eighty-nine acre island. The night breeze ruffled his hair, its chill edge cutting through the warmth of the shirt Lucien had lent him. Surrounded by super soldiers, he nevertheless felt alone.

  He leaned against the bridge, set his crutch aside, and opened a small case containing two filled syringes. He flicked off their protective plastic caps and injected their contents into his veins. Several minutes passed before the grinding pain faded and his head cleared. He exhaled shakily and slowly rolled his neck to ease the tension in his shoulders and back. Better. I don’t have to keep this up for much longer.

  He glanced over his shoulder at Scar. “Take me down to the island.”

  Scar coiled, his muscles bunching, and launched himself in Danyael’s direction. With impeccable timing, his heavy arm swept out and snagged Danyael around the waist. Scar leapt over the bridge, pulling Danyael down with him.

  The super soldier landed in a battle crouch with Danyael cushioned in his arms. Hoots of excitement rang from the top of the bridge, and within moments, the other super soldiers leapt off the bridge to join Scar and Danyael. One of them brought Danyael’s crutch down with him.

  Danyael started walking, confident that he would find Sakti. Occasionally they ran across members of Sakti concealed among the bushes and trees, but the encounters were brutally short for Sakti.

  Uh, Danyael.

  What is it, Miriya?

  We’ve got a couple of problems.

  He asked dryly, You mean something other than the five hundred folks from Sakti?

  I don’t think we have enough telekinetics to create a dome large enough to cover five hundred people.

  Isn’t this something we should have figured out before putting the plan in motion?

  Miriya’s chuckle was sheepish but her response defiant. Hell, it’s more exciting making it up as we go along.

  Thomas is key. It doesn’t matter if we drop the dome only around half of Sakti, as long as Thomas and I are under the dome.

  Okay. Keep an eye out for Jessica, will you? She’ll be near Thomas.

  Danyael froze. Jessica Richardson?

  Yup.

  You’re channeling telepathic and telekinetic energy through her? She’s a child!

  Jessica is a council-trained alpha telepath and telekinetic.

  Jessica is thirteen years old.

  Fourteen, now, actually. Almost fifteen.

  Can’t she channel from outside the dome?

  Danyael, Jessica still gets lost inside the council headquarters, and she can’t catch a ball from two feet away. She’s very talented, but spatial perception isn’t one of her strengths.

  Damn it! No one was supposed to get close to Sakti. No one else was supposed to get hurt.

  You’re the only one who has the right to risk his life? This is our fight too, all of ours. Don’t cheapen what we do by thinking you’re the only one with a stake in this.

  I didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of me.

  If people get hurt, it’s because we’re trying to stop Sakti. It’s more than you now. It’s going to be okay, I promise.

  He released his breath in a shuddering sigh, adjusted the crutch under his arm, and limped forward. Tell Jessica to stick close to Thomas.

  What are you going to do?

  Break Sakti into smaller pieces and make Thomas come to me.

  The super soldiers followed Danyael without hesitation. The day seemed darkest before the dawn, and the dense foliage provided additional cover. The super soldiers, despite their bulk, were silent on their feet, and Scar carried Danyael over the roughest spots. Danyael hunkered behind a bush and watched Sakti mill around aimlessly in the large open space in front of the Theodore Roosevelt statue.

  He glanced over his shoulder at one of the leaders of the super soldiers. “You and your friends wait here.”

  The super soldier seemed confused, but complied. When Danyael walked away, the leader and the super soldiers from his barracks remained behind. Danyael made his way around the perimeter of the island, leaving small groups of super soldiers concealed among trees and bushes.

  What are you doing, Danyael? Miriya asked.

  Surrounding Sakti.

  Is it going to take much longer? Zara’s nervous. It’s getting light.

  Zara’s with you? I told her to stay with the council.

  Miriya was briefly silent. When she spoke, humor laced her tone. Nope. Zara says you told her to go to the council. If you had wanted her to stay with them, you needed to be more explicit.

  Danyael stifled an exasperated chuckle. Keep her safe, will you?

  Of course. I’m shielding her. She’ll be fine.

  Danyael looked up at Scar. “All right, let’s get started.”

  Scar grinned, baring fangs. He raised his head and hooted, a quiet sound, a call one animal might make to another.

  Safely ensconced within Sakti’s large circle, several people glanced with consternation over their shoulders at the dark woods beyond.

  On the far side of Sakti’s circle, another hoot sounded, and then another from the north. From the west, two other hoots chimed through the night, their music overlapping.

  Danyael’s empathic powers wafted, as if carried by the night breeze, subtle yet unstoppable. Like a blade of grass easing through a crack in the concrete, his powers found slivers of weakness in otherwise impenetrable psychic shields and crept in.

  Fear stirred. The super soldiers, possessed of animal instincts, crept into the shadows and waited warily. In humans, curiosity was stronger than fear. Silence settled back over the island, but peace dissolved. Unease rustled. Apparently acting on instructions, several members of Sakti peeled off from the larger group and headed cautiously toward the directions of the sounds. They hesitated before entering the tree line, but after several seconds, they pushed into the darkness.

  Screams of pain and panic ripped apart Sakti’s tenuous sense of security. The shrieks started in a grove in the north, spread quickly, and within seconds, a noose of terror tightened around the island.

  Sakti crumbled into smaller pieces as people scrambled to aid their doomed friends. Da
nyael watched, narrow-eyed. Time to end this. He limped out of the tree line, a slight figure surrounded by the bulk of Scar and eight other super soldiers.

  “Get him,” Thomas shouted.

  Scar threw his head back and roared, a bone-shattering sound that married the arrogance of a lion with the ferocity of a gorilla. The sound pierced the dawn, drowning out human cries and quashing Thomas’s voice, leaving it with no power than the chirp of a cricket. Sakti members recoiled from Scar’s display of power, unaware that they shrank as much from the whisper of terror Danyael had embedded in their hearts.

  Humans cower when frightened or cornered. Animals fight. The super soldiers, at their very core, were animals. They surged ahead, racing past Scar and Danyael, scarcely knowing or caring that they were outnumbered. For a few precious minutes, they held the upper hand, savaging anyone within reach. No elegance or subtlety was needed; brute force tore limbs and smashed faces. Mutant powers were helpless in the face of brutal pain and devastating injuries, until human courage reasserted itself.

  Slowly, inexorably, the battle turned against the super soldiers. One soldier fighting beside Danyael collapsed with a scream, his bones broken by large rocks hurled by telekinetics. Another crumpled in a hail of bullets. With his dying breath, he dragged his bleeding body over the ground to return to Danyael’s side.

  One by one they fell, until only Scar and Danyael remained. Danyael jerked back as a man shoved an automatic machine gun against his chest. Scar grabbed the gun and swung the man around, wearing him like a shield. With his other hand, Scar pressed down on the man’s trigger finger. Danyael dove to the ground as Scar spun in a circle. Scar’s human shield screamed in denial as he gunned his friends down.

  Several members of Sakti collapsed, bleeding, among them a slim teenaged girl. She wilted to her knees, a trembling hand pressed against the rapidly spreading crimson stain on her light blue sweater. Danyael’s breath caught. Oh, God, no.

  Miriya screamed into Danyael’s mind. Jessica’s hurt.

  Danyael lunged past the stampeding bodies.

  Thomas shouted, “Get him!”

  Hands grabbed Danyael, pulling him to his knees. He slammed an elbow back and heard fragile bone crack under the impact. The grip on his arms loosened. Danyael’s hand brushed against Jessica’s, but the contact was broken as others pulled him back. Something hard and heavy slammed against his face. Pain exploded, bright and blinding.

  Danyael!

  Don’t…scream at me. Link us.

  Jessica? You’re going to heal her?

  I can’t reach her. I have to heal her through you.

  How is she—

  She’s dying. Damn it, hurry up.

  Zara says no. You’re shot up with painkillers. You don’t know when to stop—

  Do it. Now.

  Miriya fell silent, and another voice, a child’s voice, whispered through his mind. Danyael? I think I can still channel the psychic energy. Just have to do it now, before…

  Relax, Jessica. I’ve got you. His healing energies plunged, a river of light flowing from his mind, through Miriya and into Jessica. As Jessica’s body healed, Danyael’s body faltered. His chest ached, a burning pain that trapped his breath in his throat.

  Thomas’s henchmen stripped his body armor from him. A fist smashed into his face, the impact driving him to his knees. “Not so pretty now, are you?” Thomas sneered. He tipped Danyael’s chin up and spit into his face. “What did my father see in you?”

  Danyael clenched his teeth. The pain in his chest radiated across his shoulders, numbing his muscles. He looked up at Thomas, the motion swirling dizziness through him. “Look around you. Is this what your father wanted?”

  Thomas turned his head, seeing, perhaps for the first time, what Danyael saw. Broken bodies, lives—young and promising—destroyed in their prime. “You did this!”

  “No, you did this,” Danyael said, his voice pitched low to conceal his pain and exhaustion. “Your envy, your jealousy, drove you to it. Was it worth it? Was I worth your fall from grace?”

  “I did this for a better country, for a country free from the tyranny of a government that abuses genetic derivatives. I am changing the future, for all of us.”

  “You are destroying it.”

  Thomas’s eyes widened. “Are you defending a government that has persecuted you and others like you?”

  “No, but you’re no better than the government you’re trying to destroy.” A chill settled deep in the pit of Danyael’s stomach and crept outward; its unstoppable cold heralded death. He spared a glance at Jessica, slumped on the ground. Her hand was still pressed against the crimson stain, but it no longer trembled visibly. Almost there… “You considered yourself a patriot. You wanted to be a hero, but when you attacked people in their homes, you became just something else for them to be afraid of. You cannot change the world for the better through terror.”

  Thomas sneered. “You know what I see when I look at you? A bitch for the government that betrayed you once and will betray you again, given half a chance. They treat you like dirt and still, you return to them, begging them to fuck you again.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Give me a knife.”

  Someone put a blade into his hand.

  Thomas’s lips curled into a thin smile. “Hold his head still.”

  Fingers curled into Danyael’s hair and yanked his head back. An arm wrapped around his throat, cutting off most of his air. Hard hands pressed down on both sides of his forehead, immobilizing him. Danyael stared unflinchingly into Thomas’s brown eyes as the man closed the distance, twirling the blade in his hand.

  “The world is going to know what you are, and when I’m done with you, when we’re all done with you, we’ll just leave you here and let the government pick up the pieces. They’ll send you back to prison, right back where we found you. And this time, Danyael, no one is going to save you.”

  The tip of the blade, razor sharp, parted the skin on Danyael’s forehead. The pain, at first sharply localized, blended and merged with the raw agony pulsing through him. Danyael closed his eyes as blood trickled down his forehead. The blade moved slowly and carefully, mercilessly carving a path on his skin.

  He bit down on his lower lip. Miriya…

  It’s going to be all right, Danyael. I’ve got you. Draw strength from me. Take whatever you need from me.

  Jessica spoke up, her young voice strong, determined. Do it, now.

  Danyael’s eyes opened. Rivulets of blood flowed down his face, over his eyelashes, and along the slash of his cheekbones.

  Thomas stepped back and lowered the knife. His smile became a grin and his eyes glittered. Danyael recoiled from the malice and hatred coiling through the hard flash of Thomas’s emotions. Thomas patted Danyael’s cheek lightly with the flat of the blade. “Before we’re finished, you will wish we’d left you to rot in prison.”

  Behind Thomas, Jessica pushed slowly to her feet.

  Danyael met Thomas’s gaze steadily. “You will wish you left me there too.” With a final, desperate surge of strength, he pulled free from the grip of those holding him, lunged forward, and slammed the heel of his hand into Thomas’s jaw, snapping Thomas’s head back.

  Empathy, churning with anguish, transferred though physical contact. Thomas’s eyes flared wide as suicidal madness took hold, leeching into his mind, consuming his heart.

  Jessica threw her head back, her blue eyes sparkling as the combined telepathic energy of the council’s enforcers poured into her. She threw her hands up, and her power punched out a psi-blast so powerful that even Danyael’s psychic shields trembled in its wake. As one, members of Sakti screamed as their psychic shields shattered, fragile as glass.

  Jessica spread her hands out, lowering them in a graceful motion. The sky shimmered, wavering in and out of focus as a telekinetic dome took shape. Large and flawless, it enclosed all the Sakti forces. The young girl looked at Danyael, her smile serene, and she nodded.

  Danyael stared down
at his hands. Life or death. I choose death.

  Danyael flung his psychic shields aside. Death, like a demon released, slithered out. The alpha empath dropped to his knees as emotional agony clawed through him, tearing through wounds that had never fully healed. Everything he had once had and had hoped to have again, he sacrificed to protect the people he loved and defend a government that despised him. He paid more than he could afford and gave more than he possessed. He knew could never get it back.

  He screamed, coiling over his stomach to contain the rending pain. Others echoed, their screams resonating with insanity. When Danyael sobbed, brokenhearted, others wept with the passion of madness. Danyael had known suicidal despair all his life. When it sang to him in the night, he listened but was not lured by its seductive melody. No one else possessed the strength of Danyael’s emotional defenses, and when the song, fueled by the unchecked power of an alpha empath, whispered through their unshielded minds, they listened and obeyed.

  The dying began.

  Thomas was the first to die. He slashed his wrists and his jugular with the knife that he had used to disfigure Danyael and then plunged the blade repeatedly into his own heart until his hands fell lifelessly from its hilt. Thomas’s body hit the ground.

  It’s done. Danyael’s gaze drifted upward. Jessica stood wide-eyed and silent in the midst of the madness, her mind protected from Danyael’s empathic powers by the combined telepathic strength of the council enforcers. She’s safe, thank God. Through the tears and blood that mingled on his face, Danyael smiled and reached out to her.

  Trembling slightly, she slipped her hand into his and sat next to him. She shrank into as small a space as she could manage, huddling against him, as if for protection.

  Danyael’s empathic powers soared, its song reaching a dazzling climax. All around them, the screams of the dying played in perfect counterpoint.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Miriya’s voice whispered through Danyael’s mind, soft and tremulous. Danyael? Danyael, it’s over. Raise your psychic shields, so that we can bring the dome down.