Touching Eternity (Touch Series 1.5)

by Airicka Phoenix

  Eighteen years. He’d foolishly trusted the man for eighteen years, believed him when he’d claimed to want the best for the world. But he’d lied. Tomas hadn’t wanted to fix the world. He’d had his own agenda. But how much of that agenda now set Garrison back? So much damage had been done. Years of research, of pain painstakingly monitoring every moment of Amalie’s progress, ruined in a single blow. It was inexcusable.

  The rolling surge of fury boiled over him and for one maddening moment Garrison was taken by the violent urge to stab the other man with something sharp, to carve him open like a pumpkin and gut him. But he couldn’t. Not yet, not when he needed Tomas for the final touches on his experiment. Tragic that he would have to eventually kill such an exceptional genius.

  He turned his face away before he could change his mind. He balled his hands on his knees and stared at the rushing scenery, focusing instead on what needed to be done rather than what he wanted done.

  At his feet, Tomas moaned. He stirred, but remained unconscious.

  He better not get blood on the upholstery, Garrison thought absently, picking a piece of lint off his coat sleeve. He exhaled. This was not how he’d envisioned the rest of his day. What an inconvenience.

  ***

  Tomas

  The pain was a river of boiling water, rushing in waves across his body, peeling away flesh to singe bone. He felt every swelling pulse like the jagged edge of a serrated blade, carving into his flesh. He opened his mouth to cry out, but the effort alone was too much and he settled for a weak moan.

  “Awake, Tomas?”

  The familiar voice had him struggling to pry his eyes open, but they were crusted shut. He started to raise his hand.

  “What…?” his voice rasped in confusion when his wrists caught on something restricting.

  “Don’t struggle,” the voice told him calmly. “You’ll only hurt yourself more.”

  Something in those words sent a cold chill skating down his spine. He swallowed audibly. “Terrell?”

  On his right, the distinct squeak of metal scraping against laminate sounded. There was the creak of weight shifting on a chair, of fabric rustling. A knee popped. Then slow, steady footsteps circled the area around his feet towards his left side.

  “How are you feeling, Tomas?”

  “What’s…what happened?” Any other time, the fear would have been appalling to him, but then Garrison had never called him Tomas before.

  “You tell me.”

  He tried to remember. He raked the recesses of his mind, the dark shadows lurking where there should have been memories and found them pitted with voids.

  “I…I don’t…” he trailed off again, battling with nausea and fear and pain and confusion. “What’s happening? Terrell? I don’t—”

  “Calm down,” Garrison murmured. Tomas felt something rest on his arm, pat lightly. “All of this will be over soon.”

  The comment should have been reassuring. It should have instilled comfort and relief. Instead, something hard and cold wrenched in the pit of his stomach. He felt his heart rate increase and sweat pimpled over his flesh.

  Something wasn’t right.

  “Terrell—”

  “Tell me what happened, Tomas.” The question seemed to come from very far and very close, like Garrison was standing on the other side of a small room. A sharp metallic sound sang through the room. “What happened to your eye?”

  My eye? Reflexively, he reached for his face, only to have his hands jerk and clutter back to his sides.

  “What—?”

  “How long have we been friends?”

  He had to slick his lips before speaking. “Seventeen—no, eighteen years?”

  Footsteps approached, lazily, in no hurry. “Eighteen years,” Garrison confirmed slowly. “Eighteen years is a good length of time to know someone, isn’t it? I mean, I always thought so. I trusted you with my greatest secret and…” he sighed, sounding much closer now. “You betrayed my trust, broke your promise, hurt my daughter and ruined my research.”

  “Terrell—” He was ignored.

  “What would you do if you were in my shoes, Tomas?”

  “W…what are you doing?” He jumped when something cold touched the side of his face.

  “Don’t move, Tomas,” Garrison said quietly, dabbing Tomas’ face with a wet rag. “You’ve made quite a mess of yourself.”

  “I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I’m sorry. You know I would never intentionally hurt you. I don’t know what came over me.”

  Garrison said nothing. The sound of water getting wrung from the rag broke the silence. More dabbing, wiping away the crust fusing his lashes closed.

  “You know I have two daughters of my own,” Tomas continued, feeling the urgent rush to make the other man understand. “Hannah is Amalie’s age. You’ve met her. You’ve met both my girls. Y…you’re Jodie’s Godfather! You know I’m a good father.”

  “But not a good friend.” The dabbing stopped, and for a split second, so did Tomas’ heart. “I thought I could trust you, Tomas.”

  “You can!” Tomas insisted, practically begged. “I was weak! I didn’t mean—”

  “Yes,” Garrison said softly. “Weak. Something we agree on.”

  Tomas pried his eyelids apart, ripping out lashes and agitating raw skin, but needing to see. He squinted through his one good eye at the milky world. A few more blinks and it slowly came into focus, the white walls, the white ceiling, the lights, the stone-faced man with the white lab coat. It was not the man he went to college with. It wasn’t the man who he’d had dinner with countless of times. This wasn’t the man he’d considered one of his closest friends.

  “Terrell—”

  “How are Hannah and Jodie?”

  The question took Tomas completely by surprised. “F…Fine.”

  Garrison nodded slowly, the picture of deliberation. He unhooked his hands from behind his back and something glinted in his right hand. Tomas’ blood turned to ice.

  “Terrell—”

  “I want you to know,” he said evenly, “that I am not going to kill you. A man of your intelligence, well, I need you unfortunately to complete my research. You’re the best in your field and that makes you indispensable.”

  Reflexively, Tomas exhaled. But Garrison wasn’t finished.

  “However, I will return your kindness,” he said, pushing a button on the remote in his hand. The reclining chair whirred to life, lifting and folding until Tomas was sitting upright.

  It took a moment for his blurry vision to identify the shadows across the room as figures. It took a moment longer to bring into focus their faces. His spit turned to ash in his mouth.

  “Jodie! Hannah! Cecilia!”

  His youngest sobbed, nearly slitting her own throat on the knife placed precisely beneath her chin. His wife stared at him, her blue eyes enormous against her pale face. Her blonde hair was still elegantly styled to fall in a sleek wave to her shoulders. She wore her poppy red dress suit and pearls. They must have grabbed her straight from work. His beautiful daughters with their long corn silk blonde hair begged him with their blue eyes to make the nightmare end. He tried to get up, to go to them, to tear them away from the men holding daggers beneath their chins, but the restraints forbade him.

  “Terrell—Terrell, please! Please don’t do this! Don’t hurt them!” His desperate pleas were ignored.

  “How many times did my daughter beg you to stop? To not hurt her?” Garrison asked instead. “How many times did you touch her?”

  “Please…please…please!” he sobbed.

  Garrison walked away from him, strolling casually to where his family sat bound and gagged, frightened and confused. He reached out a hand and stroked Hannah’s hair. The girl cringed, making a scared animal sound behind the bit of cloth stuffed between her teeth. Tomas’ gut twisted.

  “The same age,” Garrison murmured quietly. “Our daughters are the same age. Did you think of your Hannah when you put your hands on my only daughter?�
��

  “Don’t touch her!” Tomas cried, his entire body convulsing with terror and anger. “She has nothing to do with this! My family has nothing to do with this! Let them go. Please, let them go!”

  Cool, green eyes lifted and met his. “Did you know Amalie came to me, told me what you were doing and I didn’t believe her? Why would I? You were my friend. You were the only one I could trust with her. I thought because you had a daughter her age, you would never do such a filthy thing. That was a year ago. One. Whole. Year. Do you have any idea the damage you’ve caused in my research? The psychological, emotional and physical damage you’ve caused Amalie? You disgust me.”

  “Please, I’m sorry!” Tomas pleaded, unable to meet his wife’s horrified eyes. “Do what you want to me, but please let them go. They’re just children.”

  Garrison straightened. He cocked his head to the side and his eyebrows creased in confusion. “My daughter was just a child. That didn’t seem to stop you from taking advantage of her.”

  “I’m sorry!” he cried, jerking at the straps holding his wrists to the chair.

  With the movement of a very large cat, Garrison moved away from his family and advanced on him. The fury seemed to leap from his eyes although his face remained disturbingly blank. He stopped when he was at Tomas’ side once more.

  “Give me one good reason why I should let your family live.”

  “Because they are innocent in this!” Tomas said quickly. “Because they shouldn’t be punished for my mistakes.”

  Garrison laughed. “You mean like how Amalie was innocent and yet you found cause to punish her?”

  “Terrell, please! I’m begging you—”

  “You’re very lucky, Tomas,” Garrison interrupted, “that I’m not the same monster you are or I would repay your kindness by doing to your daughters what you did to mine.”

  Cecilia made a choking sound in the background.

  “I don’t like children,” Garrison said, burning holes straight into Tomas’ very soul with those hard eyes. “But I promise you that they will wish for death by the time I’m finished with them.”

  Chapter 17

  Isaiah

  Isaiah watched the twitchy woman scrub the blood from Amalie’s floor, watched the way she seemed to flinch with every noise and how her eyes kept darting to the closed bathroom door. He didn’t try to speak to her, but stood by the terrace door, waiting for Amalie to finally emerge. It had been nearly an hour.

  “Do you think you could find her some clothes?” he asked the jumpy woman.

  The woman flinched as if the devil himself had materialized before her and demanded sacrifice, but she clambered to her feet and scurried to the wardrobe. She flung it open, rifled around inside for a second before pulling out a soft, purple dress. She closed the doors and hurried over to him.

  “Thanks,” he murmured, taking it from her.

  She said nothing, but rushed back to gather her things from the newly scrubbed area on the floor and hurried out of the room.

  Alone, Isaiah stared down at the dress, his heart lodged somewhere up in his throat, choking him when he recognized it.

  ***

  “Amalie! Amalie, wait!” Isaiah ran after her, his feet snapping fallen twigs and brittle leaves.

  Amalie didn’t stop. She was a wild blur through the maze of statues. The crisp, near winter breeze hurled her sobs back into his face, each one stinging like a slap, even though he’d done nothing to provoke her grief. Her auburn curls flew out behind her, a cape of bright pennies. Her purple dress fluttered. Several times, her foot caught the hem and she staggered, but she never stopped.

  Slabs of stone melded into gravel as their chase reached the front of the house. It was only then he realized her intentions.

  He pushed to reach her before she reached the electrified gates. The pounding of his heart no longer had anything to do with the run, but everything to do with the drive to stop her.

  “Amalie, stop!”

  There was no way she hadn’t heard him. He was only two feet behind her. The guards stationed around the perimeter advanced. He caught sight of them breaking away from the bushes, away from their posts to intervene if she didn’t stop in time.

  “Get back!” he yelled at them.

  They stopped, but made no move to retreat. They stood watching, waiting with their guns gripped tightly across their chests.

  “Amalie! Don’t touch the gate!”

  She was beyond listening.

  “Turn off the power!” he shouted to whoever was listening.

  Two guards disappeared through the bushes in the direction of the guard station, but they would never make it. Pouring every ounce of adrenaline into his legs, he pushed until it hurt. He willed his muscles not to fail him, not now when it mattered most. Then he had her around the middle, hoisting her up into the air and twisting his body, wrenching her away from the danger.

  “No!” she screamed, failing wildly. “Let me go!”

  “The gates are electrified!” he said over her wails. “You’ll be killed!”

  “Let me die!” she screamed, elbowing him in the gut. “Let me die! I want to die. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  He ignored the ache in his chest which had nothing to do with her jab, but everything to do with her words. “Stop and talk to me! Tell me what happened!”

  She stopped struggling, but she heaved great sobs that ripped his soul to pieces. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to live! I don’t want to exist! Please…just let me die, Isaiah! If you love me—”

  “Stop it!” He spun her around and shook her. “Stop it!”

  “No!” She planted the heels of her hand against his chest and shoved. Taken by surprise, he staggered back. “I won’t stop! I won’t ever stop. I’m going crazy, Isaiah! I can feel it!” Her fingers were shaking violently as they lifted and fisted in her hair. Her eyes were enormous and the only color against her face. “They won’t stop! They’re always whispering…whispering…all the time…asking…begging. I don’t know what they want. I can’t stop it! I can’t tell father…I can’t tell…anyone!”

  He caught her when she began sinking to the ground. He went down with her, cradling her in his arms as she rocked.

  “You can tell me,” he said into the top of her head.

  “Can’t!” her voice squeaked. “Can’t tell…can’t tell! He’ll be so angry. It hurts more when he’s angry.”

  His arms stiffened around her. “Who?”

  “Father…” The single word was said in a low, fearful whisper. “He likes punishing me for what my mother did.”

  “He’s not punishing you, Ams. He’s trying to help you!”

  She pulled out of his arms. It was so fast, so unexpected, he had no chance to catch her and she hit the gravel on her backside. She scampered back from him.

  “You think I’m crazy.”

  “No!”

  She wasn’t listening. “I’m not crazy! I’m not my mother. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Oh God!” Her knees curled up to her face and her hands closed in her hair again. “I am crazy!”

  Isaiah crawled to her, untangled her fingers. “What happened, Amalie?”

  Eyes the most beautiful blue he’d ever fallen into rose up and met his. They were churning pits of agony, fear, doubt, misery. It hurt just looking into them.

  “I can’t stay, Isaiah!” she pleaded, face glistening with tears that refused to stop coming. “I can’t keep living behind these bars. I’m sixteen years old and I have never been outside. I have never met anyone my age. I have never met anyone. I was born here and I will die here and no one will ever know! No one will care!” Her voice hitched. Her bottom lip wobbled.

  “I’ll care,” he murmured, swiping the tears from her cheeks.

  She either didn’t hear him or she ignored it and continued. “Before you, I had no one. The servants weren’t allowed to talk to me and the guards thought I was an animal, one that needed to be put down quickly. I was so
alone. Then I had you and only on holidays. You don’t know what happens when you’re not here. You don’t know what he’s like, what he does.” She was rocking again with her knees hugged to her chest.

  “Your father is trying to help,” he said again, stroking a piece of damp hair off her face to tuck behind her ear. “He wants you to get better.”

  “I’m not crazy!” She was breathing hard, choking on her tears. “But if I stay here…if I stay…I’ll die, Isaiah. He’ll kill me. He’ll…you don’t understand. I can’t stay. Please don’t make me stay! Please don’t leave me again!” She fell into his arms, her tiny body heaving.