Regardless of my knowledge of the light, it is still disorienting.
“Stop what you’re doing!” I shout at Samuel, unable to see him but assuming he’s reaching for a gun.
“All this commotion is because of you?” Samuel spits. “I knew you had a terrible power, but I didn’t know you could command greyskins.”
“A terrible power?” I say.
I take a moment to let my eyes adjust, and in a minute, I’m able to see the room my mother has occupied for so long. It is a spotless white as if no one has ever lived in it—all except for her desk to the right. Samuel had been shuffling through papers, trying his best to gather documents.
Papers, folders, and maps litter the desk.
“What are you doing?” I ask, taking control of his inhibition.
“Shadowface has requested that I gather all the important documents and burn them.”
“Why?”
“She said that if the takeover is successful, she doesn’t want the person in charge to use her plans. I had no idea you were the one in charge of this operation.”
“Hardly,” I say. “I’m more of a spectator than an orchestrator.”
“I suppose you’re going to kill me,” Samuel says, wiping his forehead.
“Yes. But first I want to know something.”
Samuel stares at me blankly.
“Why did my mother wait to reveal her identity? The moment the attack happened, why didn’t she show herself to the settlement leaders?”
“The attack came suddenly,” Samuel says. “The settlement leaders were in a building that was attacked first. We truly never got the chance. I had to take her to the safest place possible.”
“Isn’t this room the safest place? A bunker?”
“Clearly not,” Samuel says, his hands shaking.
I smile, nodding at his observation.
“Hand me your gun,” I order him.
Samuel takes a deep breath and walks away from the desk. He pulls a pistol from under his belt and hands it to me.
“This is the coward’s way to kill someone,” Samuel says.
“You mean the way you killed Ashley?”
“That’s different,” Samuel says. “She was working both sides. She was a traitor.”
“All the same, I loved her.” I point the gun at his head. “Get down on your knees.”
Samuel does as I tell him. He has no option to do otherwise.
“I want you to beg,” I say. “Beg for your life. Apologize to me profusely.”
Samuel clasps his hands together in front of me as if he’s about to begin a prayer. “Please, please don’t kill me,” he says. Tears start to drip down his cheeks. “I never meant to hurt anyone.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I planned to kill her all along,” he says through sobs. “I was going to kill her even if she wasn’t working for both sides. I thought it would be better for Shadowface if I did it. Please forgive me. Please don’t kill me. Will you forgive me?”
“No,” I say. I fire the bullet between his eyes and his body falls limp to the ground. I feel disgusted by him.
I step over his body and walk to the desk where I see drawings and blueprints. These look like plans. I sit behind the desk, sifting through the papers, trying to ignore the bloody pool forming on the white carpet around Samuel’s head.
I see plans to build a city called Screven. The blueprints for a structure she has labeled simply as The Tower, shows that it will be giant. From the looks of it, she was at the beginning of developing more than just a network, but an entire society—a colony system. Money would be called credits according to one document. Screven would be the center of this new world. Colonies would be forced to give up a large percentage of their goods in exchange for protection.
The very first step in all of this was to get the small settlement leaders to trust her. My father’s timing could not have been worse for her. Now, none of this is going to happen. Because of me, the world will remain as it is.
I think about what it took to get here. The pain…the hardships. Part of me still wants to praise my father for creating the greyskin virus, though I want to curse him for seeking power. I cannot let him have it.
I know that I must stop him from obtaining power, but can I really bring myself to kill him? Does my hatred truly run that deep? Anything I have, has been given to me by him. Though he never seemed to care for me, he cared about me. He was always sure that I had everything I needed. What more could I have asked for? Is that not love in its own way? My father never knew how to love. He wouldn’t have paid to have people raise me if he didn’t love me. He wouldn’t have paid for my education if he didn’t love me. He wouldn’t have come to me and asked me to be a part of his team to take down Shadowface if he didn’t think I was capable. It meant that sometimes I was on his mind whether he wanted me to know it or not.
When he comes here, can I kill him? That has been my plan for the past month, but can I really bring myself to do it?
The man had a huge part in bringing the world to its knees. He is quite possibly the greatest and most terrible person that has ever lived. Three years ago, he let out a virus that destroyed the world. And today, he wants to take over that world. I can’t sit back and let him do it.
These three years have defined me. I am a man with few loyalties. Love has escaped me but for Ashley. I miss her so.
I am a man filled with hatred toward those that took whatever happiness I had in my life. My eyes travel to the floor where Samuel’s body lies. He killed my Ashley. I hope that I made him feel the fear that she felt. I hope he felt desperation.
I close my eyes and let my consciousness enter Ethan’s. I can feel the resistance—the need to push me out. Through his eyes, I see the one that sent Ashley’s death spiraling into motion. Waverly. She is with Ethan. Stephen sits a few paces away. Each of them stares blankly at the floor.
“I tried to kill him,” Waverly says. “I can’t believe he got away from me. I was supposed to kill him.”
“What do you mean?” Ethan asks.
“I’ve seen the future of Jeremiah,” I say. “I know what kind of man he is. He is pure evil. He’s going to take control of this place. He’s going to build a society with his own rules. So many people are going to die because of him.”
Hearing her voice makes me sick. Waverly no more understands the future than she did when she saw Ashley’s. If she were really able to see with clarity, Ashley would be next to me. Instead, she’s gone forever.
Don’t listen to her, Ethan. In fact, forget what she is saying. Grab a weapon and kill her.
Chapter 25 - Waverly
Ethan stands in the hallway and makes his way toward the room where I killed Olivia and tried to kill Jeremiah.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“What I’m ordered to do,” he shouts. He grabs a wooden chair by the back, raises it above his head and slams it into the ground, breaking it into pieces. “His focus is on something else, so I’ve got limited freedom. Enough to give you a fair chance.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, starting to feel nervous.
“You better go ahead and hit that elevator button,” he says.
My head turns toward the elevator and I can’t understand why he’s acting so strange. It’s enough to make me feel angry inside. I turn back to him, red-faced and ready for a fight, but not the kind of fight Ethan seems ready for.
“What do you mean ordered to do? For the entire past week you haven’t made any sense. From the way you’ve been silent, to the note you gave me earlier today telling me that I should kill you? I think you’ve gone mad!”
“I wish you would have listened to me,” Ethan says. “I wish you would have shot me through the head then and there.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew this was coming,” he says. He tosses a leg of the chair in my direction and it lands at my feet. In his hands he holds another chair leg like a baseball bat.
>
Stephen stands from his crouch to get between me and Ethan. “Take it easy,” he says. But Ethan swings the chair leg and hits him in the head. Stephen falls unconscious.
“What are you doing?”
“Please forgive me,” he says. His eyes start to water.
I want to ask him more about what is troubling him, but I don’t get a chance. Before I can blink twice, Ethan is charging after me, swinging the chair leg like he’s trying to take my head off.
I duck under the first swing. It isn’t like him to act this way. On the backswing, the leg hits me hard against the shoulder. I fall to the floor, the other chair leg within my grasp. Before Ethan can get a chance to bring the wooden club down on me again, I reach for the other and swing it at his knee. He lets out a yell and I swing again, this time knocking him to the floor.
This is my chance to run to the elevator. Chair leg in hand, I rush to it as quickly as possible, fully knowing that I’m going to have to defend myself as I wait for the elevator to come up.
What has come over Ethan? What happened to the guy that I was falling for? One of our last memories together was lying on a roof in each others’ arms, kissing with feelings of hope for a future.
But the very last memory I have of us is what changed everything. If it hadn’t been for Mitch…
Mitch!
He’s still in control of Ethan! That’s why he’s been acting so strange. That’s why he’s trying to kill me right now. That’s what Ethan meant when he said his focus is on something else. He was talking about Mitch. Somehow he’s figured out a way to control Ethan from so far away. It all makes sense.
He pulls himself up off the ground, club in hand. As he starts walking toward me, hot tears begin to sting my eyes.
“Ethan, I understand now! I get it! Mitch is controlling your mind. He’s trying to use you to kill me.”
“I know!” Ethan yells. He’s crying but he can’t keep himself from moving. “There’s nothing I can do. He can’t make me feel anger towards you, but he controls my actions. I have to obey his orders!”
“Just don’t!” I scream. “Just stop. Listen to me! To me! Don’t hurt me! Give in to your feelings of love. Let go of Mitch. Just let go of him!”
Ethan brakes in the middle of the hallway. The club is still in his hands, but his feet have stopped. What does this mean? Does he have a strong enough will to withstand Mitch?
Tears stream down my face as I fall to my knees, letting go of the stick in my hands. He takes a step forward.
“There is another way. He has a strong power, but we have something stronger, Ethan.”
“What?” he asks. He’s a foot from me now and one stiff swing away from bashing my brains out.
“Love,” I say. “I love you. And you love me.”
His grip eases.
“I haven’t seen our future, but I don’t have to to know that we care about each other. That is far more powerful than any grip Mitch can hold us with.”
Ethan swallows hard and drops the chair leg, letting it clank on the floor. He falls to his knees in front of me, crying. “I never meant to hurt you, Waverly. I would have rather died than been rescued by Mitch and turned against you.”
“But you didn’t die. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to stop myself from shooting you.”
“Never be sorry,” Ethan says. “That was a terrible day that none of us could have fixed. I love you, Waverly.” He reaches for me, grabbing me behind the neck. Our lips meet, and the feeling is a shock to my heart. After the week we’ve had, I surely didn’t expect to ever be kissing Ethan again. But I know what he has been through. I know the power of Mitch’s ability. To be told to kill the one you love, and not have any control over it is a horror.
It’s a horror Ethan and I will never face again.
Chapter 26 - Mitch
My eyes feel like they are in a daze as I stare at the door across the office. I wait for them to open, revealing my father. I have rehearsed what I would say a thousand times, yet I still don’t know what will come out of my mouth when he arrives. I want him to see me in a position of power. I want him to know that he has lost. I want him to feel helpless. I want him to feel the lack of love that I have too often experienced from him. I want him to know what it feels like for someone that is supposed to love you acts callously. Most of all, I want him to feel defeated.
I hold Samuel’s gun in my hand. Killing him didn’t come with the sense of justice I thought it would. I half-expected to feel elation when the bullet passed through his head, but instead I only felt emptiness. The same emptiness that was there when Ashley was taken from me.
None of this feels right. I feel like I’m losing my edge. I move into Ethan’s head and see him kissing Waverly. What is going on? I gave an order. Why isn’t he obeying it? Forget it. I’ve got more important things to focus on. Jeremiah.
The door to the office opens quickly and Jeremiah steps in. He tries to cover his eyes when the light hits him and I point the pistol at him. When his eyes finally adjust to the light, he starts looking around the room. He has a painful smile on his face until his eyes find Samuel on the ground, and then they fall on me. His expression darkens, and he flinches to bolt for the door, but I command him with my voice.
“Stop!” I set the pistol down on the desk, knowing that I won’t need it. “I want you to drop whatever weapon you have.”
My father doesn’t move.
“Okay,” I say. I motion in front of me. “Come closer.”
He walks toward me, a scowl on his face. His chest is bleeding from a gunshot wound that would have killed any other man. He limps from another wound at his leg as he speaks. “I should have guessed you would be here. I gambled and I lost.” He stops just on the other side of the desk. His eyes glance over the documents in front of me. “I suppose you’re here to kill me.”
“For the past month, I’ve thought about nothing but this moment,” I say, shaking my head. “But now I don’t know what to think.”
“Feeling a bit of compassion for your old man?”
“I just want you to talk to me,” I say. “I want you to tell me everything without me having to coerce it from you.”
Jeremiah shakes his head. “So, you command me to talk without coercion?” He lets out a short laugh followed by a cough. “It’s a command that serves no other purpose but to make you feel better. It’s like telling me to kill a man without murdering him. To kill him is murder.”
“At least I can make you tell me the truth,” I argue.
“You’ve done it before. What more do you need to know?”
“Is all this what you planned all along?”
“It has all happened differently than I expected, but basically, yes.”
“You feel no remorse for my mother’s death?”
“Olivia and I have been enemies for a long time. We have been planning each other’s death for years. I just happened to come out on top.”
“Thanks to me,” I declare. “You wouldn’t have survived this if I hadn’t brought the greyskins for you.”
“What do you want, a pat on the back?”
“A simple thanks would be nice.”
“Thanks,” he says sarcastically.
My eyes travel to his wounds. “Are you in pain?”
“I was shot in the chest and leg, of course I’m in pain.”
I shake my head at him in wonder. The virus of the greyskin prevents him from dying in a natural way, but the immortal Starborn blood keeps him from turning into a greyskin completely. My father is a marvel to look upon.
“Do you really think people are going to follow you?” I ask. “Look at you. You’re rotting. You’re a decrepit creature who covers up his smell with cigar smoke.”
“Are you finished?”
“There is one more thing,” I say. Water comes to my eyes and I want to curse myself for letting my emotions get the best of me. “I want to know if you actually ever loved me.”
“What do you mean?
”
“It’s a simple question. Have you ever loved me as your son?”
He stares at me, almost as if he’s searching for the correct answer that will help him the most.
I shake my head and clench my jaw. “Just tell me the truth!”
“Yes! I did love you as a son, but I didn’t know how to show it. You were never supposed to be part of the picture. You were an accident—a drunken accident. But when your mother gave you up, I didn’t want to see you killed or given away to some halfwit. So, I took you in. I provided for you the best I knew how.”
The tears stream down my face now. It’s the most compassion I have ever felt coming from my father. These parts I knew already, but to hear him say it…
“We can still work together,” he says to me.
“Is that what you really want?” I ask. “Tell me the truth.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“What?”
“That you love me.”
“You want me to tell you that I love you? Haven’t I shown it throughout your life?”
“Yes, but you have never told me.”
Jeremiah looks deep into my eyes. I can’t tell if he’s angry or he’s starting to get emotional. “Son,” he says. “I love you with all of my being. I am sorry that I haven’t expressed it to you. I’ve spent more of my life in a lab that at home. My life has been work and it should have involved you more.”
A tear trickles down the side of his cheek, and for a moment I believe him. But there is one final test to see if he is being genuine. My fingers touch the gun on the desk and I scoot it toward the edge where Jeremiah stands.
“If what you say is true,” I tell him, “then I want you to do exactly as your heart desires.”
He looks at me and then at the gun. Slowly, he reaches for the gun, feeling the weight in his hands. He pulls out the clip to check for bullets and he finds that it’s loaded. His eyes travel to mine again and another tear streaks past his nose.
The Starborn Ascension: Books 1, 2, and 3 (The Starborn Saga) Page 69
