He huffed his breath several times, pumping himself up with oxygen and forced himself to stare at Maze’s blood smeared all over his hands and shirt. His fury wasn’t hard to tap in to. It was right there ready to burst.
With a roar of anger, Alik pulled one of the bars until it groaned in his hands. He kept pulling until the soldering that held it to the horizontal bars snapped. “Farrow, help me get Maze through here.” He turned and carefully picked up the dying coyote only to pass him through the opening to Farrow, the only other person who didn’t have a nanoweapon in her heart. Once Maze was through, Alik jump through the opening himself. Farrow passed the coyote back to Alik and they ran toward the parked SUV.
“Ev? If you had a plan for this part, now would be a great time to whip it out.”
“Right,” Evan said and set the case he’d carried from the lab down on the ground and kneeled beside it. He flipped the latches with practiced hands and pushed a lever to turn it on.
“Evan? What are you doing?”
“The electric current from the paddles should be enough to render the nanoweapons disabled.”
“Should be?” Cole asked, brows rose in the perfect, oh-shit expression.
“If my calculations are correct, yes. I am guessing on a lot of this. It’s not like Arkdone gave me a nanodevice to investigate while we were in the lab.
“What happens if you’re wrong?” Creed asked the question everyone was thinking about.
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
“How?” Sloan asked, very sure she knew, but too afraid to say it.
“We have to test it,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Just then, the machine beeped. The portable defibrillator was charged and ready for use.
Evan ripped his shirt off, grabbed the paddles, and called, “Clear!”
He put the paddles on his own chest, strategically surrounding his heart, and pushed the buttons on the handles.
“NO!”
“Evan!”
“Oh, dear God!”
“Evan, wake up!”
Alik laid the coyote down in the grass and ran to his brother who had just shocked himself. The older brother was screaming and crying, but didn’t care. All his mind could think about was the moment he saw his brother’s body jolt rigid and fall back to the ground.
“Evan, wake up! God, please, help us. Evan, you dumb ass! What the hell were you thinking? I can’t do this without you! I can’t lose my brother and my sister in one day!” Alik was shaking his little brother’s wiry shoulders, desperately trying to revive him.
“Feel for a pulse,” Sloan yelled across a safe distance.
“Right,” Alik muttered, “a pulse.” His large hands held his brother’s wrist and carefully felt around for a pulse.
“I can’t find one,” his voice caught.
“Try his carotid artery in his neck,” Sloan called.
Alik touched his brother’s Adam’s apple then let his fingers slip to the side of it. He felt a faint pulse right away.
Leaning down with his forehead resting on his arm, Alik called. “Yeah, I feel it. It’s faint, but it’s there.”
“Oh thank God,” Cole breathed.
“Why did he do that?” Alik asked no one in particular.
“It’s actually a brilliant idea,” Sloan offered in a soft voice. “Imagine nanotechnology like a bunch of microscopic computers programmed to perform a certain operation. The defibrillator, although crude for this purpose, could essentially short-circuit the nanotechnology rendering it useless.”
“Well, great, but how will we know it worked?” Cole asked.
“We have to have a volunteer come close enough to Evan and…do a lot of praying.”
“I’ll go,” Creed said. His mind was still trying to understand the nightmare he was living. He could not feel Meg at all since Bjorn flipped that switch and he was starting to lose hope that he’d ever get his dark-eyed girl back.
“Wait, don’t we want to talk about this?”
“No,” Creed said simply and started walking toward Evan slowly, wondering at each step if he was going to feel it when the nanoweapon burst his heart so his insides would look like the grisly corridor they just passed through. He kept walking until he was standing beside Evan. Alik hadn’t moved his hand from his brother’s pulse, wanting to make sure nothing happened to him either.
Boom!
In the distance, a huge explosion echoed across the countryside.
“God, we have to hurry if we’re going to get out of here before we’re found.”
“This doesn’t prove anything, though. Evan and Creed could both be triggers…”
“…or exploders.”
Cole was so mad he muttered profanities under his breath and kicked the ground.
“Why don’t we just run our separate ways?” Sloan asked.
“That’s not how we do things,” Evan muttered softly.
“Oh thank God you’re awake, Evan!”
“Yeah, that hurt.” He tried to stifle a moan as he moved to sit up. “Good, Creed’s here. You’re next buddy. And if I were you, I’d switch off my pain sensors for this jolt.”
“No, I’m ready. If you can stand it, so can I.” Creed nodded, acknowledging the courage it took for Evan to go first. He yanked his shirt off exposing the beautiful body Meg so loved to trace with the soft pads of her fingertips. That’s what Creed thought about as Evan positioned the paddles on him and called, “clear!”
His thick body went ridged with the electric surge straight to his heart, then he flopped back to the ground, head lolled to one side.
“Wow, I’ve seen it twice now and damn if it doesn’t look painful,” Cole rubbed his chest sympathetically.
“Okay,” Evan said still looking a little pale, “I feel a pulse. Who’s willing to go next?”
Sloan looked over at Cole and shrugged, “Don’t worry, Cole. I know you believe in lady’s first and all.” She started marching toward Evan and Creed, trying to look brave but feeling decidedly wobbly in the knees.
Sometimes it does not help at all to know all the medical information that’s engrained in my head, she thought with a sigh.
By the time she was a foot away from Creed and Evan, she felt more confident that the young genius’ theory was right. “It’s working?”
“Not yet, Sloan. We three could be triggers or exploders. The fourth one’s the charm in our scenario.”
“Oh great,” Cole moaned.
With expert efficiency, Evan had Sloan lying back and the paddles positioned. “Evan, I need to take off my shirt.”
“Oh, come on! We don’t have time to argue about this!” Farrow threw her hands up in frustration.
“You men turn your backs. Sloan, let’s get this over with the right way. No room for error.” Farrow pushed her way past a blushing Evan.
With no modesty, Sloan stripped her top and tiny bra off.
The men were shuffling their feet and staring off into the distance, pretending even now more than ever, not to be where they were.
“Do I have the paddles just right?” Farrow asked, her brows knitted in concentration.
“Yes, just push down both buttons on the handles for about three seconds then let go. Got it?”
“Three seconds, got it.”
“I’m ready when you are,”
“Three, two, one, clear!”
Sloan’s small body lifted off the ground like the others before it fell back into place. Frantic that she’d done it wrong, Farrow draped the girl’s shirt over her chest. “She’s covered, Evan, come here and make sure I did it right.”
Evan was kneeling at Sloan’s side in an instant. His warm hands were feeling her throat for the magic pulse he begged would be there. The fluttering under his fingertips was the most beautiful sensation ever.
“She’s fine. You did fine.”
Creed sat up during Sloan’s turn, but quickly turned away when he realized what was going on. “Cole, you’re up.”
>
“Okay, but if I die here, just leave my ass and get the hell out of here. This little grove of bushes isn’t going to keep you hidden forever. Clear?”
“Clear. Walk.” Evan ordered.
“Forget walking, I’m running! Just like ripping off a Band-Aid, right?” And with that Cole bolted the ten feet, stopping right in front of Creed. The green of Cole’s eyes glistened brilliantly. He would never admit it to a soul, but it was Meg he was imagining he was running toward.
“How do you feel?” Evan asked from behind him.
“About as good as someone could feel after torture and attempted murder.”
“Excellent!” Sloan blurted. “Take off your shirt and lie back.” She had awakened faster than the others from her shock.
“Kid you’re way too young to be saying that to me.”
“Shut up and do it!” Sloan wasn’t playing around. She still felt the pain of being zapped in the heart, but she also knew they needed to get the hell out of there.
Outwardly, he was acting nonchalant about the whole could-have-had-my-heart-blown-the-heck-up just now. Inwardly, he was a panting quivering pile of goo.
“Ready, set, clear!” Sloan called and jolted Cole with the paddles.
In the first moment when he was coming to, Cole saw Meg—the disconnected stare in her eyes.
Please look at me Meg! Please.
He reached to touch her face, only to blink at the image and watch it morph into Sloan’s worried gray eyes watching him. He was holding her face in his hands.
“Hey, Cole. Are you okay?” the newly found sarcasm he’d taught her was completely thrown to the wayside as true concern chiseled its edges into her youthful face. Only her steel-gray eyes gave away the brilliance hiding behind those little girl’s golden locks.
“Yeah,” he said just as much by way of testing his voice as responding to the girl who’d just shocked the nanoweapon into short-circuiting. “You?” he asked.
She smiled widely, “Never better, Cole-ocity.”
“Great, let’s get the hell out of here.” His voice was etched with pain as he worked to sit up. Creed held out a hand to him to help. They exchanged sad expressions, each knowing the other was aching for their missing Meg. With a nod of understanding, Cole reached up to take Creed’s help.
“What are we going to do about the coyote?” Sloan asked. “There’s no way he would survive the shock.”
“We don’t have to worry about it for now. He’s the only one with an active nanoweapon, so we’re all safe.” Creed reached down and carefully lifted his dark-eyed beauty’s best friend.
“Thank God for that,” Farrow blurted.
As they piled into the SUV, Evan’s mind was still thinking about the risky defibrillator trick he just lucked into and he was thanking God there was enough charge to finish everyone. He hadn’t wanted to worry the others, but getting four, fully charged jolts out of the battery on that mobile defibrillator was asking a lot of it.
Evan carefully loaded it in the back of the SUV and hurried around to climb into one of the back seats.
From the time they arrived at the vehicle until they were all able to get inside it, only fifteen minutes had passed. To everyone in the blue SUV, peeling down the vacant two-lane road, it felt like a week’s worth of torment was crammed into that span.
Cole, Sloan, Evan, Creed and Maze were all starved, dehydrated and beaten. They suffered cuts and bruises from the abuse at the hands of Monarch candidates, Senator Arkdone and especially the sadistic monster, Dr. Bjorn.
To collect them from their cells, candidates had thrown in grenades of knockout gas and waited for each to be completely incapacitated before they dropped stretchers on pulleys to get them out. They were anything but careful.
Once strapped in the wheelchairs, they awakened to stinging pain on their backs, and raw injuries all over. Each of their brands at the back of their necks had been altered with new cuts. Now they weren’t just Infinite symbols. The letter “M” was sliced deeply into their skin inside each loop. They were already marked as MetaMonarchs.
But only Meg was truly that now. Arkdone had every intention performing the same inhumane “Perfect Concussion” on the rest of them. If Farrow and Alik hadn’t rushed into the room when they did, things would have turned out very different.
Behind them, they could see smoke still pluming from the old college-looking campus that was Arkdone’s asylum.
Far in the distance, the beating wings of a helicopter pulled Meg further from the family about which she had no memory.
Chapter 66 The Lost Winter
Alik was driving without a license, but after everything they’d been through over the past few days, this seemed like the least of their problems. Besides, he was retro-cogging for police as he drove. Creed sat beside Alik, Maze passed out from his injuries in his strong arms.
Evan, Sloan, Cole and Farrow sat lost in their traumas in the back of the SUV. A few times, Evan and Alik exchanged silent, tear-filled glances in the rearview mirror. They were missing their sister and so scared for her.
No one spoke for the first fifteen miles.
Evan broke the silence. “Where are we going, brother?”
“I only know where we’re not going. We can’t go home.”
“What?” Cole blurted. He had been thinking about how anxious he was to get back to the house so they could regroup as they always did after some horrendous run-in with Williams.
“We can’t go home,” Alik repeated softly.
“Why?”
“We’re being hunted by two different monsters now. Mom is in a wheelchair because of one of them. Theo has his hands full taking care of her and now they also have little Danny to take care of. We can’t go home because we are being hunted and they’ll track us back to our family. I couldn’t live with myself if they were killed because of us.”
Evan sighed and nodded. “I agree. There’s no going home. Not until we finish this. Matter of fact, we need Mom, Theo and Danny to go into hiding. Both Arkdone and Williams have already proven they have no qualms about attacking our home.”
“Where do you expect them to go?” Sloan asked, mulling over all that was said. She’d never had to worry about others before now. It was always a “fend for yourself” way of life at the Facility.
“We can’t know where they’re going,” Alik said thoughtfully. “I don’t want to accidentally give their location away and have them used as bait for us.”
“What are we going to do about Meg?” Creed asked the SUV full of torn up and terrified metahumans.
“I don’t know,” Alik shook his head, the rims of his eyes reddening.
“We’re going to have to devise some kind of plan,” Sloan blurted.
“Of course we will,” Farrow reassured her.
“We just need time to think—just a little time to figure this out.” Evan rubbed his tired eyes, careful to avoid the gash on his cheek compliments of Bjorn and his scalpel.
“Evan, we need to call Mom.”
Evan swallowed hard. “How exactly are we going to tell her what happened?”
Alik’s eyes began to glow violet with righteous anger as he thought.
“How are we supposed to tell Mom that Arkdone gave Meg a precise concussion rendering her memory blank? And that she has no memory of her, of us, of anything except what that sadistic monster is programming into her?” Evan’s voice hitched painfully. “Oh, God Alik! What is he doing to our sister?”
Alik slowed the SUV and pulled off to the shoulder, “Farrow, are you okay to drive?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I have a phone call to make.”
Chapter 67 Run
The water from the hose was cool and clear. Danny stood shirtless and barefoot in the yard between the house and the barn holding the green rubber hose in two little hands. His tummy was just starting to develop a little pooch after all the healthy foods and protein drinks he’d been fed over the past two weeks since Meg found th
e little boy dying of starvation and thirst. Margo watched him whip the hose just enough to wet himself with the cooling water. His laughter bubbled from that little tummy and gurgled like a brook in his beautiful throat. Margo was mesmerized by his innocence. How could anyone have strapped this little angel to a bed in the Facility’s secretive basement of the hospital?
After a life of wearing no shoes, Danny wasn’t accustomed to the feel of them. Theo would find them tucked in little hiding spots throughout the house, so determined to get to stay barefoot was the clever little boy.
Even now, he stood trickling water on his feet and peeling in laughter at the sensation. He ran in place, a huge smile on his sweet little face, curls stuck to his head from a combination of sweat and hose water.
Margo couldn’t help but giggle watching the little squirmy boy. He had a big glop of sunscreen still on his back where he just wouldn’t hold still long enough for Theo to slather him properly.
Just as he was about to start watering the dirt to make more mud, Margo’s pocket chimed. It was the ringtone that played when it was a call from Alik. Margo nearly dropped it in her rush to answer the call.
“Alik?”
“Hi Mom.”
“Oh thank God, you’re all right.”
“I’m fine Mom. Farrow and I both are. We were able to rescue everyone…”
“Oh that’s wonderful!” Margo cut in.
“Wait Mom, I was going to say, we were able to rescue everyone except Meg.” He flinched knowing he may as well have just punched his mother in the gut.
“WHAT?”
From just inside the house, Theo heard Margo yell. He came running looking first for Danny to be sure he wasn’t the reason for her cries, then rushing to Margo’s side, falling to his knees when he saw the look on her face. Tears spilled hot and painfully down her cheeks, one weathered hand pressed to her lips in shock and terror at what was said to her.
***
Danny had moved closer to the base of a live oak tree where the grass was sparse and was having fun squishing his toes into the mud he was making there. That’s when he saw the bird on the ground.
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