Wilde Omens

by S. E. Babin

  “We almost lost you.”

  I nodded. Bits and pieces of my memory came back. “How long have I been out?”

  His eyes tightened. “Two weeks.”

  I blinked. “Two. Weeks? Whoa,” I breathed out. “What happened?”

  He shook his head once. “Now is not the time to talk about it. It’s just time for you to recover.” He took my cool hand in his warm one.

  I loved that he was here, but I wanted to talk about things. “Where’s Aaron? Did you get him? I lost consciousness before I saw what happened.”

  Watson’s lips thinned. “Masters has been out every single day looking for him. So far, there has been no sign.”

  I perked up as much as I could. “Masters is still here?”

  Watson smiled. “You two could be good for each other. The strong silent type versus a Chatty Cathy.”

  I snorted in response. “I’m currently out of the dating pool for a while. Men are hard work.”

  He took my hand and squeezed it. “Indeed they are. And women are a right disaster, you know.”

  “Well, it’s only because men come along, screw everything up, and make us insane.”

  “We’ll call it fifty-fifty then,” he said in a droll tone.

  A deep sadness came over Watson’s face as he picked up my hand and kissed it.

  “Watson?”

  He shook his head. “When you’re released, we will talk about it.”

  My throat tightened as all possible worst case scenarios descended upon me. “Am I going to be okay?”

  “Your father, flawed though he may be, has done everything within his power, and some outside of his power, to ensure it is so.”

  I stayed silent, pondering over what might have happened over the last few days. Watson released my hand and stood. “We only have a few minutes of allowable visitation time. Mine is up.” He nodded toward the door. “You have another visitor.”

  He left me alone with my mother. She was already a petite woman, but her frame was even thinner, if possible. Her hair hung over the side of her shoulder in a long, ebony braid. She rushed to the side of the bed and gave me a tender hug.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said, and released me after a moment.

  “I was on an amazing vacation,” I quipped.

  A pained look stole over her face. “Please don’t joke about this. Not now. Maybe not ever.”

  I swallowed hard and nodded. “Sorry,” I murmured, contrite. If anyone would answer my questions, I figured it would be my mother. “What happened?”

  She pulled up a chair and settled in next to my bed. “We aren’t exactly sure how Aaron managed it, but he was able to configure the dialysis machine to strip the serum from your blood without contaminating the integrity of it.” She shook her head. “It was brilliant how he did it. Whether or not your father’s safeguards are still in place, remains to be seen. If he figured out a way to deactivate those…” She shook her head and sighed, “Then we are dealing with an enemy the likes of which we’ve never seen.”

  “Aaron seemed sorry.”

  My mother scoffed and glared at me, her eyes burning with anger. “People like that are not sorry for their actions, Penelope. He left you to die.” She took my hand. “For the second time.”

  So, she and my father had stopped yelling enough to actually talk. Super.

  “And Lila?” I’d heard the gunshot and saw the wound in her chest, but you never knew.

  She sighed. “Gone. The serum was too far gone to repair her wounds. She died on the floor of the lab. Good riddance, I say.”

  I’d say the same thing, but I wondered if Lila was the lesser of two evils when it came to the serum. She was trying to save herself. Aaron…well, no one knew what Aaron planned to do with it.

  “Mom?” Ever since Watson came in, something had been bothering me.

  “Hmm?”

  I took a deep breath. “Am I still immortal?” Part of me wanted her to say no, I was that same girl who had to leave her all those weeks ago. Part of me wanted her to tell me yes, I could still time travel and live for another five thousand years. I wasn’t sure which part of me wanted which part more, though.

  She paused and I could tell was trying to piece her words together carefully. “You should wait for your father,” she said after a moment. “He is the one best equipped to tell you what happened and the extraordinary lengths he went to save you.”

  I didn’t like the way that sounded. At all.

  A sharp knock on the door announced the devil himself. My father wore his familiar goggles, pushed up on top of his head, with his hair all over the place, but he was clean and he wore a white lab coat.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said as he walked in.

  His steps faltered and he stumbled a little bit. “Dad?” he echoed.

  I shrugged. “Least I could do after all of this.”

  He smiled and his green eyes lit up. “I like the sound of it.” My mom scooted her chair over and my father settled himself on the side of my bed.

  “Penelope—” he began.

  I held up a hand, pleased to see I was no longer hooked up to an IV. “Don’t sugarcoat this, please. Just…tell me what happened and what’s next.”

  My father nodded. “I’m assuming you already know Aaron stripped the serum from your blood. I’ve never seen his methods before. At this time, we aren’t sure if my safeguards are still in place. We need to find him immediately. Your friend, Masters, is out as we speak, combing the Earth for him.” He patted my hand. “Glad you brought him home. He was a beast when he realized what Aaron had done to you.”

  I would have to thank Masters later on. And when I was up to it, I’d repay him and make good on my oath. I motioned for my father to go on.

  He took a heavy breath. “There was no traceable amount of serum left in your body when we got you into the infirmary. You were in a Class Four Hemorrhage state and close to death. We stabilized you and Watson and I both gave blood. You slipped into a coma.” He paused as if the next words were difficult to say. “We were about to lose you. The serum altered your DNA, Penelope. When it was gone, your body just seemed to give out. You aren’t like us. You weren’t injected. You were born with it. Your mother was injected before her pregnancy, so you were exposed to it in the womb.” He blinked a suspicious moisture out of his eyes. “So, when it was gone, your body could no longer compensate. After all, it was a part of your very core.”

  “What happened?” I whispered.

  He took in a shaky breath. “Watson and I discussed it and we decided to inject you with more serum to see if it would save your life.”

  “Okay,” I said. This didn’t seem like the worst part. “And?” I knew there was going to be an and.

  “And your body rejected it.”

  I sucked in a breath.

  “So we tried again with more serum. And your body rejected it again.”

  My hands began to shake. “So I’m not immortal anymore? Am I going to live?”

  My father placed his hand over mine to still the shaking. “Penelope, you are more than immortal. You are…changed.”

  “What did you do to me?”

  My mother stood and left the room, her hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes.

  My father stared at me, pain and regret in his eyes.

  “What did you do to me?” I asked again.

  “He infused the serum with another experimental drug.” Watson stood at the door.

  My gaze flicked back over to my father. “What drug?”

  Watson stepped into the room and ignored the angry glance of the nurse who tried to follow him in. Visiting hours be damned.

  My father bowed his head. “It was meant to add superhuman abilities without the aid of immortality. It was never meant to be mixed with the serum, but I thought it might save your life.”

  “What does this mean?”

  Watson sat down in my mother’s vacated chair. “We don’t know yet. What we do know is it worked. Or it seems to
have worked.”

  I was confused. “But I already had superhuman abilities.”

  My father nodded. “Yes, you were on your way to surpassing even our abilities. But when Aaron stripped the original serum, something happened. To the best of my knowledge, those abilities are gone. We will have to monitor you over the next several years to study your progress.”

  I stiffened. “I will not become your lab rat.”

  My father held up his hand. “I’m not saying that. At all.”

  Watson spoke up. “I’ll kill him if he tries.”

  My father glared at him. “You can try.”

  “Oh, I will.” Watson’s steady gaze burned with anger as he stared my father down.

  Holmes looked away first. I winked at Watson.

  “What I’m saying,” Holmes continued, “is we need to make sure we monitor the serum levels in your blood. We need to make sure they don’t get too high or too low.”

  “And you need to make sure I don’t suddenly grow scales or get the ability to mind read, right?”

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “We do it on my terms,” I said after a moment.

  Watson nodded in approval.

  My father’s lips quirked into a small smile. “And what are your terms?”

  I held up a finger. “You teach me how to time travel without the use of a DAR.”

  My father’s gaze narrowed. He didn’t like that one.

  I went on. “I can leave freely and visit my mother if I wish.”

  My father hesitated, and then nodded. “Fine.”

  “I want you to find Cass and bring her back here.”

  Watson sat up a little straighter. “I’ll take care of it.” I thought I heard him mumble, “If I don’t kill her before I get her back here.”

  “Don’t kill her.”

  He nodded and frowned. “Fine.”

  “You will set up a lab especially for me with all of the equipment, tools, and materials I need to help Masters.”

  My father smiled proudly. “Done.”

  I thought about how far I could push this. “And you take me on a time travel trip with you once I get out of the hospital.”

  My father grinned. “It would be my pleasure, Penelope.”

  I nodded. “Good then. Now, back to the first one.”

  My father shook his head. “You are not prepared for time travel by yourself.” I did not tell him I’d already done it in small doses. “I can’t agree with this.”

  I glanced over to Watson. “Escorted then.” I paused. I hadn’t run this by him. “By Watson.”

  My father’s eyebrows rose as he looked between us. “Is there something going on here I should know about?” he asked after a moment. He didn’t seem angry…or pleased. He shook his head once abruptly. “Don’t answer that. I rescind my question. Very well. I trust Watson with my life. I shall entrust him with yours. What say you, Watson?”

  Watson grinned and shook his head. “Crafty minx. Very well. I shall endeavor to act as escort to Penelope’s whims.”

  I grinned, but he held up a hand. “As long as they do not interfere with our new training schedule.”

  I blew a raspberry. “Party pooper. Fine, I accept your caveat.”

  “Good.” My father clapped his hands and stood. “You have at least another day or so in here and at least a few weeks after that of mandatory rest. I shall see you soon.”

  My father gave Watson and me a two-fingered salute as he left the room. Watson scooted his chair closer to the bed.

  “I thought visiting hours were over,” I said teasingly, glad for his presence.

  “I saw Holmes coming in and thought you might want some support.”

  I took his hand and squeezed. “Good call.”

  “I am quite glad you’re still here with me, Penelope. There are few people who can land blows on me in training.”

  I snorted. “Glad to see I serve a purpose.” I tilted my chin and studied his handsome face. I would never get tired of looking at him, friend or no, or whatever we could be in the future. “I’m scared of what will come.”

  He touched his forehead to mine. “Me, too,” he echoed. We stayed like that for a long time, both of us lost in our thoughts. Mine were of the future and what it might mean for my life. I was…something else. Not quite the same Penelope. I didn’t feel any different yet, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the price of my father’s genetic meddling would need to be paid.

  Epilogue

  Two Weeks After

  My hair was growing at a faster rate than normal. That was a little strange, but it wasn’t as strange as the eyes staring back at me in the bathroom mirror. My eyes had always been a startling shade of green, thanks to my father, but now they seemed to glow from within. I squinted in the mirror and blinked, hoping maybe it was a weird trick of the light.

  When I opened them again, they were the same. At least a single shade lighter, there was a crystalline pearlescent glow to them, like a glittery lip-gloss in the glare of the sun. I turned my head, blinked again. The same.

  “Well…crap,” I muttered. I picked up the notebook I’d started carrying around with me and jotted a note about my freaky eyes down. There had been some small, barely noticeable changes, but my father made sure to stress how important it was to note anything, so I took to writing everything down. I was hungrier, thirstier, my hair was growing faster than normal, and my eyes looked strange. I was unable to start training yet, but planned to start back up next week. For the last two weeks, all I’d done was rest and hang out with my mom. She had yet to go back home. She was worried about me.

  I was worried about me.

  The best thing about this bizarre turn of events was my growing friendship with Masters and my developing whatever it was with Watson. We’d spent as much time together as possible lately and I realized I couldn’t get enough of him. So far, he’d been my rock in all of this. And he’d been the first one to notice my eyes.

  Speaking of Watson, he knocked softly on the bathroom door and chuckled when he saw me blinking at myself like an owl in the mirror. “Just write it down,” he said. “There’s time enough to worry about it later.”

  He took my elbow and led me out of the bathroom. My suitcase was sitting in the living room. He placed one finger over his lips. “Tell no one. Where do you want to go?”

  I grinned and my heart sped with anticipation. My mind filtered to all of those times and places I wanted to visit. I could go anywhere. Do anything. I blinked. “I don’t know!” I whispered. “I can’t think of a place.”

  Watson laughed. “Close your eyes.” He spun me away from him and circled my waist with his arms. “Breathe in.”

  I took a deep breath and couldn’t help but snuggle in closer.

  “What do you smell?”

  I frowned. “Your cologne?” Was this a test?

  His chest rumbled against my back. “No, Penelope,” he said in amusement, “think of the best smell you can and tell me what it is.”

  I thought about it. The smells of incense and magic floated to me. Bluesy music and deep conversations filtered around me. “Incense, dirt, magic,” I murmured.

  Watson buried his face in my hair and chuckled. “And what do you see?”

  I smiled. “Peace.”

  The world around me began to float away and Watson’s amused voice floated through my thoughts. “As you wish.”

  I laughed out loud. I had no idea where we were going, but I knew wherever I went with Watson I would enjoy. I had many things I needed to accomplish but, for now, a break was most welcome. I needed to figure out the cure for Masters’ daughter. I needed to find Cass and make her explain why she’d betrayed me when I’d just started to care about her. And, most of all, I needed to make sure I wasn’t changing into something else, something I couldn’t come back from.

  I leaned back against Watson’s chest and held on for the ride. Regardless of what came our way, and what havoc the serum would wr
eak on my body, I had Watson and my parents, and maybe, eventually some friends here. For now I was alive and as happy as I could be while adjusting to my new life. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe it would last forever, but I was innocent enough to believe it would last for now. And life in the present was the only thing I believed in right now.

  About the Author

  S.E. Babin is an award-winning author with a passion for writing books with a paranormal twist. Whether it's romance or mystery, she loves taking the norm and turning it into the extraordinary. Her love of reading turned into a curious exploration to see whether or not she could write her own novel. Beginning with discarded pages of angsty novels and a slightly popular reimagining of Beowulf's Grendel in her high school English class, Sheryl spent way too much time in the library, killing any chance of her becoming a cheerleader or anything even remotely cool.

  She also writes the Time Warden Series under the pseudonym of Bree Lawrence.

  @hungrybiblio

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