gifted

by Charmaine Ross

  Seth grinned, looking as though he was having the time of his life. I tried to move, to get up, to help Julius, but my limbs felt like lead. I was spent, too fatigued to move. Julius’s face turned deep red. He grit his teeth, desperate for air, each moment causing him pain.

  He elbowed Seth in his gut and, at the same time, smashed the back of his head into Seth’s nose. Seth grunted, loosening his hold. Julius slipped from Seth’s grasp, falling to his knees.

  “Didn’t think you’d get out of this that easy, did you?” Seth asked. He gripped Julius by his shoulders and wrenched him to his feet. His mouth twisted into a deep, ugly sneer. His eyes glittered like twin jewels, as black as tar. He wrenched Julius’s arm behind his back. Julius bit out a cry.

  “You’re going to tell me how to wake Victor, or I’ll kill your boyfriend and then his little girl right in front of your eyes. It’ll be fun,” Seth growled. He pushed Julius toward me.

  Julius reached for the needle he’d taken from my arm and thrust it into Seth’s thigh. Turning, Julius, slamming a fist into Seth’s gut. He staggered backward, and Julius followed with a snap uppercut to Seth’s jaw.

  Seth’s fist snaked out of nowhere into Julius’s midsection. Doubling over, Julius hissed, struggling to catch his breath. Seth’s left fist slammed into his jaw with a sickening crunch. Julius’s head snapped to the side, and he fell to the floor. Deep-red blood ran down the side of his face.

  “Julius,” I screamed, knowing it was merely a whisper.

  Seth fixed his dead eyes on me. He stalked over to me as sleek as a hungry panther looking at its prey.

  I tried to hit him with another ball of thought-energy, but there was still nothing. My head was fuzzy, my body unresponsive. I couldn’t come all this way just to die now. I had defeated the madman, and I was going to die at the hands of his apprentice.

  “What did you do to Victor?”

  Victor looked peaceful lying on the gurney next to me. If you didn’t know better, you would think him asleep. Only I knew he was trapped inside his mind and that he would never wake.

  “Everything he deserved.”

  “Bitch. You will fix him right now.”

  “Scared you won’t have a job?”

  He slammed his fist into my cheek. My head exploded as though it had split in half. Darkness blurred my vision. A salty taste in my mouth.

  Julius staggered to his feet. He swung an upper right clip into Seth’s solid jaw. Seth’s head snapped, eyes rolling back in his head. Knees sagged. He toppled, semiconscious, landing half on top of me, pinning me down. His shoulder slammed onto my stomach, forcing the air from my lungs.

  I dragged my hand to my forehead. My fingers shook. Every movement was excruciating. Slow. I hardly had any control, my movements cumbersome. I peeled the wire from my forehead and placed it on Seth’s. My hand dropped. I shook all over. I was so utterly exhausted. On empty.

  Darkness edged my vision. Pumping heart pounding in my ears. Julius launched at the wires on my forehead, peeling them off, and putting them on Seth. He ran behind the control. Lights dove down the tubing. Seth went rigid, eyes rolling into his skull with a long groan as he went limp. Julius pulled Seth’s body from mine and threw him to the floor.

  “Katia, oh my God. Speak to me. Katia!”

  I dragged in great noisy gulps of air. Gentle hands enfolded me. Julius buried his face in my hair, sobbing, kissing. A hot tear fell on my cheek, and he rubbed it away, so gently. Tenderly.

  “Katia. Tell me you’re all right. Please. I can’t ... I can’t live without you. You have to live. I need you. I ... I love you.”

  “Love you ... too.” A smile touched my lips. I couldn’t do anything but curl into Julius and let the tears run down my face, not caring if he saw the real me. The Katia who didn’t need to keep the hard survival shell around her. Who didn’t need to keep people away, emotionally detached, cold and hard. I let him see the me who was glad to be alive, the me he had saved from Victor, the me who was in the arms of the man I loved with all my heart.

  “It’s okay. It’s over now. It’s over. Finally over,” Julius said softly while I sobbed into his chest.

  Tears choked any reply. There were no words, only raw emotion and Julius’s arms around me. Eventually my sobs became hiccups and stopped. We sat there, the two of us, me in his lap, curled into his chest, his arms holding me tight. I don’t know how long we were there, and it didn’t matter. It was over. No more running, hiding, and fighting for survival. The world was just the two of us. And it was right.

  Finally I stirred. “The others ...” There had to be other soldiers around. They could easily come into the room any moment and see what we’d done to Victor. I didn’t have the luxury of crying into Julius’s arms forever.

  Julius nodded. “Can you stand?”

  I swept my legs over the side of the bench. Julius helped me stand, but I was far from able to do it for myself. I leaned heavily, waiting for the lightheadedness to dissipate. There were bodies on the floor I recognized as the technicians that helped work on me. I frowned at Julius. “How?”

  “Knocked them out with a hypodermic needle. I came prepared.” Julius gave me a weak, lopsided smile. “They’ll be out for hours.”

  Anger swept through me. These people stood idly by and would happily have let me die knowing what Victor was doing to me. They had no morals. If they did this, there was no end to what else they could do. “Sleeping is too good for them. I want to make sure they don’t do this to anyone else.”

  Julius stooped to unclip a gun from Seth’s side holster. He flipped his body over and retrieved a knife from the side of his boot and another gun from a shoulder holster. He handed me a gun, a grim expression on his face. “Would you like the pleasure?”

  A splinter inside of me broke. I was tired of the killing, the violence. As much as I wanted to kill these people, neither of us was an outright murderer. There was no defense in killing these people. Fighting for survival was one thing, but I couldn’t subject him to the mental pain of knowing he’d killed someone in cold blood. “Let’s just get out of here alive. Get the authorities to clear up this mess.”

  The door burst open, and a technician stopped short when he saw us and the bodies on the floor. His eyes widened before he plunged sideways and pushed a button next to the door. Lights flashed as a distant alarm sounded. Julius plowed across the room and coldcocked the man on the side of his head. The man crumpled, lifeless to the floor.

  Julius wound his arm around my waist, almost picking me off my feet. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

  I tried to keep up with him, but he more or less carried me down the corridor. There were muffled shouts. We paused midstride, waiting to hear which way the noises traveled. Footsteps pounded, becoming louder.

  Julius hauled me into a room that housed five capsules. All contained bodies. We flattened ourselves against the wall as soldiers thundered past. His arm stayed around me, for which I was grateful. I didn’t have the strength to stay on my feet. The blood loss I had suffered had zapped me of any strength I had.

  I indicated the capsules, whispering in his ear, “How many?”

  His face darkened, eyes hardening as he studied them. “This is just the top of the iceberg, but finding you halted his progress.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’d thought the part of the building you were in was damaged beyond repair, so he didn’t monitor that part of the factory. He’d had free reign here for years, beneath the radar. The government. Everyone. It was only when you were found that the rest of this secret facility was threatened to be discovered as well. He stopped all work, getting me to wake up his men. So far I’ve woken up fifty, but this building is riddled with rooms. I don’t know how many men he has in total. But I do know he wasn’t up to anything good.”

  “Fifty!” That was staggering. Fifty men like Seth. Fifty soldiers that were unstoppable, and that was only the men Julius had woken. Who knew how many were still
sleeping. “He was building an army.”

  “A coup.”

  “God on earth,” I said on a breath, “He really was mad.” Suddenly I ached to get out of here, to be free, leave it all behind. It was too big to take on single-handedly, and we were too weakened to try. “Do you know where Celia is?”

  His eyes darkened to midnight as he nodded. We slipped out of the room and hurried down the corridor. There was a distant shout, an exclamation of discovery. “They’ve found Victor,” Julius said.

  I nodded, too tired to utter a response. Julius took me down a series of corridors, each one taking us farther away from where we were. We turned into another darkened corridor, the lights coming on as we hustled along. Sounds faded the more we wound through the warren of corridors. “This area is rarely used. We should be safer here,” Julius said.

  I recognized this was where I’d seen Celia. The room I’d stumbled upon. Celia was in an unimportant part of this building. Too irrelevant to be placed with the men Victor was turning into monsters.

  Eventually Julius tugged me into a room. The door opened silently, and my eyes fell on the capsule. Celia. I moved over to the silent capsule, heart beating in my throat. This was her. Julius’s daughter. So alive in Victor’s mind, so helpless, so violated here. Sleeping. Forever.

  Julius touched the window, tracing his daughter’s face on top of the glass. Tenderness caressed his features as he gazed at her. Tears stung my eyes as I touched his shoulder, “She’s expecting you.”

  “You didn’t tell me how you knew she was alive.”

  “Victor ... did the same thing to her ... as he did to me.” Julius’s knuckles became white as he clutched the window. “We are linked by blood. All of this, all of us ... are linked. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why. She came into Victor’s mind and helped me when I needed it the most. I told her to wait for us and that you would wake her. She is free of Victor’s mind so she’ll be able to wake up.”

  “That bastard,” Julius’s voice wavered, anger sounding like a steel tone beneath the words. “Did he do that to anyone else? Was anyone else in his mind?”

  I didn’t sense anyone else in his mind. “I don’t think so. The blood connection could be a new thing. It was only him, Celia, and myself there. But I can’t be sure, Julius. I just don’t know.”

  What could I say? What could I offer that would make any of this better? I knew what he was feeling. Victor had raped all of us at the basest of levels, physically, mentally, emotionally.

  “Let’s just wake her up,” I whispered.

  Julius worked at the wires that attached the capsule to the wall. It took an incomprehensibly complicated amount of steps before he’d managed to unpick each wire. One by one, the lights on the wall panel blinked out. The only light came from within the capsule itself.

  I kept on looking over my shoulder at the door, expecting it to burst open, but only thick silence surrounded us. I held the gun ready, hoping that I didn’t have to use it.

  “It’s ready,” Julius said.

  He opened the lip, the air making a soft sucking sound as it lifted. His hand trembled as he felt his daughter’s face. “It’s been five years since I’ve touched her.” His voice held wonder. His breath caught as he traced the line of her cheek. “She looks exactly the same. She hasn’t changed.” He turned his gaze to me, stark sadness mirrored there. “I can’t believe I’m actually touching her. It’s been ... years. I’ve only been able to see her. Not touch her. Never hold her. Soothe her. Talk to her.” His voice was husky, low.

  “You came to see her. She knows that.”

  “She does?”

  “She showed me. She loved you so much, Julius. Wake her up, Julius. It’s time,” I whispered.

  He gently pulled out the numerous stints on her legs, arms, and neck. They were the only things that kept her body alive, feeding it with the nutrients she needed to keep her in suspended animation. Everything but the things she really wanted. Her Dad. Love. Touch. Interaction. To grow up. Age. A mother. Everything a little girl should have had.

  “Come on, baby. Wake up. That’s a girl,” Julius crooned.

  He carefully leveraged her out of the capsule, holding her limp body to his chest as he sunk to the floor. I knelt next to him, watching for signs of life from the child. Just like I had in Victor’s mind, I tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. It was so soft, like down. I choked on the tears that hurtled upward from my chest. This was so wrong. A little girl should never have been put through this.

  Julius tapped her cheek. Her eyelashes were stark against her pale cheeks and threw distended shadows over her porcelain skin. There was a blueish tinge to her lips, as though there wasn’t enough blood circulating.

  “Come on, Celia. Wake up.” There was an edge to his voice that set my heart racing.

  I put my open palm onto her chest. “I can’t tell if she’s breathing.”

  Julius tapped her cheek again, felt the carotid artery at her neck. I waited, watching, helplessness swamping me. I felt a hot tear slide down my cheek. It couldn’t end this way. Celia couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t.

  Julius placed her on the floor, kneeing over her to provide resuscitation. A gentle sigh escaped her lips, and the eyelids fluttered.

  “Celia? Celia!” Julius’s voice clogged and so did my eyes. I blinked away tears that slipped freely down my chin. I knelt over her, head to head with Julius.

  “Daddy?” Her voice was soft, high-toned, questioning. “Why are you crying?”

  Julius picked her up and tucked her against his chest. He held her against him, trembling arms wrapped around her tiny body. “Daddy, you’re crushing me.” Her voice was muffled.

  He released her at once, holding her so that he could see her face. “I’m sorry, honey. Is this better?”

  She nodded. A dimple puckered in her cheeks. She was the loveliest little girl I had ever seen. Her eyes widened. “You’re here!”

  “I told you I would be,” I said.

  Celia nodded. “Has the bad man gone away? I don’t like him.”

  It was my turn to nod. “Yes. He’s gone, and he’s never, ever coming back.” I crossed my fingers, hoping like hell I was right. “And you know what? I don’t like him either.”

  Julius’s hand wound around my nape. His heated eyes gleamed, face strained with harsh lines. But beneath the tension, there was relief and something wholly indefinable that wound its way into my heart and stirred latent feelings to life. Emotions washed through me, so many that they hurricane-swirled inside of me, blending, merging. There were so many that I couldn’t identify just one. I only knew that if going through what I just had, having the life I had survived, led me right here to this one place, this one pinpoint in time—it was all worth it.

  “Thank you, Katia. Thank you. From the depths of my soul. Thank you.”

  Julius leaned over and pressed his lips to mine, holding me to him with his mouth and the hand at my nape. His lips trembled, as did mine, and as he softly moved his lips, mine sparkled to life. My hand slipped to his shoulder, anchoring me against him, and I tilted my head so that we could deepen the kiss. His tongue slid against my bottom lip, and I let him sweep inside my mouth, stroking, caressing, contact and emotion igniting as one.

  I had never felt this way before. I only knew that this was where I wanted to be. That this was good. This was right. This was what I’d fought for all of those long, lonely years. So that I might feel even a second of what I did now. I didn’t have to grapple for an emotion I couldn’t name. Didn’t have to fight to feel something I didn’t even know was missing. Now I knew what cascaded through me head to toe, inside and out. I was ... loved. The knowledge had me gasping, quaking from head to toe. I was loved. And I loved back.

  “Ewww. That’s ’gusting,” a little voice piped up between us.

  We broke the kiss, and I looked down at Celia. My heart broke for the second time in as many seconds. I had everything I had always craved. It was almos
t too much for me to comprehend. I bent down and pressed my lips to her forehead. “And I thank you, too, Celia, for helping me.”

  Celia yawned. Only I knew how exhausted she really was. Even though she’d been asleep, the assault on her body was monumental, and like me, she had a long way to recover. “Can we go home now?”

  “Good idea,” Julius said.

  Julius stood and bent to help me to my feet. He turned a concerned gaze toward me as I struggled onto wobbly legs. “Lean on me, I know a back way out of here. There’ll be a car we can take. Ready to leave?”

  “More than you’ll ever know.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Where are we going?” I’d fallen asleep as soon as the car we’d stolen from the parking bays turned onto the main road. We’d escaped, almost too easily, the building and surrounding areas bereft of any movement, any sign there had been life. It was as though the remaining soldiers had melted into the ether.

  I squirmed into a more upright position in the car, rubbing my eyes to alleviate the urge to close them again. Flat countryside rolled past, paddocks of varying hues of grass separated by long wire fences as far as I could see.

  “We can’t go back to the city. They know where I live. I have a house in the country. My mother’s sister-in-law’s house. No one can connect it to me. We’ll be safe there. I promise.”

  Safe. It sounded like such a nice word. A state of being I dreamed about and was nearly going to be able to define. Excitement flurried through me at the prospect. Julius looked worn out. I didn’t even know how long he’d been driving. His jaw was darkened by scratchy stubble, and there were smudges of shadow beneath his eyes. His bloodied clothes were wrinkled beyond repair, and his shoulders were hunched as though the weight of the world pressed down on them. “You look as though you could sleep the sleep of a thousand deaths,” I remarked.

  “I feel it.”

  I glanced into the back seat. Celia was stretched out, on her side, facing us. “She’s beautiful.”