Winter's Wrath: Sacrifice (Winter's Saga #3)

by Karen Luellen

  The whole way up the elevator to his third-floor office suite, he imagined his beautiful daughter he gifted so many years before. Once seated at his obscenely large mahogany desk, the doctor leaned back and closed his eyes, concentrating on the connection he felt with the girl whose dark eyes absorbed the world around her. He imagined her dark hair spilling around her face in untamed waves and curls as wild and thick as her emotions. In his mind’s eye, he clung to the delicious innocence of the girl, savored her, feeding on her purity of spirit. And in return, he gave her more gifts than he ever shared with anyone before: he showed her his favorite memories. He held nothing back in his communal reverie. His strawberries and lilies reacted with anguish to each new image he shared, causing the doctor to giggle with double the joy at both the memory, and her abhorrence of it.

  His little girl was changing. He could taste it as he savored her presence in his mind. Some of him was rubbing off on her. The thought thrilled him to no end. He held her tightly in his mind. Held her eyes open so she had to watch the gifted images, moments in time, with absolute attention to detail.

  Chapter 22 Love Bites

  When Meg woke, her face was wet.

  She reached to wipe away her tears and felt shooting pain in her forearm.

  Holding her arm up to her eyes, she saw a reddening, angry bite mark shaped exactly like her best friend’s flesh tearing teeth.

  “Ow, Maze!” She groaned at him. He was lying across her lap.

  The cunning-eyed coyote looked at her indignantly as if to say, if you’re stupid enough to let yourself get sucked into that blackness, then don’t you dare judge me by how I get you out.

  “Did you have to bite so hard?” she asked him, as though he would answer.

  It was only then she looked around the room. Alik was standing nearest to her on her right, chest rising and falling rapidly like he’d just sprinted. Evan was at the foot of the bed, hazel eyes wide with fear. Cole was pacing the room, hands on his shapely hips. Her mother was on her left, carefully draping a robe over Meg’s exposed shoulders. Margo’s face was drawn; worry lines etched deeply across her brow.

  “I came to check on you, Meg.” Margo’s lip quivered with emotion as she gently pushed her daughter’s damp hair away from the bloody gash on her forehead. She winced sympathetically.

  “You wouldn’t wake up again,” Evan’s voice came from the other side of Maze. She saw the young genius’s light-brown hair fall into his worried eyes as he peered over her coyote’s head to look at her.

  “Maze tried all the tricks that have worked before, but nothing would wake you. I knew he wouldn’t hurt you too badly, and I was starting to get desperate. So when he put your arm in his mouth and looked at me, as if he was asking for permission, I told him to go ahead and bite,” Margo explained.

  Nodding apologetically, Meg used her good arm to hug the coyote. “I guess you did what you had to do to get me out of there, huh buddy?”

  “Meg, please tell me you didn’t go seek out Williams. Please tell me you didn’t do that to yourself again. You promised you wouldn’t!” Alik’s eyes glistened with unshed tears.

  Meg shook her head and felt the world spin. “I didn’t, Ali. I never wanted to go back there again. I got sucked in without even trying. At first, I thought it was just another nightmare, but it wasn’t. I was there, trapped inside Williams’ mind and I—” her voice cracked before she could finish.

  “Boys, step out of the room for a moment so Meg can get dressed. We’ll continue this talk in the living room in five minutes.” Margo shooed everyone out and tried to get Maze to leave too. He refused.

  Margo gave up and closed the door. She busied herself by walking to Meg’s chest of drawers to find her some clothes. Meg sat up slowly trying to shove Maze off her lap with little success. He whined stubbornly and started doing what any coyote would do when treating an injury. He started licking her arm where he’d resorted to biting her to bring her out of Williams’ torture chamber. His rough tongue worked the blood from the punctures his sharp teeth created, making her tender skin sting.

  “Put these on,” Margo said, passing her a T-shirt and bra. She didn’t even bother with the bra, but pulled the T-shirt on obediently. Dr. Winters handed her panties and shorts next. Maze moved off her legs just enough to let her slip into them then stayed right at her side as she slowly stood to walk. Margo frowned even deeper, if that was at all possible, and hurried to drape Meg’s good arm over her shoulder and locking her own arm around her waist to support her daughter. Meg didn’t say anything. She was too humiliated at being so weak that her mother had to hold her like a child. They made their way slowly to the living room arm in arm.

  Everyone was there.

  I guess I’m getting an intervention after all.

  Margo sat her on one side of the dark-blue couch.

  It’s the same color as Creed’s eyes

  Meg’s mind drifted easily away from the here and now.

  Maze jumped onto the couch beside her and licked her face before he continued cleaning her arm. His yellow eyes blinked apologetically up at her as he worked.

  “Um, Maze, buddy, I know you’re just trying to help, but how about you let me clean that up properly?” Theo offered, already tearing open some packets of antiseptic. She could see a package of bandages on the side table that were no doubt for her.

  Maze stopped licking and stared daggers at Theo, stopping him dead in his tracks when the canine added a low guttural growl.

  “O-o-k-a-y, you go right ahead and clean her yourself. I’ll just stand way over here and wait for you to finish,” Theo backed up, wide-eyed and moved to stand next to a desperate and worried looking Cole.

  Farrow sat stiffly in a seat by herself on the peripheral of the loose circle formed by the people in the room. She looked anxious and jittery.

  After everything she had gone through, her entire bizarre existence leading to this culminating-ly surreal night was just too much for her raw psyche. If she weren’t living it, she’d never believe the story—it was so bleepin’ tragic, it was almost funny.

  Meg snorted. Then the snort morphed into a chuckle, which changed into a giggle. So it wasn’t too far a stretch for her to slip into all-out laughter.

  The problem with this bout of hilarity was that once started, Meg couldn’t stop, which was too bad considering the level of concern in the room heightened in direct correlation with the hysterics bubbling from her throat.

  Maze resumed his work on Meg’s arm. The stinging his attentions caused brought her inappropriate laughter under control. She sank into the couch and chewed her lip. All she wanted was to disappear.

  “Meg, we’ve all been so worried about you—we were planning to have a family meeting with you this evening, but then just now? I kept knocking on your door and when you didn’t answer, I called for your brothers to come help. Alik kicked the door in to get to you. You wouldn’t wake up, Meg! You were bleeding from the head, and you wouldn’t wake up. I was terrified! What happened?” The tears the usually composed doctor had been trying to control slipped freely down her cheeks. She looked distraught.

  “I don’t know how it happened,” Meg said emphatically. “I took a shower, felt dizzy and passed out. I must have hit my head on the faucet.” She touched the tender gash and continued. “When I woke, I made my way to the bed and thought I just needed to sleep it off—maybe I over did it at this morning’s workout,” she shrugged trying to diminish the extent to which she knew she’d damaged her young body.

  “When the nightmare started, I assumed that’s all it was, but this was different. I was there, mom,” she locked eyes with the woman who had given up everything to raise her.

  Maze stopped cleaning Meg’s arm, satisfied with his work and pressed his sixty pounds heavily against her side, head lying in her lap, softly whining.

  “It was as if I was looking directly through his eyes this time—like I was Williams,” She looked across the living room but her eyes only sa
w Creed lying under the white sheet, eyes closed, dark hair cut so short she could see his scalp.

  Her voice came out as a whisper, but she couldn’t help it. Her throat was closing up—tight and constricting with emotion. “Creed is alive. He destroyed the last two vials of serum we left in Paulie’s lab by crushing them in his hand rather than let Williams have them. The broken glass cut his hand—some serum got into his bloodstream.”

  She wasn’t watching the faces of her family. She just stared, unblinking at the images flashing through her mind.

  “Williams was furious at him for that. He wanted that serum so badly. He kept him alive to punish him. He figured out there was something different about his pain tolerance—maybe even at a gifted level, so he decided to keep Creed alive so he could torment him, use him as a lab rat, exact his revenge on him.” Meg swallowed, the tears slipping down her throat.

  “Then Creed healed twice as fast as he should have and when he woke, he had no memory of us. He doesn’t remember me.” She gagged on those words, and had to cough painfully to regain some semblance of composure.

  “They ran a battery of tests to be sure. It’s true. He has no memory of anything that happened after the Retribution Match against Gavil. He even thinks he’s in the hospital right now recovering from the injuries sustained from that fight.” She didn’t realize how badly she was shaking until Evan tried to pass her a glass of water. Though she had to use two hands to hold it steady enough, Meg did manage a sip. She was thankful when Evan reached over and took the glass from her before she drenched herself.

  “Williams is planning more atrocities. I could feel his thoughts. He wants to punish Creed for his treason, for ruining his last chance at getting his hands on the original Infinite serum.” She took a deep breath. “Please don’t make me explain everything,” Meg begged, shaking. “Please trust me when I say we can’t just let Williams take this next step. He’s planning to create metahumans by breeding. He knows how much Creed loves family so he’s going to force him to father his next disposable test subject. He wants to dissect a metahuman embryo—Creed’s child.”

  Margo’s face went from shock to rage by the time Meg finished speaking.

  “Nooo!” she screamed, pain and fury vibrated in her cry. So heart-wrenching were her sobs, Meg felt compelled to reach out to her. She felt the same anguish; the same feeling of helplessness. She didn’t know what to do with the information she was given, but she knew it was sickening, heartbreaking.

  The room was silent except for the sound of sobs. She looked around at the people who offered to share her burden and thought how tragic it was that they couldn’t just live blissfully unaware, with no one hunting them, no plans for war.

  Meg’s tired eyes settled on Farrow, whose shoulders shook—her face buried in her hands as she cried. She made not a sound. Meg’s empath skill told her Farrow was never allowed to cry as a little girl growing up in the militant metahuman compound. Her punishment would be severe should her tears be discovered as it was considered a sign of weakness. She was thinking about the role she played in Creed’s capture, feeling guilty.

  A lot of them were.

  Cole was watching Meg closely. He had been so careful to try to nurture a relationship between them over the past two months, but her nightmares forbade it. The nightmares forbade everything good. The more of them she had, the deeper down the chasm she slipped. She would imagine her family standing at the edge of the gorge, looking down into it, watching helplessly as she slipped further out of reach. Meg could even see the sunlight dancing around their heads like halos and longed to reach out to touch them, but there had been no escaping her fall into blackness.

  Then the thought occurred to her. Cole was exposed to the serum and his emotional signature hadn’t changed. He was the same fresh cut grass green, pure and natural as he always was. If Creed was alive, he wasn’t Creed anymore. It’s true. He must be a completely different person with no memory of the goodness he fought so hard to become. The fiery, red warmth that was his signature was gone. Creed may be completely different now. Her heart squeezed painfully at the thought that the Creed she knew and treasured was gone.

  Meg sighed sadly, in that moment almost experiencing his death again.

  Ever the logic-minded one, Evan spoke first. “I know we have a lot of planning to do, but Meg, you are severely dehydrated and malnourished. Would you let me start you on some I.V. fluids? You’ll be no good to anyone so weak you’re passing out.”

  She shrugged. “Okay.”

  Her littlest brother stood from his spot on the sofa and hurried out of the room. No one spoke the entire three minutes he was gone. When he returned, he was pushing an I.V. stand with one hand and holding a bag full of medical supplies in the other. He walked slowly to her, eyes warily watching Maze. “Maze, you stay right there. I’ll work around you, okay?”

  “Sorry, Ev. He’s just feeling a little over protective right now.” She scratched between his alert triangle-shaped ears trying to relax some tension she could still feel there, while holding her other arm out to her brother.

  With practiced hands, Evan quickly secured a tourniquet, cleansed the bulging vein in her wrist, punctured it with a quick stick and attached the tubing. He secured the site with white tape and gauze. The entire process took just minutes.

  When he finished adjusting the flow of fluid in the tube, he nodded at Maze and asked, “Do you think he’ll let me clean your bite wound, or should I add antibiotics to this bag?”

  Meg spoke directly to Maze. “Evan’s not going to hurt me, Maze. Calm down, okay?” she looked into his yellow eyes and didn’t move or blink. She had learned long ago how to show Maze dominance, but hadn’t had to put him in his place since he was a rascally pup. Her coyote blinked slowly, lowered his head and whined. “It’s okay Evan. He won’t interrupt you now.”

  He moved to work on her other arm, spraying a topical antiseptic first, then rubbing the area thoroughly with alcohol wipes. Maze sniffed and licked his nose, annoyed at the smell, but he didn’t make a move to stop Evan as he worked. She smiled softly at her best friend. Maze really was amazing.

  Once her arm was cleaned and bandaged, the room seemed a little more at ease.

  “Listen everyone, I’m aware my recent behavior has been,” she searched for the right words, “detached at best,” she started.

  “Honey, you haven’t been yourself since I stupidly encouraged you to use your gift to try to stop Williams back on the island.” Margo’s eyes held so much guilt and regret. Meg knew she was blaming herself for what happened. She reached over and held her mother’s hand.

  “We didn’t know, mom. It could have worked. We didn’t know what he was until it was too late.” Meg smiled with as much courage as she could muster.

  “We know you were severely affected by your episode with Williams,” Evan said carefully.

  Alik spoke up. “Evan and I have been trying to piece together the psychology of what may have happened. We think your extremely heightened empath abilities worked against you when faced with the malevolence—Williams’ sadistic memories.”

  “Meg, we think what he subjected you to, coupled with your skill of being able to experience through empathy the emotions of others, created a fracture in your psyche—a crack that has festered and widened with every nightmare since.” Evan was kneeling beside her, holding the hand threaded with the I.V. tubing as he spoke.

  “It’s created a snowball effect in you. As time passes, your psyche keeps trying to work through the trauma by recreating the event repeatedly through your dreams—but you’re stuck. ” As mom spoke, sincerity slipped down her cheeks as tears.

  “Even during the day, you walk around like a ghost—dazed and detached. You don’t smile or laugh. You don’t tease your brothers or play board games with your mom anymore. You barely even speak with anyone, always choosing to be alone,” Theo said.

  “Meg, all these are classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.” When
I looked into the soft hazel eyes of my littlest brother, Evan didn’t sound clinical or physician-like, and he didn’t sound like the agile-minded genius he was. He just sounded like a scared thirteen-year-old boy.

  “What do you think, Meg?” Mom asked her hesitantly.

  Meg sat staring at the deep gash in her knee from the mishap with the razor in the shower. “It makes sense. I just don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Typically, PTSD is treated by combinations of counseling, psychotherapy and drugs,” Evan offered.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Are you serious, Evan?”

  “Completely,” Alik said, jaw clenching.

  “We don’t have time for this. Creed is alive! I have to get my ass to Germany and rescue him before Williams starts Phase II of his pre-apocalyptic, biogenetic murders using your brother’s babies!” She yelled to both Evan and Alik.

  “We do have to devise a plan for Creed, but first, we need to help you, Meg.” Theo spoke from the back of the room. He walked toward Margo and sat on the floor at her feet, offering his support to the conversation.

  “You want me to see a shrink?” Meg asked the room, disbelievingly.

  “Eventually, yes, but first, I think we need to seriously discuss an SSRI to help you. The sooner it gets into your system, the better. It does take a couple of weeks for it to work its way into the brain’s neurotransmitters and patients begin to feel some relief from their symptoms.” Evan was looking at her earnestly.

  “What the heck is an SSRI?” she asked, getting more frustrated by the minute. This was all feeling so surreal. She half expected the lamp beside her to start dancing across the floor, or blood to begin seeping out of the wall, or the sound of metallic spheres rolling together to echo through the room. Nothing felt real. Meg couldn’t trust anything to hold still and not turn into a Salvador Dali painting, melting, morphing into the impossible.