“I say we start with the crossbow since we’re outside anyway,” Bjorn offered as Chaunders parked the vehicle near the soundproof building in which the soldiers practiced their killer skills.
“Mr. Young,” Dr. Mor began. “Please go choose your bow. We will time your assembly of the weapon and monitor your accuracy when you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now,” Creed nodded at the stopwatch in Dr. Mor’s hands.
“But you haven’t even located the bow…”
“Go!” Chaunders yelled, nodding to Dr. Mor to start the time and the three scientists watched as Creed bolted across the field, to the shed in which the bows were stored. He was inside for no more than ten seconds before. He emerged in a blur of camo and a loud pop was heard.
Jaw dropped, in surprise, Dr. Mor forgot to press stop as she watched Creed sprint back to the group still standing by the Jeep, bow in hand.
“Dr. Mor? Time?” Dr. Bjorn asked.
“Oh, I…I’m sorry, I don’t know.” She shook her head and frowned at the watch still counting, still unsure of what she just saw. “Did you assemble the crossbow and shoot?” She asked the soldier pointedly.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Dr. Chaunders fumbled to retrieve his binoculars from the glove box and peered at the targets in the distance. “Well, Mr. Young. I can’t find your arrow. Are you sure you hit the target?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, which one?”
“The furthest, sir—one-hundred yards.”
Dr. Chaunders’ eyes widened as he watched for any expression to appear on Creed’s stone face. Seeing nothing there, he repositioned the binoculars and adjusted the focus. “Dear God. There it is. Dead center in the block target at one-hundred yards.”
Creed was rapidly disassembling the crossbow and marching back to the shed to return it. The scientists exchanged looks.
“Dr. Chaunders, we could continue the standard regime of testing, but I believe we all see what he’s capable of very clearly. This subject is, by far, the most skilled we have ever developed,” Dr. Mor spoke in a hushed tone.
“I agree,” Dr. Bjorn said, still shaking his head in awe over what the metasoldier had just done.
“It is my opinion that he be reinstated and given top clearance—none of our other soldiers are even in his league. He is…exponentially enhanced. It would be a shame to let his skills go unused,” Dr. Mor climbed into the Jeep, removed a notepad from the pocket of her white coat and started writing.
Creed returned to the scientist, and stood at attention, awaiting orders.
Chaunders used a cloth handkerchief to wipe his brow. Tough it was only 9am, it was already starting to get too warm to wear the multiple layers of warmth most German residents lived in during the colder parts of the year.
“Yes, well, I think we all concur, Dr. Mor,” Chaunders nodded awkwardly toward the brilliant child scientist who no longer was listening, lost in her genius thoughts. He continued anyway, “Mr. Young, I believe we’ve seen enough today. Please continue your conditioning with a fast run back to the Research Hospital.” He was already starting the engine when he thought to add, “Oh, and speak to no one. Are we clear?”
“Sir, yes sir,” Creed barked, turned on his heels and began running down the trail that encircled the large campus.
“Do you think that was a good idea?” Dr. Bjorn asked as they pulled away from the shooting range they never even entered. Creed was already bolting back toward the hospital leaving a trail of dust pluming behind his feet.
“I don’t know to what you are referring,” Dr. Chaunders mumbled, deep in thought.
“Letting Creed run across campus by himself when we were given specific orders not to allow him any interaction with the other metas,” Bjorn smirked. He liked the idea of Dr. Chaunders angering the Director.
“He is the perfect soldier, Bjorn. I told him not to talk with anyone, and he won’t.” Chaunders waved his hand dismissively at his fellow scientist as though dissipating a foul smell.
“If you say so,” Bjorn widened his grin.
Already a quarter mile away, Creed continued running, just as he was ordered. His eyes scanned the world around him, taking in everything his senses registered.
He heard them before his eyes saw them and because he was downwind, he smelled their unwashed scent, too. Running toward him was a squad of male metasoldiers—seven to be exact. As they approached, Creed immediately recognized the soldier in front. For the briefest of moments, he felt relief at the realization that his brother was alive.
“Holy shit, if it isn’t my little brother, back from the dead!” Gavil held up a hand signaling his team to stop.
Creed, hesitated when, at hearing his brother’s voice, a different feeling raced up his spine. Not wanting to give anything away he decided not to acknowledge his brother’s taunt and continued to run. Gavil jumped in his path and shoved him. “Hey, asshole. I’m talking to you.” The other soldiers snickered while forming a loose circle around the two men.
“I can’t believe the Director let you live after you turned traitor!” Gavil shook his head as though he were sincerely disappointed in his brother’s actions.
“Let me pass.” Creed spoke through clenched teeth.
Ignoring Creed, Gavil continued to taunt. “Hum, kinda makes a guy wonder, you know fellas?” he asked the wild-eyed group of soldiers around him. Creed watched each one carefully, though to look at him you would think his focus was completely on Gavil. His instincts told him something was very wrong with this group of soldiers. Their behavior was—erratic.
“I mean, why would Williams let you live?” Then Gavil snapped his fingers in mock realization, “Oh, I know! He turned you into his bitch didn’t he?” The group around him roared with sick laughter.
“Is that it, little brother? Does the little, bloody guy come visit you in the middle of the night for some—slap and tickle? You can tell me. I mean, after all, we are family,” Gavil’s dead blue eyes glistened with sick humor. His friends snorted loudly, elbowing each other and gesturing obscenely.
“Let me pass.” The stoic calm Creed had maintained since waking in the Facility’s hospital was nearly ready to burst, and they all knew it. He could feel his neck blaze with heat, lapping up to his ears and jaw. Adrenaline slipped icy hot up his back.
“Hey, I’m just trying to catch up, Creedy. I really thought they had diced you up months ago—you know, fed you to the lab rats,” Gavil slinked closer to his brother, anger flaring his nostrils, spittle forming at the corners of his mouth, “for destroying the serum and almost blowing us all to hell!” Gavil shoved Creed hard enough to cause anyone else to fall back, or at least stumble, but not Creed. He just absorbed the blow and didn’t even have to adjust his stance.
Gavil frowned, a flash of uncertainty darted in his eyes before he continued. “Yeah, well, it was good catching up with you, Bleedy. I’m sure I’ll see you around, you know, when you’re not busy being Williams’ little whore.” He laughed at his own joke and motioned for the other six soldiers to fall back into formation.
Creed watched his brother jog away and fumed with old rage and new confusion. He shook his head to try to clear a dizzying wave of disconnected images that flashed in his mind and was rewarded with a stabbing pain in his forehead. He grimaced inwardly before turning and sprinting back toward the Research Hospital hoping the faster he ran, the less pain his mind would feel.
He never told the scientists, but he had been having painful headaches—at least one every couple of days. They always seemed to start in the center of his forehead and burst behind his eyes. He refused to let the pain stop him from demonstrating perfect control during their battery of constant testing, but so far, he was able to work around the blinding pain.
He could feel one of the episodes starting even as he marched directly to his assigned room on the third floor of the Research Hospital. In the stark white bathroom attached to his small dormitory-like hospital suite he
stripped off his sweat soaked clothing and turned on the shower. Only then did he allow himself to clasp his aching head with both hands and squeeze, instinctively trying to fight back the pain with counter pressure. It wasn’t working.
Nothing Gavil said made any sense and the more Creed tried to figure out what he meant, the more intense the headache got.
Scowling, Creed yanked the shower door wide and stepped into the warm spray of water. The janitorial staff, whose work it was to maintain the hospital’s pristine upkeep, had restocked his shower with bar soap, shaving cream and shampoo. Not thinking anything of it, he yanked the wrapper off the bar of soap and swept it across his chest, starting to clean himself when he stopped abruptly and inhaled. The tiles on the walls around him squirmed in his vision as he held the bar up to his nose and inhaled again.
Something—he wasn’t sure, but there was something his mind was trying to remember. The bar of soap was no different from any of the countless others he’d used during his life at the Facility, but still. He worked to calm his mind and tried again, lathering the soap in his large hands and scrubbing his entire body with the scent. No. It was gone. The harder he tried to remember, the further away the memory moved. It was like trying to reach for a ball in the water.
Fifteen minutes later, Creed was cleaned, shaven, dressed and seated in a chair watching Dr. Mor prepare to take a blood sample. Her clever gray eyes studied Creed.
“Mr. Young, are you feeling well?”
“Fine, ma’am.”
She stopped working for a moment and locked eyes with her subject. Nodding once, she finished her collection and secured a bandage across the puncture site.
“Would you tell me if you weren’t feeling well?” She asked in a whisper, though the other scientists were on the opposite side of the lab, their faces buried in a monitor as they spoke to one another.
“Ma’am?” Creed asked, surprised at her conspirator’s tone.
“My name is Sloan,” she offered, still whispering.
Not knowing what to say to that, Creed nodded and locked his jaw—working hard to hide the migraine threatening to burst to the surface of his façade.
The young doctor glanced at the other scientist to be sure they weren’t paying any attention to her exchange with the subject before she added softly, “You may have the others fooled, Creed, but I can tell you have been experiencing severe headaches. Your temples are visibly pounding, you flinch at the light, your movements are stilted and your face is pale. Are you going to tell me it’s not true?”
Creed just closed his eyes, and said nothing—not sure if he could trust the young doctor.
“You don’t have to trust me,” she whispered as though hearing his thoughts. Her small gloved hands continued to busy themselves by smoothly rocking the three vials of blood she’d collected, preventing coagulation.
“I have suffered from migraines my entire life. I just know what it feels like.” She shrugged innocently making her look much more like a young girl to Creed’s wary eye. “After having suffered a serious head trauma it’s no wonder you’re…” Sloan stopped talking and glanced quickly at her patient, then across the room to the other doctors, who still weren’t paying any attention.
“Well, anyway. I’m going to leave these pills right here. They’ll help. And since I just took your blood sample, you won’t have to worry about them showing up in any testing. They’ll be out of your system in forty-eight hours.” She offered the soldier a small smile before standing and deliberately turning her back on him.
In a voice intentionally loud enough for the others doctors to hear she said, “Thank you Mr. Young. That will be all. Please return to your quarters, and await further instruction.”
Creed hesitated, but only for a moment. He was already starting to experience the visual disturbances that preceded a full-on migraine. Knowing he only had a matter of minutes before he was struck debilitated and vomiting, Creed reached out and grabbed the two pills, pocketing them smoothly and walked out of the lab.
Sloan breathed a sigh of sympathetic relief when she turned and saw the pills she left for the soldier were gone. She made a mental note to order more and keep a stash for him. He had always treated her with the utmost respect and courtesy, performed any task asked of him, and seemed so determined not to lean on anyone for help.
Sloan admired him.
Of course, she heard about what happened all those months ago at his Retribution Match. She even heard rumors of what happened in Hawaii—that Creed was a traitor by turning against Dr. Williams and killing other metahumans.
Inwardly, Sloan sighed.
None of that mattered to her. She was a scientist who believed in what she could see, taste, touch, smell and hear for herself. And what she believed of Creed Young was that he was a good person trying to do the best he could. Hadn’t she been judged unfairly herself? Sloan knew what it was like to have to prove herself over and over again only to wonder why she bothered. She was only as valuable as the team of doctors here believed her to be and she hated feeling judged based solely on what she could do for her superiors.
She understood what it was like to be isolated.
The more she thought about it, the more sure she was that this couldn’t be all there was to life. Creed had been to the outside world and saw worth there enough to fight for it.
Sloan’s scientific mind was intrigued to know what was out there. What was life like outside the walls of this compound? The humans out there couldn’t all be so hateful of metas, like the Director led everyone to believe. Could they?
Are we really that different from one another? Sloan mused.
Creed barely made it to his room, closed the door behind him and leaned against it to steady his tilting world. With a shaking hand, he searched his pocket for the pills Dr. Mor gave him and for a panicked moment, couldn’t find them in the folds of material. Careful not to lose control, he pulled the pocket of his fatigues completely inside out before finding the two white pills entangled in a tuft of lint. The sweat that had been forming at the temples of his severely cropped buzz cut slipped helplessly down his pale, taut face as he plucked them one by one into his hand.
Not able to form any more coherent thoughts about the possible ramifications, Creed tossed the pills into his mouth. He deliberately tucked them under his tongue for a moment hoping they would dissolve some in that sublingual position, entering his bloodstream more quickly, before allowing himself to dry swallow the powdery, bitter lumps.
He slumped to the floor, back still leaning against the door to his room hoping his heavy body would block the entrance to his only corner of privacy. There was a lock on his door, but it only worked from the outside. Anyone could gain access to his quarters whenever the mood struck them, but if they came now, there would be nothing Creed could do to hide what was happening.
The sunlight streaming in from the window on the opposite side of the room screamed like banshees to his raw optic nerves. Flashes of rainbow prism colors danced with the dust particles caught in the beam of light. Stifling a moan, Creed reached for the edge of the coarse, woolen blanket atop his perfectly made bed and covered his face with it completely. The blackness it provided offered only the smallest moment of relief from the visual pain. Now if only he could stop the nausea.
No freaking way I’m going to let myself throw up, he thought, terrified as the waves of crushing sickness churned in his stomach. I can’t throw up these pills. Keep it together, soldier. Keep it together, he begged himself until the blackness overwhelmed and he passed out from the excruciating pain.
That’s when he smelled her.
Strawberries.
Her dark hair smelled of ripe, deep-red strawberries. Her dark eyes were beyond beautiful. They were perfectly formed, large for her small angled face and shaped with a hint of the exotic. The dark lashes framing them only added to the effect, causing Creed to hold his breath at the sheer beauty. He reached out to touch her face and gasped when she leaned her ch
eek into his hand, closing her eyes responding with what could only be an expression of trust and love. He tried to speak, but no sound came. Her eyes smiled as she reached up with the most delicate hand and gently touched his forehead where his migraine pain originated.
Her smile changed to a look of worry, beautifully arched brows furrowed as she used her hand to rub a small circle in his skin, and with each evolution of her thumb, he felt the pain lessen, until it was completely gone.
The mysterious girl with the beautiful eyes and healing touch smiled widely before taking her hand away from Creed. Then she reached to her side for something. In her hands was what looked to be a soft, white blanket—pleasantly iridescent and strawberry scented. With the gracefulness of a dancer, she opened the blanket with a flourish and covered Creed with it. He was lying down now, watching her intoxicating eyes vanish behind the blanket’s billowing form before it floated over his tired body instantly filling him with the same white iridescent light of which it was made.
He moaned joyfully, feeling peace he had never known. Her warmth and scent enveloped his pain, soothed him, and left him feeling a gentle vibration deep inside. He never wanted to leave.
He watched her eyes watching him and quietly begged Please don’t ever leave me. Please. Please.
When he woke, tears were pooling down the bridge of his nose and into the Facility-issued, wool blanket wrapped snuggly around his head. He pulled the scratchy cloth off himself and gingerly wiped the wetness off his face with the back of his hand. His head felt sore, but the migraine was gone. What wasn’t gone was the echo of the vivid dream he just experienced.
The strawberry scent
The wide, dark eyes
Her soft, healing touch
And her pure, white glowing blanket.
Winter's Wrath: Sacrifice (Winter's Saga #3) Page 15
