Child of Recklessness (Trials of Strength Book 2)

by Matthew R. Bell

  ‘Brian…’ Anna whispered.

  I followed her teary eyes across to where Brian stood in the bathroom doorway. His eyes were wide, and the blood had drained from his face. In his hands, still aimed at where Paul had been, was a gun, a thin trail of smoke spiraling from it. The shot we’d heard hadn’t been from Paul. Brian had killed his father. I looked down, and it was confirmed. The side of Paul’s head was dented and bloody, a hole where the bullet had entered was evident. Paul’s eyes were closed, his face still and peaceful, a look I’d never seen him wear.

  Oh, God.

  I clumsily got by to my feet, and stumbled away from Paul’s body.

  ‘No. No. Nooo!’ Brian whined.

  The gun in his hands clattered to the ground, and Brian’s head and face twisted with pain. His anguish filled the air with agonising screams, and he dropped down beside his father’s lifeless corpse. All of us watched in complete shock. We barely took in air, and our hearts crushed under the weight of Brian’s cries. He’d killed his father to save Alex.

  It was different, Paul’s death. He may not have been anyone’s favourite person, but he had been family. He had been a father. It had also been a close call. The man had tried to kill a child, an innocent baby; all because of the new world we’d been thrown into. There was a new immediacy in the air, a new threat. Our group was unraveling, and it would continue to do so until my father was stopped, until the government trying to have us killed and tested had been successfully blackmailed to back off.

  ‘Brian,’ I whispered.

  I moved forward, my hand outstretched as I tried to comfort Brian. His head snapped round and his eyes glared with terrifying fury. They were slits, and his face curled into a snarl I’d seen many times on his father.

  ‘Get out,’ Brian hissed before raising his voice, ‘get out! Go!’

  Even I jumped. No one moved though, we wanted to be there for him, but he was having none of it. He grabbed the gun he’d let go of and waved it manically around in the air.

  ‘Leave! Just go!’ he roared.

  We nodded and tried to calm him before we backed out of the room at a slow pace. Once I’d closed the door, I sighed and almost pulled every hair from my head. Things were out of control.

  ‘You want me to rough the guy up?’ Jessica fumed.

  I stared at her in complete surprise. She was serious, deadly serious. The fists by her sides were clenched and white, and her eyes stared unflinching at the door to Brian.

  ‘No,’ I gasped while I shook my head. ‘He didn’t do anything Jessica. He just saved Alex by sacrificing his father.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Jess replied. ‘Then what happens when he’s consumed by grief and decides he’s made a mistake? That he should have just let his Dad do what he had planned. What happens if he tries to finish it off?’

  I didn’t know how to respond. What Jessica was implying was entirely plausible.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Anna spoke up. ‘Brian won’t. I’ve known him for a long time. He won’t.’

  Alex had returned to his happy self, and was wide-eyed as he scrutinised his mother’s face. I had no idea what to do. No idea on how to proceed after what had happened. My son wasn’t safe. Not only were outside forces likely to hurt him, to whisk him away to be tested and tortured, but an inside one had almost killed him, and he had only been born.

  Chris watched me with a pinched expression, as if he was reading, or having the same thoughts I was. I wanted to discuss it with him and the group like I normally would, but I couldn’t formulate the words. I knew what would happen anyway. I would say something needs to be done, Chris would argue about plans and smarts; then I’d argue we didn’t have the time, and we didn’t. But Anna would follow me into danger, Jessica would follow her, and Chris, even though he’d fought it, would go too. I couldn’t put them in danger anymore.

  My thoughts shifted to my father, to his hiding place, and anger burned in my stomach. He hadn’t had to do much after Greystone, and the hellish existence we faced was still happening to us. It was during those thoughts that a startling clarity passed through my mind. My father hadn’t done anything since we’d left Greystone, but in his lack of actions, he’d done a lot. The government was after us, not him, and I knew it had everything to do with the videos we couldn’t access in his files. Was he using them to protect himself? And by doing that, forcing his old bosses to go after us, pushing us more and more into the recklessness I’d committed in my search for him?

  My gaze wandered to Anna and my son. Alex was calm once again, and he made pleased noises at his mother, who bounced him on her shoulder. Anna’s face was glazed, and she no doubt felt the same thing I did, the increased danger in the air. Things had to change, before we were ripped apart by a plethora of powerful forces, or even worse, by ourselves.

  It was as I watched the two most important people in my life that everything changed. I flashed back on what had brought our dysfunctional family together, the desperate need to survive. I remembered my own fear of dying, of being but a footnote in the world, and while that emotion was still present, I knew something else with complete certainty.

  I would die to keep my entire family safe.

  I was ready, and as that thought brought a lump to my throat, not only was I ready, but willing.

  *

  The room Brian was in with the corpse of his father was silent. The former never came out, and none of us went in. No one wanted to shatter whatever world Brian had erected around himself to cope. I was still sitting on the couch, a calm I hadn’t felt before helped keep the jitters everyone else had fell victim to away. Anna fed an exhausted Alex, and both Chris and Jessica paced on opposite sides of the room.

  I hoped they would tire soon, that they would turn in for the night. I had made my decision. I knew where my father was, where I would have to go, and I was going that night. What I couldn’t do was tell the group. Chris had been right, I was reckless, deadly by accident, and I would not let my choices destroy my family. I wouldn’t ask them to join me in what I planned. It was unfair, and something I had to do alone, that, along with my newfound willingness to die for them, I was ready.

  I stood and slouched over to the line of computers, doing my best to exude exhaustion, and hope it rubbed off on my unknowing captors. I switched on the array of tech and started to filter through the files Jessica had gifted us with. I lingered over the missing files of video, the ones that supposedly held footage of experiments conducted by Richard Bishop when he was still employed by our loving government.

  I then moved onto what Brian, Chris and Paul had informed Anna and me of. I was struck by a wave of almost crippling guilt as I perused Greystone 2.0, cursing myself at the rush I‘d been in. If I‘d waited, I wouldn‘t have walked Anna and I into another trap. Like Chris had said, Anthony Bishop had been gone for a while, and his new form had been put to use in a new experiment conducted for my sister. They’d thrown her into a mimic of the events I had been through, and it had failed, my father hypothesising that there was some other, some severely important factor that he was missing. A note had been put at the end of his report, a question.

  Will to survive not strong enough? Putting subjects in mental, emotional and physical trials of survival not enough? Some other factor is missing. Something Subject 17 (Lucas Bishop) had at the time of change.

  I couldn’t think of anything that could answer his questions, and part of me didn’t particularly want to.

  Another hour passed as I got familiar with my father’s income. He described that once I’d been conceived, he’d moved to Greystone to hold the place, waiting for the inevitability that was the government’s withdrawal because of the number of mistakes. While there, my Dad had still kept his hold on Digilock, and kept the income of the companies who used it. A few months before the apocalypse that had befallen my old town, the government sacked my father and his group, and he had then enacted his desperate experiment to succeed.

  Anna kissed me on the cheek and t
urned in. Chris had given up his room, and left it for Anna and I to use. Jessica fearlessly braved the room Brian occupied, and a few seconds later, returned with the crib in her arms. Both she and Anna went into Chris’s room, and neither of them returned. I heard Chris flop onto one of the couches and struggle to get comfortable.

  I clicked on more files and refused to move my eyes from the screen. I focused on Chris’s breathing, waited for his breaths to slow, and for him to slip into sleep. I felt the feeling of excitement and panic build in my stomach, like a mix between butterflies and bats. The hairs on my arms stood on end.

  I almost growled in frustration when Chris’s snores drifted from behind. I sighed and stood, suddenly becoming obsessed with how I moved, and the sound I made. I slipped by the man on the couch, and slid out into the corridor. I tread carefully as I entered Brian’s room, which held the guns and equipment, and gained for myself a simple handgun with a full clip of ammunition.

  I had to push the images of Anna and Alex from my mind. I didn’t want to leave them, I wanted to stay and be with them, to watch them grow and flourish in a life without fear. But while the government still posed a threat, and my father remained alive, that world would never exist. And so if it meant I had to give up my life to give them back theirs, so be it.

  I wasn’t sure if I could kill the man that had ruined our lives, and I knew that if I entered that building, I might not come out alive. There was also my captive sister, who according to the files had lost the battle against the drug our father had created. All I knew was that she was still with him, and that I would no doubt find her in the process of finding him. Seeing her changed would hopefully give me the strength to do what I needed to do.

  The elevator doors opened, and with one more look down the gloomy corridor with its dust-ridden red rug and painting-lined walls, I pressed the ground floor button, and the doors closed.

  The Sister

  I passed the bundles of homeless men and women in the dark spacious room of the ground floor. None of them took any notice of me as I rushed passed them, the money Brian had been supplying them with obviously paying off. I exited onto the quiet street with the loaded gun tucked and hidden under my top and hooded jumper. I noticed vividly at how broken the area the hotel was situated at was. The surrounding buildings were covered in spray-painted graffiti, and windows and doorways were boarded up.

  Thankfully because of its destroyed look, there weren’t many people traversing the streets. I pulled up my hood anyway, caution was better than ignorance, and I plunged my fists into my pockets. I remained vigilant, my eyes scraped the darkness for danger, and my ears kept watch where my eyes couldn’t. With all my senses primed for action, I pulled up a mental map I’d committed to memory the last time we’d travelled to Digilock, and did my best to remain unnoticed.

  To blend in with the night.

  *

  I turned onto the street Chris had parked on the last time we were there. I’d had a few close calls that night, the presence of authority much more dense after the explosions at my father’s warehouses. On more than one occasion I’d had to backtrack and make my way through alleys that assaulted my nose, or down streets that the police weren’t positioned.

  I tried to breathe evenly as my heart rate kicked into full gear. The tall building I headed for loomed into view, and I took solace in the fact I wouldn’t have to climb it again. I was taking the more direct route.

  I pushed the revolving doors and entered the brightly lit room I’d charged through with Anna in my arms. The same woman who I’d seen draped over her computer was awake and wide-eyed as I threw back my hood and approached her desk.

  ‘C-c-can I help you?’ she choked as she brushed her hair from her eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ I smiled. ‘Tell Richard Bishop his son is here to see him.’

  She nodded curtly and snatched the phone beside her keyboard. Her eyes flashed to my hands, as if she expected to be put asleep again. A few unbearably long seconds passed before someone answered the receptionist. I listened in.

  ‘Mr Bishop?’ the woman whimpered. ‘Your son is here to see you.’

  ‘Good,’ I heard the familiar sadistic voice of my father reply. I could feel the smile on his face, hear it in his voice, and a wave of rage burned my chest. ‘It’s about time he showed up. I’m on floor ten, Penelope, please send him up.’

  Of course he’s expecting me. I wouldn’t have expected less.

  ‘Right away, Mr Bishop,’ Penelope replied.

  She gulped as she slammed the phone down a little too hard, and that made her jump.

  ‘F-f-floor t-ten,’ she stammered.

  I nodded amiably and rounded her desk for the elevator behind it. I could feel her eyes on my back, and when I entered the large lift, her head snapped away and she typed rapidly on her computer. I could see from where I stood that what she was typing was a random collection of letters to make her look busy. I smiled.

  I pushed the correct button and the doors closed. The panic that buzzed in my stomach increased, and I could feel it pass through my entire body in waves. I shook my arms, my legs, stretched my neck and sighed. I’d been working towards that moment, coming face-to-face with my father. Getting justice, or revenge, it didn’t matter which, for all he had done to me, and everyone I cared about.

  But part of me was apprehensive. I’d killed before, but those had been creatures already on death row. My father was flesh and blood completely human, and even though he was more monstrous than the things he had created, I was still terrified. I felt at my waist and made sure my gun was still in place.

  I can do this. All I need to do is do it. Walk in there, ignore him, ignore everything, and put a bullet between his eyes.

  It was simple, but even I doubted my ability to go through with it. For the sakes of everyone I loved, I needed to. I also had to factor in that my Dad no doubt had protection waiting, and if I took too long, I could be dead, and the trip would have been for nothing. I assumed that they’d kill me anyway, that if I succeeded in putting my father down, his mercenaries would return the favour.

  The elevator pinged, and the doors slid open. I stopped breathing. A long corridor ran in front of me. The tenth floor was a lot like the top one Anna and I had infiltrated. I stepped out of the elevator and onto the immaculate white tiles of the floor. To my left was a wall of windows that continued down the large hallway.

  After finally filling my lungs, I started to move. I couldn’t explain the array of emotions inside me as I took one step after another, only that it felt like an eternity of walking. There was nothing that distinguished the corridor, and I had to blink to stop it from continuing to stretch in front of me, like a never ending walkway. The end finally came into sight, and my mind flashed back to a similar walk I’d taken under the town of Greystone to see my father.

  I turned right, and into a densely cluttered room. It was expansive, with only one wall taking up half the space, making the shape of the room the letter U. Scientific equipment such as microscopes and vials were laid on several small tables. The room was filled with them and other machinery I couldn’t name, and where the wall stopped, across from where I stood in the middle of the space, the floor dipped down. It was a circular pit, and in it, Richard Bishop stood with his menacing grin.

  Just do it!

  I moved forward with meaning, and my hand wrapped around the gun at my waist. I took deep breaths, in and out, in and out. My father’s expression didn’t change at my apparent actions, but he stepped aside, and the blood raced from my head. There was a chair behind him, a girl who looked startlingly like me sat immobile. Her green eyes were closed and her blonde hair had been tied up out of her face. A hospital monitor showed her vital signs and all the energy I’d built evaporated.

  There was my sister. What was wrong with her!?

  ‘She’s in a coma, son,’ my father spoke into the heavy silence. ‘Unlike you she failed to overcome my creation, so I put her to sleep.’

&nbs
p; I blinked stupidly and couldn’t muster a reply.

  ‘I know why you’re here,’ Richard said, nodding his head. ‘I understand. Before you do that, however, what if I told you there was a chance to save your sister?’

  My eyes met his and I narrowed them. Was he playing me again?

  ‘Before you question my sincerity, realise that so far I have never lied to you,’ my father spat, he had always had a bit of a temper.

  ‘And the twenty years of my life I thought you were a surgeon?’ I growled.

  He shrugged nonchalant and started to pace behind my sister. I reached for my gun again before hearing steps behind me. Two men in black body armour took up position just behind me.

  ‘To warn you, any movement against me and they will stop you,’ Richard said. ‘They won’t kill you of course, I can’t have that happen, but they will stop you.’

  They won’t kill me?

  It didn’t matter, they wouldn’t get the chance. I turned, faster than the men could have anticipated. They were frozen and undecided; they’d been ordered only to harm me if I attacked my father, but what about them? I kicked the gun from the one on my left, moved in with my elbow and smashed it into his face. The distinct sound of a nose breaking filled my ears, and the guard hit the ground like a ton of bricks.

  The other man had regained his senses. He rushed forward, and instead of firing his weapon, he lifted it, and brought it down through the air. I blocked and pushed his arm away, fired my fist into his stomach, and as he doubled over in pain, I brought my knee up against his face. That was him down.

  ‘Excellent!!’ my father screamed with delight. ‘You have improved immensely! You’re all I hoped.’

  I growled at the sentiment. He’d said the same thing in Greystone. What the fuck was my father’s plan?