“August!” she screamed and ran faster toward him.
His jaw clenched as hard as his fists. She ran hard into his chest, and his demeanor softened, if just for a moment. He touched her arms. The shards of glass had sliced her exposed skin, but in her rage, she had not felt the pain. Though her wounds had already healed, blood still covered her. August looked her in the eyes. Without a word or need for explanation, he walked past her to meet Lucas, who was making his way to the platform.
The men exchanged blows as soon as they were within arm’s reach. Their strikes echoed in the acoustics of the platform. August ducked past the punches thrown at him. Taking the opportunity of Lucas’ exposed torso, he sent a knee into his side. Lucas connected an elbow to the side of August’s head. They continued exchanging impacts. Both men were unyielding and recovered instantly from blow to blow. They moved fast and fluid, neither tiring.
Valerie’s concern grew, and she approached the fighting men. She stood in her white gown, soiled with the blood of her struggle, helpless to aid August for fear of anything happening to her unborn child. It was evident that neither man would admit defeat. Her abilities were useless. Both men were far stronger than her. If she left, their energies could destroy the entire facility. Fear kept her eyes fixed on the endless battle. No matter how much she wanted it to stop, they kept up the brawl.
People filled the platform. The same people who had failed to offer her help stood to stare. Guards watched with their weapons on standby, awaiting the outcome of the confrontation. Lucas’ assistant was at the forefront of the crowd. Rob stood with his arms crossed and maintained a look of indifference. Valerie continued to search the group for an ally. Just as she was convinced she had none, the door to the control room opened. Doctor Leonard Warner, as fast as his cane would assist him, walked across the platform to where she stood. Though their interaction in the lab had been short, she trusted he was coming to help her somehow. When he reached her, the scientist placed a hand on her shoulder and whispered in her ear. Confused, she gave him a look. He nodded, walked back to the secured door, and was gone. Valerie lifted her chin and walked toward the fighting men. She needed to separate them somehow; it was her only chance to overpower Lucas.
When she reached a massive pillared leg of the copper sculpture, August gained the upper hand in the fight. He had Lucas pinned down and held his neck in both hands. For a moment, Valerie thought it was over.
Rob yanked a weapon away from one of the guards and fired a red stream at August. Valerie screamed and fell to her knees. The current coursed over his body once before he was able to absorb the shock, giving Lucas a chance to break out of the choke hold. Once they had separated, Rob fired again, this time maintaining a steady red stream of electricity, knocking August back. He was within her reach. Inhale, exhale. Valerie grabbed the copper sculpture as tight as she could and reached for August, bracing herself for the pain to transfer to her. But when he grasped her forearm, there was no pain. The energy transferred to the tall copper sculpture of the two warriors battling. Valerie focused the electricity through the statue and onto Lucas. The thick copper cables melted. Valerie willed the current to form a coil of liquid copper around Lucas. Though it slowed him down, he continued to move toward them, making easy work of the soft metal.
“Kiss me,” she yelled at August. She helped him to his feet. With sweat and blood smeared on his face, he leaned down and connected his mouth with hers. She kissed him as though she would never get the opportunity again. The power surged through her body, igniting everything in her being. Valerie pulled every bit of energy from every person and machine within reach of her ability. She transferred the power to the wire. The electrical current increased around Lucas. He struggled to move. His mouth opened to scream but nothing came out. The flow of energy grew brighter and brighter until Lucas’ suit caught fire. He aged years in an instant. She could feel her attraction to him decrease as the flames burnt his skin. The current and heat had demagnetized him. Leo had given her the answer to the riddle plaguing her since she first met Lucas Jarrett. His skin glowed red, faded to gray, then black. When the two released their embrace, Valerie removed her hand from the coil. Lucas’ body crumbled to the marble floor. He was nothing more than ashes.
Valerie collapsed.
“Are you okay?” August knelt down in concern.
“It’s over,” were the only words she had.
Across the platform, guards surrounded Rob. He turned his 9mm on them and tried to run from the scene. He fired three shots before the guards backed away from him, giving him a clear path of escape. August ran after him. Valerie followed. Once they entered the great room, Rob sent shots flying at August. Valerie dropped to the ground to avoid injury. August took three shots to his torso before Rob tripped over the stairs and put two more rounds in the ceiling. He was out of bullets.
August beat the man over and over, pounding his fists into his face.
“August, stop,” she demanded. But he kept on.
Valerie grabbed August’s wrist as he reeled back for another hit. “It’s done.” Inhale, exhale. She took the spark from Rob’s body. This time, he would not get it back.
August stood and stared down at the lifeless man.
“He let Lucas hurt you,” August said, looking up at her.
There was a pain in his eyes. Valerie realized he was still bleeding. She took his hand and concentrated on the three bullets. He touched her face and winced as they fell from his abdomen and onto the floor.
“You are going to kill us, too?” shouted someone from the crowd, which was moving into the grand room.
August searched the crowd for who had spoken the words, but Valerie spoke before August had the chance to take a breath.
“Lucas Jarrett killed your families,” Valerie addressed the growing crowd. “I had no part in the attack. I was forced to watch the man I love die in my arms. My husband died because I loved him so much, and Lucas would not allow it. For that deep-rooted jealousy, he found the loss of your loved ones to be acceptable collateral damage. I swear to you, it was not my doing.”
Valerie continued even as her face appeared on the giant monitors throughout the room, “Lucas Jarrett intended to fulfill the World Council’s plan to maintain our genetic purity by eliminating anyone who is not like us. He threatened to hurt my son if I did not go along with the Council. I have been fighting against their plan to kill every regular human being on the planet. He lied to you and turned you against me to keep me from leading a rebellion against the World Council. Genocide is just a small glimpse of what they are capable of doing. As long as I can stand before you, I will not let that happen here.
“If you wish to leave the facility and return to your homes, no one will stop you. If you find there is nothing left for you out there, I will turn no one away from the sanctuary of the facility, regardless of their genetic standing. We can rebuild our society from what is left. I will stand against the World Council. We have a clear enemy, but it is not each other. It is not me.”
When she finished, the screens went blank. The people remained silent. August placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Come on. You don’t have to do this right now.”
Valerie did not know what else she could say to get them to believe her. The monitors flashed on again displaying a surveillance feed of the control room. Lucas Jarrett stood shouting orders as he watched Valerie enter Gia’s room at the resort. Valerie froze. She did not want to relive that moment, but she knew they needed to see the truth. Her eyes fixed on the screen, and she fought to keep herself together.
“Are the planes in place, Leonard?”
The scientist on the screen nodded to Lucas.
“Now, just wait. Wait until he is completely in the room.”
Valerie watched again as Scott crossed the room to pick up Caleb’s blanket. She looked away and buried her face in August’s chest. Her screams echoed through the grand room. Through her screams, she could hear Lucas laughing
.
Valerie heaved and gasped. August lowered her to the floor. She stayed there for a long time, sobbing. After she had exhausted all emotion, August lifted her from the ground and carried her to the train.
Valerie washed the blood from her arms and rid herself of the excessive makeup deemed necessary for the coronation ceremony. She had no tears left. No anger racked her nerves. Even her grief washed away, staining the white-tiled shower stall. For a long time, she let the water just run over her. The hate, the hurt, the damage had broken her. The time for grieving never came. Valerie’s journey had yet to end. She did not have the luxury of being broken. She had to keep going to lead and give direction to the devastated city, and then the region.
Hyka—once a stranger, now her closest friend—had gifted her a red shirt to contrast the all-white dress code of the facility. She dressed and sat on the stark white bed. The mechanical blinds raised on her mental command, revealing the snowcapped mountains in the distance. They represented massive and ancient permanence. There was little she could do to move or change them. Just as she could not change the events of the past two weeks, she had to live with the gaping hole where her former life had been. Her husband Scott lie at the bottom of that hungry hole, along with many other things she loved but could no longer have.
Valerie opened the door to the rest of the empty suite and made coffee while she searched the surveillance feeds for her son. She found him a few floors down playing with Jack while Hyka made lunch. She smiled at the image. Jack, despite his initial reservations, had stood by her since the beginning. He and Hyka had believed in her when even she had doubted her strength. They pushed her to do the right thing, when all she wanted was to run away.
“You’re looking quite domestic today.” Valerie’s voice carried through the feed and into Hyka’s earpiece.
“It’s literally killing me,” Hyka said without skipping a beat. “Want me to bring him up?”
“I’ll come down and surprise him in a little bit. And Hyka . . . thank you.”
Hyka threw a thumb in the air and continued her task.
The entire time she spent in solitude, from the moment the door closed between them, Valerie’s body had called out for August. She had not felt the breeze of his attention since he had delivered her to her room earlier in the day. She had spent much of her time alone rehearsing conversations with her partner DiaZem in case her attraction to him grew even stronger, and she lost her nerve. She understood they would lead together, but she maintained, in her heart, that they were not together.
Instead of seeking him out on surveillance, she followed the attraction. She walked where she felt drawn, hit the elevator button to where she thought he would be. On the eleventh floor of the hotel was the gym. She walked down the hall, thankful he was in a semi-public area and not alone in his room. She was still apprehensive about being near him at all. She had hated Lucas with every ounce of her being and yet he still had power over her. August would find her too easy a target to seduce if he felt so inclined.
She opened the door to the gym. Everything was still and quiet, the equipment in its proper place, unused. She could feel him, though he was not in the room. Behind a frosted glass wall in the gym, his silhouette moved swiftly before diving into the pool. Her heart fluttered, and her cheeks flushed. He knew she was there. For as intense as she felt when she was near him, there was no way he could not sense her pounding heart.
“I’m glad you’re up,” he said from the other side of the wall.
Finding the separation of the glass appropriate, she decided to stay in the gym to have their conversation. She could hear his body cut through the water. It made her thirsty.
“We need to discuss some things, before . . . I mean, it’s best to talk about this now rather than having to . . . stop. . .”
“We can build glass dividers in every room if doing so would make you more comfortable,” he said, pulling himself out of the pool. Through the glass, she could see his blurry shape emerge from the far end.
Her pulse quickened, and she looked away.
“Or we can use conference calls for all our communications.” He rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair and sighed. “Val, this isn’t easy for me either, but I want to respect you and everything you have going on. I could even go away for a while if you want.”
“No,” she shouted. “You can’t leave me.” She had rehearsed these lines many times in her room, yet was not prepared to say them out loud. “I could lose the baby. She’s a DiaZem. Our energies repel each other. I would lose her, or she would kill me.”
August was quiet for a while. “Remember when we first met? I had the door to the office closed for so long. The whole time, I was pacing inside. At first, because I couldn’t make sense of the age regression, but then I began to fight the need to approach you. I hadn’t seen you, but I could feel you.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Valerie leaned her back against the glass and slid to the floor, pulling her knees close to her. She could listen to his voice forever, but remembering the time before was painful.
“Because I need you to know I’m not like him. I’m not going to hurt you. Even if this is all some involuntary instinct, I care about you. I died a little when you walked out of the emergency room. I never want to feel like that again. I will wait here as long as it takes for you to be okay. And maybe, when you’re ready, we can go to dinner. Supervised, if that’s what you want.”
Valerie smiled to herself. She did want that, but she was not sure if she was quite okay enough.
“Are you joining the Council?” she asked him.
“I never intended to.”
She nodded, going down her mental list of questions. “Do you have a family?”
“I do. I have a son, about your age in Chicago. He has the conductor, but lives away from any facility like this one.”
“Are you married?”
“No. I have some questions, too.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want my help here, or do you want to be the sole leader?”
“I have no idea what I am doing. I would appreciate your help.”
“I think I can do that,” he laughed. “Val?”
She loved hearing him say her name. “Yes?”
“Take it one day at a time. Don’t expect to be alright. Healing takes time. I’ll always be here, okay?”
“Okay.” Valerie stood and left the gym. As she passed the door to the pool, she could not help but to get an unimpeded look at him.
He looked back at her, water still dripping down his bare chest and torso. He winked with a smile and dove back into the pool. She blushed and walked away.
Valerie knocked on the door where she had found Caleb earlier. The little boy, with some help, answered the door.
“My mommy,” he squealed.
She swooped him up and spun him around. She glanced around. Caleb’s toys were scattered across the room.
“Are these his? From our house?”
Jack cleared his throat. “We’ve been pretty busy while you were . . . resting.”
“Dad went to your place to pick up some things you might need or want. Whatever was salvageable they packed up and brought here. Your entire house was loaded up and is now sitting in boxes in the next room,” Hyka explained.
Valerie appreciated how forward Hyka was. Even her explanations ran the line of being too much for Valerie to handle, and Hyka only said what was necessary.
As if on cue, Major stepped out of the bathroom drying his hands. “Well, hey there, Electra.”
Valerie smiled and greeted him with a hug.
He kissed her cheek and ruffled Caleb’s hair. “This little man was worth all the trouble.”
“Did you find more people?” Valerie asked.
“We can talk about those things later.” Major skirted the question, but his expression was solemn. “I heard you pulled through and saved the day.”
“Yeah, well, I had a lot of good h
elp. Dr. Warner was the one who told me how to use the copper sculpture to reverse the effects of Lucas’ DiaZem gene. With August and me connected, he told me to focus the facility’s power on the sculpture as a metal conductor to melt the copper around him. It was the heat that destroyed him. He called it the Curie point. At first it wasn’t working, so, I did the one thing I thought would intensify the bond.” Valerie blushed. “Hyka, maybe tomorrow, will you see if Dr. Leonard Warner is available?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Val, we can talk about those things later,” Major said with more emphasis, nodding to Caleb.
“What happened?”
Hyka sighed. “She’s not going to stop until you just tell her.”
“Show her the video then,” Major answered his daughter. “Hopefully Caleb is too young to understand.”
Valerie turned her attention to the television in the common area, unsure of what news the video would provide. She suspected the worst. Dr. Leonard appeared on the monitor after Hyka pushed a few buttons on the remote.
“Mrs. Russell, I want to offer you my sincerest and gravest apologies and condolences. I know the things I have done are far from forgivable. I am afraid, at the moment, I saw no other way but to be agreeable to my former colleague and contribute to his plan. That is until you came along. You have the fight of your mother. Something I could never forget. The same tenacity she had to run away from our program decades ago is what saved her from our experiments in the first place, and how you came to be. She fought against Dr. Jarrett then so that you could defeat him now. Something I was never strong enough to do.
“I am also sorry for replaying your deepest sorrow for the masses. They deserved to know the truth. And you deserved to know the truth about me. It is because of this truth I can no longer continue, knowing the damage I have caused. The damage I once thought necessary. To you and your children, there are no words to express my profound regret. Once you receive this message, I assure you I will no longer be with this world, and I hope that you, and whatever might be waiting for me, will have mercy on my soul.”
Apparent Power: DiaZem Trilogy Book One Page 23
