Child of Recklessness (Trials of Strength Book 2) (28 page)

God help them.

I
counted up from one as flashes of guns and the cries of dying men
filled the night. When I reached ten, I barrelled out from the side
of the bin and charged for the entrance. I picked my way through
the mounds of dead men, and jumped through the jagged frame of the
revolving doors. Blood stained the white floor, and I was glad to
see that the receptionist wasn’t at her post, or one of the dead
bodies.

I caught
sight of Jessica. She had discarded her black bag in favour of two
small knife-like blades. She was like the angel of death, graceful,
lightning-quick and the soldiers didn’t know what had hit them
until blood stained their hands. I tore my gaze away from my
assassin friend and locked it on the elevator. I rounded the
reception desk, and sprinted for the doors. Two soldiers appeared
in my way and I pulled the tranq from its holster and took aim. I
pulled the trigger, and the gun clicked as it jammed.

Shit!

I tossed
the useless weapon and picked up speed. The first man raised his
gun but luckily I had already closed the distance between us, and
moved to his blind side. He tried to adjust his aim, but I
backhanded his face with my fist, and brought my knee up between
his legs. He went down.

‘
Sorry,’ I grimaced.

A gun
clicked by my head, but if the owner thought I’d freeze and
surrender he’d have a surprise on his hands. I spun and knocked the
gun from him before my palm connected with his nose. He staggered
back, instinct forcing his hands to his teary eyes as I chased
after him. I raced round him, grabbed his arm and pulled as I
reached his back. I kept my grip as he spun and smacked head first
into a wall.

I was
about to turn and head for the elevator again when someone
barrelled into my side and we sprawled to the floor. Whoever it was
landed on top, and as we wrestled, his fist came for my head. I
shifted in time and his knuckles burst as they hit the ground
beneath us. I freed my hand and jabbed at his throat. His breath
caught and his eyes widened, but before I could buck him off, a
sharp blade erupted from his mouth and he slid to the
floor.

Over me
stood Jessica, a wide smile plastered to her lips along with blood
and pieces of flesh.

‘
I don’t believe it’s nap time yet tough guy,’ she laughed and
pulled me to my feet.

I looked
around the room and realised wide-eyed and gaped-mouth that Jessica
had taken care of nearly twenty men in around ten minutes. Her
chest rose and fell heavily, but the glimmer in her eyes didn’t
appear to be fading. She turned her head and looked outside. There
must have been men in reserve, waiting in the unlikely event their
brothers failed because a small army of men had gathered in front
of the building. Jessica growled gleefully and turned.

‘
I’ll see you when the sirens are here,’ she said and sprinted
off.

I
clambered to my feet and raced to the elevator. As the doors closed
and the melancholy music started, the screams of guns and men
filled my ears.

Jessica,
our friendly neighbourhood angel of death, was hungry.

The Confrontation

The
elevator pinged, and the doors slid open.

The long
corridor that never seemed to end crawled out in front of me. There
were no guards lying in wait, but I wasn’t surprised. My sister was
strong like I had been, she probably wasn’t too worried. I put one
foot in front of the other. Questions brewed like a storm in my
mind, a plethora of words I wanted answers to. That, and I had to
stall for as long as possible, being in my current state of
powerlessness.

I’ll see you when the sirens are here.

Jessica’s voice flitted through my head, and for the first
time, I worried for her. I knew I shouldn’t be. Jessica was far
more capable than most people. Death was her affinity. But she had
become a valued member of our team, of our family. I couldn’t help
but smile. You weren’t really one of us unless you had tried to
kill us anyway.

Before I
knew it, I was turning. I entered the large, horseshoe-shaped room.
There wasn’t much that was different. Everything sat, as much as I
could remember, more or less where it had been before. The only
glaring difference was the bloodstain glimmering on the floor, my
bloodstain. Hazel stood not far from the chair she had been
comatose in, near the window, where her eyes looked directly down
towards the street. You could just hear the gunshots and cries of
men.

I was
sure she sensed my presence, but her green eyes didn’t
move.

‘
I couldn’t believe when I saw you on the surveillance video,’
Hazel said, a smile playing on her lips. ‘It’s remarkable, the
extent of our abilities. You should be dead.

‘
I buried you myself.’

‘
I was dead,’ I growled, letting the anger of her murder fill
my entire being.

She
chuckled. I sighed and shook my head. For all we’d done to save
her, all we’d sacrificed thinking that she was a victim, none of us
had entertained the idea of her being in on it, much less a willing
participant.

‘
Where’s Dad?’ I asked as we lapsed into silence.

‘
You mean Richard?’ she answered. ‘He’s a little indisposed of
right now.’

‘
You “indisposed” your leader?’ I hit back.

Hazel
looked up; her eyes glinted with the lights above. I already had my
suspicions that Richard Bishop had played up his leadership role,
but my sister didn’t know that.

‘
Leader?’ she scoffed. ‘Don’t make me laugh. Instrumental I
admit. The father of whatever’s made us the way we are, but leader?
No, no.’

‘
And yet,’ I said, holding her gaze, ‘he isn’t
here.’

My
sister stepped away from the window and folded her arms. She
stalked slowly, predatorily, back down the four steps and into the
pit in the floor.

‘
Richard betrayed everything we’ve been working for,’ Hazel
replied, ‘giving you that disk, helping you out. He had to be put
out to pasture.’

‘
Who is this we?’ I pushed, but she didn’t take the
bait.

Hazel
unfolded her arms and waved a finger at me.

‘
So why did he lie about being the leader?’ I pushed,
stalling.

‘
Who knows what goes on in Richard Bishop’s head,’ Hazel spat.
‘No doubt he kept everyone in a lie so he could stay one step
ahead.’

‘
Alright then,’ I sighed, ‘how about we tackle the elephant in
the room, why did you kill me?’

‘
All part of the plan. We’re onto phase two dear brother,’
Hazel smirked. ‘I’m here, and you’re no longer needed.’

My
nerves spiked.

‘
Why?’ I whispered.

‘
Come on?’ she laughed. ‘You really think in the grand scheme
of things you’re important? You’re one part of a massive plan, and
here I thought you might have been clued in.’

I
watched as she wandered over to a table. On it were long pieces of
metal, blades. She raised her hand and followed the length of
them.

‘
Greystone may have been Richard’s big experiment, with me at
the side, a small event,’ Hazel said. ‘But once he returned from
Greystone, he had no clue. No clue what my purpose was; he thought
I was on his side. But I was brought up in the complete opposite of
circumstances you were, but put through the same experimental
tests. You see it’s all about data and research, even at this
point, until the drug can be perfected.

‘
My trials were a follow up to yours, a similar plan, only
reversed. More data to collect, more research. Instead of the
serene upbringing you received mines was much harsher. I was never
lied to, I knew my mission. And then I was thrown into the
warehouse.’

‘
I get my life,’ I spat. ‘Being brought up complacent and then
pushed into becoming tougher, and while I adapted, the change the
drug brought did to. But yours, why start you off bad, then give
you even more of it?’

‘
Huh,’ Hazel chuckled. ‘I would have thought you’d have figured
that out. I thought you would have realised Anthony Gordon’s
role.’

I
blinked. Hazel’s expression darkened, her eyelids hung low and she
looked as if a sea of exhaustion had taken over.

‘
The boy was my nice element,’ she whispered. ‘I was to protect
him, care for him.

‘
I’m sorry he’s dead. But it was all part of our
plan.’

So the
experiment didn’t work for her. Part of me wondered if it was the
sequence of events, or what my mind in the form of my mother had
said: That my ‘inherent’ want to help and save was instrumental for
me to adapt; that good and bad feelings played a part in our
change. It didn’t matter anyway because Hazel and her group had
found a way around it.

‘
By now you’ve read Richard’s notes,’ Hazel continued as if
reading my mind, ‘where he theorises you had something others
didn’t during your change?’

I
nodded.

‘
The drug, its effects, the human species,’ Hazel mused. ‘So
many levels of research we hadn’t even thought of. By now you
understand what the experiment was trying to accomplish, to balance
you between two states, complacent and tough. Do you know
why?’

‘
No,’ I answered. ‘Richard was a little vague on some
things.’

‘
Yes,’ Hazel chuckled, ‘he does become less articulate when he
speaks of his baby. The drug is designed to make us the best we can
be. But, in retrospect, we also have to be the best we can be when
the changes occur. That’s exactly what you had over everyone dear
brother. It’s not just a matter of finding the balance between
strong and weak, courage and recklessness.

‘
It’s about finding a balance between good and bad as well.
Your goal in Greystone was pure and selfless, and was tempered with
the evil you would have to commit to accomplish it: Killing people.
In my case the good I was doing was in essence not for good, but
for bad. At least we know that now. We never dreamed of it being so
complicated, of the states of being we’d have to traverse: The
physical, emotional and mental balance we’d have to strike
inside.’

‘
Because strength doesn’t always equate to being strong, and a
weakness isn’t always detrimental,’ I whispered, following her
thoughts as if they were an epiphany, but in reality it was just
more impossibilities built onto what Richard had explained in
Greystone.

Balance
in all things.

To be
the best you could possibly be.

My
mother had said much the same thing. It crossed my mind the sheer
luck that was my adapting of the drug. But it wasn’t too
farfetched. At the time of my change I had straddled two very
different mind-sets: Strong and weak, good and bad.

‘
This plan of yours,’ I countered, ‘there is no way in hell you
can predict that much with certainty.’

‘
Of course not,’ she snapped. ‘The both of us underwent trials.
The both of us were part of Project
Hercules
. Whether I’d have succeeded,
or you, there were always contingencies, even when the government
abandoned ship. But this was never about them. They may have backed
us, and sanctioned us, but we used them as much as they used
us.’

Hazel
stopped her fascination with the blades and began to move. She
circled, and against my jangled nerves, I did the same.

‘
And your endgame?’ I asked. ‘What happens next?’

A smile
broke apart her lips.

‘
You die,’ she replied, ‘and Alex comes to us.’

‘
Never going to happen,’ I whispered.

‘
You didn’t think we were keeping Anna and Chris alive for
nothing did you?’ Hazel laughed.

I shook
my head.

‘
What happened to you, Hazel?’ I gasped. ‘You’re my sister, my
family.’

‘
What happened?’ she spat. ‘What happened was you got the sweet
life while I got the beatings! The torture! All for this! And then,
you go and accomplish the very thing I was supposed to! What I’d
been brought up to do!’

I
couldn’t help the empathy I felt for her. I could only imagine what
hell she had went through that constituted an opposite life from
mine. How strongly everything had been drummed and beaten into her.
Brainwashed was too simple a word for it. If the situation had been
reversed, would I be like her?

‘
Then what happens?’ I said as we returned to our original
positions and stopped. ‘What happens when they’re done with
you?’

That
stumped her. For a second Hazel only stared at me, her mouth opened
and closed, and her eyes narrowed. For someone in the know, she
hadn’t looked that closely, and I’d pulled her up short.

‘
You think they’re just going to let you live?’ I pushed at her
silence.

‘
I’m more important than you are,’ Hazel whispered, her hands
balled into fists. ‘I’ve been training for this all my life. They
care about me far more than you.’

‘
And you really believe that?’ I said. ‘These people don’t
sound like they give a shit. They want to kidnap a baby for Christ
sake.’