Predominance (23 page)

“Damian!” I shouted back. “Get in the truck! We can still make it out of here!”

“NO!” he roared. “It's their time to run!” His eyes follow the shooter, who was about to rendezvous with five more soldiers coming our way. He turned to the stack of logs next to him; each was about three feet long and a foot in diameter, and weighed at least thirty pounds. He raised his hand before the nearest log and shut his eyes. The log began to vibrate on top of the others; Damian's hand vibrated too. I got up from the ground slowly, watching a disturbing expression distort his face. “Damian?” I called. “What are you doing?”

His answer was to jerk his hand upward, levitating the log before him. As I ran the numbers in my head, I saw his intentions. The log was aimed at the soldiers, who had stopped roughly a hundred feet away. He opened his sulfurous eyes; maintaining his evil smile, he swung his hand forward, mimicking a baseball pitcher's delivery. The log flew in a beeline toward the soldiers at an incredible rate of speed. It reached them in a fraction of a second, impacting one man dead center in the chest. Blood splattered out of his mouth as the strike hurled him back ten feet, into the trunk of a tall fir tree. The other soldiers hurried to check on him, but it was obvious he was dead.

One of the soldiers pressed his earpiece. “Man down!” he shouted.

I heard the voice of Captain Black then: “Weapons free! Fire at will!”

The crackle of gunfire started again, chewing into the front of the cabin. I took cover behind the truck, while Damian cackled behind the wood stack, pleased with the battle he'd started—though in his defense, we hadn't started this war. It was never my intention to engage, but now I was running out of options.

A brief lull allowed me to peek from behind the car door and study the opposition. The squad consisted of ten men, and they were all moving forward carefully. They spread strategically through the woods, but I could still sense their presence, even behind the thickest cover. I could only assume Damian could do the same.

Damian smiled and raised his hand again, taking control of more than one log this time—a half-dozen more. One by one, the logs sped through the air like wooden gigantic bullets, striking the soldiers one at a time. Gunshots, screams, and blood were all I heard and saw for the next sixty seconds—the longest minute of my life. Damian paused for a moment as he took his time pinpointing the last three soldiers standing, among them Denali's murderer. Raising their hands, those three dropped their weapons and bolted for the woods.

But Damian didn't accept their surrender any more than they would have accepted his. With one swing of his hand, he took control of exactly three logs and aimed them at the retreating soldiers. I took advantage of the opportunity, darted from behind the truck, and jumped Damian from behind. The logs crashed to the ground like puppets with cut strings as soon as I restrained his arms. “Enough!” I yelled, holding his hands down.

His face went dead and his sulfurous eyes pierced into mine, bearing nothing but contempt. He then escaped my grip as easily as an adult would break the grip of a child. It was obvious he was somehow manipulating his telekinesis to boost his physical strength. I stood stunned in front of him as he squared off to confront me.

He brought the palm of his hand to the center of my chest and growled, “I told you to stay the hell out of my way!” Next thing I knew, I was flying backward through the air toward the side of the truck. All I remember before I impacted it was feeling the power of a crushing wave exploding between my chest and Damian's hand as he finished his little speech, tossing me away like a piece of crumpled tin foil.

Damian turned back to the fleeing soldiers, but they were no longer in sight. They must have regrouped somewhere in the woods with Captain Black before retreating. I was glad to feel the jolting hum of danger finally subside in my mind. Damian, on the other hand, was miffed at having missed the opportunity to kill again. I slowly got up from the ground, shaking my head at the big dent my back had left in the truck's fender—not because I cared about the vehicle, which was already destroyed, but because I realized Damian could have really have hurt me if he'd wanted to. I was lucky he hadn't.

“Are you done?” I asked sarcastically, rubbing my knuckles against my lower back. He turned to me and gave me that piercing glare again. I ignored his unnaturally yellow eyes and tried to talk some sense into him. “Did you forget the reason we came here?” I demanded, hoping he'd fight the evil trance and beat it back, just as I had.

My words shook him up, making him stand down from his aggressive position. Snapping out of his stupor, he ran inside the cabin. I followed him inside, just to discover the cabin was exactly as I'd sensed it to be—empty. Damian, however, didn't rest until he checked every room and closet in the place. “Sonya! Sonya!” he kept calling, without getting any response. As I walked into the living room, I noticed that there were no signs of a struggle anywhere, yet I couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible had happened in this place besides the massacre I'd just witnessed outside.

I looked around the elegant living room, searching for anything unusual. The only thing that caught my eye was a framed picture on the glass coffee table. I stepped in closer and picked it up. Damian was in the picture, hugging a beautiful woman from behind, his chin over her shoulder. They were both laughing. Obviously this was Sonya, Damian's wife. She was very pretty; short dark hair, hazel eyes, olive skin… In the picture she was wearing the same thick silver wedding band Damian wore on his ring finger. Her look was the one of a woman in love.

“She's not here!” I heard Damian shout frantically. “She's not here, Victor!” He dashed into the living room, his yellow eyes almost sad now.

“Is this her?” I asked, handing him the framed picture. He reached for it and looked at it for the longest moment. I watched as his eyes, now filled with tears, gradually faded from that sinister, ugly yellow to their original dark brown. I realized then that neither of us had yet reached the point of no return—that somehow, there was still hope for us both. Damian staggered, picture in hand, and collapsed miserably on his knees, as if all the evil energy that had driven his will through the battle had been yanked right out of his body.

“Help me,” he said, his voice breaking, as he reached out to me. “Victor, please. Please!”

I couldn't believe that the defenseless man pleading before me was the same unstoppable monster who'd just killed seven people outside. I refused to believe he was. So I grabbed his hand and helped him up. “I promised I would,” I reminded him. “We'll find her.”

A phone rang then, breaking the ominous silence in the room. Damian rushed to an alcove beside the door and pressed the speaker button on the phone there. “Hello?” he answered, his voice hopeful.

“Damian?” a terrified woman's voice asked.

“Sonya?” Damian yelled desperately. “Sonya!”

“Well, hello, Damian,” Dr. Walker's voice said smoothly, stunning us both. “I hear you've been having fun with your new gifts.”

“Where is she?” Damian snarled.

“She's safe,” Walker said calmly. “For now, that is. Keeping her that way is up to you.”

Damian's brows knitted in confusion. “What the hell do you want from me?”

“My most precious asset, of course.”

“All right,” Damian bargained, “I'll turn myself in. Just let my wife go.”

“Aw! Isn't that the romantic gesture?” Walker mocked. “But I'm afraid you're mistaken, Counselor. You see, you were no more than a tiny piece of the puzzle, and I've already taken everything I need from you. One of the subjects you have befriended, however, has something I want; something I never had the chance to… dissect.” His tone took a more serious turn. “Bring me what I want, and I promise to let your wife go free.”

Damian looked at me, probably mirroring my thoughts about who the subject was. “Why should I trust you?” he demanded. “You've already tried to kill me twice.”

“I think you're missing the point, Damian,” Walker said. “You're not in any position to disagree with me, son. But if it makes you feel better, I'll let you in on a little secret: My men did not withdraw. I called them off. After all, I can't risk destroying the most important piece of the puzzle. So you can rest assured, there will be no more shooting. So… do we have a deal?”

Damian met my gaze and waited, as if he knew it was up to me to finish the deal. After all, it was obvious to both of us that the last piece of the puzzle—the one scheduled for vivisection— had always been me. And though I knew what this meant for me, I couldn't let anyone else get hurt on my account. So I did what I thought was the right thing to do. “All right, Dr. Walker, we have a deal,” I spoke up, giving myself away.

“Victor?” he asked with a hint of surprise.

“Yes, Doctor, it's me. I thought you might want to deal with me directly.”

“Oh, yes.” His voice sounded bitter now. “I knew I'd eventually have to deal with you to get what I wanted. The question is, are we going to have a problem?”

“No, Doctor,” I responded. “I promise to turn myself in, without a struggle, as long as Damian's wife is unharmed. After she's released, and with the condition you leave the rest of our group alone.” Damian's face lit up at my words. “Now you tell me, Doctor. Do we have a deal?”

Dr. Walker laughed. “Oh my, you certainly live up to the hype, Mr. Eagle Scout. That's by far the most noble and heroic gesture I've ever heard in my life!” Damian and I exchanged confused looks as Walker cackled over the speakerphone. “There's only one problem,” Walker continued. “Who ever said I wanted you?”

His words felt like a bucket of ice water dashed in my face. Again, Damian lost his cool and began to rant at the speakerphone like a crazy man. “Who, then?!” he demanded. “Who do you want?! Tell me! “

Walker waited a beat before he spoke again, and then he ran me through with an answer that created an immediate conflict between Damian and me—an answer that left me completely at my wit's end. “I want Yvette Montgomery.”

Roger's Foresight

DEAD SILENCE FOLLOWED
Dr. Walker's demand. Damian and I exchanged uneasy looks, our own personal conflicts showing in our faces. Walker, of course, had been suspicious of my relationship with Yvette. Otherwise, why would I risk my life by going back to rescue her? His ploy was simple and easy to read: he knew that Damian would do anything to get his wife back, and my silence had just confirmed my position on protecting Yvette. He was counting on it. Now Damian would have to eliminate any obstacles between Walker's prize and his wife's freedom. Walker was looking to kill not two, but three birds with one stone.

“Oh my!” Walker suddenly exclaimed. “It seems the two of you have a lot to talk about all of a sudden. Only, I wouldn't waste too much time talking if I were you, Damian. Because your wife could end up paying the price for your noncompliance.” His voice hardened. “Midnight. R.C. Labs. Ms. Montgomery for your wife. Or I'll see to it personally that she takes Ms. Montgomery's place on the table. Oh, and before I forget: if you'd be so kind, Victor, please tell that double-crossing bitch Sarah Grey that I haven't forgotten about her. As soon as I'm finished with you gentlemen, I'm going to concentrate all of my efforts on finding her.”

A loud click followed Walker's last word, leaving us with nothing but decisions to make.

“Son of a bitch!” Damian hurled the speakerphone against the living room wall and began to hyperventilate. I knew we couldn't have that. I couldn't afford to lose Damian to another tantrum. In order to make this work to our advantage, I needed to keep him calm—and on our side. I couldn't risk having another confrontation with him. Not after witnessing the unstoppable power of the dark energy he already had inside him. But on the other hand, there was no way in hell I was going to let him take Yvette. I needed to think of something, and fast. So I ran my numbers again.

“Damian,” I said quietly, “please calm down. Remember the change. We can't afford to fall apart now. That's exactly what Walker wants: for us to lose our cool and turn on each other. You understand?”

He stopped and leaned against the couch, his eyes clenched shut as if in pain. “I can't lose my wife, Victor.”

“You won't. But you have to stay focused, all right? If we work together, maybe we can turn Walker's expectations to our advantage.” I paused. “No one else needs to get hurt, Damian.”

Damian's eyes flew open, his look quizzical, as if trying to decide whether or not to trust me. “All right,” he said finally. “What's your plan?” 

“We need to go back to Denali's cabin and regroup. Sarah knows the ins and outs of that building like the back of her hand. She might be able to figure a way to outsmart Walker before he realizes what hit him. We did it once. We can do it again.”

“All right,” Damian agreed wearily. “Let's do it.”

***

As we laid Denali's body in the truck bed, I couldn't help thinking about the conversation we'd had when he first picked me up from the airport. All of his dreams of getting married and starting a family were gone now. His unconditional goodness, his integrity, his decency… lost forever. And although part of me blamed Damian, I couldn't help thinking that it was me who had brought them together. It was me who came knocking on his door asking for help.

“I'm sorry,” I said, looking at his ruined body. “I never meant for any of this to happen.” My voice almost breaking. “But I promise you, I'll find a way to make them pay. I’ll seek justice for you, my friend. I promise.”

Damian just watched and listened, saying nothing. I sighed and pulled the plastic cover over Denali's body.

How much more blood will have to be shed? I wondered despairingly. How many more lives will have to be sacrificed before I see the end of this nightmare? I didn't know what to think, feel, or do. My head was nothing but a tangle of conflicting thoughts, and keeping myself from feeling anger at this point was no longer a choice, but a challenge. Soon these conflicting thoughts became a vicious circle, a merry-go-round that wouldn't stop spinning inside my head. At one point, I even thought that bringing Damian back to Denali's cabin would be a mistake.

The truth was that I didn't know how much I could trust him. After all, he was a practical man. He negotiated with other people's lives for a living...and unfortunately, in this case Yvette was his bargaining chip. But I was running out of options. I needed to go back. I needed to know how Yvette was, and whether she had awakened from her sudden collapse. Besides, trying to keep Damian away would only have proven my distrust, and that could've caused Damian to react in an unfavorable manner.

Sarah was sitting on the porch in an old rocker when I parked the bullet-holed truck in front of the cabin. She run to the truck and opened the door for me. “What happened?” she asked breathlessly. “Where's Denali?”

“It was an ambush. Denali was shot.” Sarah's hand flew to her mouth. “He's dead, Sarah.”

“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed in a whisper. But then her eyes flew to my head, where my new shock of hair hung over my brow. “Are you all right?” she asked, running her fingers through the silvery patch. “What happened to you?”

“I'm fine,” I said, reaching for her hand. “Don't worry about it.” Once again, why try to explain something I couldn't explain myself? “How's Yvette?” I asked, walking hastily towards the cabin. Damian followed close behind.

“She's still out, but I think I've figured out what's happening to her and Roger. My mentor once told me that the reason patients couldn't survive the procedure was because dormant, immature cells were being awakened inside mature brains. In some patients, these cells, once awakened, aren't able to catch up with the current maturity state of their brains. My theory is that the immature cells awakened in Yvette and Roger found a way to accelerate their maturity process: by wrapping themselves into a mental cocoon, forcing the brain into a hibernation state.”

“So, what happens when this mental cocoon opens?” I asked, intrigued.

Sarah sighed. “I don't know.”

“Wait a second,” Damian burst out. “How come we didn't go through any of this?”

“Well,” Sarah began, “Like I said, it's obvious their procedure was different than yours. Walker was probably trying to target a new set of inactive neurons. After the first incidents with patients who developed telekinesis, Walker began to avoid targeting the same set of neurons in every patient. Why he targeted the same ones in the two of you is beyond me. He knew the consequences, and the side effects the two of you would suffer.”

“All right,” Damian began. “So how long will it take for her to wake up?”

Sarah frowned, confused by Damian's sudden interest on Yvette's condition. “I don't know,” she said slowly. “Hours. Days, maybe. It's uncertain at this point.”

“Can she be moved?” he asked keenly.

Sarah scowled at him, confused.

“Hey!” I snapped at him. “I know what you're getting at, but no one is moving her anywhere, is that clear?”

Damian scowled at me, his arms crossed.

“All right, what the hell is going on?” Sarah demanded.

It took me a few minutes to bring Sarah up to speed with our new situation. It was only noon, which meant we still had twelve hours to figure out what to do. So I decided to give Denali at least the honor of a burial—nothing remotely close to what he deserved, of course, but a burial nonetheless. Sarah and Damian helped me move the body to the back yard and dig the pit where we finally rested his body. In his shirt pocket, next to his heart, I slid a picture of his fiancée that I'd found in his wallet—as well as a note explaining the circumstances of his death and the people responsible for it. I'd promised to seek justice for him, but at that moment, I wasn't sure if I was going to live past midnight.

As Sarah stuck a crude wooden cross at the head of Denali's grave, I asked her if she had any idea what Walker could possibly want with Yvette. But she seemed as lost on that point as I was. She did ponder the question for a long moment, and then lifted her head as if with a theory. But something drew her eyes in surprise and made her gasp, “Oh, my God! …Look!”

I turned to follow her stare and saw Yvette walking towards the pond. The hem of her dress fluttered in the wind; her glossy black hair flowed in the same direction. I dropped the shovel I held and ran to her, calling her name. She failed to respond, so I walked around and faced her. Her sapphire eyes were wide open, staring blankly at the forest. “Yvette!” I said again, gently nudging her shoulders.

“Victor?” She blinked.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I… think so,” she hesitated, as if waking up from a dream. “Where'd she go?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Denali's grandmother,” she said, looking around the pond. “She looked sad.”

“There's no one else here, Yvee. Maybe you were dreaming. Sleepwalking.”

She shook her head, confused.

I stroked her hair and smiled. “It's all right. Let's go back to the cabin.”

“Wait!” she said, realizing my clothes were recently bloodstained; and she gasped when she saw the new silvery patch in my hair. “What happened? Did you end up going with Damian?”

“Yeah,” I said regretfully. “But I'm back, as I promised… And I'm fine. Don't you worry about me,” I said, gliding my knuckles gently down her cheek. “I'm just so glad you're awake. Don't you ever scare me like that again, all right?”

“You scared me too,” she said, choking back a sob, her fingers grabbing my new silver hair, pulling my head towards hers.

“I know,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

We kissed then, hungrily, as if we'd thought we were never going to kiss again. My senses went haywire at the touch of her lips, overwhelmed by all the love I felt for this amazing angel, hoping she could feel the same. Getting lost in this mixture of love, passion, and extrasensory perception, I experienced the most extraordinary ecstasy a human being can achieve. Eyes closed, I wondered if we'd made the stones levitate again. If they did, they probably dropped at the same time Sarah's desperate call startled us both. “Victor!”

Roger had awakened too, and his behavior had frightened everyone in the cabin. He was screaming incoherently, like someone on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His anxiety only worsened the moment he saw me. He showed an irrational fear towards me, as if my presence alone was enough to hurt him. I couldn't understand what was happening to him... yet something beyond my enhanced senses warned me his fear was based on something he had seen during his “mental cocooning.” I realized it was imperative for me to understand what had incited this fear.

So despite Roger's trepidation, I asked everyone to step outside so I could have a minute alone with him. I grabbed a folding chair from the kitchen, opened it, and sat right in front of him. He hugged a blanket that rested on his lap and stared at me with frightened eyes. I leaned forward, my elbows resting on my legs. I interlocked my fingers and forced a quick smile, hoping Roger would calm down. But my close proximity only made him cringe.

“You want to tell me what's going on?” I asked genially. But his only answer was the piercing silence of a pair of penetrating black eyes. “Listen,” I continued, my voice careful. “I know that what you're going through is enough to make you very angry. Believe me, we're all in the same boat here. But maybe that's a good thing, because it also means that we're not alone. We can help each other, Roger.”

I waited again for a reaction, but nothing; so I continued to probe. “Look, whatever's bothering you, it obviously has something to do with me. So why don't you just tell me what it is? Maybe I can find a way to make it right.” His silence continued. “Roger, I can't help you if you don't talk to me.”

He still refused to answer.

Discouraged, I hung my head and sighed. “What have I done for you to fear me like this?”

“It's not what you've done,” he finally muttered. “It's what you'll do.” His words made me pop my head back up. “What you'll become.”

“What do you mean, what I'll become?” I asked, flustered.

He leaned forward on the edge of the sofa and whispered, “I've seen it… In my head. You change, Victor. And you do terrible things.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, frightened.

“Behind my eyes, there are days beyond tomorrow,” he said mystically. “Memories of what will be. Things that I'll never live to see.”

His words were a cold draft that pierced right through my bones. “You're telling me that you can see the future now?”

A rueful smile pulled up the corners of his lips slightly. “What we call the future is no more than a destination based on our choices, Victor. And normally, there are as many futures as the numbers you keep running in your head. But in your case, there's only one, no matter what choice you make.”

“And what destination is that?” I asked.

“The path to evil.”

“No,” I said firmly. “I won't let that happened. I won't let this dark force turn me into something I'm not. And if your clairvoyance can't see the power of my convictions, then I'd have to say that your visions are nothing but a delirium from your comatose state.”

I sprang aggressively from my chair and turn around, distraught and confused by Roger's alleged foresight. Through the window I saw Damian, Sarah, Laura, and Yvette standing next to the bullet-riddled truck, talking. My eyes selfishly focused on my angel alone, as I thought of all the promises I might not be able to fulfill—with her and for her—should this dreadful prophecy come true. Then I realized my biggest fear wasn't turning into a monster, but having this monster hurt the angel that had brought me back to life—the angel that I had loved my entire life.