Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) (27 page)

“I’m not performing procedures on only myself. There are things that are just too invasive for me to be able to do on my own body. I have a handful of patients of my own. People whom our own hospital has cast aside, telling them there is nothing they can do for them. They were given mere months to live and no hope for tomorrow.” He stood up to fetch his messenger bag from his locker and closed the door. The back of George’s head remained facing him, unmoving. “But I’ve been able to treat them,” he began again. “I’ve helped them regain some of their strength and quality of life. A couple of them are no longer confined to their hospital beds. Most have surpassed their original life expectancies. What I am doing here is making a difference.”

“No, what you are doing here is illegal.” George turned around to face him. The pitying look he’d held moments earlier was replaced with disgust. “You’re performing surgical procedures in your home as an employee of Hope Memorial, you’re using hospital equipment and medications, telling these people you can cure them. You’re giving them hope that’s not there. Not only is that wrong from a legal standpoint, it’s also wrong from an ethical standpoint. Not to mention, by telling me what you’re doing, I’m essentially a party now and could lose my license if you’re caught and someone finds out I knew all about it and did nothing.” He paced the floor next to the bench, his mind spinning through the possibilities. “Does Dr. Grant know about this? Is this why you think he’s out to get you as you stated?”

“He caught me putting supplies and boxes of medications into a backpack. All he knows right now is that I’m most likely stealing from the hospital, nothing else.”

“Nothing else? That’s plenty. It’s enough for him to call the authorities, to have your home searched and for them to discover what you’re doing. When that happens, that’s it, you’re done. You’ll never practice in another medical establishment again.” He stopped pacing and braced himself against his locker again. “Look, I think your intentions are admirable, I really do, but the way you’re going about them is nothing short of criminal, and I won’t be a party to it. I have too much at stake.”

“So you’re going to turn on me and abandon me like everyone else in my life? I thought we held the same ideals and a genuine love of all the possibilities found in the practice of medicine.”

“No, you turned on yourself. You aren’t practicing medicine, you’re conducting science experiments that are going to end up seriously injuring, if not killing someone. In this case, you’re your own worst enemy, Victor. No one else. And I have a moral obligation not only to this hospital and those patients, but to myself and my family.” George turned and walked down the row of lockers on his way to the door, pausing before he reached the end of the bench. “I’m sorry, my friend.”

“No, you’re not sorry now. However, if you turn me in and cause me to lose my license and my research, you will be. You and anyone else remotely responsible for my downfall. I promise you.”

Victor sat in his recliner in the living room of his apartment, drink in hand. Memories of the past replayed in his head.
You were sorry, weren’t you, George?
He couldn’t help but think as he leaned back in his chair and smiled. In the end, after he’d successfully hunted them down one by one, they’d all been sorry for what they’d done to him. It may have taken some time, years of tracking them all down after some of them had retired and moved away from the area, but in the end, he was able to look them all in the eyes before they died. All of them except Dr. Phillip Grant, who had died in a car crash. Every one of them but Dr. Grant was able to look him in the eyes when he removed his mask. Every one of them knew that he would have the last laugh. They may have been responsible for the end of his career, but he had been responsible for the end of their lives.

And it wasn’t just them. Over the years, he’d kept track of their families, offering some of them jobs at The Epicenter, which they had readily accepted because their grief wouldn’t allow them to do otherwise. Then there were the others, Ian, Blake, Celaine, Liam, and the others who he’d turned into the very things their relatives had tried to prevent him from creating.

He chuckled softly at the beauty of it all and the devastation yet to come. Soon the final nail in the Stevens’ family coffin would be driven in to seal it forever. Any trace of George Stevens’ existence in the world would be eradicated, making it as though he’d never existed, and in the process, a piece of Phillip Grant would be taken with her in the form of the son of the brother he’d disassociated himself from so many years prior.

Kara sat reading a magazine on the couch in the sitting room. A cushion away from her, Cameron relaxed with his feet propped up on an ottoman, flipping through the television channels.

“Back up,” Drew said as Cameron passed by a channel featuring news coverage of a skirmish in the Capitol.

“Why?” he asked. “It’s just going to be more of the same.”

Drew glanced over at Kara, who met his gaze. “Man, just flip back to the station for a couple of minutes.”

Cameron sighed, complying before Drew had a chance to swipe the remote from his hand. On the screen, a ball of flames appeared to be consuming a building. Below the footage of the building’s fiery demise was a caption informing the audience that Marshall Leitner had been captured three days prior and the rebels had been sent fleeing into the night.

“It’s about time they caught him,” Cameron said, drawing a scowl from Kara, which she kept hidden behind the pages of
Cosmopolitan
. “I wonder whether Celaine and Ian were there.”

Kara and Drew remained silent, their eyes focused on the screen and the ensuing coverage. Tense, Kara discreetly chewed on the nail of her index finger until a message flashed across the screen indicating that there had been no notable fatalities. Relieved, she relaxed, letting out the breath she’d been holding as she returned to her magazine.

“It’s a wonder we haven’t heard any kind of announcement from Brooks about his capture,” Drew said. “I imagine it’s only a matter of time before an execution is scheduled and a spectacle is made. Why do you think we haven’t heard anything, Cameron?”

“How should I know?” Cameron asked. “It’s not like I work for the guy.”

Kara glanced up at Drew, her eyebrow raised as though warning him to stop any further questioning and ruining all the work she’d put into Cameron. On the screen, images of war faded away to reveal statistical graphs depicting attacks made by the rebels since the inception of the rebellion and how many civilian lives had been lost as a result.

“Anything to take the public’s attention off Brooks and thrust blame on another entity,” Drew muttered.

“Are you saying the rebels are the good guys?” Cameron asked, incensed. Before Drew could answer, Cameron’s cell phone rang from inside his pocket. Noticeably shaken, he retrieved it and hurriedly answered the call before it could ring again. “H—h—hi, Victor,” he stammered. “Yeah, I know where it is.” Kara pretended to read as she strained to hear Victor’s voice at the end of the line. “Okay, I’ll make sure it gets done.” Cameron then promptly ended the call and stuck the cell phone back into his pocket. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Kara, patting her arm.

Drew’s eyes widened as he watched Cameron walk out of the room. “Say you didn’t,” he said to Kara in disbelief.

“I didn’t what—oh, good lord! No, Drew, I didn’t sleep with him,” she said, irritated as she stood up from the couch. “You really must think I have no respect for either myself or my integrity.” She walked in the direction Cameron had gone and looked back at him. “Come on,” she said, motioning for him to follow her. “I have a feeling this may be the opportunity we’ve been waiting for.”

Little by little and at all hours of the day, they came. Some arrived in groups of fifteen or more, others arrived in pairs. But regardless of how many came, when, and from where they had come, the important thing was that our numbers were growing, and within three days, we had amassed an additional four hundred rebels in the warehouse. Through Nicholas, we learned that a message had been sent, passed around by several messengers throughout the country from a single encrypted email sent between Marshall and the leader of a unit based near Houston. Word spread like wild fire from there, igniting a fury among our sympathizers and fellow rebels alike. With any luck, we’d double our numbers at the warehouse, giving us over one thousand, plus any others who joined us from around the city at the moment of our attack.

In just days we would all embark together on what would most likely be the fight of our lives.

Our makeshift sleeping quarters became increasingly cramped as the hours passed by, forcing most of the rebels to share their pallets with strangers. Some hung clothing or blankets to divide the small space in half, allowing them some semblance of privacy. Ian and I had selected a pallet higher up on the shelving unit, which we had to climb to reach. We had no blankets or extra clothing outside of what had been in our backpacks, so we improvised. In a nearby alleyway, we found a tattered, but mostly still intact, tarp and hung it around our section of the shelf as far as it would cover. With its grimy blue exterior, faded to patches of white in some areas from sun exposure, it wasn’t pretty, but it provided us with at least the illusion of privacy.

I sat at the edge of our pallet three stories above the floor, my feet dangling over the edge. Below, an arena had been constructed using the overabundance of pallets available around the warehouse. In the middle of the arena stood Nicholas and Tucker, teaching Hand-to-Hand Combat 101 to some of the more eager rebels. Amused, I watched Jill enter the arena with both hands balled up into fists. She circled Nicholas, who shouted instructions at her as she swung and missed him by more than a mile. Unable to pass up the opportunity, Nicholas took advantage of Jill’s miscalculation, grabbed her arm, and twisted it around her back. Jill dropped to her knees in pain and frustration.

“I really hope she packs an extra gun,” I said, “or that either Nicholas or one of us is right behind her to back her up.” My thoughts turned to our planned demonstration, which would inevitably lead to another violent confrontation. We’d be outnumbered. No one doubted that. And our firepower would be far inferior. That wasn’t contested by anyone either. We all knew it likely was a suicide mission that few, if any of us, would get through alive. Jill, though good with a gun, had few other strengths to fall back on and would make an easy target. I shuddered at the thought of her lying in the street in a pool of her own blood as lines of soldiers parted to march around her.

Ian scooted over next to me and rubbed my back. With no blankets, all we had to cushion our bodies against the pallets during the nights had been our clothing. Although it was better than the alternative of sleeping on the concrete floor, my body still didn’t agree with the inadequate accommodations. Every muscle in my back ached, causing periodic spasms to radiate down my spine and my face to contort into a grimace.

“You look like you’ve checked out of here and are halfway across the country right now,” Ian said, resting his hand against my shoulder. “They aren’t
all
that bad. Actually, we may have a chance if we can figure out how to disarm the soldiers and de-zombify them.”

“Even you and your inner eternal optimist can’t truly believe that.”

“It’s a longshot, but it’s better than believing there’s no hope for us at all. Without hope, we have nothing. No reason to fight. No reason to breathe. No reason to love.”

“Watching them fight, I can’t help but think of my dad and the self-defense classes he made me take when I turned thirteen.”

“I would have paid to have seen that,” Ian said, laughing, prompting me to punch him in the arm. “Did they teach you to hit like that in self-defense class?” He playfully rubbed his arm. “Because if so, I would have asked for my money back if I had been your dad.”

“I’ll have you know I was just as horrible as you think I was,” I said, allowing myself to laugh for the first time since we’d been forced to flee the bed and breakfast. “At the time, I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, other than he wanted his teenaged daughter to have some iota of an idea of what to do in the event of an emergency. But in hindsight, I think he knew what was coming, or that something was coming for him, and he wanted to make sure we were protected somehow.”

“You think he knew he was going to die?” Ian asked, perplexed.

“He always seemed on edge. When I was younger, I didn’t notice it as much because I’m sure he did what he could to hide it from us. Through the years, though, certain memories have come back to me, providing me with a certain amount of clarity. The pill bottles I saw by accident in my parents’ medicine cabinet, my father’s demeanor whenever we went out. George always seemed to be in a hurry to get back home no matter where we went. Even when we were home, safe in our living room, he still couldn’t relax. I remember waking up several times in the middle of the night and walking downstairs to get a glass of water. Most of the time, he would still be awake, either pacing around his study or staring out the window as though he expected to see someone. At the time, I just thought his work was keeping him awake, that he was pushing himself too hard, but I know that wasn’t the case.”

“What do you think he knew?”

“I don’t know. Something important, life-changing, perhaps. Something serious enough to keep the man a prisoner in his own home most of the time, yet not powerful enough to make him run away from it. Like maybe he accepted his fate for what it was, but still held on to the hope that he could change it somehow.”

Below us, cheers, coupled with a fair amount of heckles, erupted from the crowd as Drake entered the arena. His scrawny body appeared that much more insignificant next to Nicholas’ hulking form. A true to form David and Goliath.

“Nicholas is going to eat him alive,” Ian said, echoing my thoughts.