Winter's Wrath: Sacrifice (Winter's Saga #3) (2 page)

“What’s in the basement?”

“Mr. Young, I’ve already explained to you the secrecy of my assignment,” Esther’s little brow furrowed above her sincere green eyes.

“Right, of course
,
” Gavil quickly amended.  He had an irrational fear of this gentle little doll jumping from her chair and bolting from the room.  If she did, there’s no way he’d be able to catch her in his current condition.  If she left, he may never see her again. 

Gavil’s brain searched desperately for topics, trying to think of something she would be willing to talk about. 
“Your assignment is lucky to have you.”

“Why would you say that?”

Gavil shrugged, searching for where he was going with this.  It’s not like he had much experience talking with females.  His only interaction with them consisted of giving and receiving orders—all business.  He couldn’t remember ever just sitting and talking to a female for no reason.  But, he wanted to talk with Esther.  He wanted to say something smart and funny so he could see her smile.  He had this crazy need to hear her laugh; he was sure it would sound angelic.

Esther watched the soldier unabashedly.  She could stare at his pale blue eyes for hours, counting the tiny freckles marked in a beautiful pattern around the outer rim.  He wasn’t the biggest metahuman male she’d ever seen, but there was something about him that made her heart beat faster.  He was intense, so serious and vigilant in his contemplation of the world around him.  She recognized him to be a hunter by nature, a predator and though she had no experience with males outside of her military life here at the Facility, she knew he was an alpha personality. 

She was drawn to him. 

With her message delivered, she should be returning to June’s room, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave Gavil.  Not just yet.  He seemed like a caged jaguar.  He was obviously accustomed to being virile, dangerous and feared.  To see him vulnerable and weak was heartbreaking to Esther. 

Gavil held perfectly still completely aware the girl was studying him, forming an opinion about him.  He watched her, watching him.

“May I come back to visit?” Esther heard herself ask, amazed at how composed her voice sounded, though her heart was racing.

Gavil wanted to leap out of his bed and tackle her to the ground, desperate to taste those pink lips.  Instead, he slowly nodded.  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Esther’s wide smile turned her green eyes into sparkling slits.  “Tonight—it may be late.  I’ll have to sneak away when I can.  Is that okay?”

“I’ll be here.” He offered a smile of his own; oblivious to the pain the movement caused his battered face. 

Esther reached out instinctively to touch Gavil’s hand.  Static shock zapped them both with a crackling
pop
causing the two metahumans to flinch.  Their nervous laughter echoed off the mint green walls of the recovery room.

Location
: 
The Big
Island

Present Day

Chapter 1  What Have You Done?

Everyone stared in shock.

Cole was face down on the non-slip floor of Paulie’s lab.  His cotton T-shirt clung to his body, wet with sweat.  The bandages still wrapped around his biceps from
the
bullet wound were soaked with fresh, bright blood.  In his left hand he clutched an empty syringe
.  The vial of Infinite serum was nearby, still spinning from having been
inadvertently kicked when the rush of people clamored into the room.  Farrow’s limp body still hung in Alik’s arms.

No one moved.

Theo dropped to his knees beside his son.

Then, everyone spoke at once.

“Oh, dear God!”

“Cole! Cole!  Wake up!”

“How much did he take?”

“Is he still breathing?”

“Son!”

“Cole, come on!  Open your eyes!”

Alik turned his focus back to the girl in his arms and hurried her to a waiting gurney.  He gently laid her down and yanked the drop-sides up to prevent her from rolling off the bed before returning to Cole.

“Why did he do this?” Margo groaned as Evan lifted Cole’s spent body off the floor and carried him carefully to the only other gurney in the lab.  

“Mom, I’ll get to work on Farrow.  You and Theo stay with Cole,” Evan said pragmatically
,
even as he hurried to the sink to scrub in.  Over his shoulder he added, “Alik, I’m going to need Paulie and Creed.”

Alik was already running back through the lab doors to get the others. “I’m on it
!
”

“Evan,” Margo looked up from the bottle now held in her hand, “what effects will the .5ml have on him?”

Evan shook his head and scrubbed under his nails even harder.  “I don’t know,
M
om.  He’s sixteen.  I’ve only studied the effects of the serum given to those dosed very young.  We’re going to have to run some tests on his blood, but now that he’s been exposed, I really think it’s going to be a wait and see.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” Margo reached to the drawer containing the blood drawing equipment.  Theo sat holding his son’s hand, eyes reddened, head hanging in anguish.

Evan slipped gloves over his sterilized hands and hurried to Farrow.  By the time Paulie stood beside him, scrubbed in and ready for surgery, Evan had already started an I.V.   Margo only left Cole’s side long enough to help Evan by discretely removing the female metasoldier’s clothing and draped her with a surgical cloth before returning to Theo and Cole. 

“Someone want to tell me what’s going on?” Paulie mumbled to Evan as he began helping to cleanup Farrow’s gunshot wound.

Evan glanced at Cole’s feverish-looking face just a few yards away and whispered, “Looks like Cole injected himself with the meta serum I made, and he doesn’t seem to be reacting too well from it.”

Paulie glanced over to the boy who had become like family to him since they first arrived from
Kansas
all those months ago, and sadly shook his head.  “‘
Envy and wrath shorten the life
,’”
he quoted quietly and resumed his efforts to clean Farrow’s abdomen.

Creed was on hand to donate blood, and though he did so without question, he wondered if these people knew what they were getting into trying to save Dr. Williams’ personal assistant.  Once the transfusion was complete, and Farrow seemed to be resting comfortably, everyone focused their attentions on Cole.

“What are his stats, mom?” Evan asked as Paulie prepared the blood sample on a slide for the microscope.

“His pulse-ox is now one-hundred percent.  It was ninety-two before we started oxygen therapy twenty-two minutes ago,” Margo said, reading the chart in her hands.  “His temperature is still hovering around 101, blood pressure is normal, he’s taken half a bag of I.V. fluids, and he’s still unresponsive.” 

“Do you think it’s safe
to give him
a
cetaminophen
to try to get the fever down
?”
Theo asked the room in a small voice.

“Honestly Dr. Andrews, I worry about introducing any chemical to his system.  He already had some residual pain killers from his wound and then the serum,” Evan stood shaking his head slowly.  “I think we try cool cloths and keep vigil.”

“I have to agree with Evan,” Paulie added.  “We don’t know what’s happening inside his body right now.  The fever may be important to the process of his human body changing to meta.”

“What does his blood look like, Paulie?” Margo asked nodding to the microscope, primed and ready for viewing.

“Let’s take a look.” The doctor, who specialized in biochemistry, swiveled his stool back to the scope, peered into the eyepieces and adjusted the focus.  The room was quiet waiting for him to speak.  “Well, at first glance, I see a slight increase of white bloods cells.  I’ll have to do some calculations to be sure.”  His face stayed planted, looking into the eyepieces as he spoke.

“
Meta
blood has an
increase of plasma and white blood cells
.  That’s normal for us,” Evan mused.  “But an increase in white blood cells in humans means infection.”  He glanced at the sullen profile of Cole’s father.  “We’ll have to take samples periodically and compare them.”

The room was quiet for a moment, except for the beeping sounds from Cole and Farrow’s heart monitors.  Everyone was worrying about what would happen next.

Chapter 2 
Rabid Dogs

Gasp

Meg woke from a dreamless sleep with a scream still echoing off the walls of her room.

Her hands clutched her chest as though trying to calm a racing heart.  Maze sat up, too.  He was alert and growling; ready for a fight with whatever it was that scared her.  Meg reached out to touch his thick, silver fur, more to soothe herself than him.  The door to her room burst open and a hulking figure of a man stood silhouetted against the hallway light.

“
Meg!
  Are you okay?”  Creed’s voice growled protectively.  He reached out and flipped
on
the light switch.

Me
g held her arm up to shield her eyes
from the sudden brightness
.  She
blink
ed rapidly,
trying to adjust.  Maze whined and snuck closer beside her.

“I feel...I know Cole’s hurt.  He was so angry—so jealous.  He wanted the pain to go away.  And Williams—Oh, God, Creed.  Williams is on his way right now!   He’s—he’s,” Meg stammered trying to find the right words to express what she sensed was happening, “Williams has lost all humanity.  He’s amassed a group of metas, and he’s coming for us!”  Meg started to hyperventilate even as she jumped out of bed, bolting toward the door. 

Creed reached out and caught her by the hand, pulled her close to him and said, “Meg, whoa… breathe.  You have to calm down, or you’re going to pass out.”  He was rubbing his large, warm hands up and down her arms coaxing her body back from the brink of a panic attack.  He kept his voice soothing, low and melodic, “It’s going to be okay.  Everything’s going to be okay.  We’ll figure this out together.  There you go.  Breathe, slow deep breaths for me.”

Her first instinct was to punch the crap out of him for stopping her from running down the hall, but the more he stroked her skin, the more Meg realized how out of control she was and needed him to help so she could think straight.

So she breathed.

Meg’s heart slowed to a fast beat, and her mind cleared.

He must have seen the effect he had because his own intensity eased up and he rewarded her with a crooked smile. 

“Better?” he asked.

“Better,” Meg said.

His blue eyes flashed with emotions Meg couldn’t help but read.  Meg blushed and glanced down at his strong hands still holding her shoulders before looking back into his eyes.  He stood eight inches taller with thick, wide shoulders angled down to narrow hips.  The heat radiating off his powerfully built body made the girl shiver for reasons having nothing to do with feeling chilled. 

“Okay,” he said
,
reluctantly letting his hands fall to his sides as though completely unsure what to do with them now.

“Come with me?” Meg asked him.

“Yes, of course,” he said, somewhat flushed.

They hurried down the hall toward the laboratory at the back of Paulie’s home.  Meg had a message to deliver.

***

“How much time do we have, Meg?” Evan asked.  The two had hurried into a quiet laboratory moments before.  After explaining to the family the empath readings that woke her so violently, they were all trying to figure what to do.

She held still for a moment, allowing her energy to seek out the hatred emanating from Dr. Williams even as he flew thousands of feet above the
Pacific Ocean
.  Creed’s hand brush
ed
hers gently
,
offering support. 

“He’s feeling so much pain and anger.  He feels like he’s finally going to get vengeance for—Did you know he had a daughter?  June.  Her name was June, and he blames us for her death.”  She opened her eyes and looked directly at her mother.  “He’s close,
M
om.  He’s flying a private jet full of metasoldiers and they’re only an hour and a half away from landing here on the
Big
Island
.”

Everyone in the room tensed, eyes darting around. 

Alik, ever the battle strategist, spoke first.  “We need to contact him.  Get him to meet us somewhere away from the house.  I don’t want him anywhere near our injured.”  He nodded to Cole and Farrow who both still lay unconscious.

“I hate to be the cynic here, but are we assuming Farrow is going to wake up and suddenly decide to fight
against
Williams?”  Creed asked the room.  “I mean, I know her better than anyone here, and I cannot vouch for her at all.”  Creed looked directly into Margo’s eyes when he spoke this time and saw her slightly raised brow as a response.  “—but then, you had no reason to trust me, and you did anyway.”  Creed shrugged apologetically.