Winter's Wrath: Sacrifice (Winter's Saga #3) (5 page)

“I know, I know—go pack,” Theo said to
Margo
as he hurried out of the room stopping to kiss her lips briefly as he passed her.

“Paulie,” Margo sighed deeply.  “This isn’t your fight.  You can take a car and get out of here.  We’ll try our best not to leave too much damage on our way out, but you don’t need to be here for any of what’s about to happen.”

The old scientist raised his white brows and scoffed, “Are you kidding, Margo?  Having you and the kids and Theo with me over these months has been the happiest, most fulfilling time in an otherwise uninvolved life.  This is my fight because you are all like family to me now.  Anyone who wants to hurt you, has to go through me,” he said the last with a slight puffing of his aged chest. 

In that moment, Margo understood this man’s attachment to her family was real.  He never thought of them as a charity case, or friends going through hardships.  Paulie, the doctor who was always too busy with his own research and science to settle down and have a family, had adopted hers as his own.

She walked up to the gentleman, who stood proudly in his floral shorts, black socks and sandals with a striped button-up shirt and wrapped her arms around him.  “Thank you, Paulie.  You are absolutely family to all of us.”

“Oh, geez, lady,” Alik teased as he walked back into the room carrying two giant black bags weighted with firepower.  “Enough of the love fest!”

Paulie coughed emotion out of his throat before shrugging.  “Women!  They’re always needing reassurance during the worse times.”  He winked affectionately at Margo before turning to leave the room, presumably to pack his bag, and maybe even dry the mist
from
his eyes.

As ordered, everyone was back in the living room inside of three minutes.

“Mom, are we really going to shoot to kill?” Meg blurted the question she knew weighed heavily on everyone’s mind. 

After taking the emotional temperature of the room over the last twenty minutes,
it was clear to Meg that
no one was comfortable with killing these mutant metasoldiers.  Personally, Meg was starting to warm to the idea of ridding the world of Williams and his evil. 

Her mother sighed deeply.  “When I was in the military, I was trained to kill.  I was given orders by my superiors, and I trusted those orders to be the lesser of evils.  If I did not accomplish my objective, many more innocent lives would be lost.  When in the heat of an assignment, there is no time for hesitation.  Hesitation gets you or your teammates dead.”

Meg had never heard her mother talk like this before.  This was a completely different side to her; one she obviously put away, to a certain extent, once she became a civilian. 

“I never wanted this for you,”
Margo
continued looking around the room at the metas she raised as her own children.  “I am sorry it has come to kill or be killed.”  Then her eyes flashed red with anger, “You are not expendable,” and then she locked stares with Creed, “none of you is expendable.” 

Creed nodded solemnly, even as thoughts of his brother swam in his emotions.

“It is a moral dilemma, to be sure,” Paulie agreed.  Having served in Vietnam as an army medic, he had his own haunted memories of war.

Though the words were never explicitly said, they all understood.  They would pull the trigger to protect themselves; it was the lesser of two evils.

Changing the subject, Creed spoke as he unpacked his duffle bags and laid the weapons carefully on the wide coffee table.  “Jacobi agreed to fly us back to the states.  He was already at the airport working on paperwork, so he’s readying a plane large enough to hold all of us.  He said he thought he could get his copilot to agree to the last-minute flight, too.”  Creed stopped to look up at the room.  “We lucked out with them.  They’re good guys.”

Meg breathed a sigh of relief that Creed was able to find a plane and pilots to get them out of there.   “That’s excellent news; now how are we going to get to the airport when we have,” Meg stopped and rechecked
,
then swallowed the lump of nerves choking her, “about thirty minutes before the rabid dogs arrive?”

Creed nodded, acknowledging her worry.  “I know you three can fight hand-to-hand since I saw you spar back in
Kansas
, but I really don’t want our fight today to get that close.  I think we should barricade all the windows and doors, leave only enough room to shoot and position ourselves around the house.  Each of us needs to have a pile of ammo at our ready.  The humans—no offense Dr. Andrews and Paulie….”

“No, none taken,” both men stammered knowing full well their skills were not military-based at all.

“They can be our runners in case someone needs backup or ammo.  I say we just tick them off one at a time as they pop their bloody heads out of the bushes.  The faster we do that, the more fear we’ll strike in the group and hopefully we can get them to retreat long enough for us to run.  If they don’t retreat, then I’ll just have to take them all out so there will be no one left to hunt us.” Creed shrugged nonchalantly as if he had just suggested they all go for a stroll on the beach after dinner.   

More wide-eyed staring came from his enrapt audience.

“Oh yeah!  Now,
that’s
what I call a
plan!
” Alik grinned and smacked Creed on the back.

“You mean
we’ll
,” Meg said coolly, eyes never leaving Creed’s chiseled face.

“No, I mean
I’ll
.
” He knew exactly what part of his speech she was stuck on.  He reached out and handed Meg a headset he had pulled
from
one of the bags.  “You wear this and give me any hints you can as to where the rabid dogs are, and I’ll take them out.”

“How do you plan to do that?” Meg asked, already fearing the answer.

“With this,” Creed held up his Dragunov sniper rifle, “I’m going to be up in one of the trees out there, ready to eliminate them one by one.”

“Creed, no!” Meg gasped, sure he was living out the fatal devotion she already sensed in him. 

“This is what I’ve been trained my whole life to do, Meg.  I’m the best.  You don’t need to worry about me.  Besides, I’ll have an extrasensory set of eyes helping me know where my targets are.”  His deep-blue eyes connected with hers and in them, she saw her world.  He offered his disarming crooked grin as he put his own headset on.  “It’ll be okay,” he nodded and sent Meg waves of reassuring emotions down an emotional tie she didn’t even know she had with him.

“Okay, the clock is ticking,” Paulie called from the corner of the room
as he clutched
his hunting rifle.

Over the next thirty minutes the house was tense with work.  The windows and doors were barricaded shut with anything the family could get their hands on.  Even Dr. Paulie’s surf boards didn’t escape use as they were hammered into place across doors.  (All except his favorite one.  No one had the heart to do that to the old guy.)  Furniture was shoved against windows, offering both
protection
from incoming fire and a way to obscure a shooter from inside.  Each meta was assigned a position facing the most likely angle of attack.  Farrow and Cole were moved to a small room in the center of the house that had no windows—assuring them the best protection.  Neither of them had awakened, but there wasn’t time to worry about that now.

With periodic checks, Meg kept tabs on Williams and his soldiers—whom they had all taken to calling his “rabid dogs.” They were already at the airport, landing.  Their ETA was fifteen minutes, as far as she could tell.

Everyone was ready.  Well, as ready as you can be for a squadron of mindless, bloodthirsty mutant metas to come attack you in your home.  Maze was right at Meg’s side as she sat on the floor by her assigned window with a pile of clips within arm’s reach.   Meg absently patted her coyote’s fur and felt the canine’s muscles twitch nervously beneath her hand. 

“It’s gonna be okay, buddy.  We’ve been in scrapes before, haven’t we?  We’ll get through this one, too.”  Maze knew there was more wrong than just the guns draped in everyone’s hands.  He knew Meg was hurting deep inside from her little excursion into Williams’ ninth circle of hell.  He whined at her and blinked his crisp
yellow
eyes slowly.  Meg hugged him.

Creed was positioned toward the top of a koa tree that provided thick foliage, camouflaging him perfectly.  Meg knew exactly where he was, but even she couldn’t see him.  He had taken the sniper rifle and its four magazine cartridges with ten rounds in each with him.  Meg turned on her radio headset and whispered, “Creed?”

“I’m here.” Meg could barely hear him, he spoke so softly.

“I’m going to leave radio communication open from here on out, okay?”

“Copy, that.” He was keeping his words to a minimum
,
as was his training.

Meg hesitated, then added, “Thank you.”

Creed was silent for a moment.  Just when Meg was about to repeat
her
self, thinking he hadn’t heard her, he whispered, “Don’t thank me.”

“We can argue about it later,” Meg let a smile slip into her voice.  “ETA, ten minutes.”

“Direction?” he asked, letting the previous subject drop.

“Stand by,” Meg breathed and focused, and grazed the mind of Williams to get a feel for his location.  “He’s coming from the southwest.”

“Southwest, copy that,” he responded.  Meg heard him breathe slowly through movements as he adjusted his position in the tree based on her new information.

W
ave
s
of love and pride
for her family rippled off Margo as she scanned the room full of her family.
  “We knew this day would come.”
Her voice was steady when she spoke. 
Everyone
turned to face her as the strength in her words commanded respect. 

“It was always just a matter of time.  We tried to live in peace far from Williams and his vile, inhumane ways, but he would not let us be.  He has hunted, tormented and tried to kill us.  He continues his crimes against humanity by using them as expendable test subject.” Margo’s eyes flashed with unrestrained fury remembering the first time she saw her three children at the Institute. 

“You hearing this?” Meg whispered into her headset, wanting Creed to feel a part of her mother’s zeal.

“Every word,” he breathed.

“He will not be dissuaded from his vengeance.  He will not be altered in his sick thinking.  And he will not be ignored any longer.  Our family
and
those we love will have no peace until Williams’ reign of atrocities is ended.  None of us asked for this to be our war, but it’s ours now.  We are united in our goal to rid the world of this cancer.”  Meg felt her mother’s rage vibrate through her and was empowered by the fervor.

“These mutant-
metasoldiers
he’s bringing with him have been created for the sole purpose of our destruction.  We will be
their
destroyers.  We need to send him a clear message today.  He needs to know we will not give in.  We will not back down.  And we
will
finish him.
Everyone stay safe and stay sharp.” 

She bowed her head and started an earnest prayer for the safety of all of them and for the souls of those Williams has tainted, that they may find peace.  She ended her prayer asking for strength and wisdom as they
went
into battle.  As everyone whispered, “Amen,” Meg felt the temperature of the room begin to boil with energy.  Everyone felt it.  They were itching to fulfill their purpose. 

We are the destroyers now,
Meg thought.

The minutes galloped by, and Meg could feel Williams; He was here.

“Meg, can you give us any more information?  Is he driving up?  Have they parked
?  Are there
scouts?  What’s he thinking?” Alik whispered from across the room. 

Admittedly, she was terrified to reach out with her emotions any more deeply than a quick “glance,” so to speak.   She could still taste the metallic venom of his essence in her mouth and was traumatized by those lost minutes when she was buried in his black death, but no one knew how badly Meg was emotionally wounded and thought nothing of asking her to channel Williams for their purposes. 

Meg stopped breathing—feeling terrified and alone.

“Meg
,
I
know it must be scary to you,” Creed whispered right into her ear.  “Just do your best.  You’ve already put us in a better tactical position than we would have been without your gift,” he reassured, risking the long communication
,
somehow sensing how much Meg needed to hear his words. 

“Right, stand by,” Meg said softly enough to be heard in the room and over the headset.  Quietly, Meg thanked Creed for saying the words that gave her courage to close her eyes and try.  Meg locked her feet to the ground and put the hand that wasn’t holding a gun against the cool wall.  Though terrified,
she
reached out and slipped toward her enemy again.