Designed with a Destiny (7 page)

“If we make it off this island alive—I
promise to help you find your family members. I really don’t know
where they are. My father had them moved from the bunkers without
my knowledge.”

“What bunkers?” I ask, knowing the answer as
soon as the question leaves my mouth. “They were being held near me
weren’t they?” I moan, thinking about how easily I might have found
them. He doesn’t respond but even in the darkness, I detect a look
of regret in his eyes.

“I was going to arrange for you to see your
brother. Things just happened so fast after my father discovered
the video feed of you at the bunker,” he says quietly.

“Chord?” I manage to say, swallowing the
lump in my throat. “Tell me…Is he…is he doing okay?” Just speaking
the name of my twin brother carries a flood of emotion that leaves
me trembling on the verge of a hysterical melt down.

“He’s strong-willed, just like you,” Zane
says quietly, and I can’t tell by his expression if that’s a good
thing or not. I am desperate to hear more details about him but to
my dismay, the faint sound of voices in the distance, for now,
keeps me from prying any further.

“Someone’s in the tunnel,” I say, straining
to hear the voices again. Zane cocks his head to one side,
listening intently, and then looks at me questioningly.

“I’m sure—let’s go.” I reply, grabbing his
hand.

“Following you,” he says, allowing me to
lead the way, as we take off running hand in hand, through what for
him would be a pitch black abyss.

***

Zane cracks the hinged door just enough to
listen for anyone lurking around, and looks to me for my
increasingly sensitive auditory abilities to detect them. After I
give him the okay, he hoists his body through the underground
opening then turns to give me a hand, lifting me out with such
force that I stumble into his arms which are conveniently open to
catch me, and fold around me in a tight embrace.

“Knock it off, Zane,” I warn, pushing him
away. I feel his lips brush the top of my head as he reluctantly
lets me go and I quickly move out of his reach. “How do we get out
of here?” I ask, ignoring the action and surveying the area around
us for a path. The trapdoor exits in a thick grove of trees that
completely obscures it from the air but I have no idea where we are
in relationship to his house and the conference building, or more
importantly; the airport hangar.

“The island is about twenty square miles and
we are on the southeast corner. The airport and my house are about
five miles north of here,” he says pointing over my shoulder. He
pulls a lock out of his pocket and slips it through the latch on
the door, and gives it a squeeze until it makes an audible
click.

“What’s the likelihood that they’ll find
their way out?”

“Slim, but if they do take all the right
turns this will stall them even longer,” he says removing his
jacket and placing it over my shoulders when he sees me shiver.
“Hungry?” he asks.

“Starving.” The sun is just starting to go
down and I haven’t eaten a thing since this morning.

“Don’t expect gourmet, but I did stash some
things over here that will hold us over until we can get off the
island. He walks over to one of the largest trees and pulls a small
pocket knife from his jeans wedging it in a barely noticeable crack
at the base of the trunk. A second later, a chunk of bark falls
away leaving an opening large enough for him to stick his hand
through. One by one, he pulls out baggies of food items that could
arguably be considered gourmet. He looks pleased when I practically
devour a cranberry turkey sandwich than ask for seconds. We eat in
what I consider awkward silence, but when I look up at him, he’s
studying me with a casual smirk that says he’s not at all
uncomfortable.

“You had this planned out all along—why?” I
blurt out.

“It’s complicated and I’m still trying to
figure it all out myself,” he replies, leaving me with more
unanswered questions.

“Zane, you need to start being honest with
me or we’ll never leave this island together. So tell me what your
father wanted, and why were you willing to risk everything to help
me.”

“Some things are better left unanswered,” he
says very matter-of-factly, and my temper flares.

Ants. Fire ants…biting ants. Terrible
itch. Uncontrollable need to scratch,
I suggest mentally, as I
lean back against the tree, folding my hands in my lap, waiting for
the idea to take hold. His resistance to the suggestion is much
stronger than the guards but eventually his brows furrow and he
shifts uncomfortably, eyeing me with trepidation before excusing
himself behind a tree. Several minutes pass before he’s able to
appear in front of me again, and when I smile up at him, biting my
lower lip, his face sours with anger.

“YOU!” he hisses. “You’re doing this—aren’t
you? The guards, the dinner last night—it was you making us do
those things.” The look on his face is like that of someone who
realizes they’ve been the subject of a terrible prank.

“Some things are better left unanswered,” I
say smartly, smiling even wider.

“Cat, stop. I’m calling a truce—I’ll tell
you everything you want to know,” he pleads before quickly ducking
behind the tree for another round of scratching. The sound of him
begging is therapeutic and I postpone releasing the thought for
several more minutes, until his language turns foul. He returns,
tucking his shirt in his pants, but the traces of humiliation are
still plastered on his face. “Let’s go,” he says grimly, not making
eye contact with me, as he shoves our trash back in the hollow tree
trunk and takes off at a pace impossible for me to keep up with,
without jogging.

***

I allow Zane thirty minutes of courtesy
silence before I determine that his pouting time is up. As nasty as
it is for me to take over his subconscious mind it’s nothing
compared to the agony he’s caused so many people. He’s a good ten
yards ahead of me and hasn’t bothered to even turn around since the
ant incident and if it weren’t for all of my burning questions, I
would have preferred the silence, allowing me to fully focus on the
foliage surrounding us, absorbing the powerful radiating
energy.

“Zane, I need some answers,” I finally blurt
out, grabbing him by his arm to slow him down. He whips around and
the dark look on his face as he glowers down at me, almost makes me
regret pushing the issue.

“Alright Cataryn—you want the truth, then
here it is. Once my dad saw the videotape and suspected that you
were a Designer, he wanted to transport you to a lab for testing,
which I forbid. So instead he took Chord, gambling that if you were
genetically altered, then your twin would be, too. What they’re
looking for is a specific synthetic DNA strand that would explain
the Designers' powerful abilities to use the mind.” He pauses and
grabs me by the shoulders, his gray eyes intense with emotion.
“This DNA strand is found in brain tissue, Cat. Brain tissue—do you
understand?” It takes a second or two for the reality of his words
to sink in—dissection?

“God no. Please tell me they aren’t going to
do brain…” I shake my head in complete disbelief, my mind unable to
process such a heinous plan. I try and speak, but the only sound
that comes out is a high-pitched whine.

“If they are successful and are able to
isolate that particular DNA strand, they will be able to clone it
to use in other humans, making your services less valuable. Either
way, the likelihood of them finding worth in sparing Chord’s life
through an extensive rehab is slim.” He lowers his eyes when I
start to cry. “I couldn’t go along with it and that’s why I’m here
with you and not them. Had I known you were the Golden GEM all
along, I would have devised a different plan.”

“Oh God. Oh God no! They’re going to dissect
him like a lab rat? We have to stop them Zane. Let’s find your dad
right now and you can convince him to do his testing on me. I’ll
give him whatever he wants,” I sob, backing away. “We have to
hurry.” Through a blanket of tears, I blindly take off running
through the trees, with Zane chasing after me.

“Cat stop! Stop—you’re going to get us both
killed!” he hollers. My legs seem to have a life of their own as I
scale logs and ditches, weaving around trees with the agility of a
deer running from prey. All I can think of is getting to Mr.
Harrington and somehow get him to change his mind about Chord
before it’s too late.

***

I eventually find the airstrip due north,
just as Zane said it would be, and stand in the cover of the trees,
as a corporate jet screams down the runway toward me, lifting off
two-thirds from the end, and flying directly overhead. “NO!” I moan
in despair, collapsing against a tree. Just a few minutes sooner
and I might have stopped it by using the same telekinetic means
that Claire and Ronan used to stop the approach of a helicopter. My
disappointment is short lived when I hear the sound of approaching
cars, and I hold my breath as one by one, three SUV’s fly down the
dirt road, leaving a trail of dust visible to me even in the dark.
They come to a screeching halt near a hangar where the door opens
and a second corporate jet is pulled out and prepared for flight.
There’s only one man I really want to see and I strain my eyes
trying to get a glimpse of him. Unfortunately Mr. Harrington isn’t
among those getting ready to board this plane. Although I can’t
hear specifics of what’s being said, the men’s movement indicates
that they are in hurry to get out of here.

“Not so fast boys, I need to hitch a ride,”
I murmur out loud, as I quickly devise a plan to stall them until I
can find a way to sneak on board. Thank God, Marti Campbell drilled
into me the mechanics of an airplane, because with my full focus of
mental energy, I successfully snap the circuit breakers in the
starter motor, rendering the plane temporarily grounded. As the
pilot troubleshoots the problem, I inch my way toward the hangars
on the other side of the airstrip. I am so engrossed in what I’m
doing that I don’t notice the snapping of twigs under the weight of
a man, until I am grabbed from behind. My scream is muffled by a
large hand clamped in front of my mouth and another wrapped tightly
around my waist, dragging me farther into the forest of trees
before knocking me to the ground.

***

“Cat, so help me God, you have to listen to
me,” Zane whispers in my ear, his hand still over my mouth as he
keeps me pinned to the ground. “Let them go—you do not want to
confront them. I had my men put a tracking device on both
aircrafts, so we’ll find them. Just let them leave and we’ll take
my airplane to go after them.” His words seem sincere enough but I
wasn’t going to believe anything without a color screening to
verify. I slowly twist my body around to get a good look at him and
he releases his hand over my mouth.

“Get off of me,” I order.

“I will—as long as you promise not to do
anything stupid,” he replies not showing any indication that he’s
in a hurry to oblige. We stare long and hard at each other, our
breathing labored; mine from the weight of his chest and his from
running five miles through the forest trying to catch me.

“I can’t stand by and let them hurt Chord.
It’s my fault that he’s in danger—I was so careless,” I let out a
sob, confessing my guilt to the one person who I believe will
agree.

“My dad plans to kill every one of them as
soon as he gets what he wants from the Designers,” he softly says,
surprising me when he brushes away my tear of regret with his
thumb. His color screening is the lightest orange I’ve seen yet,
and I feel a closeness to him that is strange given the
circumstances that have led up to this moment.

“I could have killed him you know. He was so
close to collapsing. All I had to do was constrict his carotid
artery for another thirty seconds and he would have had a massive
stroke.” I confess this to Zane with sadness. Sadness for coming
close to doing it, and sadness for not finishing the job.

“Then why didn’t you?” He smiles
knowingly.

My answer is lost in the sound of an
explosion that sends a shock wave across the ground and lifts my
body even under the weight of Zane. A wave of heat rolls over the
top of us. It feels as if every bone in my body is being shattered
into a thousand tiny pieces, and then torched with a burning flame.
Trees around us fracture as large pieces of debris hail down
snapping branches off like twigs. Zane shields my head with his
arms, but neither of us is safe from the projectile pieces of metal
landing around us. Somehow in the midst of the terror, the thought
of Claire using a shield to stop Ronan from hurting our uncle
enters my mind, and I struggle to do the same. They say in times of
peril the mind can do miraculous things, and I happen to know the
secret lies in the place called the subconscious mind. This is the
only place where boundaries and rules don’t exist—the state of mind
where infinite power is unlocked. This is the place that I go to
now, slipping deeper and deeper until my mind detaches from my
physical body, and I become an objective observer of the events,
rather than a participant. I hover over the scene watching with
confidence as chunks of metal are deflected from an invisible armor
I’ve created around our bodies.

For the first time, I fully appreciate the
stress my near drowning episode placed on the others as I watch
Jason perform mouth to mouth breathing on Elizabeth Kappel. A bead
of sweat trickles down his forehead and his eyes bulge with fear as
he watches her chest rise under the forced breaths he's delivering
to her. True to their predictions, the virus is now affecting her
diaphragm making it impossible for her to breathe on her own.
Moments earlier, I entered the house with one hundred percent
confidence we had the necessary tools to heal her completely of the
virus. Now, I stand paralyzed with fear, the very emotion that
Lawrence cautioned as the most destructive of all. Claire moves
right in to action with the sustained level of self-assurance
gained from the forest experiments. She maneuvers around Jason’s
hands as if he weren’t there at all, and looks expectantly at the
rest of us, mobilizing Natalie, Austin and me to join her at the
bedside. Like a perfectly choreographed play, we all act out our
part on cue, streaming life-saving combined energy molecules to
Claire who transfers them to Elizabeth through her hands. The fear
and doubt dissipates the minute we’re fused together psychically as
one source. Minutes later, when Liz takes the first breath, Jason
finally backs off, moving clear of the bed to let us finish the
job.