Huntress (17 page)

"Wow, no wonder he’s got so much angst toward you."

He grunted and stood from his perch at my side. "I kept him alive. He’s the strongest and most capable of my children. He should be grateful that I didn’t allow her to kill them both."

"Really? Because if you’d refrained from seducing his mother in the first place…" I let the words trail off.

"If I’d refrained from seducing her in the first place, you’d be dead. I allow you to live because he obviously feels some sort of obligation toward you."

Oh, we were back to high and mighty Zeus again. Disappointment flared. While he’d been talking to me, I could see the shining beacon of light that had caused millions to worship his very presence. It’s difficult to realize that sometimes, your gods are simply men with the same defects of character that you see in everyone. Despite his lack of human blood, he was just as human as anyone.

"What if you shoved me through the proverbial door and let me explain things. Then maybe you could come out and join the world?"

"I shall think on it."

"Think fast. I think I’m starting to feel my bladder."

He gave me an arch look and I could feel myself blushing. My survival skills had taken a turn for the worse. Just because we’d gotten chummy and he’d told me his deepest darkest secrets, didn’t mean that I could get lippy. Although, I suppose that the worst that could happen at this point was he could kill me again. At best, I figured I was going to be trapped in this lab with him forever.

"Do you have a bathroom in here?"

He waved me off and scoffed. "Of course I do!"

"Cause, you know…I haven’t seen it."

"You haven’t been looking around much as far as I’ve noticed. You can’t stop your tongue from wagging long enough to actually use your skills of perception."

"Well
maybe
if someone hadn’t been trying to
kill
me, I would have been comfortable enough to observe the damned room. Are you going to let me go or not?"

"Does your mind whirl like this often? Jumping from one topic to the other?" He started looking dangerously angry.

"That’s not an answer," I pushed.

"I suppose I have been slightly erratic lately…"

"Slightly?"

"Can you move your legs yet?"

"Evasive much?"

He sputtered at my response and turned his back to me so he could go back to fidgeting with his different instruments.  I admit to a certain morbid curiosity as to what they were all for, but I'd have to save those questions for another time.  There
would
be another time.

"Why are you afraid to face Drew? What else did you do, Zachary?"

"It’s not your business." He ground out defensively.

I cocked an eyebrow and stared him down. I was a mother. I was in my element right now. Guilt and manipulation were my weapons of choice when it came to ferreting out information. Well, so was diversion.

"Do you think that we’ll find her?" I abruptly changed the subject, throwing him off balance.

His shoulders slumped from their previous tense hold.

"I hope so. I’m angry with her, but I’m more afraid. I should have married her first. I should have done so many things differently. But she was like a younger sister. Always tagging along, always joking around. I didn’t want to change that dynamic." He trailed off into his own thoughts.

I felt a pang of camaraderie with him. I could understand that fully. Oh the regrets that we field in this life. I imagine that at his age, he held a lot of regrets.

"How old were you when you came over?”

He laughed. "I was so young!  Only a hundred and fifty-two years old. I thought I knew everything. I knew nothing. Your mother was only seventy five. She was nothing more than a teenager in my eyes."

I lifted my head to look at his face. It had softened with a look of fond love and remembrance.

"We need to find her Grace."

"How?"

"You," he responded.

"Yes, because I’m absolutely prepared for that. I probably just left her in my cupboard. I leave everything there."

He grunted.

"I’m afraid that I’m not going to be enough. I’m afraid that this faith that she’s placed in me will be all for nothing…"

"She is a woman of great faith," he agreed.

"I’m a woman who tends to royally screw things up."

"She never misplaces her faith, Grace. It just sometimes takes a while for the person to fill their piece in her puzzle."

I suppose as far as words of encouragement went, that wasn’t so bad.

"I think that I just moved my foot," I began as another crash sounded from behind me.

"Damn, he’s going to break my door down." He made his way past me grumbling about impetuous children.

Another crash.

"I believe that yes, he’s going to break your door down. You should just open it."

"Yes. Yes," came the distracted reply.

I tried craning my neck to see what he was doing. I didn’t get far. His hand clamped on my forehead and I was suddenly staring into his startlingly beautiful eyes.

"This is only going to hurt a bit, but we need to do this before Adonis barges in and spirits you away."

"Do what?" My alarm grew to a frantic level. I thought we’d gotten past the Torture Grace portion of this exercise.

I felt the needle push against my skin and I didn’t whimper. No, instead I screamed in rage. "What the fuck?!"

"Stop struggling. This will hurt more if you don’t relax." His grip against my forehead tightened like a vise.

Adrenaline was pumping through my bloodstream in a Fight-or-Flight response that I couldn't control.  My limbs were convulsing - banging against the table with meaty, slapping sounds that reminded me I was lying naked on a metal slab.

That increased my panic and I started screaming frantically. Flight had obviously taken control of my body and it was doing everything it could to get loose.

"Grace," the voice commanded forcefully. "You need to calm down or this is going to be a thousand times worse for you. I’m not hurting you. I’m helping you. Calm. Shhh."

The words penetrated my fear fogged mind. He wasn’t hurting me? Then why was he sticking a needle in my neck? Why was he holding me down?

I was unable to control my shaking.  Every single bit of flesh was consumed by one giant spasm.  I
did
manage to stop screaming - point for Grace - but it was mostly due to Zachary's intense focus on my face.  I could feel him pushing his will into mine, begging me to calm down with those damned eyes of his.

"I’m injecting you with the original serum that Diana’s father gave us. It will make you stronger. Your nanites were activated when I electrocuted you but they are weak from whatever she did to make you seem human."

"What?"  My heart was racing with panic.  I could barely breathe, much less understand what he was telling me.

"You’re going to suffer some side effects. You have to keep control over your emotions.  Whatever power you had before is going to be amplified. You need to find your mother as quickly as possible. I have a bad feeling about her disappearance."

"H-how?"

"Be easy. If you struggle while they are new to your system, they won’t adapt as they are supposed to and you will find yourself in an incredible amount of pain,” he continued matter-of-factly. "I think you’ve suffered enough. The nano agents will also help you in finding your mother. Your shared DNA will help them guide you if you let them."

Great, he was injecting me with the Force. I was suddenly playing out the scene between Luke and his father in my brain. I felt like giggling but was afraid that if I did, it would send me over the edge.

How long ago was it that I wished my life was normal? I couldn’t remember. I wish I'd known then that it was as normal as it was ever going to get.  Now it was just bizarre.

"I’ll relax," I replied.

"Good girl. I’m going to drop the field on the door and then I’m going to disappear. I won’t be gone, but Adonis won’t see me. He will take you to safety. He will finish training you. But keep this in your mind, Grace. I have a feeling that you don’t have a lot of time. Diana has gone off on her jaunts before, but she’s never been gone this long. I fear for her safety."

He patted my forehead and disappeared.  I blinked in surprise and started to say something, but my body chose that moment to set itself ablaze.  Well, it felt like it anyway.  A sound halfway between a groan and a wail escaped my lips.  God, it seemed like I was doing an awful lot of crying, screaming and wailing.

Self-loathing isn't a pretty thing.  I hated this weakness in myself, so I clamped my mouth shut and tried to breathe through my nose.  I'd been through labor, I could
do
body on fire.  From my inner core and spreading outward, it felt like someone had covered my body with a heavy, wet woolen blanket...that happened to also be on fire.  Tears leaked down the side of my face, but I managed to keep the scream trapped in my throat (also on fire, by the way).

The door crashed open and I heard shouts. My rescuer picked me up like I weighed nothing and cradled me against his chest, whispering nonsense to me.

I couldn’t tell him that I was ok because I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I’d start screaming again.

He started shouting orders. To whom, I didn’t know. I let the comfort of his warmth invade my senses and I closed my eyes. I was safe with Drew. He would always keep me safe.

When I opened my eyes again, the light was filtering softly through familiar curtains. I was back in my bed. The sheets felt clean and warm.  I could pretend for just a moment that this had all been some fever induced dream, not the bizarre reality that had become my life.

I turned my head and saw my son staring intently at me.

"Hey bubby, what’s up?" I asked groggily. How long had I been out of it this time?

"Mom?"

"No, it’s Santa Claus," I replied with a grin.

He let out a breath that I hadn’t realized he’d been holding and crawled into the bed. I wrapped him in my arms and held him tight.

"What’s wrong sweetheart?" I started stroking his hair around his ear. I’d been doing it since he was an infant. It calmed me more than it did him, I think.

"I wasn’t sure that it was you. You’ve seemed a little different lately and well, you don’t look like you." He buried his face into my side getting closer.

"Of course it’s me," I chided. "I’m always going to be here baby. You know that. Wait, what do you mean I look different?"

"You look like you, but different."

Well, ask a stupid question… "Why don’t you tell me what’s going on inside that brilliant noggin of yours and I’ll make it all good again. Sound good?"

 His body relaxed against me as he let go of the tension and his head bobbed up and down with a nod. Scooting around, careful of still sore ribs, I raised his chin and looked in his eyes. "What’s up?"

  "I feel like there’s something big about to happen and I think that you’re scared, but you’re not talking about it. Also," he paused, looking for the right words. "I think that my room is haunted. There’s a lot of rattling going on under my bed at night."

It never failed to amaze me how perceptive this little person was. It shouldn’t, this kid saw and heard everything. Every little nuance of his personality was zoned in on people’s emotions. He definitely didn’t inherit that from me and it made me wish for a brief instant that I’d made an effort to get to know his biological father.

"Things are changing, you know that right? It’s one of the reasons that we have Drew here with us."

He nodded again without saying anything.

"Well, with any change, things are going to feel a little big and a little scary. But we roll with the punches right?"

“Why have you been acting so weird the last few weeks?  Mom, you won’t even put up the tree – you
love
putting up the tree.”

He did have a good point. I did love putting up the tree. I mentally calculated the time. If I’d been gone a few weeks, we only had a week before Christmas. Thank God I hadn’t missed Christmas.

"I’m kind of worried about the book and I need to take a trip after Christmas.   I’m worried about leaving you alone. That’s all."

"I didn’t know you had to go out of town. Am I going to stay with Dad?"

I stroked his hair back from his forehead and kissed the tip of his nose. "Do you want to stay with your Dad? You can do that or stay here in the house with Drew - or with Rose and Ted. Whatever you want. I don’t think that I’ll be away for that long."

"I guess I could stay with Dad. But could I come home if I wanted?"

"You can do whatever makes you feel best. Drew will be here if you decide to do that." I rubbed his back and we sat like that for a few minutes.

"It’s just that Dad’s new girlfriend is cool, but it doesn’t feel the same as it did when we were a family."