James (Teumessian Trilogy Book 2) (18 page)

Chapter

32

Saying goodbye to Uncle Finn was the hardest thing James had ever done. He never thought he would lose Uncle Finn too. As James left the house, he wiped the tears from his face. What Uncle Finn had told him was still clinging to him. He hadn’t been back to his father’s home since the day he was taken. The thought that he may be able to find answers there was driving him, he had to get back there. James climbed into his rental car and looked down at his cell phone. He had three missed calls from Chessy. He stopped himself from calling her back. He needed to get back to that house and see if what Uncle Finn said was true.

              James drove through the night. He couldn’t stop and he didn't want to. He had the address and a map. It was all he needed. James arrived at the remnants of his father’s home by dawn. It was nothing like he remembered. It was all ruins, Uncle Finn had really burned it down. James stepped out of the car and just stared at what had been left. Grass and weeds had grown up through the debris and a large tree had grown where it looked like the foyer used to be. He heard the scouring of mice. Quickly jumping back, he narrowly avoided a snake slithering past his feet. He scanned the debris, needing to find the pile that Uncle Finn had described. He sifted through the debris until he found the markings Uncle Finn had described. James quickly moved the red wood around until he found a door, a large metal door in the flooring. James held his breath. This could be the key to finding the answers he had been looking for. He reached down and pulled the circular handle, but the door was stuck. He pulled again, harder this time. The door finally broke free and opened, releasing a cloud of dust into James’s face. He coughed as he waved the dust from his face. James looked down into the open door and saw metal stairs leading down into a room. James let the rest of the dust clear. Feeling that his heart was racing, he took each step slowly, grasping onto the metal rail to steady himself. They were the longest ten steps he had ever taken.

Once he got to the bottom, he found a light switch on the wall to his right. As the light came on, he took the room in. Wall to wall with filing cabinets, two metal tables in front of him. James couldn’t figure out where to start first. He just started opening file draws and sifting through files looking for anything that could answer his questions. Once he got to the fourth file cabinet, he found a large accordion file with, ‘Project Immortal,’ on it. He pulled it from the file cabinet and placed it on the metal table in front of him. He reached in and pulled the manila files out of it, ten to be exact, and placed them on the table. He looked at the file tabs in front of him. “Justin, Thomas, Chris, Scott, Samuel, David, Austin, Ethan, Michael, Marie,” James read aloud. He opened the file marked ‘Justin’. James looked down to a picture of a man in his early twenties. The man looked fit and in a military-like dress and printed across his photo was ‘Deceased.’ He flipped up the picture and scanned the pages; medical charts, blood test results, physical assessments, and behavioral reports. James closed the file and looked at the others, “What is this?” He opened the rest of the files. Once he got to Thomas’s file, he instantly recognized the man. This was the man who had kidnapped him. He closed it quickly. Seeing that man’s face again was too much. He opened Marie’s file last.

Her picture sent his mind into panic. It was her, the woman he remembered, the woman who had identified herself as his mother. Her hair was different, but he recognized her eyes and face. James wanted to lift the picture and read the rest of her file, but his hands were shaking. He wrung his hands and worked to catch his breath. James lifted and looked at the first page. It was a memo, “Runaway, demand for return.” It was from his father to a man called Ivan. James read the memo. It called for “any means necessary to bring her back.” He continued going through her file. He found what he was looking for. It was a blood test result, showing she was pregnant. James quickly did the math, it fit. His birthday was in the right time frame. She could actually have been his mother. His heart dropped into his stomach. He knew it, it had to have been her. James kept reading, “DNA results indicate successful alterations of DNA code.” James was shocked, “What does this mean?” he questioned aloud. Suddenly, James heard a female voice,

“It means she can heal faster than anyone else.”

James was in shock. He scanned the room as he drew his gun. “Who’s there, what do you want?” James was shaking. He saw a figure moving toward him and coming into view out of the shadows. He saw her face, and it felt like a punch to the face. He barely had grip of his gun. She leaned down onto her elbows on the other metal table, her piercing blue eyes locked onto him. She was dressed all in black leather.

“Shh, it’s okay, mommy is here,” Marie said with a smile.

James felt losing the grip of his gun as it fell to the floor. The sound of metal hitting the concrete floor brought James back to reality. “No, no, no! You are dead! I saw you put a bullet in your head,” James said, pointing to his head.

Marie brushed her hair away from the right side of her head. The hair was gone, she only had half of a head of hair. The remaining side of her scalp was covered in a floral print tattoo, the scarred bullet wound at the center of a Jasmine blossom. “My plan didn’t quite ago as I had planned.”

James was panting. It really was her. Tears of rage flowed down his cheeks, “You abandoned me!”

“I did what I thought I had to do to protect you. You seem to have turned out just fine,” Marie said, hopping up onto the table and crossing her legs.

“Protect me? How? By leaving me there? By never being my actual mother? You have been alive this whole time, and you never came for me!” James was wiping the tears from his face.

“I was always there for you, watching out for you. You were safe where you were. You were better off with Finnegan. You were not prepared for my lifestyle.”

“So why did you come back?”

“Because you need me now. You do not understand who you are dealing with or how to deal with what they can do.”

“So what, you are going to team up with me and we will save the world together?” James’s voice was riddled with sarcasm.

“Watch your tone. If you think that you and your buddies are prepared, you are wrong! You will get all of your friends killed and yourself in the process. Is that what you want?”

James was still filled with anger, but he was listening. “What do you know?”

“A hell of a lot more than you. I have been dealing with this since you were a baby and involved since I was a baby.”

“Fine, but I want my questions answered first.”

“Fine, what do you want to know?”

“What is all of this?” James asked, pointing to the files in front of him.

Marie hopped off the table and walked over to the table in front of James. She turned her file around and looked at it, then scanned the rest of them. Marie took a deep breath. “We were test subjects. We were supposed to be trained and enhanced to be sold to the highest bidder. Things didn’t go as planned.” Marie’s eyes caught Michael’s file.

James followed her eye line, he pointed to Michael’s file, “Because of him?” James looked back to Marie. He could see tears forming in her eyes.

“Because of you,” Marie replied, reaching out and touching James on the cheek.

James felt her touch, it was the first time, and his emotions were running wild. Marie looked back at Michael’s file. James reached out and flipped the file open, exposing Michael’s picture. James glanced closer at the picture and back to Marie, “He’s my father, isn’t he?”

Marie wiped a tear from her eye, “Yes.”

James nodded as he looked back to the picture; ‘Deceased’ was printed across the photo. “Did you kill him too?” James asked, anger in his voice. He saw rage in her eyes as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

Marie slapped James across the face, “Bite your tongue! I would never have harmed your father. It was the man you have been calling your father who took him from me…from us!”

James held his face. “What happened?”

“That fucker you honor so much ordered his death. He was okay with your death as well. Your real father died trying to protect you.” Marie picked up Michael’s file and ripped his picture out of it. “Any more questions?” Marie folded the picture and placed it in her back pocket.

“Why did you abandon me in the first place?”

“I didn’t. You were taken from me when you were a baby. I believed you were dead.”

James nodded, “What’s my real name?”

Marie smiled, “We were never given real last names, but when I had you, I knew you deserved one. Your father and I took the last name of the only father we ever knew. Your real name is James Michael Stanley.”

James smiled, he heard it and it felt so real to him. He had embraced being a Gold, but hearing it from her mouth, his real name warmed his heart, but he knew his feelings didn’t matter. He needed to know what she knew.

“I want to know who you are that people care so much.”

“I am nobody. I don’t exist. I’m a ghost,” Marie smirked.

“Did you kill Rachel?” James questioned.

“Why do you care if I did? She had it coming.”

“How many people have you killed? What did she do to you? You kill for money, that’s what they say about you.”

“I got some cash for Rachel’s head, but it was personal. She took your teddy bear.”

James couldn’t believe what he was hearing, “You killed her because she took my teddy bear? She gave it back!”

“Yah, for information. She was selling information about you. She was working for some bad people who paid me to get rid of her after she was no longer useful. Actually, I got paid twice. I took her payoff too.” Marie smiled as she reached behind her back and pulled a gun out and placed it on the table. “That’s a HKP7. It’s one of the best. I bought it with the money. I got it for you.” Marie had a softer look in her eye as she looked at James. He knew it was her way of doing something nice for him.

James felt uneasy about accepting the gun from her. It was bought with blood money, but he could tell it meant a lot to her, so he picked it up. “Thank you. It’s a really nice gun.”

“You’re welcome!” Marie's face lit up as she spoke. “So, what else do you want to know?”

“Why do all these people care so damn much about me?”

“Because they want to know if you are like me. Now it doesn’t matter because I believe they know I am still among the living. Now you are a potential pawn to be used to get me. You are not safe.”

“The rest of them, the ones who aren’t deceased. Where are they? Are they like you?”

Marie reached over to the files and picked up Thomas, Chris, and Scott’s files. “Thomas is dead. I took care of him. Chris and Scott are alive.” She threw down their files in front of James.

“Where are they?”

“So you work for the CIA now, big spy. So I take it you are pretty up to date on politics and all.”

“Yes, I work for the CIA and I have been at the US Embassy in England for the past year. So, yes, I keep up with politics.”

“Who is the Prime Minister?”

“Is this seriously what you are going to do? Avoid the question to find out what I know?”

“Just answer.”

“Pierce Franklin, why?”

“And the President of the United States?”

“Are you serious?”

“Answer.”

“Calvin Warren.”

“Superb.” She picked up the two files again. She held Scott’s file up and threw it back on the table. “Calvin Warren.”

She then held Chris’ file up and dropped it back on top of Scott’s file. “Pierce Franklin.”

“No. You are so full of it!” James said, reaching down and opening the two files again.

“Look at those pictures! Come on, you know it is them.”

“They do look like them, but there is no way. I know both of them personally. I have met them, talked to them. Franklin knows about Soldat and he knows about you, but if he was some stone cold super soldier, I would know it. Warren didn’t give on he knew anything.”

“They aren’t. Those two and Thomas weren’t given the formula. The rest of us believed they were dead, but they were actually ‘re-purposed’ by your godlike kidnapper Gold. He was just the tip of the iceberg though. It goes much bigger and deeper than even I imagined.” Marie walked over toward the stairs and picked something up from the floor. James glanced over to see what it was. It was a backpack. She placed it up on the other table and opened the front zipper pocket and reached in and pulled something out. She walked back over to James and placed it on top of the files that were on the table. James looked down and saw a gold pin of a fox. “Have you seen one of these before?”

James looked up, “Yes I have. Franklin’s got one. What is it?”

“It’s the Teumessian Fox.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s Greek Mythology. It was a gigantic fox sent to Thebes by the gods as a punishment. He was there to prey on their children, destined to never be caught. They picked it as their symbol for that very reason. Franklin’s involved, Warren’s involved, and two others. They make up a group of four that control the most powerful governments in the world. The mission is very simple, world domination. I know it sounds cliché, but they think if they can throw the world into chaos, they can unify the world governments into one that they can control. They think they will never be caught and brought to atone for their crimes. That nobody will stand against them. However, we are in luck. Warren is defecting, so we have an ally in stopping them.”