Winter's Scars: The Forsaken (Winter's Saga 5) (36 page)

“My sweet boy, you’ve drenched me in water before and look what you’ve done!  I can wiggle and feel some and I even put some weight on my feet a couple of days ago.  Your gift is beautiful, but my injury is just too severe.”

“I need a lot of water, like a pool or a lake so
I can touch the ground.  Yes, Mommy—can we go to a lake today?”

“Honey, it’s fall.  The water is too cold.”

“Please?”

“We’ll see,” she said mollifying him and handed the earnest little boy a sippy cup full of water he didn’t have to ask for. 

With eyes wide, he took the cup, wrapped his pink Cupid’s-bow lips around the straw and began taking long draws. 

“It has to be a lake that has different water than this kind.”  He held up his cup as illustration of his point.

“What do you mean different water?” Margo was wheeling them to the kitchen table where she opened the cookie jar and passed the little boy a treat.

Danny was engrossed in peeling apart his cookie to get to the creamy center for a moment, but he was deep in thought.

“Salty,” he finally said.

“No, honey.  Cookies are sweet.” She gently corrected taking a bite of her cookie and chewing.

“The water, Mommy.  The water has to be salty.”

Margo stopped chewing and turned to look at the small son curled on her
otherwise useless legs.  He chewed happily, now that he’d relayed his dream to her. 

He swung his little feet and hummed a tune as he finished his cookie before he looked up innocently into Margo’s silent, surprised face and nodded reassuringly.  “My dream told me the salty lake will help me fix your legs, Mommy.”

Chapter 69 M
iss Monroe

“It was you, wasn’t it?” a girl’s voice chirped from beside Evan.  He’d been so engrossed in his work as he peered through the microscope at the Rat Specimen #3’s brain he didn’t even know he was no longer alone in the lab.  Three days passed since his nightmare that turned him into a sleeping fire starter.  The rumors and excitement had already died down.  The students at the working university hospital were too busy to be bothered for long by superstition. 

Evan had been lying low, ducking back into the lab only in the middle of the night when all rational people would be sound asleep.  He’d gotten away with checking his rat specimen and his workbench project without running into a soul, until tonight.

“It
was
you, right?” the girl repeated herself—a mischievous smile pressed her lips as she pointed directly at his face, nearly tweaking his nose playfully.  Evan’s brows raised in absolute surprise at her accusation.

“What was me?” he asked, trying to keep the squeak out of his voice.

“You’re the one who cleaned up this place!  You organized the scrub room and set these annoyingly lax lab students on the right track!”

“Oh, that,” Evan tried not to look visibly relieved, though he was.  “It was nothing.”

“Don’t belittle your work.  I’m seriously thankful for the much improved working conditions of this lab.  I can trust my findings not to have foreign contaminates fudging up my results.”

“No problem,” he shrugged humbly then turned to look back into his scope.

“I’m Kylie Monroe,” she nodded politely to his gloved hand, acknowledging they couldn’t shake as they were both sterile before continuing.  “I’m a first-year resident-exchange student from the US.   And if you couldn’t tell, I’m kind of a phenom.  I’m only sixteen.”  She said matter-of-factly.  “You are, too, aren’t you?  How old are you?”

Evan looked at the girl suspiciously.   “If you’ll excuse me, Miss Monroe, I’ve got to take notes while my sample is fresh.”  He returned to his scope but felt the girl still standing quietly in place.  Minutes passed and she didn’t move.  Evan regarded her with what he hoped was an obvious look of annoyance.

“What are you working on?” she asked, her handsome, wide-set green eyes sparkled with curiosity.  Evan couldn’t have been more annoyed.

“I’m sorry, Miss Monroe, but my project isn’t open for discussion.”  He turned away from her big
green eyes so he wouldn’t see the hurt he was sure his words would have put there.

“Okay,”
she said pleasantly enough.  “I’m just studying the effects of healing scar tissue using some really exciting combinations of aloe and other homeopathic herbs.”

“Scar tissue?”

“Yes,” she smiled earnestly.

“I’m sure that’s why you’ve come to bother me.”

“Excuse me?”

“You must have noticed my scars,” he glared at the blonde who looked petite and powerful—as though she had trained as a gymnast before she started studying medicine.

Her eyes searched his face, “All I see are some dark circles under your eyes.  Haven’t you been sleeping well?”

“Ironic that you’d ask me that considering it’s three forty-five in the morning.”

“I just assumed you got up early, not that you’ve been up all night.”

“Look, Kara—”

“Kylie,” she corrected easily.

“Kylie, I’m sure you’re a nice enough person, but I’m just—not.  Please excuse me if I seem rude.  I have a lot of work to complete and not much time to accomplish said tasks,” he frowned as though deep in thought.

Kylie watched his troubled face, “I’d be happy to help you.   I’ll just put the lotions on my specimen, take a few notes then I’m all yours.   I bet we could finish your work in half the time together.”

She turned to busy herself three tables over. 

“Don’t bother, really.” Evan scowled. 

Geez, can’t this girl take a hint?
he shook his head irritably.

“It’s no bother,” she called over her shoulder and waved her blue gloved hand.

Evan tried to hurry through the rest of his dissection so he’d be done by the time she came back, but he couldn’t hurry his work without risking the results.

Fifteen minutes later she was standing beside him, happily donning a new pair of gloves.

“Where would you like me to start?”

“Um, well…I finished everything I needed to do today,” he lied.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“Uh-huh,” he nodded, gathering his things and securing them in a locker beside the workbench he used to work on his engineering project.

“Okay,” the pretty blonde shrugged then looked up at Evan with an I’ve-got-an-idea expression. “Breakfast!” she beamed.

“What about it,” Evan looked at her sideways.

“What do you mean, what about it?  I’m talking about coffee and food and more coffee.  Come on, my treat.  It’s the least I can do for startling you this morning.”

“I’m really not—”

“Hungry?  Liar, I can hear your stomach growling from here.” Kylie smiled her winsome smile and Evan hesitated just long enough. “Excellent!” she beamed.  “I hate eating alone and since I moved here a month ago, I can’t tell you how many meals I’ve had by myself.”

“Ninety?” Evan quipped.

“What?”

“Sorry, I just multiplied thirty days by three meals a day.  Ninety.”

Kylie blushed just enough to pink up her cheeks.  Even in his surly mood, Evan noticed how pretty the girl was.  She just picked the wrong guy to have breakfast with. 

They walked to the elevators after changing back into their street clothes and stood waiting for the doors to open.  Once they did, Evan anticipated the standard awkward silence as the car lowered to the ground floor, but he was quickly learning, nothing was standard or silent around Kylie. 

“So are you going to tell me your name, stranger?” she asked as the elevator chimed passing each floor.

He thought about giving her a fake name, but decided against it. 
She may as well know who she’s dealing with and if recognition happens, I’ll have to dodge her questions
.

“I’m Evan Winter,” he said, trying not to cringe.

Kylie nodded then began to giggle.

Evan frowned at that unexpected reaction.

“I’m sorry,” she tried to control her giggles before they turned into full-on laughter.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, his scar starting to itch as though begging to be used in self-defense.

“It’s just,” she stifled her laughter.  “It’s just your initials spell out, ‘Ewww’!”   Kylie couldn’t hold it in any longer.  The elevator doors opened and she emerged holding her stomach in gales of laughter.  Evan found himself chuckling at the girl’s delight.  In all his brilliance, study and discoveries, he’d never noticed his initials before Kylie.

Chapter 70  Expectations

“Ermos, please have all the packages delivered to Miss Meg’s room,” Michelle swept one bag
up in her hands and started up the stairwell to her room. 

“Yes, ma’am,” the chauffer bowed deeply.  He waited respectfully as she exited the room before hurrying to his master’s quarters.  Ermos tapped on the mahogany door lightly, frowning deeply at having to disturb the Senator’s beautiful music. 

“Enter,” the Senator’s voice called as the vibrations of the piano keys hummed to a stop.

The surveillance monitors watching Meg caught Ermos’ eye even as he moved to bow his head in supplication.  Ignoring what he saw he spoke reverently to the Senator.  “Ms. Michelle has returned with the wardrobe for the new little miss.”

“Excellent, Ermos.  Please bring the packages to her room and leave them outside her door.  I’ll help her put the items away myself.”  The Senator stood abruptly and headed out the door, past Ermos and directly down the hall to Meg’s room.  He could hear water running as he pressed his ear to the door and kicked himself for not checking the monitors before approaching her. 

He waited impatiently for the water to turn off before tapping lightly on the door.  Ermos quietly laid bag after bag neatly against the wall behind the Senator.

“Who’s there?” her voice called through the thick door.

“It’s me, Meg.  I brought you the clothing and personal items you requested.”

“One moment, please,” she responded.  He heard a door shut from inside then her footsteps.  When she opened the door wide the Senator’s eyes were wide with surprise at what he saw.

“My dear girl!  Are you all right?”  His keen eyes took all
of her in, looking for injury that would match the destruction her room suffered.

“Never better, but we may need Eloise’s help in here before I add bags of clothing to the mess.”

“What happened?”

“I was working out some issues.” She answered cryptically meeting his eyes with a stare that screamed defiance.

“By yourself?”  he looked at the dark pool of blood on the hardwood floors.

“I had a volunteer willing to spar with me.”  Meg shrugged casually then looked behind the Senator at the waiting housemaid.

“I hope you don’t mind.  I summoned Eloise myself.”  Then to the maid directly she added, “I do apologize for the mess.  I’m afraid most of it was unavoidable.”

Eloise didn’t move, waiting for permission from the Senator who waved her past him as one would shoo a gnat hovering around an ear.

With efficiency, the room started to be put right.

“So who was the unlucky volunteer?” The Senator looked around the room, kicking himself for not paying closer attention to his video monitoring.

“Isn’t it enough to know you have such an accommodating staff?”

Arkdone narrowed his eyes, his patien
ce wearing thin.

“This person had no name, though he called himself the Punisher.  He was part of the Gideon/Sirus amalgamation.”  She shrugged as though none of this was terribly interesting to her.

“Gideon did this?”

“No.  Are you listening, Senator?  I said a nameless personality—the Punisher of Gideon’s system did this.”

“Where is he?”

“Taken care of,” she shrugged and reached around the Senator to snatch a few bags Ermos had finally finished bringing.

She sashayed to her bed and dumped the contents carefully across the comforter.

“Nice,” she smiled at the assortment.  “Would you please bring the rest of the bags?” Meg waved her hand haughtily at the Senator who seemed
to be simmering in his own stew, he was so mad at her nonchalance.

“You are not to fight my
metamonarchs!”

“Spar.”

“Or spar with them!” 

“Well, who am I supposed to play with then?”  Meg pretended to pout.

“Did you kill him?”

“Of course not!”  Meg narrowed her eyes suspiciously.  “Now, don’t you start with the accusations!”  She stamped her foot, her fists on her shapely hips.  “I got enough of that from the Winter family.”

Deciding this tactic wasn’t going to work on the volatile girl, the Senator tried a different approach.  “Are those bruises on your throat?”

Meg’s hand flew up to neck.  She’d forgotten the chokehold Sirus put her in.