Winter's Scars: The Forsaken (Winter's Saga 5) (44 page)

Each time he passed another of his teammates, he would have some excuse ready for why he was there, not that anyone was paying attention.  They were all too worried about gathering their gear and getting to the buses.

“Valen,” he nodded toward the serious-looking girl pushing a laundry cart down the walkway headed toward the commissary.  He moved his hands skillfully.  They’d been talking like this for the past ten years and were all very good at hiding their messages in normal movements.  Valen nodded once and signaled understanding while she stopped to tie her shoe.  She stood abruptly and continued her laundry duties. 

She knew without being told, she was supposed to pass the message on to the others who worked with her and were part of 17
th
Company. 

Rhett found three more of his team as he passed the massive gym and relayed his message.  He knew they would find the others inside the building and pass on the message.

Nate found only two people to tell, but just as with Rhett, those two went to tell two or three more, and those passed the message on until the entire 17
th
Company had been informed of the emergency meeting in the pit.

Rhett and Nate returned at nearly the same time to their posts and exchanged knowing looks.  The
acrid fumes from the buses roiled through the late fall air, causing the boys’ eyes to burn.  They watched as they worked, sensing the start of something huge at the sound of their doors closing.  The caravan was led by the Director’s black limousine.  With a roar, the buses revved and shifted into gear.  They began to roll, slowly at first as though the massive vehicle was unsure of its ability to carry the weight of 180 metahumans.  Finally, the packed busses picked up speed.  Rhett, Nate and the others didn’t even pretend to keep working.  Everyone watched as 95 percent of the adult metahumans left for war.

Chapter 85  Secrets to Reveal

He walked into the lab to
find her hunched over her work.  Her concentration was so intense she didn’t even hear him come up beside her. 

“Hey you.”  His voice sounded exhausted.

Kylie abruptly sat back from the high-powered microscope she’d been peering through and looked up at Evan, a smile pressed to her lips until she saw the look on his face.

“Evan?  Hey, what happened?  Didn’t your meeting go well?”

Evan pulled up a chair to sit beside the girl who so quickly had become invaluable to him.

He sighed and rubbed his tired eyes.  For three days he hadn’t slept.  Something was going to have to give; he wasn’t going to be able to keep himself awake forever.

“The meeting went as I expected it to.  The disappointing part was my family’s reaction.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.  Right now I really need a nap, but I can’t sleep here and I
really
can’t go home.”

“Why not crash at my house for a few days?”

Evan raised his brows.  “Your dad would be okay with that?”

“He trusts me,” she shrugged.

“Damn, I wish my family trusted me.”

“Why don’t they?”

“It’s a long story,” Evan yawned deeply, covering his mouth with his scarred hand.  “Listen, thanks for the offer.  I’d love to take you up on it; really I would.  But I really—I just can’t sleep around people.”

“Why not?  Do you talk in your sleep?  Sleepwalk?”

Evan thought for a moment before answering.  He was too tired to devise a different solution, so he decided to trust his gut.  “Do you have about twenty minutes?  I need to tell you about something.”

“You’re not going to tell me you’re married, are you?”  Kylie set her pen and notes aside before looking up into Evan’s exhausted eyes.

“I’m serious, Kylie.  Can I trust you?”

“Of course, you can,” she said earnestly.  She frowned with worry as realization that the boy who seemed so stoic and standoff-ish was tearing up.

“What is it?”

“Not here,” he said.

“Okay, where?”

“An empty parking lot would be good,” Evan chuckled at the ridiculousness of his own suggestion. 

“I know just the place,” Kylie said abruptly putting away her things. 

“You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack,” she answered, hurrying toward the lockers where she retrieved her purse.  “Do you have your bike?”

“Yeah, but I’m really too messed up to drive,” he coughed through the emotion building in his throat.  Now that he was about to confess, he was terrified of her reaction and for some dumb-ass reason, his eyes decided now’s the time to start leaking. 

Manly, Evan.   Way manly,
he scolded himself as he roughly wiped his eyes dry.

“I’ll drive,” she offered.

“I’m not
that
messed up.  I’m fine to drive.” He tried to smile, but he was pretty sure it looked as fake as it felt.

“It’s not too far,” Kylie
nudged him toward the elevators.

Evan sighed deeply and nodded, “Okay.  Let’s go.”

They stepped into the empty elevator and watched the doors close.

“Can you give me an idea about this big confession?”

Evan thought for a moment before answering.  The elevator slowly made its decent.  “You know, scars aren’t all bad.  They’re proof that the wearer has suffered some embattled moments and came out the other side.  Now scars of the body, heart and soul, they may heal and you may say to yourself, ‘hey, at least I lived,’ but in the end, the person is changed forever—irreparably changed.   Some scars come at a steep price.  They may leave the wearer isolated or ostracized, but that doesn’t matter as much as what the wearer does in their altered life afterward.”

The elevator stopped and the doors opened.  Kylie was watching Evan closely—sensing profoundness in him so much deeper than she previously realized. 

He stepped out of the car first and looked back at her with a twinge of wariness forming between his brows. 

“Are you coming?”

“With you?  Of course, I am.”  She reached out to take his left hand in her right.  She squeezed gently and smiled up at the complicated young man.

“What I said back there,” he began, “that didn’t freak you out?”

“Of course it did, but I’m more curious than I am afraid,” she admitted.

Evan smiled and watched his feet as they walked together toward his bike.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Kylie,” he said as she adjusted the helmet strap under her chin.

“Then don’t.”

“What if I do unintentionally?”

“What if the world is taken over by pod people?  Some contingencies in both life and science
just can’t dictate our choices.”

“Are you sure you want to go with me?  You could walk away now and live a perfectly normal life.”

“Do you want me to walk away?”

“Not at all.”

“Then stop trying to freak me out.”  She hopped onto the back of his motorcycle, curled her small frame around him and wrapped her arms around his waist. 

“I’m ready,” she said.

“Yes ma’am,” he nodded and revved the bike’s engine.  “Which way?”

THE END

Book #6 of Winter’s Saga, the final book in the series, will be available Spring 2014.

However, here’s a sneak peak for you.

Excerpt from the 6
th
and Final Book in Winter’s Saga

Winter’s Legacy

Meg and Evan

Tucumcari, New Mexico

14 weeks ago

“You don’t remember life on the ranch, Meg.  So let me tell you:  You were awesome.” Evan’s hazel gaze appeared crisp and lucid beneath the swollen, burned flesh on his face.  He lay curled in fetal position on the sickly polyester comforter that was anything but comfortable against his badly burned body. 

The cheap motel’s thin walls reverberated with voices from all sides, but Meg was oblivious of the others.  She was trying desperately to cover Evan with her empath’s white blanket, but it did little to soothe his cooked skin.  She tried to control her urge to wince as she watched him move his swollen face to talk.

“Those days were magical,” his voice was a gruff whisper.  “Between studies, training and chores, Mom would let us go about our mischief—just letting us be kids.  Those were some of the best memories, Meg.  I pray you’ll regain those days.  They defined you.  They defined all of us.”

He had trouble swallowing the saliva that had gathered in his mouth.  Meg found herself trying to swallow for the burned boy as she watched him struggle.

“We used to play a game—you were so good at it.  I always thought it was because you could somehow sense the direction Alik and I were edging toward, but in the end it didn’t matter.  Hunt or be Hunted was a favorite.”

“Evan, I need to get your fever down.  Please let me get you to the tub.”

“Not yet.  Time is too valuable.”

Meg blinked away the tears that threatened to blossom in her dark eyes.

“We started the game the way we always did—at the top of the hill just north of the pasture.  You used to wear a bandanna to keep your hair back, but for the game, you tied it around a stick and planted it into the top of the hill.  ‘First one back to the hill, flag in hand, wins,’ you’d say.  And we would all chant ‘Roses are red, soldiers confronted, it’s time to hunt or be hunted.’  Then we’d run down different sides of that hill and plot against each other.”

Meg racked her brain trying to use Evan’s words to help her trigger a memory, but the blackness where her memories used to be stood firm.

“Alik always used brute force, because that’s what he was good at.  That and memorizing all the hiding spots you and I could ever find.  I always tried to outsmart him, producing some new device or compound…which led to ‘The Great Smoke Bomb Incident’.”

Evan’s chuckle at that memory turned into a raspy cough that lasted a full, painful minute.

“You, big sister,” he finally managed.  “You won more times than any of us.”  His lips were so swollen from heat exposure, they looked painted and plump.  Meg watched his lips, worried they would crack open as he spoke because they’d swollen so badly.  Everything about the boy made Meg wince with sympathetic pain.

“I finally asked you how you did it on a day after a particularly humbling loss.  You know what you said?  ‘It’s not a game to me.  I don’t hold anything back.  I win or I die’.” 

“That’s when I learned how powerful your mind was.  Your sheer determination to live in the moment is what gave you the advantage time and again.  You live and fight and love like it’s the last day of your life.”

“Evan, what does this have to do with anything?” Meg’s dark eyes were wide with worry.

“Just give me some time, Meggie.  I’m still figuring this out myself.” He took a labored breath and continued.  “Alik can see into the past.  You can exist to your fullest in the present.  It seems pretty obvious now what my gift was always going to be.”

“Evan?” Meg watched the boy’s eyes start to roll back in his head.

He took a slow, breath through his partially opened mouth.  “I can see into the future, Meggie.  And if we’re going to live through this, you and I need to come up with a plan we can’t share with the others.  It’s crucial that it just be between us. We can win this, but as far as my vision can see, it won’t be easy.”

“You can see the future?” Meg repeated, trying to process the implications.

His sharp hazel eyes widened with a bout of pain causing his body to arch on the slick spread.  When he recovered, his breathing was hitched and erratic, but he continued talking.  “I can see the future of
others,
not my own.  This gift has serious limitations.  The images I get are hazy, like a dream I’m trying to remember, and life keeps changing.”  Evan’s eyes glassed over, staring unblinking at nothing.  “Meggie, life can all be so beautifully fragile.”  His body began to shake.

“You’re going into shock, Evan.  I need to get your core temperature stable.”  Meg swiped at the tears that finally overflowed down her pale cheeks. 

“I don’t have much time, Meg.  You need to listen and do exactly as I say.  No matter what, you cannot deviate from the path I lay out for us.”  His eyes were pinched closed against the waves of pain.  “Do you understand?”

“I understand,” she breathed, sensing his absolute honesty and fleeting grasp of consciousness.

***

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Karen Luellen Author
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