Winter's Storm: Retribution (Winter's Saga #2) (13 page)

At fifteen, Alik looked more like an adult than he should. He had lost any hint of a baby face years ago and instead, wore his broodingly handsome worry lines casually, as though it had never occurred to him that life held anything less than one battle after another with brief interludes of reprieve between; a reprieve that was always more like the calm before another storm.

And though he loved life and felt an obligation to appreciate every moment of it, his intense ability to recollect even the smallest detail of every day since the beginning of his time had turned him in to a soul that knew how precious life was. Alik understood life was fleeting because he’d already lived through so much.

He had a “time sense” almost like a gymnast had “air sense.” His awareness of past and present moments were as clear to him as a gymnast was aware of ceiling and floor even as he spun in mid air. Life was pulsing ahead and he knew his reprieve was nearly over. A battle was fast approaching.

Alik was in Paulie’s gym, a smaller building separate from the house. He was pumping iron and pushing himself to feel his muscles strain so he could live in the moment, even if it was just for a few hours. He allowed himself to focus on the feel of the metal in his hands, the scent of salt from the ocean, the tightness in his muscles as they were forced to exert themselves against gravity.

And in his mind, he heard his brother’s voice explaining what he and Paulie and Theo had discovered through the research of their meta blood. He wished to God he could stop replaying the conversation, but there it was. Again and again, the strain in his brother’s voice carried through, crystal clear through Alik’s videographic memory.

Moving to the treadmill didn’t help matters. The pumping of his legs at the steepest incline couldn’t force away the memory of the look on his mother’s face as she listened to the prognosis for her three children.

He could not control his crisp mental image of Meg’s face when she realized it would be she who would pass away first. Her eyes gave away her feelings, and there was no doubt in Alik’s mind that she was flung into the Kubler-Ross stages of grief immediately. She flew past denial and was right in the middle of anger. Bargaining, depression and acceptance were the last three stages, according to the theory, but Alik was pretty sure Meg wasn’t leaving anger anytime soon. She ran out of the room with shadows of fury darting across her face.

Well, shit,
Alik thought as he pushed himself faster and faster on the treadmill
. I think we all have every right to be furious right now.

He allowed his pace to slow and the incline to drop so his muscles could begin to cool down. By the end of five minutes he was still steeped in thought, but finally ready to rest.

Alik lay still on the padded floor of the gym with his arm thrown over his eyes, his body only moderately spent after working out nonstop over the last two hours. Reliving the events of this morning was more exhausting than his entire workout combined.

With a muffled groan, he forced himself to a sitting, then standing position and slowly walked out of the gym ready to head back to the house and jump in the shower.

Just before he reached the screen door he heard someone call out, “Help! Hey, you! She needs help!”

Alik turned to see a guy, not much older than himself, carrying a girl. It only took half a second for him to realize, even from this distance, the girl was his sister.

“
Oh, my God,
MEG!
” Alik ran full speed to the stranger who was carrying his limp sister. “What happened? Who are you? What did you do to her?” Alik yelled even as he ran so by the time he reached them, he looked like he was seconds away punching a whole through the guy’s neck.

“
Wait, no…I just found her on the ground a dozen meters up that way.” The guy jerked his head back over his shoulder without letting his eyes leave Alik’s. “Honest, man. I didn’t do anything to her,” the stranger said wide-eyed as he gently passed the girl to Alik. Sensing the guy was no threat, Alik allowed himself to focus completely on his sister.

Meg was still dressed in the same running clothes and shoes she was wearing a couple hours before when she left the house. She felt heavy, like dead-weight. And even as that phrase jumped into Alik’s mind, he fought back panic.

“
Meg?” Alik spoke her name sternly. “Meg. Wake up! Come on, Meg!” Alik was half running back up the path to the house, completely unconcerned that the strange guy who found his sister was right behind him. All he could think about was how much he wished his sister would snap out of it, push herself to her feet and start shouting and bossing everyone around like she usually did when she was upset. Instead, she didn’t make a sound, and she didn’t move.

Her head hung back and her long dark hair had come loose from the knot she tied it in to run. Her lean legs hung limp, as did her arms. She looked as alive as a rag doll, and she was burning up with fever. He could feel the heat searing through her thin clothing radiating off her like a bon fire.

“
Oh, my God. Oh, God,”
Alik kept pleading.
“Oh, please, no. Not now. She is supposed to have more time! We’re all supposed to have more time!”
Alik’s voice was creased with anguish even as he prayed.

Alik ran up the steps to Paulie’s house and began shouting, “Evan! Mom! Someone! Meg’s sick!
Come quick!
”

He opened the screen door, flew into the living room, and gently laid his sister down on the sofa, taking special care not to bump her head. The whole while, he kept alternating from yelling into the house for help and talking softly to his unconscious sister, trying to get her to respond.

“
Meg, come on, kid. I need you. Mom and Evan need you. You can’t be sick, Meg. We have work to do. Remember? We can’t do this without you. Oh God, Meg, not yet.
You can’t leave us yet!
” Alik’s voice choked up completely so by the time he yelled into the house again, he was hoarse with tears.

23 Consequences

“
What’s wrong with her?” Evan had been on the other side of the house in the laboratory with Margo, Andrews and Paulie, but had stepped out to retrieve some notes from his room. It was a good thing he did too, because the lab was essentially soundproof. Evan was at his sister’s side immediately.

“
I don’t know, Ev. A guy found her like this up the path and…she’s burning up with fever. She hasn’t said a word; hasn’t responded at all,” Alik was watching his little brother’s skilled hands as he started with Meg’s head and began examining her.

“
What’s all the yelling about?” Cole hurried into the room and looked around trying to determine what he’d missed. His eyes found Meg lying so fragile and small on the sofa.

“
Cole, Meg’s sick. Go get everyone from the lab. Run!” Alik ordered.

“
Oh, God, Meg!” Cole took half a moment to study Meg’s face before he bolted from the room and down the hall toward the laboratory.

“
Should I call 911?” the stranger asked from a few feet behind the sofa.

Both brothers turned quickly to glare at the guy they hadn’t even realized was in the room.

“
We got it from here,” Evan responded cautiously.

Alik stood, hurried to the door and opened it saying, “Thanks for your help, man. Really, we appreciate it.”

“
Right,” Creed nodded, getting the hint. “Don’t mention it.” Just as he slipped through the open doorway he turned and added, “Hey, I’d like to stop by tomorrow and check in on her, if that’s okay.”

Alik looked back at his sister lying on the sofa and really just wanted to get rid of this guy so he could go back figuring out what was happening to her. He turned to the stranger, shrugged noncommittally and said, “Aloha, man,” before letting the door shut firmly between them.

Creed didn’t move for a minute, thinking about what just happened. He took a deep breath before heading back down the steps toward the path. He was replaying the events of the last half hour and trying to be sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.

Farrow’s impulsive shot was right on target, and so far, the family seemed to be reacting to Meg’s “condition” as planned, but he had a nagging sensation that something was wrong.

“
It
all
feels wrong, damn it,” he muttered to himself. He shoved his hands deeply in his pockets and bit his lip. He was going to have to do some serious thinking tonight. He had to go weigh his options and their consequences. If there was one thing he learned is that there were always consequences. He picked up his pace as he walked toward his rental parked down the road.

24 Uncertainty

Now that the stranger was gone, the brothers returned to their examination of Meg.

Evan pulled a small flash light from his pocket, gently lifted Meg’s eyelids one at a time and flashed the light into them looking for pupil dilation. “Well, her pupils are responsive, but sluggish. Her heart rate is extremely fast. Breathing is shallow and her lips are purple. She doesn’t seem to have any bruising or lacerations I can find. Her fever is very high.” Internally, Evan’s mind was racing with logical possibilities, externally, his face looked almost as pale as Meg’s.

“
Evan, we’ve never been sick; none of us. What’s wrong with her?” Alik was searching his brother’s eyes for an answer. Evan only shook his head slowly.

They heard the family running down the corridor and moments later burst into the room. Dr. Andrews was the first at Meg’s side, “The calculations were correct. This wasn’t supposed to even begin happening yet.”

“
You knew this was how it was going to come on and you didn’t warn us?” Margo was seething with worry and anxiety.

“
We need to get her back to the lab. We have to run tests on the status of her gama-globulin and electrolytes. Maybe something set off her countdown; something that triggered this early onset,” Paulie thought out loud while scratching his scruffy beard.

Alik carefully lifted his sister and hurried down the corridor to the laboratory. Everyone else was right on his heels.

Margo took the lead in removing her daughter’s clothing so she could dress her in a hospital gown. As they worked, she only allowed herself to think as a doctor. She saw no cuts or bruises anywhere on her daughter’s body. Her coloring was unusual, though. She had taken on a yellowish hue to her skin and her lips were somewhat purple. That, combined with her high fever, made for very strange symptoms. Margo fought back panic because she couldn’t think of any reason for her daughter to be in the condition she was in.

“
Okay, we’re ready,” Margo called to the other side of the privacy curtain.

Evan came in with a syringe and several empty vials to collect blood samples. Dr. Andrews began setting up an I.V. so he could hydrate Meg with fluids and so there was a path already established should medications need to be administered quickly. Margo took on her motherly role and simply worked to position a surgical cap on Meg’s head so she could tuck in all her daughter’s dark curls, minimizing possible contamination to the sterile room.

Alik left the room quickly to clean up and returned fifteen minutes later to the laboratory hoping he could be of some help. He walked into the room filled with people he loved and respected rushing around his sister who laid still as stone on a white-sheeted gurney.

Cole was standing in the corner looking like he was trying to stay out of the way. The boys exchanged helpless glances. Everyone else in the room was a doctor, except Evan, but he was only lacking the papers. Over the last five months, Evan had educated himself and was as versed as anyone who had gone through four years of medical school. That’s how smart Evan is. Matter of fact, he was specialized in the one area Meg needed most: Metahuman-ology.

“
Alik, was it you who found Meg?” Dr. Andrews asked.

“
No, sir,” Alik responded a little too quickly. “I mean, I wish I had. But this guy said he just found her on the jogging path and carried her to the nearest house for help. Luckily, ours was the nearest house.”

“
Did she collapse?” Dr. Paulie asked.

“
I don’t know. The guy just said,” Alik replayed the conversation in his mind and quoted, “‘I just found her on the ground a dozen meters up that way.’”

“
Who was he? Did you get his name?” Margo asked.

“
No, mom. He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. I was too worried about Meg,” he said feeling upset with himself for not having more information to give to the doctors trying to help his sister.

“
But he did say he would come back tomorrow to check on her,” Alik added, brightening at the memory. “Maybe we can ask him some questions then and get a better idea of what happened.”

“
Right, let’s plan on that.” Margo smiled softly at her oldest son, sensing his feelings of guilt and helplessness.

Dr. Paulie spoke up, “I’d like to rule out anything ordinary before we jump right into her meta physical status. Does anyone remember anything unusual about Meg? Did she eat or drink something different? Was she behaving differently? Dizzy spells? Mood changes?” he said as though he were gathering a typical medical history on a patient. The whole room stopped and looked over at Dr. Paulie, “I mean
unusual
mood changes?”