Winter's Warrior: Mark of the Monarch (Winter's Saga 4) (40 page)

“I may be pathetic, but I am not simpleminded.”

Shattering glass distracted Arkdone, his startled eyes following the sound.

Williams used the moment of confusion to shove the liquor bottle’s shard into Arkdone’s tanned cheek and shove him off. 

Meg stood mannequin-still right where he’d left her.  Grabbing her hand, he yanked her back toward the entrance of the asylum.  Meg’s body moved to keep up, but she ran in a daze, tottering in the three-inch heels Arkdone had her wear. 

To the metasoldiers wearing gas masks pouring in the back windows, Williams yelled, “Kill them all!”

He helped Meg over the debris that used to be the front door and ducked her head down as a helicopter dove from the clouds and landed ten yards away from them.  Never allowing her hand to leave his, Kenneth Williams pushed Meg into the chopper and climbed in right behind her.  Miro, who was piloting the bird, turned around awaiting Williams’ signal to take off.  His eyes were black and dead and his thoughts were half English and half Russian.

***

The feral cats, two of which had fresh kills dangling from their mouths, looked up and watched the loud bird fly straight up and away from the asylum.

The noise of the blades chopping through the air, while bothersome, was no threat to them or their kill
s, so the wild cats found their favorite perches and began cutting past the rats’ furry skin to savor the warm, bloody meat below.

Chapter 65  Get Out Alive

“Where’s Meg?” Alik spun looking for his sister.

“Arkdone did something to her, Alik.  He took her
.” Evan’s eyes were still bloodshot from tears of horror and guilt at what just happened to Meg.  Alik was yanking off his brother’s restraints.

“They made us watch, Alik.  They erased Meg’s memory.” Cole’s voice was bitter with anger and heartbreak.

“What?” Alik turned to help his brother stand on unsure legs.

“He performed what he called ‘The Perfect Concussion’ using subaural frequency waves to target her hippocampus.  She didn’t remember anything when he walked her out of here.  She even held his hand as if she was a little girl walking with her d
addy,” Evan coughed through tears pouring again from his raw tear ducts.

Alik shook his head in disbelief.  “We’ll get her back, I swear it.” 

Crash!

Alik was working on Creed’s iron shackles, picking the lock with two paperclips he found on the desk.  “I think Williams’ metasoldiers have decided to join the party.”

“Wait, what?”  Evan sputtered.

“We need to get out of here now!” Creed said to the sounds of crashing windows just beyond the lab.

“Yeah, without you killing each other.  Stay at least seven feet apart and let me lead the way.  Farrow, I need you beside me.
”

She nodded once, finished yanking the Velcro and buckled straps off Sloan and hurried to Alik’s
side, careful to step around Bjorn’s body.

“I don’t know where we’re going, Alik.  The
SUV can seat everyone but not seven feet apart.” 

“I have a plan for that,” Evan said reaching beside him for a device he had been eyeing for the
last three hours as he was strapped to the seat.

“Wait, what about Maze?” Cole said.

At the sound of his name, Maze let out a plaintive cry.

“Oh dear God, what did he do to you?” Alik ran up to the half-hidden crate barely big enough to fit the large, bloody coyote.  

“You’re going to have to carry him, Alik.  He’s implanted with a nanoweapon, too.”

Alik’s rage had him crushing the metal clasps that held the crate together so the sides flopped open making reaching under the coyote much ea
sier. “Oh, Maze.  I’m so sorry Big Man.  Come on; let’s get you out of here.” He carefully slipped his large hands under Maze’s belly and scooped him up easily.  Maze tensed when his paws grazed the table.  “Shh, Buddy, I’m sorry.  We’ll get you fixed up and…” Alik swallowed hard, “we’ll find our Meg, too.”

“Let’s go,” he said to the others, pulling his eyes away from the loyal coyote who had slowly l
ifted his head to lick Alik’s face in thanks.

Alik and Farrow led the way back down the macabre corridor.  The white walls were painted red with blood
.  Body parts were strewn all around, some still hanging from the ceiling and cement walls. 

If they had time to grieve the loss of life they would have, but this was a matter of their own life or death.  They were hunted now by two madmen and they were in no position to stop and bury any dead.

Willing gravity not to pull a clump of tissue or even a droplet of blood on top of them, they hurried through the gruesome passageway and back to the main foyer where the whole battle had just begun.  Metasoldiers wearing gas masks were streaming into the building.  When the Winter Clan hit the wall of gas, their eyes began to burn and itch horribly.  The effect on Alik was the worst because he couldn’t even use his hands to pull up his shirt over his face as the others instinctively did.  His hands were full.

The metasoldiers were busy fighting Monarchs.  Gunfire, knives and fists were flying through the air. 

So was a helicopter. 

Alik heard it before he saw it.

Looking up, he saw the aircraft lifting off through one of the tall panes of glass in the front of the foyer.  Looking down at him with unrecognizing eyes was his sister, Meg.  Her face was waxen and expressionless.  His eyes were burning and watering painfully from the tear gas, and he only got a glimpse, but Alik was absolutely sure of it: His sister was leaving with Williams. 

Trying to put that image aside, Alik hurriedly led everyone in a crouched position along the wall and through the front door he’d kicked down not thirty minutes ago.

Once outside, the effects of the tear gas, though still strong, wasn’t as severe. 

Alik ran as fast as his legs would carry him, glancing over his shoulder to be sure everyone was present and accounted for.  Next to him was Farrow—she never missed a step though one of Alik’s running strides was the same as nearly two of hers because of their height difference.  Directly behind them was Evan, then spaced seven feet behind him ran Sloan.  Seven more feet found Cole running and taking up the rear was Creed.  He had positioned himself last intentionally, in case a battle needed to happen
.  Creed was going to make sure it was with him and no one else.  The five ran the length of the gothic, tree-lined driveway and back to the fence where everyone spaced out wide and managed to climb over despite their exhaustion.

Alik waited until the last person was over before he carefully laid Maze down in the grass and walked up to the wrought-iron fence.

“We can’t leave Maze, Alik!” Evan cried, terrified that they’d lose Meg’s best friend.

“We’re not leaving him, Ev.  We don’t leave family,
ever.” His heart squeezed tightly in his chest—the image of his sister’s oblivious facial expression as she left with their enemy was seared into his perfect memory forever.

He huffed his breath several times, pumping himself up with oxygen and forced himself to stare at Maze’s blood smeared all over his hands and shirt.  His fury wasn’t hard to tap in to.  It was right there ready to burst.

With a roar of anger, Alik pulled one of the bars until it groaned in his hands.  He kept pulling until the soldering that held it to the horizontal bars snapped.  “Farrow, help me get Maze through here.” He turned and carefully picked up the dying coyote only to pass him through the opening to Farrow, the only other person who didn’t have a nanoweapon in her heart.  Once Maze was through, Alik jump through the opening himself.  Farrow passed the coyote back to Alik and they ran toward the parked SUV.

“Ev?  If you had a plan for this part, now would be a great time to whip it out.”

“Right,” Evan said and set the case he’d carried from the lab down on the ground and kneeled beside it.  He flipped the latches with practiced hands and pushed a lever to turn it on. 

“Evan?  What are you doing?”

“The electric current from the paddles should be enough to render the nanoweapons disabled.”

“
Should be?” Cole asked, brows rose in the perfect,
oh-shit
expression.

“If my calculations are correct, yes.  I am guessing on a lot of this.  It’s not like Arkdone gave me a nanodevice to investigate while we were in the lab.
”

“What happens if you’re wrong?” Creed asked the question everyone was thinking.

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

“How?” Sloan asked, very sure she knew, but too afraid to say it.

“We have to test it,” he said, matter-of-factly.

Just then, the machine beeped.  The portable defibrillator was charged and ready for use.

Evan ripped his shirt off, grabbed the paddles, and called, “Clear!”

He put the paddles on his own chest, strategically surrounding his heart, and pushed the buttons on the handles. 

“NO!”

“Evan!”

“Oh, dear God!”

“Evan, wake up!”

Alik laid the coyote down in the grass and ran to his brother who had just shocked himself.  The older brother was screaming and crying, but didn’t care.  All his mind could think about was the moment he saw his brother’s body jolt rigid and fall back to the ground. 

“Evan, wake up!  God, please, help us.  Evan
, you dumb ass!  What the hell were you thinking?  I can’t do this without you!  I can’t lose my brother
and
my sister in one day!”  Alik was shaking his little brother’s wiry shoulders, desperately trying to revive him. 

“Feel for a pulse,” Sloan yelled across a safe distance.

“Right,” Alik muttered, “a pulse.”  His large hands held his brother’s wrist and carefully felt around for a pulse. 

“I can’t find one,” his voice caught.

“Try his carotid artery in his neck,” Sloan called.

Alik touched his brother’s Adam’s apple then let his fingers slip to the side of it.  He felt a faint pulse right away.

Leaning down with his forehead resting on his arm, Alik called.  “Yeah, I feel it.  It’s faint, but it’s there.”

“Oh thank God,” Cole breathed.

“Why did he do that?” Alik asked no one in particular.

“It’s actually a brilliant idea,” Sloan offered in a soft voice.  “Imagine nanotechnology like a bunch of microscopic computers programmed to perform a certain operation.  The defibrillator, although crude for this purpose, could essentially short-circuit the nanotechnology rendering it useless.”

“Well, great, but how will we know it worked?”  Cole asked.

“We have to have a volunteer come close enough to Evan and…do a lot of praying.”

“I’ll go,” Creed said.  His mind was still trying to understand the nightmare he was living.  He could not feel Meg at all since Bjorn flipped that switch and he was starting to lose hope that he’d ever get his dark-eyed girl back.

“Wait, don’t we want to talk about this?”

“No,” Creed said simply and started walking toward Evan slowly, wondering at each step if he was going to feel it when the nanoweapon burst his heart so his insides would look like the grisly corridor they just passed through.  He kept walking until he was standing beside Evan.  Alik hadn’t moved his hand from his brother’s pulse, wanting to make sure nothing happened to him either. 

Boom!

In the distance, a huge explosion echoed across the countryside.

“W
e have to hurry if we’re going to get out of here before we’re found.”

“This doesn’t prove anything, though.  Evan and Creed could both be triggers…”

“…or exploders.”

Cole was so mad he muttered profanities under his breath and kicked the ground. 

“Why don’t we just run our separate ways?” Sloan asked.

“That’s not how we do things,” Evan muttered softly.

“Oh thank God you’re awake, Evan!” 

“Yeah, that hurt.”  He tried to stifle a moan as he moved to sit up. “Good, Creed’s here.  You’re next buddy.  And if I were you, I’d switch off my pain sensors for this jolt.”

“No, I’m ready.  If you can stand it, so can I.”  Creed nodded, acknowledging the courage it took for Evan to go first.  He yanked his shirt off exposing the beautiful body Meg so loved to trace with the soft pads of her fingertips.  That’s what Creed thought about as Evan positioned the paddles on him and called, “clear!”

His thick body went ridged with the electric surge straight to his heart, then he flopped back to the ground, head lolled to one side.  

“Wow, I’ve seen it twice now and damn if it doesn’t look painful,” Cole rubbed his chest sympathetically.

“Okay,” Evan said still looking a little pale, “I feel a pulse. Who’s willing to go next?”

Sloan looked over at Cole and shrugged, “Don’t worry, Cole.  I know you believe in lady’s first and all.”  She started marching toward Evan and Creed, trying to look brave but feeling decidedly wobbly in the knees.