Fury of the Six (The Preston Six Book 5) (21 page)

“No, go ahead.”

He wanted to hug Julie. They did it, they’d made a child. He felt so emotional, he hugged her tight, feeling her sweaty body against his. He cried on her shoulder. This child wouldn’t have to be born into a world where MM would hunt him down, where Marcus would manipulate his life and make him forever look over his shoulder.

“We did it,” Julie said.

“
You
did it.” Lucas heard the sink running and a few whimpers from his boy. He tried to get a better look at him as Beth cleaned him up. “How does he look?”

She didn’t answer and kept washing him.

“Beth?” Lucas demanded, a ball of worry hitting his stomach hard. “Is something wrong?”

She wrapped him in a towel and turned with tears in her eyes. “He’s a perfect baby boy.”

Lucas let out a long breath of relief and stared at his new baby’s face. “He’s so small.” He’d never seen anything better in his entire life and just seeing the little guy looking back at him melted him. “Julie, look at our boy.”

“Can I hold him?”

“Of course you can, he’s yours.” Beth lowered him into Julie’s awaiting arms and he looked up at her, silent and intelligent, looking much like Evelyn when she first came out.

Lucas pushed his thoughts away, as none of it mattered. His friends killed Marcus, he killed Emmett, and it was over. Their kids could be different and not fear some mad men coming after them.

The door swung open to the room and Evelyn walked in.

Lucas, surprised by the little girl’s entrance, watched her walk around the bed and get close to Julie and the baby.

“I finally get to meet him,” Evelyn said, as the baby turned to face her. She laughed, shaking her head. Then she took a few steps back, her eyes going wide with fear, pointing at the bundled baby. “He’s going to kill us all if we don’t kill him first.”

POLY GOT UP AND STEPPED back from the door. There’d been a brief commotion and some of the parents were missing, along with Evelyn. But she couldn’t focus on that now. The machine was done and she stood next to Travis, gazing through the window. He went to the screen next to the door and typed into it. Opening the door, he walked in and Poly rushed in behind him.

“Don’t expect much. He’s alive, but—”

“Get out of the way.” She lifted the lid. “Joey?” She couldn’t stop smiling. “Joey, can you hear me?”

“He can’t. He’s non-responsive to stimulus. It’s on the report.”

“What do you mean, like a coma?”

“No, after what he just put his body through, this machine doesn’t understand it all. It only repairs what it sees as broken. What we have left now is . . .”

“What? Like he’s a vegetable?”

“This machine is struggling to keep him alive, Poly.”

She noticed a few wires and tubes running into his body.

“I don’t think it’ll be long now. I’d use this time to say your goodbyes.”

She felt the panic building and stared at Joey’s face. He looked like he was sleeping. She pushed on him and then shook him. “No, you can’t leave me. Not like this. Wake up, Joey!” she screamed. “
Wake up!
”

Travis took a few steps back and Opal came into the room, then Minter and Karen.

Poly spotted her mom and fell into her. “Where’s Evelyn? I want my daughter!”

“Shh,” Opal petted her head, “she’s fine, just went to see the new addition.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Julie just had her baby boy.”

Poly felt like she was floating. Her body had become disconnected from reality as her mom kept speaking. She heard the cries from Karen and the sobs from Minter, but they felt as distant as the constellations. Evelyn told her to let him go, but how could she? She couldn’t live without him.

Voices floated in space and she felt her whole world go black. Gravity left and she fell. She wasn’t ever going to get her Joey back. His body might have hung on for a bit longer, but his mind had stilled. Maybe if she fell far enough, she could find him. If she fell deep enough, he’d be there, waiting for her just like Evelyn had said.

“Mother,” Evelyn called out, loud and above all the other distant noises. “I still need you, come back to me.”

Poly didn’t have the will. She’d already given into the darkness, hoping she could find Joey. If she searched far and long enough, she’d find him again. They were meant to be together for eternity. This wasn’t how it ended.

The cool floor chilled her cheek and the soft screams around her didn’t register as reality. The hands lifting her felt unreal. They’d beaten Marcus and won, but she never felt so much loss in her entire life. She was broken, and didn’t want to be put back together.

POLY SCREAMED AND JERKED UP, pulling at the restraints on her arms and legs.

“Poly, I’m right here,” Opal said.

The bright lights blinded her vision and she kept screaming. It had to have all been a dream. She couldn’t have lost Joey. She felt him, just a whisper in the wind, but he was there and she grasped hard to keep him. She screamed, because none of it mattered, let the world hear her screams, let Joey find them and come to her.

She stopped screaming and her eyes adjusted. Taking in the room, she knew she wasn’t in Marcus’s fortress. She wasn’t next to Joey. “Where is he?”

Her mom looked pained. “Same place as always, dear.”

“Why am I tied down?” She pulled at her wrist restraints.

“You’ve attempted to kill me, twice. And you’ve tried to do other things . . .”

“I want to see him.”

“You don’t want to do that, not this time. Let it be different today. I love you too much to see you do it again to yourself.”

“I want to see him!” The door opened. “Evelyn?” Poly asked but it couldn’t be, the girl walking toward her looked closer to seven than a baby.

“I heard you from across the building. Grandma, may I?” Evelyn moved to the vinyl wrist straps and untied one.

“How are you so old? How long have I been here? Where am I?”

“These questions don’t get old to you, do they?”

Poly shook her head, trying to understand her daughter.

Evelyn sighed and walked to the other side of the bed. “You’ve been here for three months, and it’s been the same thing each time. Every few days, you wake from your self-induced coma and want to see Dad. We show you and you relapse, hard. You know how many tears you’ve put on me?”

Poly shook her head, she couldn’t understand it; she’d been there for months, doing the same thing? “Where am I?”

“We’re just outside Sanct. Travis has been very generous with his resources.”

With her next hand free, Poly reached out and touched Evelyn’s long hair. She’d only had tufts last time . . . no, that wasn’t right either. Marcus had accelerated her growth. The memories flooded in and she felt the blood leaving her face and the room faded.

“Here we go again.
Mom
, stay with me!”

Poly jerked upright and looked at Evelyn’s snapping fingers. She was turning into a beautiful little girl and she hated how she’d already missed so much. “I won’t relapse this time,” Poly said.

With the leg restraints gone, she got off the bed and wobbled around. Opal moved next to her and stabilized her with an arm around her waist.

“There are a few things you should know, Mother.”

“What’s that?”

Evelyn walked with her through the hospital room door and into a brightly lit hall. Poly squinted and looked down the hall to an oval opening, with a woman sitting behind a desk. The lady looked up and saw Poly, her eyes going wide as she dashed around the desk.

Evelyn sighed and stopped walking. She gazed up at her mother with intelligent eyes, far beyond her youthful appearance. “After all this time, nothing seems familiar?”

Fear built in Poly and she felt something deep within, something she didn’t want to grasp yet. “Can you take me to your dad?”

Evelyn pursed her lips and took Poly’s hand. She nodded and started walking. The woman behind the desk approached, but Evelyn waved her off with her free hand. The woman with an oak tree on her chest turned and scurried behind the desk. She typed into her Panavice and watched as Poly strode by with her daughter in hand.

“You said some things have changed?” Poly inquired.

Evelyn gave a slight nod to the woman behind the desk. “I’ve been going through the details of Marcus’s information.” She laughed. “He amassed a great knowledge of the worlds.”

Poly hated hearing his name. “Tell me, how is Joey? Is he awake yet?”

“I found things . . . things he kept hidden from everyone—even his mother. Oh, do you remember how Julie trapped Alice within her special program?”

“Yes,” Poly said, staring at the clear doors at the end of the hall, sunshine and greenery visible beyond.

“I compartmentalized her and placed her in a special Panavice. She can never get out unless I need her.”

Poly gazed down at Evelyn’s Panavice. It looked huge in her small hands. “Is Julie around? How about the others?”

Pain shot across Evelyn’s face or maybe it was a wince. “They are around, but they have a child now, so they’re probably tending to it.”

“Him,” Poly corrected.

“Yes,
him
.”

Poly wanted badly to see Julie and Lucas’s child, but it didn’t register high on her scale of needs. Right now, she was focused solely on seeing Joey.

They approached the clear doors and Evelyn slid her hands over one of them. A few green dots bounced around on the glass and it swung open.

“Where are you taking me?”

“You need to understand this isn’t easy for me, as I’ve taken you on this walk many times in the past few months. Sure, some things change, and sometimes you even have a couple of different questions, but the end result is the same.”

Evelyn pulled Poly outside and onto a stone path surrounded by grass. Poly thought of the terrible place Emmett put her with Samantha and Joey. But that never felt real, this felt vivid and the colors were bright, the sunshine warm and the person she walked with, precious.

Poly touched Evelyn’s hair, brushing her fingers down its length, to the tips reaching below her shoulder blades.

“You’re doing it again,” Evelyn said, looking sad.

“What?”

“You’re avoiding the subject.”

“I’m not, I don’t even know what we’re talking about.”

Evelyn sighed and gripped Poly’s wrist. Poly’s face lit up at the strength behind those small hands. Her grip felt like a vice at first, but lessened as Poly’s hand fell to her side. Evelyn slid her hand into Poly’s and pulled her along the stone path. The path led down and away from the large white building behind them.

None of it seemed familiar, yet it kind of did. Poly momentarily felt dizzy. “I don’t remember Sanct being like this.”

“Yes, you do. You just don’t want to acknowledge the memories. It’s not much further.”

Her heart pounded and she gripped her daughter’s hand tighter. “I don’t think I want to go. Let’s go back to the white building and talk. I’ve missed so much with you.”

“Come on, you said you wanted to see him, right?”

Poly felt tears building in her eyes and nodded. She hesitated and Evelyn pulled her along. How had she become so strong, so amazing? She couldn’t even be a year old. At that thought, she stopped. “Have I missed your birthday?”

“You haven’t. Come on, I have many things to do still.”

Evelyn pulled her along, down the stone path, meandering on a gentle slope. Poly tried to walk slower but Evelyn tugged at her hand, using her body weight to keep her moving. They rounded a corner of rock outcroppings and Poly froze in place.

“It’s beautiful.”

“You described this to me in one of our longer days. I wish I had more time for days like that.”

Poly gazed at the meadow with bright green grass, rolling upward to a knoll. A perfect oak tree, much like the one on the woman’s shirt, or as Poly realized, the one she made for Joey in the scene generator—the location of their first kiss. She rushed ahead of Evelyn, feeling the grass on her bare feet, walking under the oak tree’s round canopy. Getting dizzy, she lay on the grass and gazed up into the leaves moving in the slight breeze. The sun glittered through the gaps and swayed in and out of sight as the leaves moved with stronger gusts.

She sat up as Evelyn approached. “Is he coming here?”

Evelyn sat down next to her, her Panavice sitting in her lap. “Mother, you are the bravest person I’ve ever known. I watched the videos and did all the analysis on you, so it surprises me every time when we get to this point.”

Poly wanted her to stop talking and felt tears building in her eyes again. She gripped her daughter tightly and held her for a while. “I love you so much, Evelyn.”

“I love you too, Mother.” Evelyn’s eyes misted up. “Let me take you back to the moment, after Dad killed Marcus.”

“I don’t want to—”

“We put Dad in the healing machine, remember?”

Tears flowed down Poly’s face and she nodded.

“Afterward, we discovered his mind was gone, only his body remained.”

“No.”

“Mom, listen.” Evelyn sighed. “I want to tell you why I think you are the bravest person I’ve ever known.” Her little kid voice was filled with wisdom and Poly sniffled. “You are special, all of us Six are. We can feel on a deeper level, with connections I cannot identify yet, but you knew . . . you knew you were keeping him from moving on. You were the only thing keeping him from finding peace.”

Poly’s body shook and uncontrollable tears fell from her face. Ragged breath and a shaky chin didn’t deter her from glaring at Evelyn.

Evelyn took her hand and wrapped both of hers around Poly’s. “You are the one who gave him that peace. I felt it the moment you gave in and let him move on; it was the most beautiful thing I’ll ever witness in my life, I am sure of that.”