Revelations (29 page)

When the bullet tore through my palm, I was ready for it. I was the one who fired the gun, after all. I felt the pain, but my alcohol numbed mind didn’t completely register it.

Dale was the one who staggered back, the gun falling with a clank onto the ground. “Oh, my God,” he whispered. He brought his shaking hands up to eye level, still uncertain what happened.

I peered at him through the hole in my hand. “Pretty neat, eh?” I said, closing the gap between us, watching him step away. “Wanna see it up close?”

Blood dripped down into the dirt beneath my wounded hand. I could feel the fire of the newly made hole, but the pain still hadn’t completely registered, which was probably a good thing since I wanted to draw out the moment. Dale was still backing off from me as I advanced. When he stumbled back and fell, I stopped, knelt, and held my hand before him.

“Now watch,” I said. The hole in my hand slowly disappeared, sealing before his wide brown eyes. When the hole was gone, I went and wiped my blood onto his shirt, cleaning off my hand.

“What are you?” Dale said in a barely audible whisper.

There was only one thing for me to say.

“I’m just a girl,” I said, my chin held high.

With a smile on my face, I turned from the stunned man and went to join my friends. They followed behind me, each one in a state of individual shock, as I headed for Philip’s car and waited for Philip to open the doors. We all got in without a word and drove away. We left the sheriff’s son sitting in the dirt, his face pale and bloody from his altercation with Jonas. His mind spun in circles from his encounter with me.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

“So.” Philip was the first to speak as we drove on to Cannon. “What was that all about?”

I spoke up first, since I had all the answers. “That table had the best view of the women’s gym.”

“Is that why they wanted it?” Jonas asked. Starch was passed out in the front seat or else he would have chimed in with something interesting.

“Yep,” I said, giving him a smile.

“Not that,” Philip said.

“I know,” I said. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

Jonas snorted.

I rolled my eyes in his direction. “It didn’t hurt,” I said.

He snorted again.

“Well, it didn’t,” I muttered. It really hadn’t, not much anyway, thanks to copious amounts of alcohol. “If you’d heard what he was thinking, you’d probably have asked me to do it.”

Jonas didn’t bother to ask what Dale had been thinking. I didn’t blame him. Dale thought some pretty nasty things involving doing some randy stuff to me and some torturous stuff to Jonas. That’s what made me put my hand on his gun. Thus ended the conversation in Philip’s car. We drove on to Cannon in silence. I did try and see if I could find Jonas’s pickup, which I’d left behind the last time, but I never saw it. I could barely remember where we left it anyway. Cannon was there ahead of us. I already knew what we would find.

Cannon AFB was empty.

I knew before we walked up, otherwise I would have left Jonas and Philip in the car and sobered up Starch to go with me alone. It had been emptied after S-4 exploded into bits because Holt knew this would be my next destination.

He left me a note on the door for good measure.

I walked ahead of the guys and stopped before the door, yanking away the envelope taped there.

“What it that?” Starch asked, his voice still a little slurred.

The envelope had my first name on it, written in Holt’s neat and familiar hand. I tore it open and pulled out the letter, also handwritten:

My dearest Christiana.

You were always one of my favorites. I regret not being able to meet you here in person. I could not risk being part of your plot, my dear. And I could not risk you being careless and getting caught, or worse, killed by my hot-headed soldiers. That is half of the reason why I ordered this place emptied. I also didn’t want to see it destroyed and lose all of my hard work.

You must know I love and respect you as one would his own daughter, despite the mishaps of earlier years back, when I tried to eliminate you from the face of the Earth. I did not understand, back then, what you would become to me in the future, what you are to me now.

I must also apologize for the destruction caused in the desert. That was not my intention, and the men who carried out such a heinous act all suffered execution at my own hand. I only wanted you. The others were unimportant. I am still grieved by their loss, but only because of how it must grieve you. The boy was also not my doing. Soldiers have a way of disobeying orders, and those soldiers have a way of dying tragic deaths.

There is much remaining to be said between us, but the time will come. I have much more to show you, as well. No matter what you might think, no matter what my actions might show, you are very dear to me. I made you, after all, however inadvertently. But you will not stop me. You will not deter me from my plans. I continue on in my work as you continue on in yours.

This place is gone now. It will never be used for such purposes again. You know where I have gone to. You remember, from our time spent together. I know I needn’t jog your memory any more than that. Your place is with me, Christiana. You know that. When you decide to return to me, I will welcome you with open arms. You and I are the two most powerful creatures on this Earth. You cannot deny that. Together, we could conquer the world. You know where to find me.

Remember, I had a hand in all of them, including your beloved Jonas.

Forever yours,

Arturo Holt.

I read the letter twice. I passed it on to Jonas, who read it, crumpled it, and threw it in the dirt. Philip picked it up, uncrumpled it, read it, and passed it off to Starch, who read it and threw it back into the dirt.

“What is all that supposed to mean?” Starch said.

“It means he wants me back,” I said, leaning against the closed door.

“To do what with you?” he asked.

I shrugged. I didn’t really know, but I could guess. “To join forces,” I muttered. “To rule the world, maybe.”

“Do you really know where to find him? Jonas asked.

I nodded. “Diablo Peak,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“A mountain in San Francisco,” I said. “Holt has a small base up there.”

“And how do you know that?” Starch asked.

I looked up at his bright blue eyes. “I’ve been there,” I said. That was all that needed to be said.

With that said and done, I turned and walked away from the base, but not before picking up the handwritten letter and stuffing it into my pocket. I wanted it. It was simple.

Starch shook his head at me as I walked away, feeling disappointment. He knew what was in my thoughts as easily as Jonas did. I wanted to go, to move on knowing this place was now just a useless hulk. We’d come here for destruction, and Starch wanted to destroy. What he thought of my relationship with Holt, I could not say. He just wanted to burn.

“Go ahead, my dear,” I said to Starch, glancing over my shoulder at him.

He gave me a tentative smile. “Sure?”

“Yes,” I said, my back to him once more. I didn’t want to see, didn’t want to watch. Jonas followed in my wake with Philip on his heels. The vampire carried Starch’s clothing as Starch went into the base naked, to light it all aflame.

I heard the fire begin to roar as he lit the insulation. I felt the heat as we walked away from it. Starch was angry, and there was no reason to blame him for his emotions. He’d lost the chance to stop the experimenting. Holt simply moved everything from the AFB. The experimenting still continued. Of course, I already knew this. I could list off the places where experiments were still being created. A certain AFB in the desert of California was only one. If Starch thought by destroying Cannon while it still functioned would end the experiments, he was utterly wrong. I didn’t correct his thoughts. I let him walk into the building and light the fire, and we waited until he walked out.

A few minutes later, with a roaring fire burning behind us, Starch dressed, and we got back into the car. Then the questions were only for me.

“Are we going?” Jonas asked as Philip drove away from the burning buildings.

“Yeah, Chris,” Starch said, “are we going to Frisco?”

I was silent, staring out the window as the world passed me by. Within the last twenty four hours, I’d been shot through the hand, gotten a note from my creator and turned my back on a burning building that had once been a place of torture and torment. I didn’t know if I could do it again so soon. “Can we make one stop first?” I asked.

Nobody denied me this detour. In a little cemetery outside of Clovis, New Mexico, I laid a single rose, stolen off another’s grave with gracious thanks, on the still new grass that covered the grave of my half-brother; a little boy who never even knew I was his sister. A little boy taken for the sole purpose of causing me pain.

Alone, I knelt before the small headstone and put the red rose on the green grass. He’d had my eyes. My father’s eyes. His father’s eyes. His father who was nearly as gone as this child was.

I bowed my head and let the tears flow. Those tears weren’t just for this lost child; they were for everyone who had gone before me. I cried for those who’d lost their lives at the Commune. I cried for Hermione, whose life I so ruthlessly took. I cried for my father, who was raving in a mental institution on the other side of the country. I cried from the depths of my soul. There was no anger in me then, only a death defying sadness.

I knew what I had to do. There was no other option in my life. Everything had been taken away from me. Now it was my turn. For this dead child. For my father. For all the family I’d lost in the desert. There was only one place to go. I am highly-trained, and often times I am a cold-blooded killer. Holt gave me those roots, and it was time for me to return to them.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

There is a whole hell of a lot I left out of this, but I’m really tired and even someone like me needs a rest now and then. It didn’t take me long to put all this down and it won’t take me long to do it again. I have left a lot unsaid. I keep making mention of the portion of my life when I was someone else, and yes, I know that’s confusing since I have yet to explain, but I’ll get there. I did spend three years of my life as someone else, having no memory of who I’d been in the past. So much more happened before then.

So bear with me, I beg of you. I know I’m not the best storyteller in the world, but it’s my story. I’ll tell it on my own terms.

Right now, I’m going to go take a nap.