Touching Eternity (Touch Series 1.5) (20 page)

“Why not?” she hissed, glowering up at him. “It never stopped you before.”

The angry washed out of his face. “I never wanted that.”

The sharp crack of laughter that escaped her was cold, brittle like ice incased twigs under careless feet. “There are a lot of things I don’t want.” She yanked her arm out of his touch. “Like your hands on me.”

His head jerked back as though he’d been smacked. “Amalie—”

By miracle of chance, Amalie found the feeling in her legs and rose. He didn’t try to stop her as she walked stiffly to the bathroom and closed the door between them.

Amalie closed her eyes and leaned into the cool surface. She slid boneless to the ground and pulled her knees to her chin. Her entire body convulsed in cold shudders.

Garrison

Garrison had just replaced the frame on Abigail’s picture when the knock resounded through his office. With years of practice, he nimbly slid the photo beneath a stack of folders, sat back in his chair and summoned the intruder inside. It only took one look into flush-faced guard to have him out of his seat again.

“What happened?

Panting, the guard jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Sir, Your daughter—”

In a handful of strides, Garrison was across the room and shoving past him into the hallway. The guard stuttered something, but Garrison was already half-running through the corridor, lab coat white wings flapping behind him. His hands dug into the pockets of his coat. His fingers curled around the syringe he kept there. He was only vaguely aware of footsteps hurrying to catch up.

He should never have allowed Amalie the freedom, he realized, mentally kicking himself. He should have known it was too soon. She hadn’t been ready. Lord knew what he’d be walking into when he arrived.

But Amalie wasn’t in the room. Amalie was nowhere in sight. Instead, he was greeted by the sight of Isaiah, straddling an unconscious and bleeding Tomas, one hand fisted in the other man’s shirt, the other raised, fisted in the air, knuckles bloody. Garrison wasn’t sure what he was witnessing when the first sickening crunch of bones resounded throughout the room, followed abruptly by another. Isaiah’s fist was a blur, pounding mercilessly into the raw flesh of Tomas’ face. Tomas never so much as uttered a sound, and for one terrifying moment, Garrison thought the professor was dead.

“Isaiah!” He rushed into the room. “Get him off!” he growled at the guard standing uselessly in the doorway.

The guard blinked as though Garrison had spoken Russian. But it set in quickly and he hurried to drag Isaiah off Tomas. The professor slumped to the ground, his face a jagged mess of pounded meat. Blood stained his clothes and smeared in a crimson puddle around him. He looked to have lost a horrible match with a gorilla. His lip was swollen, his nose visibly broken and there was something wrong with his right eye. The eyelid was crusted with thick globs of blood, membranes and oozing what looked like tar. Something about it made his insides churn, but he would deal with that later.

“What is the meaning of this?” Garrison rounded on Isaiah, still being restrained by the guard, Mathew, if memory served him correctly.

“He was on her!” Isaiah spat, blue eyes pits of ebony. “That bastard was…” he trailed off, his chest heaving, his nostrils flaring. His lips curled back over clenched teeth. “He had her on the desk! He was touching her!”

For a moment, Garrison couldn’t wrap his mind around what he was being told. The words made no sense, because in order for it to make sense, it would mean that the man he trusted, a colleague and friend, was doing something unthinkable.

“You’re mistaken—”

Those blue eyes shot up to his face, blazing with flames from hell. “I saw him!” he hissed through his teeth. “I walked in here and he was on top of her!”

The blow was excruciating. The betrayal burned. He stared at the boy he raised as though he couldn’t fathom what he was seeing.

Isaiah wasn’t a liar. He had no reason to fabricate such a horrendous lie. What could he possibly gain? But then that would mean it was true.

His gaze dropped to Tomas, unmoving except the odd muscle spasm. He was still alive. His chest fluctuated with his uneven in takes of air. Garrison’s gut wrenched. Bile sat thick at the back of his throat. He turned away.

“What are you doing here, Isaiah? Where’s Derek?”

Isaiah’s expression took on one of bafflement. “Did you hear me? He was—”

“I heard you!” His voice rasped, projecting his age for one horrifying moment. Garrison closed his eyes, schooling himself. “I heard,” he repeated, opening his eyes and pinning Isaiah. “What are you doing here?”

“Get off me!” Isaiah shook Mathew off, straightened his blood spattered shirt. Fury rippled off him. “He told me to stay with Amalie—”

Garrison frowned, his suspicion prickling. “Why?”

Confusion creased the center of Isaiah’s brows. He stared at Garrison for a long moment. “I don’t know.”

At their feet, Tomas groaned. Garrison peered down into the man’s face, butchered and bloodied.

“Get him out of here,” he told Mathew. “Take him downstairs. Have the car brought around. I will take him to the lab.”

Mathew inclined his head. He motioned for someone behind Garrison. Another set of boots clumped forward and Shane knelt down to help Mathew heft Tomas off the ground.

Garrison didn’t watch as his friend was dragged away. But he turned on his heel and started after them. He paused at the door, but he never glanced back.

“Stay with her,” he said to Isaiah.

“I’m not going anywhere,” came the response, each word hissed through clenched teeth.

Isaiah stood with his face set, his hands fisted and his chest rapidly rising and falling when Garrison forced himself to meet the younger man’s gaze. There was fire in his eyes, hot and unhampered. He glowered at Garrison.

“You’ll need this.” He dug into his pocket and removed the syringe.

Isaiah made no effort to reach for it. “I won’t.”

Garrison started to argue. He opened his mouth, but just as quickly shut it and left, too exhausted to argue. He had bigger things to worry about at the moment.

Mathew and Shane were just stepping out the front door when he made it to the foyer. They were half dragging, half carrying an unconscious Tomas between them. The limo awaited in the curved driveway. Garrison waited patiently as Tomas was loaded onto the floor of the car.

“Get someone to clean up the mess,” he told Mathew when they finished. “And have Lew and Bruce fetch Tomas’ family. They’ll want to be present for what I have to say.”

Mathew inclined his head, but Garrison was already slipping into the car and slamming the door shut behind him. The driver pulled out of the driveway. Garrison stared at his friend, a battered mess at his feet and felt nothing. There was no anger, no sadness, just an impassive blankness that scared most people but was oddly comforting to him.

Eighteen years. He’d foolishly trusted the man for eighteen years, believed him when he’d claimed to want the best for the world. But he’d lied. Tomas hadn’t wanted to fix the world. He’d had his own agenda. But how much of that agenda now set Garrison back? So much damage had been done. Years of research, of pain painstakingly monitoring every moment of Amalie’s progress, ruined in a single blow. It was inexcusable.

The rolling surge of fury boiled over him and for one maddening moment Garrison was taken by the violent urge to stab the other man with something sharp, to carve him open like a pumpkin and gut him. But he couldn’t. Not yet, not when he needed Tomas for the final touches on his experiment. Tragic that he would have to eventually kill such an exceptional genius.

He turned his face away before he could change his mind. He balled his hands on his knees and stared at the rushing scenery, focusing instead on what needed to be done rather than what he wanted done.

At his feet, Tomas moaned. He stirred, but remained unconscious.

He better not get blood on the upholstery,
Garrison thought absently, picking a piece of lint off his coat sleeve. He exhaled. This was not how he’d envisioned the rest of his day. What an inconvenience.

***

Tomas

The pain was a river of boiling water, rushing in waves across his body, peeling away flesh to singe bone. He felt every swelling pulse like the jagged edge of a serrated blade, carving into his flesh. He opened his mouth to cry out, but the effort alone was too much and he settled for a weak moan.

“Awake, Tomas?”

The familiar voice had him struggling to pry his eyes open, but they were crusted shut. He started to raise his hand.

“What…?” his voice rasped in confusion when his wrists caught on something restricting.

“Don’t struggle,” the voice told him calmly. “You’ll only hurt yourself more.”

Something in those words sent a cold chill skating down his spine. He swallowed audibly. “Terrell?”

On his right, the distinct squeak of metal scraping against laminate sounded. There was the creak of weight shifting on a chair, of fabric rustling. A knee popped. Then slow, steady footsteps circled the area around his feet towards his left side.

“How are you feeling, Tomas?”

“What’s…what happened?” Any other time, the fear would have been appalling to him, but then Garrison had never called him Tomas before.

“You tell me.”

He tried to remember. He raked the recesses of his mind, the dark shadows lurking where there should have been memories and found them pitted with voids.

“I…I don’t…” he trailed off again, battling with nausea and fear and pain and confusion. “What’s happening? Terrell? I don’t—”

“Calm down,” Garrison murmured. Tomas felt something rest on his arm, pat lightly. “All of this will be over soon.”

The comment should have been reassuring. It should have instilled comfort and relief. Instead, something hard and cold wrenched in the pit of his stomach. He felt his heart rate increase and sweat pimpled over his flesh.

Something wasn’t right.

“Terrell—”

“Tell me what happened, Tomas.” The question seemed to come from very far and very close, like Garrison was standing on the other side of a small room. A sharp metallic sound sang through the room. “What happened to your eye?”

My eye?
Reflexively, he reached for his face, only to have his hands jerk and clutter back to his sides.

“What—?”

“How long have we been friends?”

He had to slick his lips before speaking. “Seventeen—no, eighteen years?”

Footsteps approached, lazily, in no hurry. “Eighteen years,” Garrison confirmed slowly. “Eighteen years is a good length of time to know someone, isn’t it? I mean, I always thought so. I trusted you with my greatest secret and…” he sighed, sounding much closer now. “You betrayed my trust, broke your promise, hurt my daughter and ruined my research.”

“Terrell—” He was ignored.

“What would you do if you were in my shoes, Tomas?”

“W…what are you doing?” He jumped when something cold touched the side of his face.

“Don’t move, Tomas,” Garrison said quietly, dabbing Tomas’ face with a wet rag. “You’ve made quite a mess of yourself.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I’m sorry. You know I would never intentionally hurt you. I don’t know what came over me.”

Garrison said nothing. The sound of water getting wrung from the rag broke the silence. More dabbing, wiping away the crust fusing his lashes closed.

“You know I have two daughters of my own,” Tomas continued, feeling the urgent rush to make the other man understand. “Hannah is Amalie’s age. You’ve met her. You’ve met both my girls. Y…you’re Jodie’s Godfather! You know I’m a good father.”

“But not a good friend.” The dabbing stopped, and for a split second, so did Tomas’ heart. “I thought I could trust you, Tomas.”

“You can!” Tomas insisted, practically begged. “I was weak! I didn’t mean—”