Winter's Awakening: The Metahumans Emerge (Winter's Saga #1) (8 page)

The doctor and his son were staring at each other. They were exchanging unspoken emotions. I saw tenderness, fear and devotion from both of them. They were a lot alike, these two men. How beautiful, to see yourself in your child. I wondered if mom felt like this when she looked at me.

I’ve come to realize in just the last day, that I’m really good at reading people. I mean, I can’t read their minds, I don’t think. I just watch their body language and can read what they truly mean. Being isolated from people, the way I have been my whole life, I just never had a chance to use this skill. Seems like the closer I am emotionally to the person, the less I can read them. How annoying is that? No wonder I’d never noticed this ability!

I chuckled to myself as the doctor said, “Good grief! Looks as if we’ll have to rent a small bus to accommodate this motley crew.”

Chapter 21 Bait

Dr. Andrews was on the phone for at least an hour making his calls. I don’t know exactly who his sources were, but I trusted him not to reveal too much while pursuing as much information as possible. I hovered outside his office waiting for him to emerge. When he did, he was pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked very worried.

“Okay, tell me what you know.” I said with a forced calm.

The doctor looked up at me and sighed. “According to my sources, your mom is still in California—a small town outside Los Angeles. Apparently, there was never going to be a conference. She was contacted by someone pretending to be with a legitimate scientific organization interested in her research, but it was all an elaborate lie. She was tricked. They collected her from the airport. My sources think she’s being held by them right now, probably as bait.”

“Wait a minute. Who has her? And bait for what?” I was trying to keep it together, to keep from bursting into tears. The more I focused on the details and kept this at a business level, the more I could help. At least, that’s what I told myself.

“The Institute has her. My guess is it’s all being handled by Dr. Williams himself. Williams is the Chief Executive Officer of The Institute and he’s been looking for Margo for many years now. As for the bait, well they’re holding her because they really want to get you.”

“Me? What do they want with me? I’m just a kid!”

“They want you and your brothers. And no, you are not just regular kids. But you know that, don’t you? I mean, you have to have realized by now that you’re different.” He looked earnestly into my eyes but all he saw was confusion and pain. “She never told you? Any of it? You don’t know who you are?”

“What are you talking about?” I was honestly confused, and my heart hurt so much for my mom being held against her will. It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying to me.

“Let’s get the boys. They need to hear this too. It’s time you three heard the truth.”

Chapter 22 The Truth

Everyone gathered in the living room. The boys looked scared, and I imagined I did too. Alik, Evan and I sat together on the sofa. Cole sat on the floor close enough to my legs that I could feel his warmth. He was trying to be supportive, and I appreciated him for it.

Michelle sat next to Dr. Andrews looking slightly bored. That woman was annoying me more and more by the minute.

“Okay, I’ll tell you what I know, but I don’t know everything. Margo and I attended medical school together. She was there on military scholarship and I was working two jobs trying to put myself through medical school and take care of my wife and young son.” He stopped and looked at Cole with absolute love in his eyes.

“We were assigned to each other as lab partners one semester and were immediately great friends. My wife, Cole’s mom, Jenna loved Margo too. She would often come spend time with me and my family outside of school. Margo was like your aunt, Cole,” he added with a nostalgic smile on his face.

“I was so exhausted from my studies and work that it wasn’t unusual for me to lean on Margo to help me through a class. She was a true friend, honest and loyal. I couldn’t have graduated without her.

“After graduation, her military superiors asked her to stay on though her contract was up. Margo declined their offer. She was determined to get to work on her real goal.

“See, Margo had grown up with a sister who was autistic. She loved Becca so much, but the autism made it so she could never be close to her. Just when she’d get a glimpse of who Becca was she would slip back into her world and leave Margo with a shell instead of a sister. She swore to herself that she would do anything she could to help find a cure for autism.”

I had so many questions for Dr. Andrews now, but I feared interrupting. I was afraid he would stop telling me the answers to everything I’d always wondered about. Mom never told us anything about her past, her family or her dreams before us. The few times I had asked, she would hug me and say, “This is all that matters, Meg. My world didn’t matter until I had you.” So I bit my lip and listened to his words.

“We were hired by a company called The Institute for Neurobiological Studies but everyone just called it The Institute. They had us both in research and development. Margo was brilliant and had a determination that was mistaken for ambition. She was promoted. The project she was assigned to was beyond my clearance level so I didn’t know details. I just knew the name: The Infinite Project.

“On the day she was given her first tour of the facility housing her new assignment, she called my voicemail and left a panicked message. She asked me to meet her at a coffee shop where we used to hang out. I told you this part on the plane, Meg.”

I nodded not wanting to interrupt him. The boys looked at me inquisitively.

“But I didn’t tell you everything. Margo told me that this project was initially intended to be a cure for autism, but they found if they used it on an average child, it could alter their minds in powerful ways.

“They were testing on human beings, and not just adults, but children and babies, too. These ‘test subjects’ were being held against their will right there at The Institute. She said she saw three young children who had been injected with test serums. Dr. Williams, her new supervisor, talked about dozens of others who had been killed in the development of this formula.

“She was beside herself with grief and fury. She believed her work had been used to hurt children instead of help them. She told me her plan. She was going back to the facility that very night with the excuse that she needed to set up her office so she could hit the ground running her first official day on the job.

“Instead, she was going to steal the children away from the company and hide them, if she could. She hinted she knew where she would be going with them, but she said it would be better if I didn’t know. That way, when asked, I could honestly claim ignorance.

“Though it had only been a matter of hours since her tour of the facility had ended, she had already plotted the entire rescue down to every detail. You know your mom. She’s all about the details.

“She wouldn’t tell me anymore, but I knew it was happening that night. I offered to help her, but she refused saying that she was endangering herself and she wouldn’t risk me or my family too.

It was my turn to speak. “Now everything’s making sense. That’s why mom always kept us separate from the world—homeschooling, no television, no radio or internet. She didn’t want us to be found.”

“And she didn’t want us to compare ourselves to other children either because she knew the treatments would have altered us and we would be different.” Evan’s mind was working quickly.

I felt Cole’s hand, warm and accepting, reaching out to find mine. He looked at me with a pure heart as he warmed the chill coursing through my body. I was shaking but hadn’t realized it till now.

“Hey Meg? Remember those documents I told you about back at the ranch? The ones I found in mom’s library?” Evan, ever the realist, was already thinking logically. And here I was still stuck on the fact that the woman who raised me wasn’t my mother. And if she wasn’t my mother, then who was? And my father? Who was he? And these boys I’d always believed to be my brothers, weren’t.

Dr. Andrews spoke this time. “What documents are you talking about Evan? Can you show them to us?”

Chapter 23 Numerous Notes

Evan came downstairs with an armful of papers. They looked to be several hundreds of pages neatly organized in expandable file folders. I wondered how he had room to pack all this and his clothes in his small bag. I made a mental note to check what clothes he brought because it would be just like Evan to have left everything except these papers and maybe a toothbrush.

“Here they are,” Evan plopped the folders down with a thump then picked the one on top and handed it to me. “The documents are in chronological order according to the dates written on the folders. Here’s the file with the oldest date, so it must be the first.”

I opened the folder and began skimming our mother’s (or Margo’s, ugh, what do I call her now?) neat script. It looked to be a journal of sorts. Except, the information she documented wasn’t about her. It was mostly about us. The first entry read:

We’ve arrived unnoticed to this large ranch in Texas. The acquisition of it was done under an assumed name that I may as well keep. I’m now Dr. Margaret Winter. I’ve already got a trusted source working on creating a whole new identity for me and my children.

And yes, they are mine now. Mine for as long as God will let me have and hold them. These three precious gifts are in my care, and I will do everything in my power to protect them from The Institute and anyone else who means them harm.

I’ve named them. The three-year-old little girl with the soulful eyes, I named Meg. The two-year-old blue-eyed little boy, I named Alik. As for the tiny baby, I named him Evan.

I loved them from the first moment I saw them.

In this journal, I hope to document the changes observed because of the treatments they were already given. All three children have been branded like cattle, bless their hearts, with a symbol on their upper backs. It’s the symbol for infinity.

∞

The experiment was called “The Infinite Project.” I’m sure it was Dr. Williams’ sick joke to sear that symbol onto his subjects. Baby Evan’s mark is still raw and healing.

As for the “meta” characteristics, it’s all theory right now. Though Meg was experimented on for three years, she may show no more signs of her meta self as Alik. But Evan was given the most updated formula. The one they had perfected after all the dozens of failed trials before him.

Any or all of them could begin to manifest their alterations at any time and in any way. But no matter what, I will love them just the way they are. And I will pray daily that our enemy’s efforts to locate us are thwarted.

By the time I read the last line, my voice was cracking with tears. My mother, because that is what she deserved to be called, loved me and my brothers so much she risked her life for us. She rescued us from torture and death. And in that decision, the course of all our lives was drastically altered. And now The Institute had found her, and they were using her as bait so they could get their experiments back.

I remember asking mom about it a long time ago. She just shrugged and said our dad wanted to give us all a small mark to help us feel connected, always. That sounded like a strange idea to me, but I never questioned anything she told us. Besides, as far as I knew, lots of kids had been given a mark that represented their families. Just one more of those things I didn’t realize was abnormal because I was secluded from the real world.

Evan reached over and tugged down the back of my shirt. The look on his face read the same as mine, no doubt. His eyes showed more amazement than anything else. All three of us had been branded like cattle? Bizarre.

Changing the subject, I asked, “Hey, Evan. Why didn’t you show us these documents earlier?” It just occurred to me that Evan had been sitting on these priceless documents and never let on that they were so powerfully filled with details of who we were.

“Look at the cover, Meg.” Evan motioned to the front cover of the huge file folder. “Mom wrote the word ‘Private’ on the file. I had to respect her wishes so I didn’t read it. I just knew it existed. When mom disappeared, it occurred to me that these ‘private’ documents may hold some important information that could help us find her. Apparently, I was right.”