Wrenching Fate (20 page)

Akasha awoke to feel something digging in her arm. She tried to raise her hand to slap it away, but couldn’t. Steel manacles held her down on a flat surface. Her eyes flew open to see a mad scientist with bushy white hair drawing her blood out of a syringe plunged into her arm. The sight made her skin crawl
.

Only Silas had a right to her blood.

The thought broke as the scientist lifted a tape recorder in his other hand and spoke into it. “Subject is conscious just two hours after her second dose…”

“What the fuck are you doing to me?” Akasha demanded, hating the choking fear in her voice almost as much as her drugged helplessness.

He removed the needle and eyed her calmly. “I’m taking another blood sample to see how you’re breaking down the tranquilizer so fast. Your metabolism is amazing. You’d be able to drink a burly Irishman under the table.”

Hmm. So that’s why I’ve never had a hangover.
Akasha shook off the fascination as her situation hit her clearly. The COAT guy had her strapped to a table and was using her as a fucking lab rat!

She was in a hospital gown. They’d removed her clothes. Disgust at the violation had panic clawing her throat. She struggled and bucked against the restraints in desperation to get loose. The table groaned in protest.

“It’s a good thing I calibrated the restraints myself. They were actually planning on using standard handcuffs on you,” the scientist commented. For a second Akasha thought she saw a glimmer of pity behind his thick glasses.

He grabbed a rubber ball from his instrument table that was wired up to a gauge of some sort and nudged it toward her right hand. “Would you please squeeze this as hard as you can?”

If she could have moved her wrist enough she would have thrown it at him. Akasha was tempted to tell him where he could put it, but kept her mouth shut.

Maybe she was curious as to what the gauge reading would be. Maybe it was because he said “please.”
Maybe it was because she didn’t have anything better to do.

She worked her fingers around the ball
and squeezed. The dial on the gauge flew to the right, but the glare of the overhead lights prevented her from seeing the actual numbers.

The scientist chuckled as he wrote down the results. “Wonderful!”

“I see she’s awake,” another voice interrupted.

A man with a graying buzz-cut and built like a brick-house entered the laboratory. His left hand had stubs for fingers. The utter loathing she saw in his hazel eyes made her bite back a retort. This guy was out for her blood. She hoped he wasn’t the one in charge.

“What have you got for me so far?” He addressed the scientist with militant command.

“Oh plenty, sir.” The scientist scooped up at stack of notes and his tape recorder. “I’ll tell you over coffee.”

“Dammit!” Akasha growled when the men left her alone. The big hostile bastard was in charge. She was screwed. Eyes darting around her surroundings, she looked for escape. It looked like a typical television show laboratory, only much smaller and it had no windows.
No escape.

Her arms still stung from the IV and assaults from various needles. Akasha raised herself as much as she could, the muscles in her back protesting at the awkward angle. Gritting her teeth against the discomfort, she assessed the damage to her body.

Everything seemed to be where it belonged, except for the damn IV embedded in her forearm where either drugs, nutrients, or both were being pumped into her. Also there were few little red squares on her legs where patches of skin had been removed.
Shit. How long have I been out?

Another thought occurred to her.
Shouldn’t I have to go to the bathroom?
Akasha spotted the catheter bag hanging from a stand and had her answer. Her skin crawled in revulsion. She hadn’t felt this violated, this unclean since…

Uncontrollable tremors wracked her body as she relived her past rape. With the screams of an animal caught in a trap, she thrashed and struggled against her restraints. A red haze obscured her vision, overlaid with black spots as she hyperventilated.

The shrieks dissolved into mournful howls as the restraints held firm. Still she bucked and fought until her muscles gave up and dizziness forced her to head to drop back onto the table.

Gulping in air, she closed her eyes and did her best to replace her panic and the crippling memory with Silas. A measure of warmth returned to her limbs as she remembered the vampire’s sweet lovemaking.

Moments later, the shaking died down. Akasha took a deep breath and resumed her observations to try to find out what else had been done to her.

There were little wires attached to her head. She craned her neck to see that they were attached to a monitor that showed what looked like voltage spikes in a constantly changing pattern. They were measuring her brain waves. The table was hard and cold, and the IV and wires poking out of her pinched like insect bites.
What else are they going to do to me? Or are they done and ready to kill me for the sake of national security?

Akasha growled and struggled uselessly against the steel bands. Escape seemed more impossible every second. Silas must be worried out of his mind. Her throat ached as tears burned her eyes. She would give anything to see him again. Anything to be in his arms… to hear his thick Scots accent whispered in her ear when they made love.

“Oh Silas…” she whispered brokenly.

Silas!
That’s it! If his powers were as strong as she thought, he just might be able to find her… if the bad guys didn’t find him first. They would no doubt salivate at the thought of having a vampire on their examining table. Still, these mere mortals should be no match for an immortal Scottish warrior.

Akasha focused her mind and began shouting his name silently, pausing every few seconds to listen for a reply, or any other sign that he heard her.

Silas had to find her. He just had to. She clung to the gossamer thread of hope like a lifeline.

***

Agent Joseph Holmes tried to keep calm eye contact with Major Milbury as he sipped his coffee and explained the test results. Holmes now knew why he’d allowed him to study the girl so readily, despite his obvious resentment.

Milbury intended to kill him when the testing was over.

Joe Holmes had come upon the information by accident while searching for instructions as to the kind of testing the military wanted done on Akasha. All he’d found were vague orders from over ten years ago. Since Milbury wasn’t around to be asked, Joe accessed the Major’s personal files to see if he’d received anything current.

To his shock, Holmes discovered Milbury hadn’t been corresponding with the military at all.

Milbury was pulling a lone ranger on this project and intended to submit his findings after he’d destroyed the mutant along with everyone involved with the research…which was only Holmes and— though he was pretty sure Milbury didn’t know— Holmes’s daughter, Lillian.

Holmes had been secretly send
ing his findings to Lillian through a heavily encrypted server. But if the COAT found out, she would be in danger. He pushed his coffee away, his stomach churning with terror.

How Milbury was planning to get away with the murder of a high ranking FBI agent, Joe didn’t know, but he supposed it didn’t matter. How to get out of this mess alive was his primary concern. Holmes fixed Milbury with what he hoped was a calm, scholarly gaze.

“To do the most conclusive tests, I’ll need her out of restraints. We need to see how much she can lift, how hard a punch she packs, et cetera,” Holmes informed him.

Milbury glared. “I’m sure she’d lik
e to demonstrate that to us all personally. I don’t want to end up like that corpse you have in your lab.” He shook his head. “She’s too dangerous. I think we’ve learned enough.”

Joe fought down panic. “Don’t be too has
ty, Francis. This young lady is one of a kind and I believe we’ve only hit the tip of the iceberg with her. If I can persuade her to cooperate, we can gain data that will make you a shining star in the eyes of our country.”

Holmes hoped he hadn’t laid it on too thick. He counted on Francis’s pride being wounded enough by being cast off to a low-profile case after losing his fingers. The promise of being valued again might sway him.

“That’s a very big ‘if.’” Still, Milbury’s eyes glimmered with interest. The stubs of his fingers twitched.

Holmes plunged on, struggling to keep a wheedling tone from his voice. “She seemed genuinely interested in my findings. And her school record indicates that she does very well in science classes. I just may be able to nurture that interest enough to get us somewhere.”

Francis sighed and waved an irritated hand. “Very well, I’ll give you twelve hours. Do what you can, because afterward she will be eliminated. Those are my orders, after all.”

“I’ll need a little longer than that.” Holmes fought against the invisible noose of time, which tightened every second. “It’ll take twice that to get the results of half the tests! Give me twenty-four, at least!”

Milbury’s lips twisted in a furious scowl. “Sixteen,” he countered rising from his seat. “You’ll have to do what you can with that. I’ll need time to get a flight out of here tomorrow.”

“Yes, Sir!” Joe hid his disappointment and gave him a mock salute
he knew would annoy the Major.

Milbury rolled his eyes and slammed the door.

Joe sighed. Sixteen hours to come up with a plan to escape armed guards in an isolated compound on a dry flat prairie. He hoped Akasha would cooperate. He quite liked the girl and decided he would try to save her life as well.

After all, she could be an asset to the AIU, if he played his cards right. He wondered if she was fertile like her father or sterile like the other test soldiers had been. Thankfully, he had the key to find out.

***

“She’s in there,” Silas whispered, pointing to a drab gray building surrounded by a fourteen-foot high electric fence.

Two armed guards walked the perimeter at a steady march.

They’d hidden the car in an old barn a half mile away when Silas felt Akasha’s Mark growing in intensity.
He and Razvan covered the city— if you could call it that— on foot. They clouded the minds of mortals so they weren’t seen.

“How many humans can you detect in there?” Razvan asked.

“Ten, not counting Akasha,” McNaught replied, pacing like a caged lion. “Rather peculiar, don’t you think? I would figure with what they know of her, they’d have more people involved.”

Razvan chuckled. “Who cares? It’s better luck for us. They will be an easy feast.”

“Aye. But I dinna want tae rush into this blindly. It could be a trap. And ‘tis only an hour before dawn.”

Every inch of Silas’s flesh crawled with anxiety. He’d tried to contact Akasha mentally and received no response. Had the drugs given to her by the COAT blocked her mind?

“Then let’s observe the place a little longer. Perhaps we’ll overhear something useful from the guards.” Razvan tried to reassure his friend and fight his own growing unease.

Just as the sky began to lighten, the two guards joined each other for a cigarette break. One of them had his hand in a cast.

“The Major gave Holmes another sixteen hours with the freak,” the other remarked, kicking a tumbleweed at the fence.

“Dammit!” the wounded one snarled, struggling to light his cigarette. “I want to see the little bitch dead! I may never be able to handle a rifle again thanks to her.”

“Chill out, Wetmore,” the first guard said impatiently. “It’s not like he’s gonna let you do the honors. I think it’s gonna be me or Orson. But he might let you bag the body. He said he wants you to schedule the transport, anyhow.”

“Shouldn’t the paper-pushers be handling that?” Wetmore whined.

“He sent them home. The less witnesses the better y’know.”

Wetmore smiled. “Sixteen hours ‘til there’s a bullet in her brain. I can hardly wait.”

Silas choked and tried to move forward, but Razvan held him back and dragged him out of earshot.

“Did you hear something?” the first guard asked.

“Probably a coyote,” Wetmore muttered. “This damn hole’s infested with ‘em.”

Silas panted heavily in fear. “Sixteen hours? I dinna think tha sun will be down by then!”

Razvan nodded. “We have no choice. At least it’ll be past high noon. We may be able to get in there with only a few burns. Come, McNaught, we had better get to shelter now.”

They moved swiftly back to the barn, which thankfully had a cellar. Silas spotted sheets billowing on a clothesline in the distance. They resembled eerie ghosts in the graying desert landscape.

“Stop, Razvan!” he called, “I have an idea.”

When the scientist who introduced himself as Agent Joe
Holmes told Akasha that Major Milbury intended to kill her when the experiments were done, she wasn’t surprised. But when Holmes informed her that he was with the FBI and head of the Abnormal Investigation Unit her eyes whipped to his in astonishment.

“But what are you doing working with the COAT?” Her eyes narrowed in accusation. “Isn’t the FBI supposed to be protecting American citizens rather than killing them?

Joe coughed uncomfortably and looked at the floor. “Actually, I was the one who led him to you. I didn’t know he was going to kill you!” He spread his hands defensively, face flushing in shame. “I just wanted to study you.”

Akasha continued to glare as Holmes looked sheepish…and regretful.

“If it’s any consolation,” he said slowly, “I just discovered that he means to kill me too.”

She almost snorted in d
isbelief but the utter terror in his eyes gave her pause. The chirps and clicks on the brainwave monitor punctuated the silence.

“What do you mean?” she whispered.

“I came upon it in his reports, but truly, I’m a fool to have not realized it before. There can be no civilian knowledge of what the military does to human beings in times of war. It really would be dangerous to the country.” Holmes chuckled bitterly. “And our old University rivalry adds fuel to the fire, I suppose.”

Akasha’s mind flew through the data and probability of his words. The brainwaves spiked and jogged rapidly across the screen. Lights flashed, machines beeped.

Her body screamed in pain from being locked in the same position. “How do I know you’re not feeding me bullshit?” She searched his face for signs of deceit.

Holmes paced nervously, trailing an idle finger across the counter near the beakers and test tubes. “It doesn’t matter what you believe. In less than sixteen hours, a soldier will put a bullet in your brain and then in mine. We need to come up with a plan of escape before that.” He stopped and bent closer to her. “Even if I am lying to you, wouldn’t you rather spend your final hours being able to move about?”

She wanted to believe him, but it was too good to be true. But her aching muscles decided it for her. “Okay.”

After all, if she was freed, she could tear him limb from limb if he indicated dishonesty in any way.

“By the way,” The scientist pulled a pistol from his lab coat. “If you try to get violent with me, I will shoot you and worry about saving my own skin. I don’t want to, though. I like your spirit. But I’d like to see my daughter again, and with one murder under your belt, self-defense though it was, I feel I should be cautious. Do we understand each other?”

Akasha nodded, too stunned that he knew that much about her past to find words.

“Great!” Joe clapped his hands. “Now I’ll remove the catheter. Then the IV, and then the probes…”

Minutes later she was taking out her aggression on a punching bag anchored to the floor as well as the ceiling, so it wouldn’t bounce back on her. There were impact sensors inside it that were much like the ones used in a car’s airbag circuits, Joe explained. She’d destroyed them with the first few blows.

“I can’t believe I’m going along with this.” Akasha grumbled as she beat the living shit out of the punching bag. Her fists were an incredible blur of speed before her eyes.

“I don’t blame you for your skepticism, my dear girl.” Agent Holmes said as he scribbled notes on his pad. “I find it interesting that Silas McNaught became your guardian,” he continued in a blatant and disturbing change of subject. “My department suspected him of being a vampire.”

Akasha stopped punching. The bag made a sighing sound as if relieved from its break in punishment.

“I don’t suppose he is one, is he?” Joe asked hopefully.

Schooling her features to portray indifference, she avoided the question. “You believe in vampires?” Akasha laced her tone with scorn.

Holmes was undaunted. “Indeed. Would you believe their blood heals wounds and cures all things, even cancer?” He shook his head and smiled. “Fascinating creatures. They’re devilishly hard to get hold of, however. Some are
even stronger than you, I think.”

Akasha was nervous with the subject. She decided to attempt her own subject change. “I want to know how much I can lift. And we should probably plan our escape while we’re at it. Is there anything to drink around here? I’m really thirsty.”

Hours later, they discovered Akasha could lift five hundred pounds with her arms and twice as much with her legs. She got up to twenty miles an hour on the treadmill and could maintain the speed for about thirty minutes.

But they still had no feasible plan of eluding Milbury and the COAT unit. They couldn’t even hope to sneak out because Holmes was locked in with her and they were under camera surveillance, though thankfully there was no audio. Otherwise, the COAT would have charged in and shot them full of holes for Holmes’s betrayal the minute he’d opened his mouth.

Akasha slumped in a hard plastic hair, sore and exhausted, physically and mentally. She chugged her fifth sports drink. The longing for an icy Coors and a cigarette was so bad she was about to scream.

“I’ve got it!” Joe announced as he was testing her reflexes. “It’s a shaky plan at best, but it just might work.”

“What?” Her heart raced in anticipation.

He told her.

It
was
a shaky plan, suicidal, in fact. But what choice did they have? Their sixteen hours were almost up and sunset was still far off, so she couldn’t expect Silas to come in time.

Still, throwing chemical bombs at armed soldiers who could fire at her any second, whil
e Holmes tried to shoot Major Milbury… So many things could go wrong.

Joe gathered the necessary chemicals and explained each one to Akasha. It was insane that a few innocuous substances could be so deadly when combined. Holmes mixed the compounds in a large beaker and carefully poured the mixture into six test tubes. He then took an eyedropper and a vial of blood and squeezed a few drops into each test tube, turning the fluid pink.

Akasha looked questioningly at this new addition to the formula. Surely her blood wasn’t combustible!

“To fool the cameras,” Joe said with a wink. “I have to make it look like another of my crazy blood tests.”

He arranged the test tubes away from the edge of the counter. “This is a volatile compound. It should explode on impact, so be sure to jump for cover as soon as you throw it.”

Akasha chewed her lip. “If they shoot me before I throw the bombs, I could drop them and blow my ass off.”

“I trust your reflexes are better than that,” Holmes’s voice was firm. “But please,
do
be careful and wait for them to get in range.”

Footsteps echoed outside, coming closer. Two of the pink test tube bombs were placed in her shaking hands. Holmes put his lab coat over her shoulders and stepped as far from her as he could while avoiding being conspicuous of the effort.

Major Milbury and four COAT soldiers entered. They looked through her like she wasn’t there and their rifles weren’t drawn, but Akasha wasn’t fooled. She knew they saw her and watched her every move. They could have their weapons trained on her in seconds. After all, they made their living by killing people far more dangerous than she.

The split second of clear thinking escaped her. Suddenly, the COAT soldiers superimposed themselves in her vision over those who murdered her parents.

Akasha was a little girl again, shaking, helpless, afraid. The vials wobbled in her quivering hands. Her grip loosened.

***

Silas leapt to his feet as Akasha’s Mark cried out to him.

“Razvan,” he shouted, shaking the hay from his shoulders. “We must go—” the breath was sucked from his lungs and he fell to his knees as a wave of paralyzing terror crashed over his body.

“What’s wrong?” Razvan demanded, voice thick with exhaustion. They hadn’t dared to do more than doze this day and risk missing Akasha’s rescue.

“She’s so afraid!” Silas roared. “She’s never been this afraid before.”

Razvan pulled bits of hay out of his hair and crossed the small cellar to grab the sheets they’d purloined from the farmhouse. He tossed a few to Silas and began tearing one in wide strips. “We had best hurry then.”

Silas tore a sheet of his own and wrapped his hands, fixing his maker with a quizzical stare. “Why are you helping me?” Razvan only cared about his own interests.

The other vampire frowned. “Why are you asking this now?”

“Why not?” he said, manipulating a sheet into a makeshift head covering.

Razvan sighed. “Perhaps I feel guilty. Whatever it is, it is a most uncomfortable sensation.”

“Guilty?” Silas couldn’t hide the astonishment from his voice. “Guilty for what?”

“Perhaps if I had not abandoned you so soon when you couldn’t find my brother, you would not have gone on a killing rampage that left you covered with remorse even to this day.” Razvan toyed with his beard and continued. “And perhaps you would not have fallen into Selena’s company and thus there would be no trial with the Elders now.” He wrapped strips of a sheet around his face like a bandage, leaving only a slit for his eyes. “Since I was not there for you then, the least I can do is to be here for you today.”

Silas was glad the fabric hid his expression. No doubt he was gaping like the village idiot. It seemed he did not know Razvan Nicolae as well as he thought.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely.

By the time they finished covering themselves, the two vampires resembled desert nomads. They headed up the stairs and into the main floor of the barn, wincing as shafts of sunlight through the cracks pierced their sensitive eyes.

“Besides,” Razvan added, his voice muffled under the fabric. “I
like
Akasha.”

They huddled together for a moment in the shadows before the barn door. The sun was descending towards the western horizon, but not as far or fast as they’d hoped.

“Are you ready?” Silas asked.

Razvan nodded and thrust the door open without warning. The vampires burst out in a blur of preternatural speed. Even though they were covered, the sunlight burned their flesh, especially their exposed eyes.

Silas gritted his teeth to hold back a shriek of agony and forced his pain-wracked body west to the compound. His strength flagged quickly.

If they didn’t get to shelter and a source of blood soon, they would burn to death in this desert. He thrust the thought away and pushed his protesting limbs on, not daring to see if Razvan remained at his side.

Please God,
he prayed silently,
please let us get there in time.