The entire truck stopped inside the building. Just the back bumper stuck out of the cavernous hole it had made. Evan tried to find a way around the truck so he could get in and help Alik get out, but the body of the vehicle blocked the entire opening. Without missing a beat, Evan climbed into the truck through its broken back window.
“Alik, are you okay? Alik? Talk to me!” Evan was scrambling past the rows of seats to climb to the front. His brother hadn’t answered. “Alik!” Evan saw right away what had happened. His harness had held his brother perfectly so he wouldn’t hit the steering wheel or the front windshield upon impact. But what he couldn’t have predicted was that a steel pipe from the wall of the building would burst through the driver’s side window. Alik had a pretty good gash on his left temple. He was slumped over as far as the harness would allow.
First thing Evan did was check for a pulse. There was one. His brother was breathing. He could tell because his chest was rising and falling. “Alik!” Evan began undoing his harness while trying to rouse him. “Alik! Come on, Al, we gotta get out of here. Mom’s waiting. We gotta go!” With that, Evan unbuckled the last of the straps and caught Alik before he fell out of his seat.
For a moment, he sat there holding his unconscious brother, whispering pleas for him to wake up. Evan felt like a very small child, lost without his big brother. And just when he was about to burst into tears he had never shed before, Alik moaned.
“Alik! Alik a pipe hit you on the head when the truck crashed through the door. You were bleeding considerably through the three-inch gash, but I’ve already got that to stop with localized pressure. How do you feel? Can you walk?” Evan’s relief was obvious.
“I feel like I got hit in the head with a pipe, but I’m okay. Come on, we gotta get moving.”
Carefully, they crawled out of the wrecked truck, and for the first time, looked at their surroundings. There was no one to be seen. Exactly as they’d hoped.
All the explosives were strategically placed so the few people still in the building at this time of day would rush away from the blasts and out exit doors on the opposite side of the compound from where the boys entered with the truck.
“Now we gotta find mom,” Alik said as if ticking off a to-do list.
The building, though smaller than the main office, was still three stories tall. They were depending on Meg to meet them there so they could use her senses to help with the search. The explosions were her signal to run.
“Where’s Meg?” Evan asked the obvious question.
“I don’t know. Maybe she ran into some trouble with Williams.”
“What should we do?” Evan asked.
“I’ll start searching for mom, you go and find Meg. Get back here quick, okay?”
“Okay,” Evan turned to run down the hall but stopped and called back, “Tell mom I love her if you find her before I get back.”
“Will do, Ev. Get moving!”
And with that, Evan bolted down the corridor back to the main office building to search for his sister.
Chapter 52 Meg Versus Gavil
“What in the world is going on?” Williams ran to the window just in time to see several of his beautiful white buildings burst with clouds of smoke and dust.
While Gavil was distracted, I took the opportunity to deliver a solid round house kick to the side of his head. He spun and flew across the room. Seething anger shot from his eyes as he crouched recovering.
It registered for a moment how little that affected him. An ordinary person would have been knocked-out cold, easily.
I dismissed Gavil from my mind for just one moment and focused on Williams. He was still ranting about what was happening outside and hadn’t even noticed the battle had already begun right here.
Just as I was reaching out to spin the doctor around so I could look him in the eye when I broke his nose, something hit me.
I flew across the room and crashed into a chair before landing hard on the floor. What in the heck was that? I thought to myself rolling over and trying to recover. It felt like a metal baseball bat hitting my ribs.
Gavil was watching me with amusement. He held nothing close to a bat in his hand. What hit me was his fist. Oh, crud. This guy was super strong.
I stood, grimacing, and tried to shake off the pain. I had to look for a weakness. He got in the ready position again and held perfectly still watching every move I made. I was as strong as three men myself, but this guy was as strong as Alik, and that’s saying something.
Just then he rushed and grabbed me by the throat. His hands were like steel. Stepping around his leg I shifted my weight and knocked him off balance. He landed on the floor dragging me with him. He blocked my throat strike and threw me with brute force. I regained my footing, wincing with pain.