“Maybe that’s just it, Mom. Maybe that was my evolved ‘gift.’ We always thought our evolutions would bring out even more good from our already exceptional abilities and some would say our heroic personalities. But it doesn’t have to work that way, does it?” Danny mumbled restlessly and reached for Margo in his sleep. Evan watched how easily his mother responded to the little boy and felt a wave of jealousy at being replaced by the new, perfect youngest son.
“I was caught in a burning car,” he continued, ripping his eyes away from Danny’s perfection. “I barely survived my injuries because we were dodging the US authorities and fleeing the country. I had no time to salvage myself from the ashes—literally. Maybe this is the evolved me. Maybe I’m not all logic and problem solving. Maybe that fire left me just as ugly and scarred on the inside as I am on the outside.” Evan held up his left hand.
“Evan, don’t say that about yourself!” Margo’s eyes had widened in surprise at her son’s words. “You can’t believe that’s true.”
“Maybe the fire burned me deeper than you originally thought.” He shoved his hands back into his pockets and couldn’t look his mother in the eyes as he continued. “My brother and sister have gifts that they use for the greater good. Meg can will-away the hurt and heartache in someone’s soul. Alik can reach back in time and touch the present with his retro-cognition. And they do good with their gifts. They protect the family. They add to the family. Me? Do you really want to know what my evolution left me with?” He paced toward the drapes he’d shut moments before and yanked his hands from his pockets.
Margo pushed herself up on her elbows to follow him, a gut-curling sense of foreboding made her watch every movement her son made.
“Evan?” She breathed, terrified of what she was seeing.
He reached out toward the dimming sunlight with his left hand, the hand that was so badly burned and left with scars and curled his fingers around the air as though picking something up to hold it. When he turned around he opened his hand and a blast of light shot out, striking the armchair in the corner of the room causing it to burst into flames.
Margo gasped in wide-eyed shock. Danny woke screaming.
Over the sound of the smoke detector wailing and scent of charred fabric, Evan looked into his mother’s eyes and said, “I’m just a destroyer. You may as well know how dangerous I am.” Nodding toward the wailing child clinging to his paralyzed mother’s shirt he added, “You may as well protect him from me. Scarring him would just be too tragic. Besides, I have enough scars for all of us.”
As he stormed past the blazing chair, he reached out and seemed to pull the flames in to his left hand. By the time he finished walking by the chair it was completely blackened, charred but not even an ember remained burning. Evan shoved his scarred hand deep into his pocket, glanced one last time at his mother’s horrified expression and his little brother’s tear-filled face and burst out of the room.
“Evan!” Margo called to her son as she struggled to sit up and transfer herself to her wheelchair. “Evan! Come back, son!”
Evan heard her cries, but knew he wasn’t coming back, not that night.
With shaky hands, Margo reached into her breast pocket and pulled out her phone.
“Theo? I need to talk with you—it’s about Evan and it’s,” Margo swallowed the taste of acid slipping up her throat. “It’s urgent.”
Chapter 42 Who Are You?
Gideon had been driving for two hours before he pulled into the airport parking lot. He turned off the engine and sat still for a moment, thinking about what he was supposed to do next.
A shuffling noise behind him was his only warning. Meg wasn’t just awake, she was attacking. Without a word, she locked her forearm around Gideon’s throat and pulled with all the strength her aching body could muster.
Ordinarily she would be able to crush a man’s windpipe using this technique, but Meg’s muscles screamed in defiance at the abrupt demand placed on them. Meg gritted her teeth when she felt the soldier reach behind him and grab her by the flimsy hospital gown, yanking her over his shoulder. She fought using every ounce of strength she had, but Meg was more than outmatched in her condition.
She fumed under his weight as he pinned her down on the passenger seat by straddling her to control her kicking and holding her wrists above her head in one strong hand. With the other hand, he covered her mouth, muffling her screams in case it could be heard by others in the parking garage.
“Stop fighting me,” he barked in her face. His honey, yellow eyes sparked with anger.
Meg glared at him, breathing hard against the edge of his strong hand.
“MMMummmmffff uuuuuhh,” she screamed behind his hand. Even Gideon could understand that to have been an instinctive response to his demand.
“Stop! I’m only trying to help you!” He growled. Her warm breath burst in huffs over his hand. “I’m going to take my hand away. Don’t scream or I’ll be forced to gag you.” His eyes flashed a warning.
Meg’s fight-or-flight instincts were in overdrive. She struggled, bucking her hips to get him off her before she snarled and bit his hand with all her strength. She tasted blood as he screamed in pain.