What’s happened? That had to have been Williams. Where was Creed? And the others? Evan shook his head and locked his jaw angrily. Stop, Evan. Your first concern is Meg and Alik. Always. Move!
He took a deep breath and raced back to the building where his brother and sister were. Even as he ran, he switched his comm. device back to channel four to listen. There was only silence. He didn’t know what worried him more, the sounds of a fight or silence. He risked talking into the piece.
“Meg? Alik?” he whispered softly.
Silence Desperate for someone to respond, he heard his voice catch as he whispered again. “Meg? Alik? Are you there? Please be there.”
Silence The youngest of the Winter children took a slow deep breath, trying to clear his head and think logically.
He switched his comm. device to channel thirteen—the emergency channel.
“Mom, can you hear me?”
“Evan?” Margo’s response was immediate. She had been waiting to hear from one of the children.
“Mom, something’s gone very wrong.”
Margo’s voice was shaky. “I’ve been switching channels listening. Slider was a mole. He turned on the others.”
“What?” Evan could scarcely believe his ears. He was desperately trying to maintain his sense of logic.
“Slider. He was working for Williams the whole time!” Margo’s voice quivered with terror.
Evan closed his eyes and pressed the back of his head against the cold cement begging the stability of the structure to give him some sense of reality. It wasn’t working.
“Meg trusted him!” he rasped.
“I know, Ev. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it myself. Williams planted him among us. He was…I don’t know,” her voice broke. “Williams called him ‘Miro.’ He turned against the others. Where are Alik and Meg?”
Hearing his mother’s voice both empowered and weakened the young metahuman.
“They’ve been captured, mom.”
“Oh, God. No.”
“What should I do?”
“I’m just outside the compound. Can you make it back to the gates?”
Evan looked around at the dark compound. There wasn’t a soul in sight.
“I don’t know.”
Chapter 46 Death of a Soldier
Creed felt his body hit by a bullet.
He dropped and rolled behind the nearest piece of furniture. Fortunately, Williams had spared no expense when it came to the thickest, richest pieces. His soldier’s eye calculated those in the room. With a deep breath, he pushed the pain of the bullet wound aside, not having the time to deal with what his body was screaming. He saw Farrow crouched defensively behind the couch to his left. The look in her eyes was just as angry and stoic as he felt.
Where was Gavil?
He heard a shuffling and risked a peek around the thick corner of the armchair that was his shield. He saw Miro shoving Dr. Williams through a previously hidden door in the panel of the wall to the right. It slid closed behind them, and the room was silent.
“Damn it!” he mouthed to Farrow who followed his eyes. She locked her jaw angrily.
Creed stood abruptly and looked around the room for his brother.
There in the corner, crumpled into a silent pile, was his big brother’s body. He wasn’t moving.
Creed leaped to his side and knelt next to the only blood family he’d ever known.
“Gavil?” he choked. His large hands uncurled the body of his brother to assess damages.
Blood was spilling from Gavil’s carotid artery.
Creed pressed his hand against his brother’s neck and cradled him in his lap.
“Gavil, oh God, no!” he groaned.
Gavil’s nearly colorless blue eyes opened long enough to lock onto his little brother.
“Don’t…” he choked.
“Don’t talk, Gavil. Let me get you help,” Creed coughed through his emotion.
Gavil shook his head and closed his eyes slowly before breathing a gurgled breath. His eyes flew open from sheer determination as he locked eyes with his brother once again.
“Don’t let him …live.” Gavil’s stare was full of words his voice could no longer express.
“I won’t. I promise.”
“I’m sorry…” Gavil’s voice trailed and the light in his eyes glistened one last moment before he gasped his last breath, eyes still holding earnestly onto his brother.
Then there was silence.
Creed couldn’t stand it. He screamed in anguish as the blood pulsing through his fingertips slowed to a trickle. Gavil’s body shuddered once before his heart stopped beating.
Farrow’s strong hands wrapped around Creed’s heaving shoulders and gently pulled.
“We have to go,” she breathed trying to hurry the soldier into action.
Creed didn’t move. Instead, his yells of anguish echoed off the perfectly polished hardwood panels on the walls around them.
“He killed my brother!” he screamed.
“Yes, he did, and he will kill Meg, Alik and Evan if we don’t move now!” she yelled back.
At the sound of Meg’s name, Creed’s back straighted, his breath catching in his throat.