Meg sat staring out the window of the commuter plane.
She hadn’t said a word to anyone for the first three hours of the flight.
There was nothing to say.
Nothing could bring Creed or Paulie back.
Margo sat beside her for the first hour, trying to get her to talk through the trauma of what happened, to express the anguish Meg felt more than anyone else on that plane if only because of the freaking gift she was given.
Meg was so full of anger at the world. She was afraid if she opened her mouth she’d explode in a tirade so excruciating and unending, she’d wind up in a straightjacket with duct tape over her mouth.
So instead, Meg redirected all that energy over the last three hours as they flew thousands of feet above the Pacific Ocean, into searching for Creed’s emotional signature. Paulie’s death was horrible; vivid in her emotional memory, but it was the unknown about Creed that was driving her crazy.
Meg was so desperate to find him her whole body ached from the immense, sustained concentration she expended in her search. She sent her energy out, flew through blackness, desperately looking for his warm-red signature engrained into her soul from the moment she wrapped herself around his anger and freed him earlier that very day. It felt like years ago.
At first Meg had hope, but the longer she searched fruitlessly, the more his missing signature only pointed to one explanation.
Creed was dead.
A fresh batch of warm tears slid down her face.
Her mother’s strong, worn hands pressed a soft bundle of tissues to her eyes.
“Meggie, I’m so sorry,” she said simply.
Meg hiccupped, and continued to cry tears of sadness.
“That any of us was able to escape today is truly amazing. You do realize if it weren’t for your gift, none of us would be alive, don’t you? And Williams would be free to rein evil over an unsuspecting world?” She was trying to help Meg see the bigger picture and appreciate the positive. Meg just couldn’t.
Unable to stay silent any longer, Meg groaned, “Mom, Creed didn’t have someone rescue him when he was a little boy in Williams’ lab. He had to grow up alone, abused and abandoned surrounded by metasoldiers who only knew that way of life. In his entire life, Creed never felt love—only bloodthirsty, competitive, violence—but he turned away from that. Instead of embracing the hatred fed to him, he stepped out on faith and chose us. No one ever sacrificed one tiny thing for him, but he sacrificed everything for us.” Meg buried her face into her hands.
Margo rubbed her daughter’s back and just let her cry for a while before saying, “You’re right, Meg. Everything you said is true. It’s just all the more reason we need to respect his last wishes. If someone so conditioned to hate and destroy, can find love and loyalty, then we must know God’s will is for us to go find others who need rescuing from Williams. In the name of our Creed, we need to make his sacrifice mean something to everyone.”
She squeezed Meg’s shoulder once, tenderly and left her to her thoughts.
Meg resumed staring out the cabin window. The water below shimmered in the red-orange glow of the setting sun. The line of clouds hovering in the distance took on a darkened, shadowy feel and stretched from one side of her view to the other. It looked so peaceful, beautiful. How could the world be full of such majestic beauty touched by the hands of God, and still have so much evil rising, blackened and contagious? Maze whimpered in his sleep at her feet and laid his warm, heavy head on her toes, sighing softly.
Meg sighed, too.
Okay, Meg, she thought, enough is enough. You can’t change what’s happened. Suck it up, and get on with living. She gave herself a mental slap.
She unbuckled her seat belt, slipped her foot out from under her furry best friend and stood in the aisle to stretch, forcing the tightness out of her achy muscles.
Her family noticed her, but tried politely not to stare. They were all worried about her; she could feel it.
Meg walked to the back of the plane where Dr. Andrews was hovering over his son. Evan was changing Farrow’s I.V. bag.
“Any change?” Meg asked them.
Theo looked up startled, as though Meg were a stranger for a moment. He had been lost in thoughts of his son as a little boy and of Jenna, Cole’s deceased mother. Meg wanted to touch his hand to reassure him, but she hesitated, still unable to forget what happened with Creed on the Island. She remained guarded.
Evan answered, “Farrow has been drifting in and out of consciousness. I don’t think it’ll be too much longer before she awakens. Now that her wound is cleaned, her metahuman rapid healing is doing its job. Since we transfused Creed’s blood, her body is recovering beautifully.” He coughed, uncomfortable at his own use of the word “beautifully.”