Emergence (The Primogenitor Chronicles Book 1) (59 page)

He staggered as he got pulled off balance by the struggling and snarled at the fledgling. “If you don’t settle down, Jays, I’ll trank you. Ian gave me some knowing you might need it.”

The struggling stopped abruptly and Jays called, “Please don’t leave him, Donald.”

“I don’t have a choice, Jays.” With a nod to the others, he bent his knees, and on the count of three, they surged into the air. The sound of wings overwhelmed his ears as the rest of the twenty Valkyries followed them up into the moonlight. As they gained altitude, he looked down; a convoy of vehicles had pulled up to the outer gates of the Facility.
It looks like Ian was right,
Donald thought with sadness. Then Gabriel’s golden head walked around the lead truck and looked up. He caught his breath as he watched the foreign Alpha follow their trajectory, then swore. It wouldn’t be long before they had followers tracking them. Flashing through the moonlight, he pushed the two Flights of Valkyries into the night.

Come on, Nicky, come on. There you are.
Chris scanned the skies then launched toward the heavily flapping Nickolas. He immediately took Jessica’s weight when he saw the fatigue etched into his brother’s face. Concern swamped him at the limpness of her body. He looked for a suitable landing spot, then dropped to the ground in a shrubby, grassy wasteland.

Nick landed heavily beside him as he laid her body down on the prickly grass. With shaking fingers, he pressed the side of her neck and sighed in relief at the rhythmic pounding. His brother moved to her other side, blood dripping sluggishly from the tips of his fingers.

“You’re bleeding.” He reached into one of the pockets of his pants and pulled out a packet of gauze. He tore it open as he stood and reached out to wrap his brother’s wrist. He tried not to look at Nick’s eyes,—and the disconcerting power that surged through them. “What just happened? Is she ok?”

“I think so. The binding threw her into the coma.”

“The what?”

Nick crouched and freed her hair from under her, laying it out over her shoulder.. “Ian mentioned something to me about bonding with other Valkyries, but this seemed…I don’t know…more somehow? Our power mixed together.” He shrugged. “I can still feel her inside.”

 “Well, that’s good, maybe? Do you know if she got her last meal?”

“No idea.”

“Can’t do anything about it now.” He sighed. “I left the net on the ground at that house. I’ll fly back and get it, you rest. Then we can get to the rendezvous.”

“No.”

Chris froze midcrouch, his wings half spread for takeoff. “What?”

Nick stood and fished a piece of paper out of his pocket. When he opened it, Chris saw it was the map to the meet up. “Here. I need you to take Jessica and get to safety.”

His muscles went lax and he stared at Nick in disbelief.

“I need to go and make sure everyone made it out of the Facility.”

Fear lanced through his system. “No. Nick, you can’t. I’ll do it. I’m expendable, you’re not.”

His brother looked away. “You’re not expendable to me, Chris. Besides, if there’s a problem, I’m the one with the gifts to give me a better chance at getting out.”

He paced and glared at Nick, but his brother just folded his arms and waited. Finally he growled, “Ok. But I want us to do that bonding thing you mentioned. I want to know that you’re all right.”

Surprise and uneasiness flashed through Nick’s eyes.

“That’s the price, Nicky. If you want me to let you take off on your own like this.” He could see he’d pushed his brother into a corner, but he didn’t care.

Nick glared, but he unwrapped his wrist and broke the light crust that had formed so the blood flowed again. Chris stepped up to him and looked in his eyes. “What do I do?”

“You need to take in some of my blood and the power it contains. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.”

“That sounds rather one way.”

Nick ground his teeth then said, “Fine, have it your way.”

He lifted Nick’s wrist and licked the blood. Liquid lightning poured though his system. He dropped to his knees and convulsively clutched Nick’s hand as the power wrapped itself around him, and he felt the same pulsing he had earlier, only a little different since he now found himself a part of that sun.

He drew away, blinking the spots from his vision. It took him a moment to realize that Nickolas held his knife out to him. Sluggish, he reached up from where he knelt at Nickolas’s feet and took the blade, using it to slice his left wrist.

Nick pulled him to his feet, then he felt his power flowing out of him through his blood. His head swam and he barely registered Nickolas’s withdrawal, then a burn.

He shook his head to wake himself up and noticed a faint glow fading from his brother’s hands. Inspecting his wrist, he stared at the healed scab. His gaze shot over to Jessica’s wrist, then back to his brother, who struggled to rewrap his wrist through the dripping blood. “You can’t stop the bleeding?”

“Doesn’t seem so. Not for myself at least.”

Chris tied off the gauze for him then took a moment to poke at the new pathways in his head. When he looked outside of himself again, Nick had crouched next to Jessica, his hands held out over her still form.

“She seems to be doing fine, Chris. At least, I can’t detect anything out of the ordinary. But I think you should bond to her as soon as you can.” He unwrapped a foil blanket.

The two of them got her bundled and into his arms. Chris stared at him for a moment.

“You had better be careful.”

Nick tucked a strand of her hair into the crinkly foil. “Just get yourselves to safety.”

Spreading his wings, Christoff flexed his knees then gave himself more of a push than normal to get into the air, and pumped his wings to gain altitude. As he spiraled up, tucking Jessica in close, he looked back down at his brother; Nick stood where they had left him, staring up after them, his hand raised in farewell.

He shoved the crash of emotions flooding his system aside and turned east, then pumping harder, he flew through the moonlight into the unknown.

The Valkyrie portion of the Facility was unusually quiet. Nickolas slipped through the door from the outside and paused to let his eyes adjust to the well-lit hallway. Silence stretched all around him, as did the feeling of emptiness. He turned in the direction of the Hub and carefully cast his senses out, looking for any sign of his people or…

My home for three quarters of my life, and now I feel like I’m walking behind enemy lines.

He checked each room he passed, finding no trace, either physically or mentally, of any of his people. And the closer he came to the Hub, the more agitated he felt.

An air current wafted past his nose. He sniffed.

He continued down the hall, where he stopped at the doors to the Hub. The tendril hit him again and he frowned. He opened the door and his lungs expanded when he inhaled. He stepped through and took another deep breath. Fatigue fled and he looked around. All machinery and computers sat dead.

He checked all of the cells and alcoves. Nothing. He pushed his fingers through his hair and noticed the tingling and paused, then turned to the store room. The door sat ajar. He pushed it open and a wave of pure oxygen rolled across him and he heard the hiss. He backed up, dizziness already threatening, but he’d seen enough. Every tank in the room cranked out gas at full. He pushed the door back and hurried out of the Hub.

He moved with more speed through the halls and ignored the fatigue that descended with the absence of the O2, his talent pushing him to hurry.

This time, when he caught a whiff of a strange scent in the hall, he made more effort to track it. A sniff here, a sniff there led him to an access panel that had been jammed shut. The rotten egg smell exploded into the hall when he pried it open. He cursed. The gas main’s piping spewed gas from a shattered coupling.

Very carefully closing the panel, he started running toward the older section of the Facility and Ian’s infrequently used office. He passed more sections of broken pipe along the way and could smell the gas accumulating.

He slid to a stop on the tiles in front of Ian’s office door. Through the window, Ian jumped back and forth in front of his bank of computers, his movements rushed. With a sigh of relief, Nickolas grabbed the knob, but it rattled in his hand. He shook it, then pounded on the reinforced glass.

“Ian, it’s me. Let me in!” Pounding some more, he kicked the door in frustration. “Ian, open the damned door!”

The doctor didn’t look up, but he did lift his hand, signaling for him to wait. Not having any of it, Nick focused his talent on the door mechanism. It was a challenge in his inexperience, but he managed to get the lock disengaged. Again, he tried to open the door. It didn’t budge. He slammed his shoulder into it, then plastered his face to the window to see down the front. Blocked by heavy furniture. He didn’t have the mental strength for that yet. He slammed it again. “Damn it, unblock the door.”

Ian continued to type furiously at his computers.

Nick gave the window a last slam then spun away. He had too much adrenaline running through his system and couldn’t stand still. Pacing back and forth in front of the door, he kept glancing through the window as the smell of gas got stronger. He returned to the window, pounding on it again. “Ian, come on, we need to leave. This place is going to blow.”

Still ignoring him, Ian removed a small chip from one of the computers and placed it into a handheld device that he set aside. Then reaching down, he picked up a crow bar that Nick hadn’t been able to see lying on the floor, and he bashed in all of his computers.

Nick watched, his forehead against the glass; one hand gripped the door knob and the other clenched in a fist above his head. He waited for Ian to come and unblock the door.

The sound of destruction reached him through the glass. Ian tossed the crowbar then picked up the portable device that lay amid the sparking remains and, making eye contact with him, he finally approached the door.

After pushing some buttons, he held up the instrument and pointed it at the door as he walked across the room. Nick rattled the door again. “Come on, Ian.”

Sadness filled Ian’s eyes and Nickolas froze.

“Nicky, we’re out of time. Gabriel is already on the premises,” he said and stopped on the other side of the door. “You need to leave now. It’s going to be hard enough for you to get out on your own as it is, impossible burdened down with an old pinioned Valkyrie.”

He shook his head in denial. “No, we can make it. The gas is building up fast, but the sparks didn’t ignite it.”

“I’ve blocked the door to keep as much out for as long as I can.”

“Please at least try. I’m sorry I was so mad at you earlier, please don’t do this.”

Ian lifted his hand up to the window; a tear slowly started to track down his cheek. “I’m glad to hear you say that. I never wanted to hurt you. Please believe that. You and your brother have given me some of the only joy I have had since the first emergence. I am so proud of both of you. But there’s no getting out of this one for me. I can’t survive outside of the Facility, and I know too much to stay now. And I’m tired, Nicky, so tired. This place has taken everything from me, my family…my wife.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “It’s time I joined her, Nicky. My life was forfeit twenty-four years ago. It’s time for that debt to be collected.”

He stared hard into Ian’s eyes and raised his hand, placing it over the one on the other side of the window. “Please, it doesn’t have to be this way. They didn’t take all your family.”

A slight smile tugged at Ian’s mouth and he blinked his eyes. “That’s one regret I’ve always had. That I couldn’t give the two of you a proper home. Living like this, we couldn’t even have the normal family relationship that should have been ours.
They
always used you to maintain control over us. You were the leash to control the leaders.”

Shock coursed through his system. “Us? How did they control Chris and me?”

Ian rested his head on the glass and clenched his fist before carefully flattening it out again. “That’s the last lie, Nicky. Your parents didn’t die during the escape like you’d been told. They lead the rebels. You were a means of control, on both them and me. I couldn’t tell you. They made it quite clear what they’d do if I did.”

Nickolas stared at him in shock, then said, his voice trembling, “Mom…and Dad…?”

“I’m sorry, Nicky, so sorry. This is definitely not how I would have liked you to find out.” Lowering his hand, Ian wiped quickly at his eyes. “As much as I want to see my son again, I think the biggest regret I have is knowing that I’ll never see my great-grandchildren. Jessica is beautiful. Now go, you don’t have much more time. I broke as many of the gas pipes as I could, any stray spark out there could send this place up before the fire I’ve set to go off in the Hub does the job.”

Then he backed away from the door and turned, walking back to his desk. After he sat, he looked at him again. “The people here never really understood what sort of enemy they made when they took my family; I never forgave them for killing my wife.”

Nickolas swallowed hard when his grandfather opened a drawer and pulled a gun out. He handled it with expertise.