Emergence (The Primogenitor Chronicles Book 1) (60 page)

“No! Ian. Grandfather, please.” He plastered both hands to the window and stared at Ian in horror. “No, don’t,” he pleaded quietly.

Ian cradled the gun in his hand and looked him in the eyes, the sadness and tears evident even from across the room. “I won’t let Gabriel take me, Nickolas. Falling into his hands would be a fate worse than death, a fate worse than the last two decades. But more importantly, it would put everyone at risk. And everything I’ve worked for would be gone. At least now I know you’ll be free. Please tell your mother and father good-bye for me. And tell Chris how proud I am of both of you. I love you. Now go please, Nicky. I don’t want you to see this. Go!”

Mutely shaking his head, he started pounding on the door, trying to break it down. Not noticing the tears running down his face, he kept trying, futilely, to get the door open.

“Please go…,” Ian said once more then raised the gun to his temple. “Good-bye, Nicky,” he whispered, then pulled the trigger.

Screaming, Nickolas threw his body against the door again and again, the frame shuddered but held secure. The glass cracked, but the wire mesh held it together. Banging his forehead against the cracked glass, Nickolas stared unbelieving at Ian slumped over on the desk, the red stain spreading, then he slid down the door to the floor, sobbing.

The smell of gas finally penetrated his grief.

He pulled himself together and rose to look in the window one last time. Then wiping his eyes, he held his hand against the broken window, “Good-bye, Grandfather. I hope you fly in the next life,” he whispered.

Turning his back on the man who had done more to raise him than his parents, Nickolas started to walk out of the Facility for the last time. With each step, he tamped down his grief. His senses ranging out for the enemy, violence swirled through him.

A warning screamed through his mind, and he jerked to a stop, his wings flaring. The door to the outside stood at the end of the hall. But an open side door fell between him and it. He took a step back, debating the wisdom of how long he had to take another route to the outside. The scuff of a boot ended it. Flynn stepped out of the room to block the hall, a gun raised and aimed at his chest.

“It would have been simpler if you had continued past, then I could have just taken you from behind,” his teammate said quietly.

Nick growled and extended his wings as far as the hall would allow before he furled them with a snap.

“Stop. Any sign of you using those witchy powers of yours and I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger. You blocked the darts earlier today, but are you faster than a speeding bullet, Mr. Superman?” Flynn waggled the gun at him. “Six thousand feet per second, Nicky. I make the distance between us about twenty. How fast do you think you can raise a shield? Now, where are they all, Nickolas? The Hub is deserted. We need Jessica back. Now.”

The truth of Flynn’s allegiance shone in his eyes, and the betrayal made him snap, “Too bad, traitor. She’s gone.”

“Traitor? I’m not the traitor here. You and the rest of your kind are the ones who have turned on all of those who’ve helped and cared for you,” Flynn said.

“Helped and cared for? Don’t you mean used and destroyed? Give me a break, Flynn, the people who started all this care nothing for us. We are all expendable experiments. We’re treated no better than dogs. Worse, actually, since dogs have some rights protecting them.” He took a step toward Flynn but paused when the grounded raised the gun a little more in warning. “So what are you going to do now, Flynn, shoot me? I thought Gabriel wanted me alive.”

A savage grin spread across Flynn’s face. “Sure enough he does, but he’s not going to care if you’re damaged. He understands the stakes and knows how hard you’re going to be to catch. So unless you want a few holes poked in uncomfortable places, I would lie down on the floor if I were you.”

He stared at Flynn and debated the wisdom of racing bullets.
I just don’t have the experience yet,
he thought in disgust with himself.

“Why, Flynn?” he said, stalling for time, hoping an opportunity would present itself. “How long have you been Gabriel’s man?”

“Does that really matter, Nick?” Flynn said. “You know nothing of the politics that surround you, boy, the different factions that vie for control. Gabriel put me in place at the start, but Ian was too careful, at least until the very end here.” He motioned Nick to the floor. “Now get down, or I will shoot you, Nick.”

Rage slipped into him and he stared at the gloating in Flynn’s eyes, letting the other man know that he wasn’t under control yet, and he sank to his knees, placing his hands behind his neck. He refused to be forced flat to the floor like a dog. The corners of Flynn’s lips quirked and the man took a step toward him, his intention to kick him to the floor plain on his face.

A blur of red struck out of the room as soon as the grounded had his back to the doorway, and he crumpled to the floor.

Jules stepped out of the door, and the comm tech’s eyes swept him as he set the fire extinguisher down next to Flynn’s bleeding head and scooped up the gun.

Uncertain of this new development, Nickolas waited, smiling slightly when Jules hauled back and kicked Flynn in the ribs hard enough to force the unconscious man over onto his back. So he took the cue and lowered his hands to his thighs and stared at Jules’s bandaged head, waiting to see where they stood.

Jules’s eyes twinkled. “Had to do something to get the bastard back, since he’s the one who bashed me in the van earlier. I really can’t stand it when someone gets me by surprise like that.” Jules’s eyes grew serious. “I’m not Gabriel’s man, Nick,” he said softly, then he turned his back on him and shoved the fire extinguisher back into the room then shut the door.

Nick rose and shook his wings out, sniffing the air. “I’m glad to hear that, Jules. We need to get out of here. Ian’s rigged the place to explode.”

Groaning, Jules looked at him. “Is everyone out?”

“Everyone who matters,” Nick said flatly and Jules flashed a surprised look at him as they turned and walked briskly down the hall toward the exit. “Did you know about Flynn?”

Jules glanced back over his shoulder at the downed man before he answered. “I wondered. A few things hadn’t been adding up.” And that was as far as he would take it.

They reached the door, but when Nick placed his hand on the knob, he froze; a cold chill ran down his spine.

“What is it?”

“Gabriel. He’s on the other side of this door. I need to get out.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Not enough. I don’t think we can get to a different exit before the gas explodes.”

“Go. Do what you have to do, I’ll slip out behind you and find some way out of the complex. Maybe we’ll see each other again sometime.”

“I hope so, Jules, I really do.” He took a deep breath and placed a skin-tight shield around himself before he pushed the door open and stepped out into the night.

Twenty feet away stood Gabriel, his dark wings spread slightly, his eyes glowing with power.

“Hello, Nickolas,” Gabriel’s voice drifted on the breeze.

He took a few steps closer to the other Alpha to allow Jules room to slip behind him.

“Gabriel.”

A soft snarl sounded in the darkness and Gabriel leisurely stalked round him. “I told you this afternoon that you wouldn’t get away. You and Ian are all I need. The others will come running when they feel your pain.”

He moved with Gabriel, keeping out of reach as he gauged the interlaced tree branches and how far away he needed to get before he could get into the air.

“Don’t count on it. I doubt Chris or any of the others will fall for that.” He hoped at least. Knowing his brother and the others, they probably
would
do exactly what Gabriel hoped.

A ticking clock sounded in the back of his mind, his talent issuing a warning. He had very little time left before the complex went up.

He shifted to the side, but Gabriel kept him hedged with his back to the building. Raised voices reached them, then the flood lights flared on, blinding him for a second. In that moment of vulnerability, Nickolas heard movement and tried to spin, but Gabriel’s hand clamped around his throat. Thankfully the skin shield kept him from squeezing. He pumped power into the shield and broke the hold by expanding it out several inches.

He would have laughed when he caught Gabriel’s thwarted look, but he had his hands too full. Power battered his shield at the same moment as Gabriel spun low and swept his feet out from under him. He fell, just managing to tuck his wings and turn it into a backward roll, fighting to keep his shield intact. If he didn’t succeed, the other Alpha’s voice would take him down.

Gabriel’s power stripped layer after layer from him, and he slapped new skins up as fast as he could, but Gabriel had so much more experience in using his talent. He skittered to the side trying to regain his feet, the combination of physical and mental attacks slowing him.
Out. That’s my only option. He’s going to get through at this rate.

He dove under a sweeping wing and slammed against the brick wall of the building; his power bled out of him and left him dizzy. He pushed back harder with his thoughts. Reflexes, more than anything, got him back on his feet. He dodged, then clamped his wings down tight and leapt as high as he could, somersaulting over Gabriel’s head, and hit the ground running. The growl of rage behind him pushed him on.

Racing down the tree-lined corridor, he focused on the end of the trees. The breath rasped in his lungs. The sound of others joining in pursuit penetrated his concentration. He shot past the last sentinel, and without missing a beat, he spread his wings and launched into the sky.

The psychic attack lessened a fraction as he shot straight up to gain distance with altitude, then it stopped abruptly when a hollow boom resounded. His wings faltered when his mind was freed. He slowed his assent and turned to look back at the Facility compound.

People swarmed out like a hive of bees that’d been kicked. Gabriel stood at the edge of the trees, talking to a frantically gesturing man. Shaking his head, he turned away from the grounded to look straight up at Nickolas. Even over the distance, Nick could feel Gabriel’s eyes.

The arrow of thought slammed into him.
*It’s just a matter of time, Nickolas. You can’t outrace us.*

*There’s no way to know if you don’t try.*

He still hovered in the air when the first fireball exploded out of the Facility. Apparently, the boom must have been Ian’s detonator going off inside the Hub. Now the pockets of natural gas were igniting.

A billow of orange burst through a section of roof, raining debris across the gardens, and the alarms started to blare. Fire raced along all the arms of the buildings as more pockets of gas exploded here and there, pushing the devastation on. Black smoke poured into the sky and started to obscure the scene below.

Gabriel dove for cover as the building closest to him exploded glass all over the walk, and Nickolas shouted in joy. Grinning savagely as he watched the compound burn, Nickolas arrowed a thought at Gabriel.
*Now you don’t have anything. That’s a big fuck you from Ian. He and everyone else here are beyond you now.*

*Not you,*
the whispered thought skated through.

The last thing Nickolas saw as he dove away to start the harrowing flight out toward the mountains was Gabriel picking himself up off of the grass and the sound of the helicopters out on the helipad starting up.

General Rembrandt Harrison Luther Faulk read through the last of the reports for the night. He reached over without looking and picked up his cup of tea, his mind absorbed in the paperwork. The loose skin at the corners of his eyes creased when he read an amusing segment.

The door opened and he lowered the pages, his amusement tempered by steel. “Yes, Jared?”

His secretary, Jared Roberts, paced across the expanse of the office. Most people wouldn’t recognize the danger held in the young man…most people.

Luther specialized in finding it.

He tapped his papers together and set them in his file tray, waiting to hear what news his boy brought at this hour.

“Carl’s faction is making their bid,” the lithe, sandy-haired man said quietly. “We got word that Gabriel attempted to take Nickolas, but that Robin prevented it.”