Winter's Legacy: Future Days (Winter's Saga Book 6) (8 page)

13  Plan B

“We’re still in this, sir.”  Adrian Roth, the Senator’s campaign manager,
asserted.  He knew he needed to produce a plan to salvage the evening’s political loss and he was ready when Arkdone called him foaming and incensed. 

“How the hell do you plan to spin this, Roth?”  Arkdone’s bow tie hung unknotted around his neck, the first two buttons of his tuxedo undone.  He was pacing the room, looking every bit the caged animal.  His face was blood red with explosive anger dwelling precariously behind his gritted teeth. 
He only stopped his pacing to slosh more Scotch into his goblet—his second glass in ten minutes.

“You won twenty-seven percent of the votes tonight
, sir.”

“I know.  I lost.  Do you have a point beyond the obvious?” Arkdone growled.

“We go to the winner, Joe Hawthorne tomorrow and tell him if he doesn’t choose you as his vice presidential running mate, you will run against him as an Independent.”

“Go on.”

“You tell him if he doesn’t agree to add you, your Independent ticket will take away that twenty-seven percent from his corner.  Essentially, a vote for you would be a vote for the opposing party.”

“How could we be sure we’d get enough of the electoral votes to even make a wave?”

“Oh we would make one hell of a liberal wave, my friend.”  Roth was so revved up, spittle was congealing at the corners of his mouth.  He didn’t feel it—didn’t care what he looked like.  Right then, he was in what he liked to call a “feeding frenzy.”  He was on the attack.

“You play up your environmental platform—saving all that beautiful Southern land in your home state of blue-grass Kentucky.  You saved the state millions by renovating the historically and architecturally relevant landmark
—the mental asylum—and turning it into the modern facility that aids in the psychiatric rehabilitation, research, development and education to the hundreds of inpatients.  You take care of the residents with dignity and morality.  Every southerner who’s a bleeding-heart, liberal will be chomping at the bit to vote for you as an Independent.”  Roth spat directly onto the carpet, his mouth was so full of delicious deviousness.  “Hawthorne may not be smart enough to see the ramifications of that, but his people are.  They’ll convince him he’d lose the presidential election over this if he doesn’t take you on.”

“Hmmm,” Arkdone responded.  He’d stopped pacing and was rubbing the knots from the back of his neck thoughtfully. 

“It’s damn good, Donovan, and you know it.”

“Make the meeting happen.  Text me when you get confirmation.  I’ll need the itinerary.”  His voice was sharp with adrenaline.

“Yes, sir.”

“Tonight, Roth.  Set this up tonight.  I want to shove this ultimatum right up Hawthorne’s gloating ass tomorrow.”

14  Puppet on a String

After hearing the tail end of Arkdone’s conversation on the phone through the door, Meg steeled herself for what she knew would be a heated conversation.  Her hand had already been up, poised and ready to knock when she heard the Senator talking.  After a deep breath, she allowed herself to rap firmly on the thick door.

“Enter!” Arkdone boomed.

Meg opted for opening the door with her mind instead of her hand.  She wanted to show the Senator, she was in complete control of her faculties—and not in the mood for his superior attitude.

She stood in the doorway, hands clasped behind her back, wearing skinny jeans and a form-fitting black tee.  Black, knee-high riding boots hugged her shapely legs perfectly.  Her hair was still damp from the shower but was braided into a long rope down her back.  

“You wanted to see me?” she started innocently.

Arkdone looked up in time to see Meg’s parlor trick.  He wasn’t impressed.

“Explain yourself,” he growled.  His beady black eyes bored dents into her forehead.

Meg’s mind leaped across all the possible meanings behind that statement.  She decided to feign nonchalance and hope to God that he hadn’t somehow sensed her using her psychic manipulative gift on the crowd.  

Hands still clasped behind her back, she sau
ntered into the study shrugging.

“We were at
a party.”

“It wasn’t a party for you!”

“What is your problem exactly? I played the part tonight.   I let you show me off like a trophy to all your friends.  I smiled and made small talk.   I behaved exactly the way you wanted me to.   So what if I congratulated my performance with a sip or two of wine?”

“A sip or two?  You were completely hammered, passed-out and bloody-faced!  If Gideon and Ermos hadn’t been there to collect you discreetly, you could have seriously tarnished all my efforts in one swift idiotic move!  Hell, it’s possible people noticed but were too poli
te to say anything to me yet!” His eyes got wilder the more he thought about the possibility.  “You may have cost me the nomination!” he bellowed.

The anger on Meg’s face was real enough to mask her feelings of relief that Arkdone didn’t have a clue she really was the reason he lost the nomination, but not because of underage drinking.

“How close was the vote?” she seethed.

Arkdone was running his hands through his slicked back hair, still furious but not sure what to do about it.

“Close.” He frowned, wondering where she was going with that question.

“If I wanted you to lose the nomination—if I had set my sights on that—there is no way I would have allowed ‘close.’  I would have demolished your chances.”

She narrowed her eyes at the man standing rigid beside his mahogany desk.  The anger rolling off him was palpable.  He said nothing, but looked directly at Meg with venom dripping from the wicked half smirk that peeled across his thin lips.  They stood in silence for a full minute, staring each other down.  Arkdone finally broke the soundless stalemate.

“Are we in alliance or aren’t we?  Tell me now so I can make arrangements,” Arkdone lifted his chin to look down his nose at the formidable sixteen-year-old, openly challenging her.

“We are.  You hold up your end of the bargain, and I’ll hold up mine.”

Arkdone nodded once.  “Tomorrow we are flying to Pennsylvania to have a little visit with Joe Hawthorne.”

Meg cocked her head, forcing herself to show curiosity instead of the acidic panic that leaped into her throat.

“He was the winner of last night’s nomination.  You’re going to use your gift to help convince Joe to take me on as his running mate.  I may not go into the White House as President, but I will damn well get there as the Vice President.  That’s just one small step away from the Oval Office.”

The glint in his eye passed excitement and crazed a few miles back.  Now the man was firmly dancing in the land of maniacal frenzy. 

Meg could feel the dementia oozing out of his pores and
imagining him so close to being the “leader of the free world” made feel physically sick.

Oh hell no,
she gasped inwardly.

“We had a deal, Arkdone,” she began, thankful her voice sounded steady
, belying her racing heart.  Adrenaline hurtled through her body and she had to force herself to breathe through the involuntary need to quiver.  She leveled her gaze mustering all the physiological control years of martial arts had taught her.  “First you get the Winter Family back to the States.  Then, I work for you.  In that order.”

Arkdone waved his hand dismissively.  “I’ve already made arrangements with our government.  The Winters have been granted permission to return
without obstruction.  They are scheduled to cross the border in two days.”

Two days,
Meg’s mind raced.  She bit back the happiness she wanted to feel, worried he had just blatantly lied to her. 

Using her gift, she mentally eased toward him to try to determine
if he were telling the truth.  Her emotional fingers reached out to pull aside the shroud where the truth lurked and gasped at the excruciatingly solid mental slap she received from his powerful mind. 

Both Arkdone and Meg knew exactly what happened. 

He’d sensed her psychic channeling into his mind and had clamped down hard against her.  Meg felt a trickle in her nose and nearly rolled her eyes with pain and frustration as she caught the first drops of blood in her cupped hand. 

A
rkdone sauntered toward her, reaching into his front breast pocket and retrieved a red handkerchief.  He held it out to her without a word about what she’d tried to do. 

He only raised one brow at the sight of Meg’s nose bleeding as
though he had punched her, but Arkdone didn’t miss a beat.  He just kept talking.

“So unless you want me to stop their smooth return, you’d better be willing to play the part tomorrow with Hawthorne.”

“I am fully aware of your wishes.”  Meg’s dark eyes crackled with hatred for the monster basking in a demonic glow.  Meg felt it when she got close a moment ago.  His outer façade hid the heart of a power-hungry, narcissistic, calculating monster and she wanted nothing more to do with him.

Level him, Meg.  Do it!
she thought.
You know you can unleash the hell from which he came by beckoning every living soul in the asylum.  They’d come in droves!  They’d be a pulsing, mindless knife-wielding, shotgun loading, trigger-caressing mob. 

Meg’s fear
-induced anger swirled these thoughts of violence through her mind like blood circling a dirty drain. 

Calm down,
she ordered herself. 
Now is not the time to rid the world of that cancer.  Not yet, and not with a frenzied mob. 

Without another word
to the Senator’s challenging stare, Meg rolled her shoulders back, took a deep breath through nearly clenched teeth, turned and walked out of the cave-like study.  Her head was pounding with the force of bass drums and though she was hurting for it, at least she had confirmed Arkdone was telling the truth about her family before he slammed her brain with his crushing defense.

Two days is two days too late,
she thought frantically. 
Getting Arkdone elected to the White House, even as a Vice President was not part of the plan.

15  Get Out Alive

Meg made her way back to her room, her mind both throbbing with pain and spinning with frantic thoughts of escape.  She sensed him before she saw him.  Niche stepped from the shadows. 

“Oh God, what did he do to you?”

“I’ll be fine.  I have bigger issues than a bloody nose.”  Meg motioned subtly for Niche to follow her into her suite.  He was right on her heels, his hand already at the small of her back.  Once inside the room, Meg held her finger to her lips.  She stood in the middle of the room, Niche’s hand still holding her back and closed her eyes to concentrate on all the energies in the compound. 

She felt the despair from the patients, some of whom were still being “trained” to become Monarchs.  Her heart ached for them.  She felt Michelle joining Arkdone in his study.  Her sticky sweet, fake
aura left Meg feeling sickly.  She sensed Ermos the chauffer/body guard and Eloise the housemaid going about their nightly tasks.  She felt the kitchen help, the “controllers” and other psychiatric doctors and nurses who lived on the compound.  She felt the metamonarchs running in a mindless squad around the outskirts of the facility.  What she didn’t sense was someone monitoring her via visual or auditory means.

“Okay, we’re safe to talk,” she nodded once to a perplexed-looking Niche. 

“You sit down and let me help you get cleaned up,” he said, pushing her toward the edge of her bed.  Meg was too tired and worried to argue.  She sat obediently and watched Niche hurry to the bathroom.  Moments later he returned with a warm washcloth in his large hand.  Without a word, he knelt in front of her and started to gently clean the blood off her face.

“Twice in one night, kid?”

“Hmm?” Meg was deep in thought.

“This is the second time I’ve had to clean blood off you tonight.” He stopped his gentle work and stared into her dark eyes for a moment before shaking his head, finding a clean spot on the washcloth and continuing his caring task.

“You helped me tonight,” Meg started.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”

“No, I mean when you hid what I was doing from Arkdone.  The spilled wine was genius.  He never suspected what I was doing.”

Niche frowned—shadows crossing his brow.

“Why did you help me?”

“Because no one else was going to,” he murmured.

“You haven’t asked me what I did to cause my—episode.”

“You’ll tell me if you want to.”  He paused
before adding, “then again, maybe it’s better if I don’t know.”

“You’re probably right.” Meg stared down at her bloodstained hands.  The dark red was caked under her nails and followed the creases in her knuckles. 

“How’s your head?” he asked with concern clear on his face.

Ignoring both the question and the pounding behind her eyes, she blurted, “I need to escape, Niche.”

“What?” he stopped cleaning and stood abruptly; the bloody washcloth still warm in his hand.

Desperate to make him understand, she met his stare unflinching.

“Arkdone plans to take me to Hawthorne, the winner of last night’s nomination.  He’s going to blackmail him and is forcing me to seal the deal with my psychic persuasion.  He wants Hawthorne to take him on as his vice presidential candidate.  I can’t do that, Niche.”  Meg’s voice verged on pleading toward the end, but she couldn’t help it.  She was trapped in the claws of a very powerful monster.

“And that would be a bad thing
—him becoming vice president?”

“Very bad.”

“Because?”

“Niche, you’re going to have to trust me on this.  Arkdone can never get so close to the Oval Office.  Never.”  Meg was carefully reaching out to him with her gift, testing his resolve.  His psyche was so fragile after everything that had been done to him, but fear was the primary emotion he was feeling.

“You could come with me,” Meg reached out to touch his forearm.  His black T-shirt hugged his physique so tightly, she could see his six-pack.  He felt cold beneath her hand.

“I can’t go anywhere unless my controller tells me to,” he responded robotically.

“You don’t have to live under Arkdone’s control anymore.  I can help you reintegrate.  I know I can do it, with a little time.”

“Why can’t you just play along with his game?  I could take care of you here, Meg.  I want to take care of you.”  The evidence of his loyalty stained the previously white washcloth hanging limply in his hand.

“You can come live with me and my family, Niche.  They will accept you if I tell them to.  You could live a normal life.  You could think one thought at a time and enjoy the silence of a healed mind.”

Niche ran his hands through his thick, dark hair, fear written clearly in his agitated body language.

“Meg, I won’t survive the night if I try to leave.  You have to know that.  You have to believe me.  You met ‘The Punisher’ yourself.”  He knelt in front of her again, shoulders hanging in obvious defeat.

“I won’t let you hurt yourself, Niche.”  Meg rolled her strong but feminine shoulders back as though remembering the effort it took to contain him the last time Punisher came out.

Niche finally looked up at Meg through wide eyes, reddening quickly as tears brimmed. “Isn’t there anything I can say or do that would keep you here with me?”

Meg slowly shook her head, trying to read the raging
, tangled emotions ricocheting off his aura.

“Would you, if you could?”

Meg frowned, her thoughts diving deep into her emotional memories.  Someone else was meant for her and she knew it.  She felt a deep sense of responsibility and appreciation of Niche, but it would be wrong to lead him on.  Her heart belonged with Creed Young.

She shook her head, “I would like you to leave this place with me,” she answered honestly.  “I could try to force you, but I don’t want to.  You will have to come willingly or not at all.”

Meg turned away from him and hurried to the restroom to wash up.  When she returned, she had changed into all black.  Her long hair tied up into a tight knot at the back of her head and a black bandana pulling all the curls away from her face. 

Niche took one look at her and sighed.  “Wait here for exact
ly four minutes then make your way to the kitchen’s back door.  I’ll be waiting for you with a car.  I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

“Will you stay with me and my family?”

“I will drive you to them.  That’s as much as I can offer right now.”  He nodded once and tightened his lips with resolve before turning to leave on stealth feet.  “Four minutes,” he looked down at his watch, “starting now.”

Meg watched him close the door on silent hinges and glanced at the clock.  It was fast approaching
2am. 

Her body knew what she was going to do before her brain caught up.  She grabbed the small paring knives she’d stolen from the kitchen days ago and slipped them into her boot then opened her door and set her sensors on high alert.  She had one more thing to do before she left this place.