Child of Recklessness (Trials of Strength Book 2) (2 page)

‘
Why did we have to run?’ Anna questioned Chris. ‘I mean we
didn’t do anything wrong.’

Chris
grunted.

‘
Think about it,’ I said. ‘A truck crashes into a store, we
enter, and when we leave we’re covered in blood and a man’s
dead.’

‘
And to explain we’d have to tell them about Greystone,’ Anna
continued, catching on. ‘We can’t do that because the government
doesn’t want what happened to be related back to them. I get it.
But now we’re screwed either way.’

I nodded
as we picked up speed.

*

We made
it to the hotel at 3:00PM. The tension had mounted, and frustration
had taken hold. One month had passed since we escaped Greystone,
and the town had been buried along with my father’s secrets. We had
hoped to formulate a plan, come up with something spectacular to
take my Dad down and stop what had happened to us from happening
elsewhere. It was becoming more and more difficult as time went on.
Where the hell did we start?

We
dodged the people in reception and made it to our room without
being stopped. Chris pulled the electronic card from his pocket and
unlocked the door. The familiar feeling of having more questions
than answers pained my mind, would it ever be different? Would we
ever have those normal lives again?

My life was never normal, just an experiment created by a sick
man masquerading as a father.

The room
we had booked wasn’t large. It was really just one long, rectangle
shaped space with two double beds and an adjoining bathroom. A
television sat to the left as you walked in, facing the beds. The
red painted walls and crimson carpet made our blood stains less
imposing, and I cringed as the thought passed through my
mind.

When we
had finally escaped from my father’s clasp, we had nothing more
than the ripped and bloodied clothes on our back. Luckily, the car
Chris had taken to help us out had contained a wallet along with a
credit card. The credit card’s owner must have been one forgetful
guy, as the pin number was on a piece of paper beside the card
inside the wallet. It was unfortunate for him, even though he was
likely dead, but fortunate for us.

‘
Who was that guy?’ Anna spoke into the silence.

I jumped
slightly, dragged from my train of thought.

‘
What guy?’ I said.

‘
The one that just tried to nail us with his truck,’ she
sighed, irritated. ‘I’m becoming mighty tired of almost
dying.’

I
shrugged.

‘
I don’t know, but our downtime is done. We have to find my Dad
and your brother,’ I said, Anna’s eyes drifted to the floor and she
nodded.

Anna’s
brother was only ten. My father had taken him from her arms and
used him to force her to watch me. He had wanted her to lead me to
him when the time was right, to take me into one of his traps or
she wouldn’t see her brother again. She’d done what was wanted from
her, and still her brother was missing. He could be dead, left
behind in town, but I was sure my father would have kept him. It
gave him more power over us.

‘
I think things have gotten a little more complicated,’ Chris
chimed in. ‘It’s not like we can walk up to your Dad and take him
out. There’s three of us against an entire army all working for
him, and we don’t even know where to start.’

I
clenched my jaw and sighed, I was pissed.

‘
Well we need to think of something, we can’t just wait around
to be picked off by whoever is trying to kill us,’ I
said.

‘
It’s pretty obvious who’s trying to kill us,’ Chris grunted.
‘We escaped, and now your Dad wants us gone before we step on his
toes, and that’s if we can even manage that.’

I shook
my head, annoyed at Chris’s attitude. I’d mulled that over on the
way to the hotel. It wasn’t my father who was trying to kill us. It
couldn’t be. Why, after all the trouble he went through to create
me, would he have me killed? It didn’t add up.

‘
It wasn’t Richard,’ I said convinced. ‘It’s not him. Right
now, everything he’s worked for is going exactly to plan. I know
it. ’

Chris
scoffed and shook his head. Anna listened, eyes glued to
mine.

‘
Then who, Lucas?’ she asked.

We stood in silence for a few minutes. My head hurt like hell,
and I hadn’t even brought up what, in my opinion, was the most
important point. While no one spoke I listened again, using my
advanced hearing to sift through the sounds. Almost perfectly in
sync, I could hear our hearts, all
four
of them. Anna was pregnant. Did
she know?

‘
Okay,’ Chris sighed and planted himself onto one of the beds.
‘Say it isn’t your Dad trying to kill us, then who is?’

I had a
notion I knew, not who it was, but that it wasn’t the first time
they’d tried something. I flashed back to the syringe we had pulled
from our attacker’s pocket. That was it.

‘
Bonnie,’ I said.

Bonnie
had been one of my father’s henchmen, in this case henchwoman.
Intelligent, deadly and having an obsessive love of the colour
violet, Bonnie had been ambiguous at best. We thought in the
beginning she worked solely for my Dad, but she saved me from his
men, and tried to stop the town from being destroyed. However after
that failed she tried to murder me with only a syringe, letting
slip in that moment her allegiance to someone else, someone who had
no qualms over my death.

‘
Chris,’ I said. ‘The man today, the syringe, in his pocket,
when Bonnie attacked me she had a syringe and we know she didn’t
truly work for my Dad.’

Chris
shrugged.

‘
Whoever she worked for obviously wanted me dead, but, I think
I know what else they want.’

‘
What?’ Anna said.

‘
The only thing that can be described as something good that
came out of that town,’ Chris said as the gears in his mind turned.
‘They want your DNA. A sample of your blood might do.’

I
nodded. It was simple. Someone else wanted what my father created.
The drug itself would be useless, with it being highly unlikely to
succeed. So whoever was after us wanted me, or a sample of me, the
one person who overcame the concoction and gained incredible new
powers while retaining their sanity. Theoretically, my blood, my
DNA could hold the key of perfecting the unstable drug my father
made, guaranteeing someone the same abilities as I had. People had
killed for much less.

‘
Great, so not only do we have the madman that destroyed our
families and lives to find, but there’s another group after us as
well?’ Anna sighed and sat down too. ‘Awesome.’

I felt
deflated. All we’d done to escape Greystone, the choices,
sacrifices, and we had only just begun the fight for our lives.
Chris finally got up and without a word, headed into the bathroom.
I heard the shower turn on, and I made my way over to the bed and
sat next to Anna, wrapping an arm around her. I wondered whether to
bring up her new condition after a while, but Chris came out of the
bathroom with clean clothes on and a fresh bandage covering the new
gash on his head.

Anna
went next. Chris and I debated on where we should go next, but
neither of us really knew. We understood we had to leave Redburn,
the city we had sought refuge in after Greystone, but then
where?

‘
For now we just have to keep moving,’ Chris said. ‘Soon the
police are gonna be looking for us, and it’s only a matter of time
before they find us, especially if we’re trapped in this
city.’

‘
When do we leave?’ I asked.

‘
Now, if we can. After Anna’s finished up, get yourself tidied
up and we’ll move somewhere less populated and we can plan our next
move.’

I nodded
and stood. Chris left to get the car ready, and as soon as Anna was
done, I got started. I let the warm water attempt to wash away all
that had happened, but dirt like that would never wash away, not
until we completed our mission. I couldn’t figure out what my
father’s endgame was. He was no longer employed by the government,
who may or may not be looking for him too, so what did he plan to
get from this? Why go to the lengths he had to perfect something he
let slip from his grasp?

I tried
to focus on other thoughts, but the only other one I could pull up
was Anna. What would we do now? Anna was pregnant, I was sure of
it, but could we bring a child into our world? A world where a
mystery group wanted us dead and my father probably had some deadly
plans for us in the near future?

I wished
more than anything for the simple life I had before.

‘
You okay, Lucas?’ Anna said from beyond the door.

I had
been watching the water turn red with blood and swirl away, but it
ran clear now.

‘
Yeah, I’ll be two minutes,’ I replied.

I have to tell her.

I
stepped from the shower and dried off. I checked the mirror and
observed my haggard appearance. My face was sunken, and my
dirty-blond hair stuck to my head, wet. My eyes lingered on their
green reflection before I shook myself. Changing into the clean
clothes I had brought in, I turned the shower water off and joined
Anna in the bedroom. She sat drying her hair on the bed closest to
me. Her fiery red curls and electric-blue eyes were beautiful, and
her Cupid’s bow mouth and button nose only maximised her beauty.
Anna was twenty-one, one year older than me. I felt a rush of pride
that took me by surprise. If there was anyone in the world, even
with our current situation, that I wanted to have a child with, it
was her.

I sat
next to her, and she turned and smiled. I bent over and kissed her,
lingering for a few seconds and then pulling away.

‘
Anna?’ I said.

‘
Yeah, I know, I’ve packed what we have into our bags,’ she
replied. ‘I’m just waiting for Chris to call up and we’re good to
go.’

‘
No, that’s not what…’ I started, but I had no idea how to
continue.

‘
What is it?’ Anna said as her face creased in
concern.

I stared
into her eyes.

I’ll just be honest. I’ll always be honest with
her.

‘
You’re pregnant,’ I whispered.

She
continued to stare for a second, her face frozen, and then she
laughed. It caught me off guard and I jumped.

‘
What?’ she snorted. ‘What are you talking about?’

I
swallowed.

‘
Anna, honey, I’m telling you you’re pregnant,’ I
said.

The
smile on her lips slowly faded and fear took its place. She placed
the towel beside her and opened her mouth to speak, but whatever
she was going to say died on her lips, and she looked at me for an
explanation.

‘
I can hear the baby’s heart,’ I answered the silent question.
‘I can hear it along with yours.’

I placed
my hand on her stomach and she placed hers over mine. We sat there,
unable to form words to describe our feelings. Anna was no doubt
going over the same questions I had, the main one never leaving my
mind: Could we do this?

Before
any of us could speak again, the room’s wireless phone rang, and
Anna slouched off the bed and over to its place by the television.
She picked it up and answered.

‘
Yeah, Chris, give us a minute would…’ she started but
stopped.

Her eyes
grew wide and she looked over at me.

‘
What?’ I panicked.

‘
It’s not Chris,’ Anna replied.

The Sanctuary

‘
Who is this?’ Anna said.

I waited
with baited breath. The only person other than the hotel with our
room number was Chris, and we’d asked the hotel not to contact us,
at all. Finally, Anna nodded and laughed, she visibly relaxed,
looked at me and winked. I remained silent and listened in, the
miniscule voice on the line picked up as I honed in on
it.

‘
Yeah, how did you get this number?’ Anna asked.

‘
I’ll tell you later,’ a man’s voice came back, it was
familiar, but I couldn’t remember a name. ‘Right now, Anna, I need
you to turn on your television.’

Anna
frowned, but grabbed the remote and sat back on the bed.

‘
What channel?’ she asked.

The
voice replied, and Anna turned the television on and punched in the
channel. At first we sat there, staring at the screen, waiting for
the images on it to make sense. Then my stomach dropped, and the
hairs on my body stood on end.

‘
This is the site of a gruesome murder scene in the city
centre,’ a female news reporter chimed. ‘Earlier today, an
unfortunate accident turned into a horrible nightmare. A man lost
control of his vehicle and crashed into an electronics store,
narrowly avoiding three unknown individuals. Please be aware, that
the following images are disturbing.’

A
collection of image stills, probably from a CCTV camera, began on
the screen. They showed the truck ploughing into the side of the
store, us just making it to safety, and then we disappeared inside.
Watching the screen my eyes widened. A few minutes later we
re-emerged onto the street, our clothes soaked in the dead man’s
blood. To anyone other than us watching it, the video was
hauntingly clear, especially when the stills showed us fleeing the
scene.