Child of Recklessness (Trials of Strength Book 2) Read online

  Or maybe they’d been caught by the police on their way to the hospital. Maybe they’d made it, and been grabbed at the hospital. Nightmares plagued my mind, conscious horrors. I would never forgive myself if anything happened, and I would never forgive Jessica, the woman whose past was a mystery, but had convinced us that something had happened enough for her to not harm children.

  I was ready for leaving and hunting them down, even though I had no clue on how I would, when my ears picked up the downward slide of the elevator. Someone had called it, they were coming up. I told Chris, who’d been standing in the kitchen, a cold coffee he hadn’t touched in his hands. Brian and Paul were at the bank of computers; their blank expressions stared at the same page of files they had started hours ago.

  We raced into the corridor. Our feet pounded on the rich carpet lining the floor, dust bursting into the air when our feet landed, and we waited for the elevator to rise. My heart almost broke through my chest with its erratic beats, and I gasped at the air. The time we waited felt like a millennia and the box riding up the shaft made a crawl through the floors.

  Please.

  The doors opened, and tears burst from my eyes. I sank to the floor, the rush of emotions overwhelming and I laughed. There was Jessica, a bright smile on her face, one of sincere joy and genuine warmth, and there was Anna, a baby clasped to her shoulder in a mother’s loving embrace. Tears were gathered in her eyes, and she looked drained and fatigued. It took me a second to realise the wig attached to her head, an almost white blonde. Her usual electric-blue eyes were a dark brown, and she smiled as she walked from the elevator.

  I bounced to my feet and enfolded both her and my child into my arms, and we stood there, racked with happy sobs and warmth.

  ‘Lucas,’ Anna whispered into my ear, ‘I’d like you to meet our son. We had a boy.’

  I cried even harder.

  The Addict

  Jessica filled us in on what had happened once they’d left me. Before reaching the hospital, Jess had put the wig on a screaming Anna, and inserted contact lenses, all to make her harder to identify. They had then reached the hospital, and thankfully, the doctors were more concerned over helping birth the baby safely than they were with their names. Although after the birth they had become very interested, and before they could start tests on our son, Anna and Jessica had slipped out. The connection would be made eventually, the government would know we’d had a baby, and that only made our situation worse.

  We were all crowded round the crib Jessica had bought and brought with her, inside the bedroom Anna and I slept in, my sleeping boy bundled up inside. All of us were quiet, and all of us just stared, completely mesmerised by how innocent and beautiful my son was. He had inherited his mother’s vivid blue eyes, but the little blond tufts of hair were from me.

  I couldn’t thank Jessica enough, and I’d even grabbed her into a hug that she’d had to wriggle from once I’d halted her air supply.

  ‘He’s beautiful,’ Brian smiled.

  ‘Yeah, he is,’ Chris whispered.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Paul said.

  I turned to look at him and saw he was in the doorway, a strange expression on his face. His eyes looked everywhere bar the crib with the baby, but his demeanor was calm and his body was still. My eyes met Chris’s and he nodded. I stared back at my little boy and I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay by his side and protect him from the horrors of the world, terrified that if I left the room something bad would happen.

  ‘I’ll stay with him,’ Jessica whispered to Anna.

  Anna had the same worried look I did, but duty called. I dragged myself from my hunch over the crib and slid my hand into Anna’s. Then, all of us bar Jess left the room and softly closed the door. Paul had the floor, and we arranged ourselves around him. Brian took up his revolving chair, Anna and I the couch, and Chris opted to stand with his arms crossed.

  ‘We should tell them what we know now,’ Paul said directly to Chris.

  ‘Why?’ Chris replied with his eyebrows furrowed.

  ‘Tell us what?’ Anna asked.

  Anna and I looked between both Chris and Paul. Both of them were in a silent battle with their eyes.

  ‘We came across everything we’ve been looking for in those files,’ Paul started, and Chris growled.

  ‘They don’t need to hear it right now,’ he said.

  ‘Just tell us,’ I broke in.

  Chris shot me a glance, one that said, ‘Are we really going to go through this again?’

  Anna caught it too.

  ‘You take those eyes off of him, Chris,’ she spat. ‘I ran off too, I wasn’t forced into anything, I made the same decision Lucas did with the information we had. And you know what? I’d make it again.’

  ‘Listen, sweetheart,’ Chris growled, ‘what’s done is done, everyone’s mostly alright, but neither of you have learned from it. So forgive me for not wanting to share.’

  Another bout of silence.

  ‘Tell us,’ I said, ‘and I promise to think carefully about it.’

  Chris still didn’t look convinced, but Paul barrelled on anyway.

  ‘Brian, bring it up,’ Paul said without so much of a glance in his son’s direction. ‘Show them.’

  Brian’s eyes shot to Chris, but he spun round to his desk, and got to work. An image came up on one of the screens. It was a woman, and I gasped. It was almost like looking into a mirror. The woman had dirty-blonde hair like mine, and vivid green eyes. If her hair was short, and her face more masculine, she would be me. I stood slowly and let my mouth hang open. On the screen was proof. Proof that my Dad hadn’t lied when he’d told me I had a twin sister.

  I had to help her!

  But first I had to take a breath; Chris scrutinised my face.

  ‘What do we know?’ I asked Brian, but it was Chris who answered.

  ‘Hazel Bishop is your fraternal twin sister,’ he said. ‘From your Dad’s notes, he had had Greystone planned for a while, but it was only planned for one: You.’

  My father had told me as much. Only where had my sister been all that time? Richard Bishop had been firmly planted in Greystone, readying his big experiment for when the inevitable sacking by his bosses occurred. Who had been raising her? What was she like?

  ‘A separate one was put aside for her. If Greystone was a success, they would need more information. Was it a fluke? What makes you special? But Greystone 2.0 was a failure. Your sister didn’t overcome the drug, and we have no idea what happened to her after that, only that she’s with your father.’

  ‘And this time,’ Paul chimed, ‘we have a pretty good idea of where he is.’

  ‘Where?’ I gasped.

  ‘You remember Digilock?’ Chris asked. ‘Well, thanks to Jessica’s more complete files, we found out that Digilock is actually a front. It’s owned by your Dad. It was set up as a cover for their experiments when they still worked for the government, and now it does the same thing.’

  ‘It funds your Dad,’ Paul continued. ‘He has an almost unlimited supply of money coming in thanks to the company, and a place where he can store information that’s safe.’

  ‘So that’s how the building we broke into was different?’ I asked. ‘He’d made it easy for us to get in?’

  ‘Looks like,’ Chris said. ‘I bet he didn’t count on Jessica though ruining the computer. He probably had no idea she was there. Luckily it didn’t matter, she already had the information.’

  I rubbed my temples vigorously. I wished they hadn’t told me. I wanted to march off to my father’s location, find my sister. Plans and times flashed through my head, and I had to force them out.

  ‘Where is he?’ Anna spoke up.

  Chris laughed mirthlessly, but not at Anna.

  ‘Where he’s always been,’ Chris spat. ‘He’s at Digilock, the very same one we broke into. Tell him.’

  Brian spun back around to face us.

  ‘Floors ten, eleven and twelve of Digilock aren’t actually ren
ted by anyone,’ Brian said. ‘I went back over that list I pulled and checked out the so called companies for those floors. They’re bogus, they don’t exist.’

  ‘Your Dad wanted us to break in, but didn’t want us to find him,’ Chris explained, he’d obviously given it a lot of thought. ‘The timeline would fit; he wanted the results from your sister’s experiment first. So we jumped in, took his notes, notes that have redacted video files, and we flew to Anna’s brother.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  Chris shrugged. He hadn’t figured that far. The answers we needed could only be given by the man himself. We’d been caught up, and Chris was visibly worried about my reaction. I promised to sleep on it, to think through it, and then we could all come up with a plan. He nodded, and Anna and I relieved Jessica. Once she’d left, we took up her position beside the crib.

  The sun rose through the glass, and I could sense Anna’s fatigue. She went for a shower and I stayed with our child.

  ‘I promise you,’ I whispered and stroked his cheek, ‘I won’t let anything happen to you or your Mum. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make this world safe for you.’

  I swallowed the lump in my throat, and waited for Anna to return.

  ‘I think he needs a name,’ she said as she exited the bathroom. Her wig was gone, and her contacts removed. ‘What do you think?’

  I had absolutely no idea.

  ‘What about Alex?’ Anna prompted. ‘My Papa was called Alex.’

  I mulled the name over, running it over my tongue. I liked it, and smiled at Anna.

  ‘Alex is good,’ I replied. ‘What about Anthony too?’

  ‘Alex Anthony Bishop,’ Anna whispered as she stared lovingly at her boy. ‘I think that might be his name.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I’m sorry about your brother, Anna,’ I whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘It’s scary how used to losing people we are. I’m just glad I was there, even if he wasn’t.’

  I wrapped her in my arms as silent tear streaked her cheeks.

  One day we will never have to worry about losing people like that again. One day, I promise.

  *

  We woke just as the sky turned orange, and the sun started to set. Jessica was at the bottom of our bed, Alex in her arms, a bottle to his lips. The child sucked hungrily on the bottle.

  ‘It’s about time you guys got up,’ Jessica smiled. ‘I was ready for slapping the both of you. Heck, I think I still might just for something to do.’

  ‘Has anyone ever told you, you are absolutely crazy,’ I grumbled.

  ‘Yes,’ Jess said brightly, ‘and then I killed them.’

  What she said was horrible, but the way she said it actually made me laugh, which also made me feel sick. Anna and I got changed and took over for Jessica.

  ‘This baby is one of the best little guys I’ve ever seen,’ Jessica said fondly as she transferred Alex to Anna. ‘Never cried, just woke up and smiled.’

  ‘Do you think he’s alright?’ I asked.

  ‘If he’s got any of his Dad in him,’ Anna replied, ‘then I think he’s fantastic.’

  I laughed and sat beside Anna. Jessica told us she was popping out to buy more baby stuff, and we thanked her as she left. We fed, burped and changed Alex, Anna breaking into a fit of laughter as he peed while being changed, all over me. I laughed as well and little Alex let out a squeal of delight.

  Once I’d gotten more new clothes for myself, we joined the rest of the group in the main room, Alex on Anna’s shoulder. Brian rushed over with a smile, and demanded to hold him. Chris hung back, but stared with sincere affection at us. I noted again at Paul’s distance and deliberate ignorance, but filed it in my brain as unimportant.

  All of them were not long up themselves, and during that time, they’d been going over Richard’s notes, gleaning them for any more useful information. I grabbed a spare laptop, transferred the files onto it, and helped out. There were pages upon pages of information, mostly things we knew, but also other stuff. I learned that the name for my father’s project had been Hercules, for obvious reasons.

  But I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything in his files was deliberate. Something that gave us useless information, enough new to keep us hooked and salivating, but not too much that would take away my Dad’s knack for being one step ahead.

  Project Hercules as it turned out did not originate in Greystone. When human testing began, it was on one of the floors at Digilock; one of the three levels Richard Bishop was situated at. That only piqued my interest. If Hercules wasn’t the project that the complex under my hometown was used for then what was done there?

  I was reading more about Bonnie Clyde, my father’s little helper who hadn’t really been his helper at all. I wondered absently if Jessica knew her when she walked through the door, and her expression froze onto the screen.

  ‘How do you know her?’ she demanded with wide eyes.

  I stuttered and she handed the bags in her arms to Chris. She marched over and took the laptop from my hands.

  ‘How do you know her!?’ Jessica repeated.

  Paul peered over her shoulder before taking a stand beside Brian.

  ‘That’s the bitch that helped us then tried to kill Lucas back in Greystone,’ Paul chuckled. ‘Thank God she’s dead.’

  And thank God I had enhanced abilities. Jessica chucked the laptop and threw herself forward, her face ablaze with fury. She took the mug from Paul’s hand and aimed it for his head. I was already moving, I crossed the distance and grabbed Jessica’s arm before the cup shattered on Paul’s skull. He stumbled back and fell.

  ‘What the fuck!?’ he screamed.

  ‘Let go of me!’ Jessica screamed. I had to wrap my arms around her to keep her still. ‘I’m going to kill him.’

  What the hell was happening?

  ‘Jess, stop it,’ I gasped. ‘Come on!’

  Finally she stilled, and I let her go, ready for anything. She tossed the glass to the floor and it shattered into the silence. I watched with surprise.

  So I guess Jessica does know Bonnie.

  I made a mental note to find out how, but let Jessica storm off with Anna into our room. I let out my breath, and looked over at Chris who shrugged with shock. Paul was enraged, his face passing from red to purple in the sickening way it did. Brian moved to help him up, but he shook him off and barged out into the corridor, slamming the door behind him.

  Anna slouched out from our room, leaving Jessica with the baby. You’d think we’d be more hesitant with an assassin, but Jessica had proved herself, and seemed to have real soft spot for both Alex and Anna.

  ‘Did she tell you anything?’ I asked but Anna shook her head.

  Loud bangs and cracks came from across the corridor. Paul was screaming. Brian rushed from the room to calm his Dad. Anna, Chris and I loitered around, made some food and ate it in silence. Chris asked if I wanted to train, and I was more than happy to go along. The tension coiling my body was making me jittery, and we spent the next few hours relieving it through fighting.

  We returned, and I felt immensely better. Anna and Jessica were talking to one another on the couch.

  ‘Who’s with Alex?’ I asked.

  ‘Brian and Paul took over,’ Anna replied. ‘Paul wanted to see the baby.’

  I nodded and walked over to the door, clasped the handle and opened it. And there was Paul, alone with my son, who lay in his crib, a gun in Paul’s hand aimed at him.

  Shock thoroughly paralyzed me, and I had to go over the scene again. I heard the flush in the bathroom, and Brian emerged, the same thing happening to him as it did me once he saw his father.

  ‘Dad?’ Brian gasped.

  ‘I can’t,’ Paul choked. ‘I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live like this.’

  I took a hesitant step forward as fear crawled up my spine.

  ‘Paul,’ I whispered.

  ‘No!’ he screamed in return and I jumped. ‘Sta
y the fuck back! Stay back or I’ll kill him.’

  I stopped.

  ‘What the…’ Anna said as she came through the doorway. ‘Paul!’

  Chris and Jessica flew in. The latter bounced forward, but Chris grabbed her and held her back. We couldn’t risk Alex.

  ‘Paul,’ I repeated and showed him my hands, ‘put the gun down and talk to us.’

  Sweat layered his face, and he bounced from one foot to the other as his teeth ground together.

  ‘Dad, I can get you more if that’s what you need,’ Brian pleaded.

  Paul laughed.

  ‘What I need is our lives back,’ he whined. His eyes swarmed with tears. ‘What I need is to feel safe again, for you to be safe again.’

  His eyes narrowed at mine.

  ‘You were supposed to make it safe!’ Paul screamed. ‘This is your fault, and we brought you here to make it safe! But you’re only making it worse!’

  The gun in his hand trembled dangerously, and my heart rate skyrocketed.

  ‘Please,’ Anna begged.

  ‘They’re after you,’ Paul said to me. ‘You and Alex! They don’t care about us, they just want you.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Jessica growled.

  Paul shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he gasped. ‘It’s their faults. Without them, we would be fine.’

  ‘Paul,’ Chris yelled.

  ‘Please,’ Anna repeated.

  ‘Don’t,’ I whispered.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Paul replied.

  A single gunshot reverberated around the room.

  The Sacrifice

  I surged forward as soon as the sound smacked my ears. I barrelled into Paul with a roar as the room broke out in screams. We hit the floor and I felt his ribs crack under my weight. I raised my fist, ready to cave the bastard’s skull in. It was then I noticed the sharp cries of a child, and I looked over at Anna, who had Alex wrapped in her arms, very much alive.