The Impossible Future: Complete set by Frank Kennedy (mini ebook reader .txt) 📕

“These are the things you must know, Jamie. Why else would men risk everything to destroy you, while others will go to any length to protect the program until it fulfills its mission? I will not try to guard your feelings any longer. You will listen to me, Jamie, and you will do as I say. We must leave here. The shadows are coming. You can feel them, see them. They must not be given the chance to destroy you before the appointed time.”

Jamie saw the eyes of a gentle mother morph into beads of madness. He stepped back from her, but not out of fear. He boiled with unexpected excitement. She was right: He heard their footsteps, just like when he sensed them nearby in the forest. The shadows were coming. Bidwell.

“I can’t get out,” he said. “I don’t know how.”

“Allow the Jewel to guide you. It will show you how to see beyond the physical world. All matter is born of the universe; it can be decimated by that same universe. Turn around and face the door, and you will see the possibilities. It is time to leave.”

He grabbed for the doorknob but felt nothing. Then, unable to look down, Jamie felt a liquid encase his hand as if he were washing it in frigid soap and water. Somewhere in his mind he saw the components of a lock and heard Lydia whispering in his ear.

“Grab the tumbler. Release it. Yes. That’s the way.”

Just like that, shadows drifted away like fog burned off by the morning sun, and the door cracked open. Jamie pulled back his hand and looked down to see a blurred convolution of his fingers intertwined with the lock’s components. Horrified, he yanked his hand away, and the sensation of soap and water disappeared.

“It’s happening,” he whispered. “I’m changing.”

“No,” Lydia said. “You’re learning.”

Jamie pulled back the door and expected to see the deputy outside, but no one was stationed there. The room from which he emerged was located at the end of the corridor. To his left and directly across, another hallway led to the rear past the holding cells. Jamie heard contentious voices not far away, all of them familiar.

When he leaned all the way into the hall, he saw the deputy who twice locked the door. The short man, perhaps in his mid-twenties with a razor-thin mustache and gelled black hair combed with precision, appeared distracted by the voices.

Jamie focused on the deputy’s gun.

Lydia’s icy grip encircled Jamie’s neck, and his rage grew.

“He is in your way,” she said. “He will try to stop you. Kill him.”

Every part of him said this obstacle must be eliminated, so Jamie allowed rage to carry him on with the speed and agility of a leopard.

The deputy didn’t see it coming.

54

S AMMIE THOUGHT SHE had an excellent jailbreak plan in mind until Agent Hedgecock appeared in the lobby, cell phone glued to his ear. As soon as the man’s eyes met hers, Sammie changed her plans, opened the waiting-room door, and turned to Michael.

“I’ll deal with Agent Hedgecock,” she whispered. “You’ve got to distract the other one. The deputy behind the counter. OK, Coop?”

He hesitated to nod but did so with a visible lump in his throat. Sammie opened the door and made a beeline for Hedgecock, who now headed toward her with purpose.

“Agent, Michael and I have been talking and …”

He raised a hand. “That will be all, Miss Huggins.” Hedgecock turned to Martha Lynn, the deputy behind the counter. “Deputy, please escort these two to a cell at once.”

The room exploded with voices speaking over each other. Martha Lynn boomed her objections, and Sammie insisted this was an outrage, that Hedgecock had no right to do that, let alone to hold her cousin John for questioning. Hedgecock glared.

“John?” He said. “Don’t you mean Jamie?”

Sammie didn’t blink. She put the pieces together; the phone call must have blown Sammie’s tall tale out of the water. She wanted to curse; if only she had five more minutes. For an instant, she darted her eyes toward Michael, who knew the gig was up.

Martha Lynn tried to intervene again. “Agent, let’s cool our britches and talk this out. Now why do you want to put these children in holding? They ain’t done a thing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Hedgecock never took his eyes off Sammie. “Familiar song, Deputy. For the moment, consider the charge obstruction of justice. You may have heard: There are bodies scattered over three counties.” His eyes, now cold and dark, latched onto Sammie just long enough for her to realize she stood on the precipice. “The other charges,” the agent continued, “in due course. The boy in the back is not this girl’s cousin. Isn’t that right, Samantha?”

Michael whispered, “Oh, shit. We’re deep in it now.”

He turned again to Martha Lynn, whose eyes darted between him and Sammie. Michael took a step closer to her and said Hedgecock was full of crap. They were victims, he insisted.

“You don’t understand anything,” Sammie told Hedgecock before turning to the deputy. “He’s making a huge mistake, Martha Lynn. Please. We’re not the bad guys.”

“Do we need to cuff you?” Hedgecock asked.

He didn’t receive an answer. Another voice groaned halfway down the corridor near the interrogation room. Hedgecock swung about and saw the disturbance when Michael, Martha Lynn, and Sammie did. Hedgecock reached for his holstered pistol.

Jamie was scrapping with a deputy. Jamie, who was easily six inches taller, had one arm wrapped about the deputy’s throat as he reached for the man’s service revolver with the other. The officer yelled for assistance, but Jamie threw him against the wall, leveled him with a hard left cross and reached