Brain Storm by Cat Gilbert (ebook reader computer .txt) 📕
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The noise was deafening as the exchange of gunfire escalated, the acrid smell of gunpowder burning my nose and making my eyes water.
“Stay here,” I ordered Connors, making my way to the front of the limo when the gunfire abruptly stopped. It looked like a war zone, bodies scattered across the hangar floor, laying in pools of blood. Lars was on his feet and moving, searching the bodies and kicking weapons away as he went, his men moving in rapidly from the perimeter. Vivian was still on the floor, where she’d gone down when Lars had hit her and was lying a few feet away, watching me.
“Cute trick with the gun, Taylor,” she groaned as she said it, obviously in pain.
I got up, scanning the area as I moved over to her, the feeling of danger still with me. “I like it. Comes in handy, sometimes.” I squatted down next to her. “What are you, Vivian? I’d hate to be accused of profiling, but you and your boys here don’t exactly look like Islamic terrorists.”
“There are others besides the al Qaeda or ISIS that you should fear.” She smirked as she said it. “Some you should fear more.”
“Maybe,” I said, as Connors came around the car to join me, “but you’re not one of them. Not anymore.”
“You think you won?” she hissed at me.
“It kinda looks that way,” I said, looking up as Lars headed toward us, giving me a nod.
“You’re wrong.” I looked back down in time to see her gaze on the limo and the detonator in her hand.
“No!” I screamed and pushed out with all my might as the world exploded into a wall of flame and flying shards of metal.
I WAS DROWNING, my lungs bursting as I fought for air, my arms flailing in an attempt to find the surface.
“Taylor! Stop fighting!” Strong hands grabbed my arms, pinning them down. Panic surged through me, and I threw them off, letting my mind do what my body couldn’t.
“Taylor.” The quiet voice cut through my panic, his touch dragging me back into sanity.
“Mac?” I asked, unable to focus, my vision blurry and dark.
“I’m here.” He caught my hands in his, trapping them, keeping me still. “You’re safe. You’re not drowning. Just breathe, Taylor. Just breathe.”
I raked the air into my lungs in deep gulps as a blanket dropped over my shoulders and Mac wrapped it tightly around me. My heart was pounding hard, and I was sure Mac could feel the tremors wracking my body.
“What’s going on?” I gasped, pulling my arm free and dragging my hand across my eyes, trying to clear them. “What’s happened?”
A chill went through me, sending shivers over my skin as someone pulled my hand away and began blotting my face with a towel, wiping gently at my eyes, clearing them of the gooey substance that seemed to coat everything.
“What’s happened is you’ve destroyed the recovery tank and most of the room. If Sean hadn’t been close by, you’d have probably taken out the whole wing. I suppose we should be thankful for that at least.” I opened my eyes to see Jenny kneeling in front of me, clearly perturbed. “Come on, let’s get you out of this mess.”
I looked down to find myself on the floor in the middle of a huge puddle of thick goo. I lifted a hand, rubbing the substance between my fingers in confusion. Jenny was right. The room was a disaster. Tables were overturned, the slime I was sitting in covering most of the floor. The recovery tank Jenny referred to, a twisted chunk of metal, the hatch hanging open at an angle. The men who’d been trying to hold me down were still lying on the floor, moaning as medical personnel saw to their injuries. I took it all in, my brain finally beginning to function again as memories came flooding back.
“Where’s Connors?” I demanded, struggling to stand up. “Lars?”
The tails of the wet blanket slapped against my legs as I rose and I looked down in disgust, kicking them away and nearly falling in the attempt.
“Easy Taylor. It’s going to take a while to get your land legs,” Jenny cautioned, taking my arm through the blanket. “Let’s get a wheelchair.”
I would have argued if it hadn’t been for the fact that it was taking everything I had just to stand there.
“Ah, I see you’ve been throwing people around again. You’ve gotten very adept at that.” I looked up, relieved to see Connors in the doorway, teetering on a pair of crutches. “Good to see you awake, Taylor. You had us worried.”
“Stay out!” He had started into the room, but Jenny’s command stopped him in his tracks. “You want to break the other leg? We can barely stand up in here.” Jenny and Mac were propelling me toward the door, carefully setting their feet as they went. She was right. The floor was covered with the goo from the tank and walking was treacherous.
By the time we made the door, I was exhausted and more than happy to collapse into the waiting wheelchair.
“Where’s Lars?” I asked again, as we started down the hallway.
“He’s coming. He’ll be here this afternoon. I called him as soon as the alarms went off,” Connors answered. “I figured you must be awake.”
I turned around to throw him a dirty look as he wobbled slowly along, trying to follow us. We turned the corner, and he was lost to sight, but I could hear his laughter behind us as it echoed down the hall, making me smile. A vision of flames and flying debris suddenly flashed through my mind, gripping my heart. The explosion. The limo. Connors standing behind it. He could have so easily been killed, his laughter lost forever. So close. It had been so very close.
* * *
IT WAS LIKE deja vu. I had been here before, looking in the mirror, taking in the damage. Only, this time, it was worse.
Jenny had shooed Mac and Connors away as soon as we reached the room. She’d wheeled me into the bathroom and told me the worst of it, before letting me out of the chair. I avoided the mirror while I showered, letting my hands find the scars and the damage first, preparing myself mentally for the visual.
She’d refused to tell me about anything except my injuries, saying Lars would fill me in on the rest when he arrived. Then she proceeded to explain what she’d done and why I was in the recovery tank. The list of damage was long, the injuries severe. I listened as she talked, amazed I was still alive. I wouldn’t have been, she’d informed me if Lars hadn’t gotten me out so quickly. I owed him my life.
I finished cleaning up and stepped out of the shower. Jenny helped me towel off and slipped me into the dreaded hospital gown before putting me back into the wheelchair. She tucked a blanket around me and turned the chair toward the mirror. Then she stepped back and waited.
I didn’t know the person I was looking at. My hair was a dark stubble, my eyebrows almost non-existent. I’d expected that from the heat, expected the flash burn from the explosion, but not the rest. I was bone-thin, looking more like a skeleton than a live being. My skin was pink, and I could see the scars scattered across my torso, healing, but clearly evident. They would always be there, a daily reminder of what had happened.
My nose was different, as was the shape of my eyes. My cheekbones higher and my jaw more prominent. I’d been hit by shrapnel, Jenny had said, the bones in my face shattered. She said there’d been five operations. I remembered none of it.
“There’re no scars,” I said. I ran my hands over my features, watching in the mirror to confirm it was, in fact, my face I was feeling.
“Connors brought in the best plastic surgeon he could find. I assisted. The recovery tank took care of the rest.”
The recovery tank. The thing I had just destroyed. Jenny’s creation, one of her most successful experiments and I had just torn it apart.
“I’m sorry about the tank Jenny,” I said, meeting her eyes in the mirror.
“It’s alright, Taylor. It wasn’t your fault. We‘d been keeping you sedated, trying
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