Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 22

GILLIAN HADN'T HAD TIME to shut the closet door. It hung open with a hair's crack between its edge and the frame. In the room, the light had grown to a yellow early-morning haze, and through it walked two figures in sweeping black cloaks.

They swept the room with their rifles, then turned as one toward Rachel Parson's sleeping form. Gillian held her breath, waiting for the rifle crack that would cave in Rachel's head just like it had Tim Rollins's. In Gillian's arms, Rachel's daughter slumped, mouth open, breathing steadily. Gillian had never seen anyone sleep so soundly.

The two figures took aim at Rachel's body, then paused. One held up a hand and made a strange sweeping gesture through the air. The other nodded. The rifles disappeared into the black cloaks, then both men reached out their arms over Rachel. Dark blue fingers shone in the morning light, descending over Rachel's forehead. Midnight black eyes gleamed with an inner light. The black eyes, they see me. The girl's words, just moments ago.

Frozen, Gillian could only watch.

It took nearly twenty minutes. The two figures stood as still as statues, their fingers clutching Rachel's temples. Their black eyes were open, but had an unseeing quality to them, like a sleepwalker's.

Gillian's legs went numb beneath her, but she didn't dare move in case she broke their concentration.

Then, as one, both men snapped their heads back and pulled their hands away from Rachel's head. The rifles reappeared, the tips glowing a strange incandescent blue. Gillian choked back a scream. They were going to kill her. Something began to hum inside the rifles. The glow intensified. They were leveled directly at Rachel's face.

"They were innocent."

The cloaked figures whirled at the words, whispered from the direction of the doorway. Gillian angled her head behind the cracked closet door and saw Shane slumped in the hallway door, holding his stomach with one bloody hand. The security guard's semi-automatic pistol was shaking in his other hand.

"They were all innocent, you bastards!" he shrieked, and two thundering shots boomed from the pistol. One of the cloaked figures jerked as the bullets hit him, and then they were both moving toward the door.

They slammed into Shane like a tidal wave, knocking him into the hallway. One of them crouched over his body, then the door slowly swung shut, shielding them from view. Shane's legs sprawled through the doorway, keeping it from closing completely. For what felt like forever, Gillian watched his white tennis shoes spasm. Then they went still.

Overhead, like a growing thunder, Gillian heard the sound of helicopter blades approaching the hospital. The hallway was silent. The girl in her arms let out a soft snore. Gillian could have laughed if she hadn't been crying so hard, shaking with the force of it – thank God the girl hadn't snored just five minutes earlier.

Still no sound came from the hallway. The muffled roar of the helicopters grew closer. Maybe it had scared the killers away.

Gillian waited a full three minutes – as long as she dared – before moving, and when she did, it was painfully. Her legs had gone so numb they barely worked anymore. Holding the girl in her arms, Gillian walked past Rachel with a brief, lingering glance, and stepped out into the hallway.

The lights were still off, but the dawn was now strong enough to light the way. The reception room was awful. Gillian choked back vomit and swept through it into the bright sunshine outside, still holding the sleeping girl in her arms, tears streaming down her face.

They were all dead.

She laid the girl in her car and drove away, passing a convoy of army vehicles heading into the hospital parking lot as she did.

Thanks for reading my story! Please VOTE and let me know what you think of it so far, then check out Chapter 23!