The Forbidden Trilogy(164)

The other officer had disappeared into the back room. "Found two vials, it's the same stuff. Proceed with caution."

Drake tried to turn around, but the cop holding the gun on him would have none of it. "Don't move or I'll shoot, do you hear me?"

Drake knew his rights better than most. Raised in foster care, he had to know them to survive. "Are you charging me with something, Officer? Because if you aren't, I'd like to go. I was just trying to be a Good Samaritan." He had no intention of leaving Toby, but he couldn't let them know he cared one way or the other.

"You're not going anywhere until we sort this all out."

"What charges are you holding me on? You can't detain me without just cause."

"Son, you were found in a known drug neighborhood, with a dead woman and her dying son. We've got plenty to hold you."

This wasn't going as well as Drake had hoped, but he would have played along a little longer if they hadn't started handcuffing Toby and strapping him to a gurney, and not in the 'trying-to-protect-the-patient' way.

Drake's frustration hardened into anger. "What the hell are you doing to him? He's just a kid and he's sick. He's not a criminal."

"He took illegal drugs, and probably killed his mother. That makes him dangerous, and a criminal. That also makes you his accomplice. You're both coming with us."

Oh shit. Again, Drake tried to keep his cool. Two cops and two paramedics did not make for the best of odds.

His cool lasted about thirty seconds, until the damn idiots leaned in to duct tape Toby's mouth closed.

What the hell? No way.

He whipped around and kicked the gun out of the cop's hand, then attacked him. In a flurry of fighting, Drake didn't last long—not after they tasered him, then beat the crap out of him. He didn't notice the pain; all he could focus on was Toby's taped mouth and his increasingly shallow breaths as he struggled to get air into his lungs.

Toby's body faded away, disappearing into nothing as Drake's consciousness also faded to nothing. His last thought was filled with the regret of yet another mistake, which had surely destroyed another innocent.





Chapter 78 – Lucy



The fire crackled and sent sparks into the dark sky. Like fire fairies in a children's book, they flickered into the air and danced on unseen currents. Soon, the sun would peek its head over the ocean and send rays of light onto the island. Until then, Lucy sat and warmed her hands by the fire, hoping the heat would burn out the dampness in her clothes from the rain the night before.

She held her sphere in her right hand and admired the way the flames danced off the silver. It pulsed steadily, doing more to calm her than the fire.

Beleth, ever the enigmatic, had stretched his black wings and flown off after his parting instructions. What Lucy wouldn't give to fly. She had no way of capturing him, no way of defeating him, no way of digging up the seed of doubt he'd planted in her heart.

Would killing Agent Simmons really save all of those kids? She couldn't believe she was even considering it. Why did Beleth want the agent dead? Did it matter? Wasn't one life worth the lives of so many innocent children?

Another coconut cracked open under her knife. She grimaced and forced herself to eat the meat, and vowed that once she was off the island, she'd never eat anything with coconut in it... ever again. Ever!

She was tempted to hunt for more food, but Luke still lay passed out on his makeshift mat, and she didn't want to leave him in such a vulnerable state, despite how pissed off she was at him.

Her mind spun with choices and questions. She needed more information, but had no real way of acquiring any. Beleth clearly had his own agenda, whatever that was. IPI may have had some dark secrets of its own, but she'd never seen anything to indicate she couldn't trust them. Still, those kids needed to be saved. What was she willing to do to make that happen?

A small pile of coconuts sat at her feet. She picked up one and stared at it, then pulled off her baseball cap and put it on the coconut. It almost looked like Robert. She placed it a few feet away from her, then took her gun out, made sure the safety was on, and pointed it at the coconut.

Images overlapped themselves. The coconut turned into Robert, the way he'd looked just moments before she'd shot him. Could she do it? Could she shoot Robert again if she had to?

The vision expanded, to her brother splayed against the wall of the plane, his body stretched beyond endurance by Robert's power. She shifted and pointed her gun at her sleeping brother. If she hadn't shot Robert, then she would have been responsible for Luke's death.

Lucy pivoted back and forth between the Robert coconut and Luke, each becoming a potential target. Two choices, neither of them right or good, but a decision had to be made, and Lucy had made it. Beleth was right: she would make the hard choices in the end. Her gun landed on the coconut.