When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [117]
Then I slipped upstairs to see about Max. She should be coming out of the anesthetic right about now.
I said a few prayers as I climbed the stairs from the third floor to the fifth. I was lost in thought, wondering about God, and how the recent advances in medicine and science fit into the grand scheme, if there was a grand scheme, or any scheme at all. A phrase was running through my head—all God’s creatures. I wondered what it meant now.
I was thinking: Don’t let Max die. She’sagood little girl, and she’s special. Please don’t let her die. Are you listening, Lord?
Max was still asleep when I entered her room. She looked so vulnerable and innocent. Seeing Max sick like this was like watching a falling star.
I sat beside her and began a vigil.
Don’t let Max die.
Don’t let this little girl die.
It was early morning, and I was still with Max when her eyelids finally fluttered open. She looked up at me and I felt that my heart could break.
“Hi, Max. Hi there, sweetheart.”
“Hi. Where am I?” she whispered.
“Somewhere safe. A hospital in Boulder. You’re with me.”
“I heard you talking to me. During the operation, Frannie,” she said. Her voice was very low and I had to strain to hear her words.
I gently kissed her cheek, then her forehead, her other cheek.
Don’t let this little girl die, I kept repeating in my head. I was shaking with fear.
She smiled softly. “Did you miss me?” she whispered.
“We all missed you so much. Where were you, sweetheart?”
“Oh. I was really flying.”
Max was quiet again, and I could hear that her breathing was strained. She let me hold her hand, but she didn’t say anything else for several minutes. I stroked her damp forehead, her hair. I kissed her warm cheek again and again.
She whispered, “It really is like flying. It’s nice. I like it there, Frannie.”
And then Max lightly, lightly squeezed my hand.
She closed her eyes.
Max slept.
Epilogue
ANGELS
Chapter 126
SOMETIMES LATE AT NIGHT, I sit in the dark on an old-fashioned rope swing in the front yard. I push myself higher and higher, hoping I might take off and fly. I think about what’s happened, and try to make sense of it. I know that plenty of others are trying to do the same.
I’ll tell you what happened after the showdown at Gillian’s house. Weeks after the trouble, Kit and I did what we thought we had to do, what we felt was right—we disappeared with the kids: Matthew, Oz, Ic, the twins, and Max.
I won’t tell where our home is, but it’s safe for right now. Even though it’s temporary, it’s a good place to live. The government just didn’t know what to do with the winged children, or with Kit and me, and the things that we know. We didn’t know what to do with the government. Whom to trust? Whom to fear?
A group of conscienceless scientists, at least a couple of powerful people in Washington, and unscrupulous and greedy higherups at some important biotech companies, committed unthinkable crimes. They murdered people, including my husband, David. They experimented on humans.
Several of the outlaw group of scientists are dead. Gillian, or
rather, Dr. Susan Parkhill, is gone. So is her son, Michael, who had a life expectancy of two hundred years. He perished at four years of age. Dr. Anthony Peyser also died in the car crash near the house in Colorado.
Paranoid theories abound, but the government was involved in some way, and nobody knows exactly how yet. Maybe we never will. There were soldiers in Bear Bluff. To this day, no one has explained why they were there. A handful of FBI agents were involved. Powerful companies were prepared to bid huge sums of money for the first forbidden fruits of the biotech revolution.
Eve survived. She is at a secret army base in North Carolina. No word about the girl has been released to the public. I guess maybe the public doesn’t have the right to know.
There was a recent story in the New York Times about the offspring from the three young pregnant women at Gillian’s house. According to the report, the infants were born without faces. They were purposely