When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [98]
“Right. Just bad timing,” I snapped, and realized I was just as furious as she looked. “Too bad for David, and for Frank Mc-Donough. Just bad timing.”
I wanted to scream at Gillian, and at the horrible monster called Uncle Thomas, but I forced myself to keep calm, not to show my anger, my rage. It was too dangerous now. Guards with guns were standing around everywhere. They seemed to be looking for an excuse to let loose.
“Hi, Aunt Frannie!” I heard from down close to the ground.
Michael innocently grabbed me around the legs and hugged me tightly. He was a beautiful little boy. I’d always loved him and raved about him, but now, honestly, he scared me a little. Everything did. Gillian scared me most of all. My so-called friend was an unrepentant monster.
Nothing was as it appeared to be; everything was part of this ongoing nightmare.
Michael was Adam.
Adam was God-only-knew-what.
Gillian wasn’t my friend, after all. We had talked and laughed and cried together. All the time she was a horrible enemy, the worst of Them. Maybe she’d even thought about killing me?
I bent low to Michael and kissed the side of his face. “So you and Peter and Wendy are friends?” I said.
“We’re best friends,” he gushed.
Gillian interrupted us in a loud, stern voice. I’d never seen this side of her. “I want you to go straight to your room until I tell you to come out. Go ahead, Michael. Now!”
The little boy stared up at his mother. At his biological mother? I wondered. He seemed confused and hurt, and I couldn’t blame him one bit.
“Mommy,” he asked in total innocence, “are you going to put them to sleep? Please don’t do it. They’re my friends. They’ll be good!”
Then the little boy began to sob uncontrollably. He was frightened and the tears were real and touching. Gillian seemed to soften a bit. I saw the tiniest hint of the person I’d known. Then she pointed back toward the house.
“I said, go to your room, now go. Mister, go!” she shouted. “That’s an order.”
I looked in that direction, and sucked a sharp intake of air. “Oh Gillian, no,” I said.
On the porch was another small child. A girl. She looked nearly identical to Michael. She was Eve, wasn’t she? I remembered the dying children at the School. The failed experiments. The “rejects.” And now this.
The nightmare just wouldn’t stop; it was coming in nauseating wave upon wave. I recognized a man standing in the doorway behind Eve. He was Dr. Carl Puris, Gillian’s husband! But he couldn’t be! Carl Puris had died of heart failure two summers before.
Kit spoke up at my side. “That’s Anthony Peyser,” he said. “Dr. Peyser is alive and well in Colorado. I finally found the bastard.”
Chapter 105
MAXIMUM. MAXIMUM. Just go for it. Go like the wind blows. Go even faster!
Max tried not to be too pitifully scared out of her mind as she extended her wings and power-dived between a pair of tall fir trees. She flew deeper and deeper into the heart of the woods, until she finally felt safe enough to hover and land.
Only then did she look behind to check her back.
No one was there.
She saw that she was all alone again. Actually, she didn’t like that either. She hated it, in fact. Hated it. Something inside had warned her to get away, to escape, to fly as fast as she could.
She had to get help somehow, but Max didn’t have a clue how to do it. Who could she go to—now that Frannie and Kit weren’t around to give her their good advice? Had they ever told her something that might be helpful now? What lessons had she learned so far? Her brain was on fire with questions—but no answers.
She didn’t know exactly how it worked at the School, but she was smart, and she snooped. She sensed that Adam was very special. She had thought he’d been put to sleep, but obviously that wasn’t true. Adam was at that big house in the mountains. The house where Frannie’s friend lived. Did that mean Frannie might be involved? Or Kit? Whom could she trust? How could she get help? How, how, how? Think,