James (Teumessian Trilogy Book 2) Page 14

  “It means she can heal faster than anyone else.”

  James was in shock. He scanned the room as he drew his gun. “Who’s there, what do you want?” James was shaking. He saw a figure moving toward him and coming into view out of the shadows. He saw her face, and it felt like a punch to the face. He barely had grip of his gun. She leaned down onto her elbows on the other metal table, her piercing blue eyes locked onto him. She was dressed all in black leather.

  “Shh, it’s okay, mommy is here,” Marie said with a smile.

  James felt losing the grip of his gun as it fell to the floor. The sound of metal hitting the concrete floor brought James back to reality. “No, no, no! You are dead! I saw you put a bullet in your head,” James said, pointing to his head.

  Marie brushed her hair away from the right side of her head. The hair was gone, she only had half of a head of hair. The remaining side of her scalp was covered in a floral print tattoo, the scarred bullet wound at the center of a Jasmine blossom. “My plan didn’t quite ago as I had planned.”

  James was panting. It really was her. Tears of rage flowed down his cheeks, “You abandoned me!”

  “I did what I thought I had to do to protect you. You seem to have turned out just fine,” Marie said, hopping up onto the table and crossing her legs.

  “Protect me? How? By leaving me there? By never being my actual mother? You have been alive this whole time, and you never came for me!” James was wiping the tears from his face.

  “I was always there for you, watching out for you. You were safe where you were. You were better off with Finnegan. You were not prepared for my lifestyle.”

  “So why did you come back?”

  “Because you need me now. You do not understand who you are dealing with or how to deal with what they can do.”

  “So what, you are going to team up with me and we will save the world together?” James’s voice was riddled with sarcasm.

  “Watch your tone. If you think that you and your buddies are prepared, you are wrong! You will get all of your friends killed and yourself in the process. Is that what you want?”

  James was still filled with anger, but he was listening. “What do you know?”

  “A hell of a lot more than you. I have been dealing with this since you were a baby and involved since I was a baby.”

  “Fine, but I want my questions answered first.”

  “Fine, what do you want to know?”

  “What is all of this?” James asked, pointing to the files in front of him.

  Marie hopped off the table and walked over to the table in front of James. She turned her file around and looked at it, then scanned the rest of them. Marie took a deep breath. “We were test subjects. We were supposed to be trained and enhanced to be sold to the highest bidder. Things didn’t go as planned.” Marie’s eyes caught Michael’s file.

  James followed her eye line, he pointed to Michael’s file, “Because of him?” James looked back to Marie. He could see tears forming in her eyes.

  “Because of you,” Marie replied, reaching out and touching James on the cheek.

  James felt her touch, it was the first time, and his emotions were running wild. Marie looked back at Michael’s file. James reached out and flipped the file open, exposing Michael’s picture. James glanced closer at the picture and back to Marie, “He’s my father, isn’t he?”

  Marie wiped a tear from her eye, “Yes.”

  James nodded as he looked back to the picture; ‘Deceased’ was printed across the photo. “Did you kill him too?” James asked, anger in his voice. He saw rage in her eyes as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

  Marie slapped James across the face, “Bite your tongue! I would never have harmed your father. It was the man you have been calling your father who took him from me…from us!”

  James held his face. “What happened?”

  “That fucker you honor so much ordered his death. He was okay with your death as well. Your real father died trying to protect you.” Marie picked up Michael’s file and ripped his picture out of it. “Any more questions?” Marie folded the picture and placed it in her back pocket.

  “Why did you abandon me in the first place?”

  “I didn’t. You were taken from me when you were a baby. I believed you were dead.”

  James nodded, “What’s my real name?”

  Marie smiled, “We were never given real last names, but when I had you, I knew you deserved one. Your father and I took the last name of the only father we ever knew. Your real name is James Michael Stanley.”

  James smiled, he heard it and it felt so real to him. He had embraced being a Gold, but hearing it from her mouth, his real name warmed his heart, but he knew his feelings didn’t matter. He needed to know what she knew.

  “I want to know who you are that people care so much.”

  “I am nobody. I don’t exist. I’m a ghost,” Marie smirked.

  “Did you kill Rachel?” James questioned.

  “Why do you care if I did? She had it coming.”

  “How many people have you killed? What did she do to you? You kill for money, that’s what they say about you.”

  “I got some cash for Rachel’s head, but it was personal. She took your teddy bear.”

  James couldn’t believe what he was hearing, “You killed her because she took my teddy bear? She gave it back!”

  “Yah, for information. She was selling information about you. She was working for some bad people who paid me to get rid of her after she was no longer useful. Actually, I got paid twice. I took her payoff too.” Marie smiled as she reached behind her back and pulled a gun out and placed it on the table. “That’s a HKP7. It’s one of the best. I bought it with the money. I got it for you.” Marie had a softer look in her eye as she looked at James. He knew it was her way of doing something nice for him.

  James felt uneasy about accepting the gun from her. It was bought with blood money, but he could tell it meant a lot to her, so he picked it up. “Thank you. It’s a really nice gun.”

  “You’re welcome!” Marie's face lit up as she spoke. “So, what else do you want to know?”

  “Why do all these people care so damn much about me?”

  “Because they want to know if you are like me. Now it doesn’t matter because I believe they know I am still among the living. Now you are a potential pawn to be used to get me. You are not safe.”

  “The rest of them, the ones who aren’t deceased. Where are they? Are they like you?”

  Marie reached over to the files and picked up Thomas, Chris, and Scott’s files. “Thomas is dead. I took care of him. Chris and Scott are alive.” She threw down their files in front of James.

  “Where are they?”

  “So you work for the CIA now, big spy. So I take it you are pretty up to date on politics and all.”

  “Yes, I work for the CIA and I have been at the US Embassy in England for the past year. So, yes, I keep up with politics.”

  “Who is the Prime Minister?”

  “Is this seriously what you are going to do? Avoid the question to find out what I know?”

  “Just answer.”

  “Pierce Franklin, why?”

  “And the President of the United States?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Answer.”

  “Calvin Warren.”

  “Superb.” She picked up the two files again. She held Scott’s file up and threw it back on the table. “Calvin Warren.”

  She then held Chris’ file up and dropped it back on top of Scott’s file. “Pierce Franklin.”

  “No. You are so full of it!” James said, reaching down and opening the two files again.

  “Look at those pictures! Come on, you know it is them.”

  “They do look like them, but there is no way. I know both of them personally. I have met them, talked to them. Franklin knows about Soldat and he knows about you, but if he was some stone cold super soldier, I would know it. Warren didn�
�t give on he knew anything.”

  “They aren’t. Those two and Thomas weren’t given the formula. The rest of us believed they were dead, but they were actually ‘re-purposed’ by your godlike kidnapper Gold. He was just the tip of the iceberg though. It goes much bigger and deeper than even I imagined.” Marie walked over toward the stairs and picked something up from the floor. James glanced over to see what it was. It was a backpack. She placed it up on the other table and opened the front zipper pocket and reached in and pulled something out. She walked back over to James and placed it on top of the files that were on the table. James looked down and saw a gold pin of a fox. “Have you seen one of these before?”

  James looked up, “Yes I have. Franklin’s got one. What is it?”

  “It’s the Teumessian Fox.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s Greek Mythology. It was a gigantic fox sent to Thebes by the gods as a punishment. He was there to prey on their children, destined to never be caught. They picked it as their symbol for that very reason. Franklin’s involved, Warren’s involved, and two others. They make up a group of four that control the most powerful governments in the world. The mission is very simple, world domination. I know it sounds cliché, but they think if they can throw the world into chaos, they can unify the world governments into one that they can control. They think they will never be caught and brought to atone for their crimes. That nobody will stand against them. However, we are in luck. Warren is defecting, so we have an ally in stopping them.”

  “So what? You are going to make them atone for their crimes?”

  “They deserve hell and that is what they are going to get.”

  “Okay, so how does this affect me? I am after Madame Ming, not some secret society.”

  “Who do you think bank rolls her? They control everything. They have been manipulating elections, controlling military forces, running the fucking world into the ground. There is no room left for an honest politician. The system is broken because of them and that is how they want it.”

  “Since when are you a hero out to save the world? From everything I have heard about you, the rumors and from my own eyes, you aren't exactly the ‘good guy’.”

  “They are responsible for me, and everything that came from me. They made me and then they fucked my life up. So, I will make them pay.”

  “I want Ming and the White Blossom. Are they on your hit list?”

  “Ming, yes. The Blossom, no.”

  “The Blossom is her biggest asset. She is responsible for a list of deaths. She deserves to pay. She cost me a friend. Her head is mine.” James’s eyes narrowed as he stared deep into Marie’s eyes.

  “You will not touch a hair on her head. We need her.”

  “Need her? No, I have help and if you won’t help me take her down, I will do it myself.”

  “This is bigger than your petty problem with her. She didn’t kill your friend.”

  “No, she may not have pulled the trigger, but she set everything into motion. She is responsible.”

  “I am going to make it perfectly clear to you. You will not touch her. We need her to join us. Her boss will go down and that is what matters.”

  “What makes you think the White Blossom will join us?”

  “Because she needs us as much as we need her. And stop calling her that. Her name is Jasmine.”

  “What? No, she calls herself Blossom, and she has her web woven all over.”

  “That is not her name. Her real name is Jasmine.”

  “And how do you know that, huh? More of that secret information only you have?” James's tone was sarcastic and dark.

  “Because I gave it to her.”

  James felt the wind knocked out of him, “You gave it to her?”

  “Yes, she is mine too. She is your sister. I hired Ming to have her sent to the Embassy to protect you. Well, to be clear, Ming doesn’t know I actually hired her, just that someone did. The fact is that I wanted you two to be close to one another so I could keep an eye on the both of you.”

  James was searching his mind for every interaction he and Blossom had for any sign, “Does she know?”

  “No, she doesn’t. She wasn’t ready for the information either. I thought she was safe when I left her with a Chinese couple I met in Las Vegas after her birth, but when I went back to check on her, they were gone. It is kind of ironic I went there to look for her and you were brought to me instead. I knew I had to stay a secret to her or I would be a threat to her. They could never know she was mine. I couldn’t protect you from them when you were because they knew who you were, but I could protect her. Or at least I thought I could. Ming kidnapped her from the family I had left her with when they returned to China. I spent years looking for her. It wasn’t until she emerged as the ‘White Blossom’ that I knew it was her and by then, it was too late to get her away from Ming without giving myself up as not only alive, but also as her mother.”

  James was in shock. He had a sister who he thought was trying to kill him, but was actually there to protect him. What she had said to him that day in the apartment was finally making sense. Maybe she had been telling the truth. “I’m not sure what I am going to do with all this information. It is a lot to take in.”

  “Well, we don’t have a lot of time. We need to pick up your friends.”

  “Pick up my friends? What are you talking about?”

  “Franchesca and Greg. They have been sent to my old home to try getting some information. They were actually just sent there so we could pick them up. We have work to do.”

  To be continued……

  About the Author

  This is Ana Meyer’s second novel. It is the follow up to “Marie,” the first book in the Teumessian Trilogy.

  Ana was born and raised in St Louis, Missouri, where she still resides today. Ana graduated from the University of Missouri-St Louis with a degree in Criminology/Criminal Justice. Ana’s primary work hasn’t been in writing, but in working with at risk youth and children with disabilities. Ana sees the struggles that these children face every day and wants to stress how those struggles can affect the person you become. Her characters are flawed and their struggles with those flaws make them relatable to any young adult. The children she works with are her inspiration to follow her own dreams and never stop dreaming and creating.

  She enjoys reading many types of literature, but prefers historical fiction. She is an avid film fan, who loves action adventure films. Ana lives with her three rescue dogs and a cat.