She slowed her breathing and rolled her head. “Okay, Maze. Let’s get Meg and the boys.”
Maze’s yelp evolved into a growl. His crisp yellow eyes never left the fifteen-foot wall only interrupted by the ordinarily heavily guarded gate.
Margo could see her children had been here already. The cameras were blown out and the black boot of a downed soldier could barely be seen from the binoculars she’d used to study the scene.
Margo’s hand reached for the door handle and yanked it wide. Maze spilled out of the car behind her and immediately pawed the ground, desperate for Margo’s permission to run.
She crouched beside the coyote and draped the arm not holding the Uzi over his quivering, hot body. “Meg is in there, buddy. Do you smell her?”
As though on cue, Maze’s sensitive black nose quivered, searching the breeze. His nostrils flared when he caught her scent. “That’s right, boy,” Margo whispered in his ear, “go get our girl!” Margo stood abruptly and flung her hand off the canine, pushing him toward the compound.
Maze didn’t need any prodding and he sure as heck didn’t wait for any more permission. His muscular body didn’t just run, it flew. His legs pumped so hard, his hind feet were a blur by his ears as he coiled then stretched long and sleek in the moonlight. His strong, sure paws kicked up dirt with every powerful push. He never lost the scent of his Meg.
The coyote was on the hunt, but so was Margo. Her years as a special ops soldier and all the skills she lived and breathed came roaring back to life. She scanned the world around her for threats even as she ran, partially crouched, into the monster’s lair.
Chapter 2 Meg Magnified
Meg felt the cool of the wall against her feverish forehead and steadied herself. The energies required to control that despicable soldier called Laz was threatening to pull her vision back into the darkness.
Come on!
Get it together! She silently screamed at herself.
Meg forced herself to breathe and held the wall willing it to give her the strength to move.
That’s when she felt it; strength pouring into her, fueling her, feeding her.
She blinked and nearly gasped at the connection she felt, strong enough for her to reach out and touch, to wrap her emotional hands around and pull.
Creed.
It was Creed.
He was sending her his strength. She felt it as sure as the wall beneath her hands. Meg was a wilting flower before his blue seas of devotion, his yellow sunburst of love washed over her.
The final aspect of her evolution snapped in place… the tourniquet of self-doubt that held her back for so long, defeating her even as she fought to survive, finally released.
The floodgates burst wide open as Meg embraced her evolved gift as a two-way path. She was now able to feed her strength just as much as siphon it away.
The effect was so powerful and caught her by such surprise, she gasped with joy.
Meg was free to feel the full extent of her power now, and her connection with Creed was just another part of who she was.
Shivering with excitement and newfound strength gathered from that empath connection, she pushed away from the wall and leaped up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. She had to get to the third floor.
Even as she ran, she threw her emotional feelers out to learn who was near while she searched for her brother, Alik.
The connection with Creed was growing even stronger with what she could see in her empath eye. It looked to be iridescent strands that strengthened her every step.
Her mind spun on multiple planes of thought.
Alik, where are you?
Creed was alive and being pulled closer to her, she could feel him searching for her.
Then there was a different point of light in her empath vision. It was Texas skies blue.
Mom, Meg’s heart whispered. Meg was glowing from the sensation she recognized as her mother’s devotion.
She held her hand still on the stairwell door marked prominently with a “3” giving her a moment to aim her feelers toward what was on the other side of the door. She knew there were metas. She could feel their vibrations. She looked down at her other hand and stared at the light glinting off the blade she’d taken from Laz. Smiling to herself, she slipped it into the back of her waistband. Her hands now empty; she flexed them wide then clinched them tightly, ignoring the crunching of her knuckles in hungry response.
She breathed slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth. She opened her heart wide to the strength of her family around her, rolled her shoulders, yanked the door wide open and stepped into the hallway.