 
Tempest Rising: Where are our Children

(A Serial Novel) Episode 8 of 9

By Gary Sapp

Copyright 2015 Gary Sapp

Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents:

Our Story so Far

Chris

Angel

Chris

Hugh

Serena

Thomas

Angel

Roxanne

Serena

Thomas

Sneak Peek at Whirlwind

Dedication

Nest Egg Publishing Note

Nest Egg Presents Where are our Children

Where to find this author online
Our Story so Far

While incarcerated as an inmate at Calhoun State Prison in southwest Georgia, Xavier Prince, the leader of A House in Chains, confronts Michael Davenport; a man that he believes has knowledge of what turns out to be the 411 attacks upstate in Atlanta. Serena Tennyson and her Pandora associates carry out the highly coordinated, highly lethal attacks weeks later against the Andrew Young Youth Center, The Fox Theatre and the mayor of the city itself, Ernestine Johnson. On her deathbed, rotting away from a yet to be identified poison, Mayor Johnson enlist the aid of Thomas Pepper, a freelance reporter, to find out the answers to the three questions that every Person of Color in America wants to know. The FBI recruits a renowned Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Angel Hicks-Dupree to consult on the crisis in Atlanta—and after a confrontation with her husband, Dr. Seth Dupree, she reluctantly agrees to help. Her childhood friend, Special Agent Christopher Prince, turns out to be one of the hostages being held at the Fox Theatre. Meanwhile, his half-brother, Xavier, is confronted with his own problems as a siege breaks out at Calhoun Prison on the eve of his scheduled release. In the meantime, Christopher Prince escapes the theatre alive, but immediately faces a new predicament when he receives a series of text messages that his 20 year old stepdaughter has come up missing.

Roxanne Sanchez, formerly of the FBI's training program, is now a private detective and has been hired by Chris' ex-wife Denise to find her daughter Erica. Roxanne can tell from her conversations with both parents that they are hiding a deep dark secret from their time together as a family. Serena Tennyson show up at Thomas Pepper's townhouse looking to confess on his blog for her role in the deadly 411 attacks as well as present a new warning to a House in Chains and all People of Color: Xavier Prince and his organization is to stand down or face a new round of attacks centered at Atlanta's children. The FBI, led by Agent Prince, capture her, but not before paying a high price in casualties. Xavier learns of a plot to kill him upon his exit from Calhoun Prison as a volatile siege and riot takes place. Serena sees a series of frightening visions including the much prophesized Whirlwind coming to fruition. Yet, it is in real life where she is traumatized after being nearly raped by an APD police officer. After she and Thomas Pepper give separate but hotly contested interviews with the bureau, she escapes in a series of daring synchronized stages that leaves Christopher Prince and the FBI befuddled. After celebrating her freedom with her closest Pandora agents Serena instructs an increasingly fragile Louis Keaton to begin rapturing Atlanta's children.

Chris and his ex-wife, Denise Prince, meet for lunch to discuss Roxanne's search for Erica. The FBI Agent is promptly refreshed to the fact of how volatile his complicated relationship still is with her. Both parties are also reminded of the hostility that existed in their household that aided in their dissolution...and the catastrophic secret that has yet to be revealed to the general public about an event that occurred many years ago while they were still together. In the meantime, Roxanne Sanchez is far closer to finding their missing daughter than they both realize. The private detective's tenacious search leads her to the Carver Housing Projects...just in time to witness the Peacekeepers launch a major offensive to liberate its citizens from underneath the rule of the Choir Boys. Xavier Prince and his Circle had decided that this community would no longer wilt under the oppression of thugs, drug dealers and gang bangers. Roxanne makes two starling discoveries while barely surviving the incursion at all: She meets a self-proclaimed Pandora mole named Joseph Champion and finds Erica Lovings dead body in a dumpster. At the same time, Chris and Angel began investigating staged crime scenes that they question whether they unlock secrets of the past, or disclose clues to future abductions. Chris learns of his step daughter's death and travels to Denise's apartment to tell her the horrible news in person not knowing that Seth is secretly on the premises as well. Louis names Moses Jackson, the first of his new child captives, his general, and instructs the boy to watch over the other children he plans to rapture from Atlanta's streets. And then, under increased pressure from Serena, Louis reveals a startling revelation of his past that so enrages Pandora's leader, that she takes the time to journey to his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, to avenge a terrible wrong.

Thomas continues to fend off threats from retribution from both elements of a House in Chains and Pandora as he continues his final preparations for announcing his findings in front of a national TV audience. One of the most frightening aspects of his investigations is the discovery that America's first Black president was not assassinated by a sniper's bullet, but killed by the same unidentified poison as Atlanta's Mayor, Ernestine Johnson. Even more unsettling to the blogger is that Serena herself is feeding him such vital information. Their relationship grows ever odder, ever more intimate. Upon Serena's request, he meets with her and she discloses the physical remains to Thomas of Templeton Healy, the uncle of Louis Keaton who she took a brutal vengeance against for his past indiscretions against Keaton as a boy and other Memphis residents over a number of years. After a testy interview with Muhammad Clark, the other perpetrator during Atlanta's first round of child abductions, an emotional Chris tells Angel the entire truth about the time he spent with Keaton while kidnapped. He was never sexually abused unlike the other captives who were taken. He was given the responsibility of watching over the other youngsters by Keaton. Yet, the emotional trauma that Chris suffered knowing the other boys were killed specifically because of his escape has continued to trouble him even to this point of his life. Seth and Denise show up at the agent's hotel room with Chris' ex-wife believing beyond a reasonable doubt that the two old friends have resumed a sexual relationship. Desperate and heartbroken, Denise commits suicide by throwing herself out of her apartment's window while Seth is helpless to do anything but watch. After her funeral the two Prince Brothers have an impromptu reunion with both men concerned about the other's decision making and general welfare moving forward. Roxanne had been following Seth and confronts him with her findings and rationale behind her decision that his estranged wife must die for her role in this crisis—and that she is the one that must kill her.

At Thomas Pepper's long awaited press conference, he reveals all of his findings on his investigations into Pandora to a national TV audience that raises the tension between Serena Tennyson's people and a House in Chains. But it is Lucy Burgess, Thomas' former colleague and lover that steals the spotlight and the headlines from underneath him with her own revelations. A controversial episode in Special Agent Christopher Prince's life is at the center of her report. Now, his already chaotic existence is thrown entirely on its ear. But for Chris his troubles are only beginning as he learns from a highly unlikely source that his father Isaac was indeed the infamous Caretaker and he did not perish in a car accident as he and the rest of the world was led to believe. And then Chris learns that he himself is suffering from the same stomach ailment that killed his mother.

Dr. Seth Dupree and Thomas Pepper get up close and personal samples of the strife that has broken out in the streets of Atlanta. The question is will either them survive a night in hell itself to divulge to anyone what they have seen. Chris Prince is reinstated to his posting with the FBI while Angel loses consultant status at the same time. Chris gains an unexpected ally from within the Circle in a desperate search to find and save his brother Xavier from certain betrayal from Quincy Morgan and the Peacekeepers loyal to the Sargent at Arms of a House in Chains. There is a change in leadership on tap for Pandora as well, as Serena Tennyson decides to forcibly remove Raymond Rice from his posting.

The betrayls don't end with removals of Xavier Prince and Raymond Rice from their respective positions in the warring parties. Dr. Seth Dupree is shocked to see a large band of Pandora allies surround the Peacekeeper cell he'd been tethered with over night—only to see them turn their backs of their leader James Carter as Quincy Morgan and his crew beat him to death and finally behead him. Seth soon learns that the treachery was sanctioned by Serena herself to rid her organization of hatemongers who don't have a place in her view of a new world order. Thomas fights against his instincts to stay in his hotel, in relative safety, and ventures out into downtown in a desperate search for Lucy Burgess who he gave up to a House in Chains in exchange for an extention of the Zero Hour hours earlier. He finds death along every step of his journey including Lucy who has been torchered and stripped of her dignity and her clothing before she dies finally succumbs to her injuries in his arms. Roxanne and Angel finally square off with both women airing their grevinces before an earthquake hits the city and tosses the marta they were riding on it's side. And yet it is Seth who witnesses that manmade destruction can be as or even more devastating at he witnesses the middling stage of Scar—young suicide bombers detonating themselves in highly populated areas of the city.
Chris

Special Agent Nicholas Sheridan, serving as the interim head of the FBI, showed up at the foot of the Riverside Road Mansion with a force of armed personnel in his wake to be reckoned with: He'd summoned at least three dozen FBI, ATF and at least three other law enforcement folks that he could scrape up; it as a damned impressive feat, especially considering the extreme short notice and all that had went down in the city and countrywide in the past 48 hours or so. Chris had heard rumors of the APD going to complete shit, with the entire force splitting into half a dozen smaller units with an as many different allegiances and agendas.

Christopher Prince understood how much Sheridan had put his ass on the line too. If he'd pushed resources away from where they'd truly could have been an asset—if he were wrong...

"What's our status?" Chris said to Sheridan as a means of greeting. He hadn't been in the other man's presence since before Lucy Burgess spilled his personal beans all over the kitchen floor for everyone to trip over.

"I received your report, Agent Prince." Sheridan shook Chris' hand with feeling. "And I'm inclined to believe you when you say that there are dozens of House in Chains members who have sealed themselves inside that mansion."

"Do you have a plan to get them out of there peacefully?"

Sheridan nodded but told Chris that he wasn't going to like it. Chris followed Sheridan's eyes to where they circled and fell...on Senior Hostage Negotiator Justin Ryan as he pulled his long self out of the deputy cruiser. He worked his way over to where the two of them were standing, straightened his tie and offered his hand to Chris who shook it, while never taking his eyes off of Sheridan.

Chris repeated his question to Justin Ryan.

"There is no plan in place for extracting them peacefully as you say, Agent Prince." Ryan told him. "We storm the mansion and force them out—alive if possible."

"Tell me that you aren't going to sign off on this?" Chris asked Sheridan in a desperate tone.

Sheridan reminded Chris of the information that he'd faxed over in the report about Grace Edwards, the assassination of his brother Xavier Prince by a traitorous element of the Peacekeepers and now this potential mass suicide ritual serving as the final chapter of Scar by a House in Chains.

He took a deep breath, ran his fingers through his snowcapped hair and his day old beard.

"Give me something concrete to go on here, Agent Prince. Give me something fathomable that tells us anything other than what your report has already informed me on and I'll consider alternatives." Sheridan said. "A mass suicide does no one any good here. I would rather have them arrested and tried for the crimes that have been perpetrated tonight."

"You want something concrete?"

"I do, Agent Prince."

Chris pointed his index finger at Ryan.

"Tell this man to get back in the car that brought him and lock his door."

Ryan frowned up and snorted.

"What? I won't do such a thing."

"I mean it," Chris said and folded his arms and stood his ground. "A House in Chains has done all of the damage that it's going to do. No one else in that building is alert to our potential presence outside of Grace Edwards. We don't know what the conversation has been like after everyone arrived. Maybe—just maybe cooler heads have prevailed. Hasn't there been enough ciaos tonight? Hasn't there been enough death tonight?"

Sheridan scrubbed at his beard until Chris could actually hear the man's fingers on his skin.

Ryan spoke first, "Don't be foolish enough to believe that last statement, Sheridan. If I heard through the grapevine correctly, Grace Edwards not only was in the Circle but is the admitted architect of Rapture and Scar. She could have easily set you up which in turn sets us up, Agent Prince. All of this may be grand theatre in an elaborate ruse to lure FBI forces into an ambush—"

Chris snapped.

He reached across Sheridan and grabbed Justin Ryan around his bony neck and pulled his close enough to smell the peppermint on the man's breath. Sheridan reacted as quickly as his own weariness and surprise allowed him to separate Chris from Ryan.

"I want you hear this and hear it good, Ryan," Chris said as he tightened the hold on Ryan's collar. "Scar was madness. Scar was a tragedy of epic proportions. It was madness—but it is over now."

Sheridan finally succeeded in getting in between the two men and Chris gave him one final shove that nearly toppled Ryan once he was free. The oldest man of the group rubbed at the sore neck and straightened his tie back out.

"Oh my God, Sheridan, don't tell me that you're going to even remotely consider going along with this crap of a plan. That mansion is huge. Shit, like I said, they could already know that we are here. They could be either entrenching themselves in the bowels of that place or tunneling out from some unknown passageway as we speak. In fact, your man here, Sheridan, your man Agent Christopher Prince himself, could be stalling for them for all we know. He never disclosed the full measure of his relationship with Grace Edwards."

"Of course I'm aiding them," Chris laughed at the notion and then his tone boarded on contempt in a minute. "We're all the same aren't we?"

Justin Ryan swore.

"Save that racist bullshit for someone who gives a damn, Agent Prince. That's not what I meant and you know it. You are, however, the lone surviving sibling of Xavier Prince. It would be foolish to for anyone in this bureau to dismiss that you may be carrying emotional baggage in this matter. Call me what you want, Prince, I am not a fool."

"None of us are fools, Ryan," Sheridan stepped between the two men again in case things got out of hand again. He turned his attention to Chris. "What if you're wrong, Chris,"

Chris twisted his head away from the other two as if the question physically stung him. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He'd let his temper get the upper hand far too often lately...that had to change.

He wanted to assure his boss. Although Grace Edwards played a major role in his reinstatement, Sheridan still had to vouch for him somewhere along the way to get him back into this game. Chris owed the man.

And then he saw it.

A vision of his dead brother and Agent Blue being shot by his discharged weapon flashed in front of him—so real that it was almost tangible enough for Chris to reach out and touch it.

And it wasn't like he'd been above making mistakes. Grace had abandoned him at the triage center inside the Georgia Dome while he'd talked back and forward with Dr. Seth Dupree. He had thought that there was enough of a bond...enough trust to allow her enough space and belief that she wouldn't dip on him during a point of vulnerability for him.

He'd made one miscalculation after the other in the past few days and hours. And shit, he was exhausted physically. He was sleepy. He was hungry.

And he was dying.

Never forget, my brother, you are dying of the same stomach disorder that killed mamma.

Ryan said, "I'll answer the question for you, Sheridan, if you are wrong in your judgement of this man and his motives, you are endangering every law enforcement person on duty here. You are also lessoning the death of every city servant who lost their life tonight serving their country all while—the madness—as Agent Prince proclaimed it, unraveled around their ears."

Chris ignored Ryan for the moment. Instead he turned around to take in the panoramic view of the mansion. The earthquake had damaged a quarter of the windows that he could see. And if only a third of those windows had rooms—this place was indeed enormous.

And yet, it only had one front door.

"I know a way to settle this," Chris said and by the time he looked at Sheridan, his boss already knew what he had in mind. "Hear me out, Sheridan. I can't tell you not to go with Ryan or anyone else's recommendation on this. The majority of the hardcore violence nationwide has passed. We are in a period of intermission. This resulting earthquake may have pushed us into here faster than it would have happened otherwise. But now we've got to think about tomorrow. What happens tomorrow when people of color switch on their TV's and tablets and laptops and see dozens more of their people—our people have their dead bodies spread across the tiled floor in HD in a firestorm created by the FBI. It won't matter to them that the truth is a mass suicide or a mass police incursion."

"We haven't accomplished much tonight otherwise," Sheridan shook his head. "We haven't recovered any of Atlanta's missing children."

"And Serena Tennyson is still loose," Chris added.

Sheridan stole a long look at the mansion. Ryan watched him, but the pain of defeat had painted his face red. Or perhaps that pain is the betrayal you felt when you learned that your dear old friend, Raymond Rice was Pandora's Regent.

I wonder if you hurt nearly as much as I did when I learned my father was the Caretaker.

Chris continued to watch both men, but found that he kept a guarded eye on Ryan. He could see the man's muted lips utter: Don't do this, Sheridan...don't do this.

Sheridan looked at the top his shoes.

"I look forward to reading your report, Agent Prince."

For better or worse Sheridan had made decision. For better or worse, Justin Ryan wasn't finished yet.

"Are you insane, Sheridan? The sooner this crisis ends, the sooner you are likely to be named Rice's successor. And yet, you are going to throw it all away for this man."

"Maybe," Sheridan nodded without looking away from his shoes. "Go on, Agent Prince, let's not wait any longer." And then he fixed Justin Ryan with a sharp glare. "This is my call, Mr. Ryan." And then he turned his attention back to Chris as if it had never left him. "But if I hear as much as one gunshot...all bets are off."

"Understood," Chris was off, angling towards the mansion's front door without bothering to look at Sheridan or Ryan again.

Getting inside the residence wasn't as difficult as he would have thought. He picked the lock with the skill and silence that Xavier had taught him when they were teens. Once inside he got his gun out, got low and slid himself along walls, behind furniture and along the floor inching his way forward.

The entrance opened into a huge atrium longer than one he'd ever seen even over at Ernestine Johnson's place. The walls were newly painted, the floor's wood finish spit shined and immaculate. Huge paintings of famous black leaders lined the walls down one of the nearby halls. He needed to keep moving, but he couldn't help note all of the historical figures in his presence. He saw Martin Luther King Jr, Malcom X, and President Adolphus Sweet...

...As well as portraits of his father Isaac Prince and his brother Xavier.

And then Special Agent Christopher Prince smelled the unmistakable scent of already rotting bodies even before he saw them.

There were bodied sprawled on top of other bodies loitered along seemingly every inch of space in the next room on the floor. Two bodies were keeled over on a nearby couch. Three more were slouched over loveseats. Many more had died while they sat at the dining room table.

They had poisoned themselves. It was the only logical conclusion. The common factor near each and every body was a plastic cup with red wine, or some similar substance, spilling on the surfaces around the dead bodies like blood. Chris went numb. Chris couldn't move. And all he could think of was if he would look like these people here when his mother's cancer overtook him months from now.

He got his guard back up and his gun out in front of him again. Most of the poor bastards were probably higher level Peacekeepers, members of the board and others loyal to a House in Chains from a distance.

Where are you Grace Edwards? Where are you Quincy Morgan?

And then he found the two members of the Circle as well.

There was a small breakfast nook directly behind the dining room. Small was a relative term, of course, in a place as vast as this mansion was. What he saw there reminded him of the classic setting from the Last Supper that he'd seen even as a child.

Grace Edwards was dead...of that it was no doubt. And to see the finality of it, to see her like that after the loyalty and love that she'd shown her brother and the help that she'd provided him—and yet, the born investigator in him was far more interested in how she had died—and by the looks of it she had not gone down without a fight. Good for you, Grace

Chris kneeled over to where her body lay flat on the tile. He examined her fingernails, as polished and beautiful as they were earlier, were now broken and cracked. Someone else's skin and bruised blood was underneath them as well. This wasn't about his betrayal of Xavier, he thought, as turned her hand over and again. It was far more personal than that. In the end, even with this potential of a HIV infection from her undercover work with the Bishop, Grace didn't want to go through with this. She didn't want to die. He felt for her pulse a long time after that to see if fate had awarded her wish...but to no avail.

Quincy Morgan had gone with even more of a bang; a death worthy of a Sargent of Arms of a House in Chains.

He'd shot himself in the back of the head, undoubtedly minutes after watching his flock die in front of him. In his mind's eye Chris could remember meeting this man for the first time in the Fox Theatre during the siege there. It felt like years ago now. And the special agent hadn't forgotten the sense of jealously that he felt towards the other man for his build and intelligence. How he had missed being him in his younger days. How much he wanted to be respected and even feared by other men once again.

And now it was little time left before Special Agent Christopher Prince joined this man in eternity.

Chris stopped in his tracks and prayed for God to send him a sign—any sign or angel to let him know that He was still on the side of what was still good and righteous.

And then his business cell phone rang, startling him.

Chris answered the call without looking at the caller ID.

"Christopher,"

Angel. It was an angel on the line.

"Christopher. Thank God you are alive. Thank God I reached you in time."

"Angel, where are you?" The questions came pouring out of him. "Where have you been? Are you alright?"

The Doctor tells him where her approximate location is.

"Christopher, listen to me closely," She sounded as she had been waiting to unload her information for a long time. "Four of the missing children survived the ordeal. He and I have come to agreement for him turning himself in. Keaton's prepared to surrender to you and you only. Do you understand me? No cavalry, no copters. No one should be there when this goes down except you, me, him and these children. We need you to hurry though. I think we're being tailed, but I'm not sure whether it is Pandora or somebody even more dangerous."

Chris heard shots ring through the phone. A second series of shots sounded even closer.

"Angel," Chris shouted into the receiver. "Angel,"

"Hurry, Christopher," The fear in Angel's voice was tangible and real. "I don't know how long we can make it out here."

And then the signal between the phones was lost.

He looked at the receiver for a minute before he dialed Special Agent Nicholas Sheridan and reported to his boss A House in Chains' horrible Vision of the Future that he'd found inside the mansion.

How could he have forgotten to tell Angel that her husband was alive, well and here in Atlanta?
Angel

AN HOUR EARLIER:

She found Louis Keaton, Moses Jackson and the other three boys slumped over, tired, weary, cold, hungry, scared and in near panic.

She found them using a precise recovery route from her memories of her time under Serena Tennyson with Pandora, great timing and fucking dumb luck. Going into this simple analytics told Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree that the chances of finding the lot of them alive was so obscenely remote, that the spill that she'd prepared for them seemed like a distant memory from someone else's life now that she was actually face to face with them.

And yet, she'd found them and for the moment that's all that mattered.

Louis Keaton's general—Moses Jackson explained to her what had happened to them since Louis had engineered their escape from the clutches of Pandora and some compound miles from here. It wasn't all good. They'd lost two boys to the quake when their pickup truck overturned. Louis—that's what he referred to himself as in the interim—quickly told her that they were being followed by several other parties, not just men loyal to Serena Tennyson.

And then he told her that he'd barely overcome an episode about a half an hour before she'd found them.

And she could see his eyes misting as he told her that Hugh was calling him even now as they stood here talking.

"Hugh," the doctor said as gently as she could and massaged his neck. How many years has it been since I last saw you, Hugh. She knew that their time was short—they were being chased and probably from many different directions, but she needed to know some things first. "Come over here, Louis. Why don't you come over here and sit next to me please. You must be so tired. Please come. Sit."

"Why do you address me by calling me by the terrible name? Do you want to see him surface again? Do you want to have him destroy and chance that we have to survive tonight?"

"Just like I told you then I'm reminding you again now—you should make no mistake Hugh Keaton is your true self." Angel said. "You've used this Louis persona as an escape mechanism all of this time. I can't blame you for that. It was safe there. It was civilized there. Whoever this Louis person was he was a...he was an angel. And you've been slipping back and forth into this alternate persona for years as a means of escape from the realities of the horrible things that you have done."

If only all of us were blessed to be able to do what you are able to do.

If only I could do the same.

Louis was shaking his head in denial. Moses could see the conflict—the tempest rising within him. Moses backed up to the other boys—the children of the storm—and wrapped his arms around them as if he were a mobile barrier as if he could truly keep them safe.

Angel wasn't afraid of Louis. She was afraid for him. She scanned their perimeter the way Christopher had taught her. The haze from the smoke made the task all the more difficult. Although the conditions make it just as problematic for those who would wish this man harm in a vail attempt to free the children. If someone chose to take their shot at him, the children standing too far away from here would draw their fire more freely. Of course she didn't want these boys hurt. They'd been through far too much as it was, they'd have memories that would already haunt them the rest of their lives. Just as it haunts you, Christopher, she thought, just as it haunts you my beloved best friend.

She reminded herself again of her motivations: She did not want those boys hurt, but Louis had risked much on a personal level and his professional relationship with some very dangerous colleagues in Pandora to get them this far. He wasn't a hero, but he had done something very heroic. He deserved to complete his treatment although imprisonment with other animals like Muhammad Clark downstate was far more likely.

"I need Hugh's strength with us now if we are going to make it out of here alive." Angel said to him.

"No," Louis shook his head. "No. I won't accept your explanation. You're trying to manipulate me, Doctor, confuse me. You don't want to awaken him."

Angel got close.

"Serena Tennyson tried to manipulate you, confuse you. She wanted to get into your head, but you rose above it all. Just look at you now."

"Stop it...stop it please..." Louis Keaton said in a weak voice.

"Serena wanted you to believe that Hugh was evil. He was a monster to her. He was a creature of the night that she wanted unleashed only when it served her needs. No wonder you thought that he was corrupted and evil when you slipped back into his persona."

Louis Keaton fell to his knees and wrapped his head with his arms.

"Serena was right about me, Doctor. You are right about me, Doctor." He finally said after a time. "Hugh is the personification of evil. Hugh was the personification of evil. Look at the terrible things that I've done with my life. Look at all the deaths and suffering that I am responsible for."

"I don't know your story. I can guess that you have been tormented. You've been used, abused and tortured."

And so he told her...he told her it all with brevity and clarity and a daunting sense of purpose that nearly brought Angel to tears.

"What happen to this persona of Louis Keaton who is standing before you right now? What about him?"

Angel flashed him a smile that was littered in her own deep empathy she held for him as she crouched in her stance.

"Your friend Louis and his family were brutally murdered by your uncle in a house fire. Louis was your friend. He was likely the only true friend that you've ever known. He was tough, loyal and honorable...and all that is good in this world and the next. He was also a kid who was killed that day years ago. You lived. You lived on."

"And you, Doctor, you..." He said through a fresh round of tears. "You've been kind to me before, Doctor."

"I understand you, Hugh. We all have our means of escape to nurture us when we are hurting. You use Louis. I use...I use sex and alcohol...I use a lot of alcohol to escape, Hugh."

And I wish that I had a bottle right now? I wish that I do with every fiber of my being.

Instead, she watched Hugh Keaton stand up taller than ever before.

"Somehow I knew that you would come for me, Doctor." He said with a voice that was confident and strong. "I told Moses and the other boys that you would find us. We just had to stay together and believe in one another. And here you are. You are here just I knew that you would."

"I believe that you've been calling out to me since all of this began, since 411. You've been leaving me subtle messages all along the way. You simplified it for me."

"Messages," The confident voice was gone again. "What messages are you talking about, Doctor?"

Now it was Angel's turn to stand at her full height and place a hand on her hip. She felt an ache in her side where a knife had punctured there in her mini scrap with Roxanne Sanchez on the Marta far away from where she was right now. A heavy gust of wind tossed her brown hair here and everywhere. Another storm is coming on the city. It looked as if this city's torment would never end. She could smell something burning in the distance. Otherwise this isolated area of the city just south of I20 was still.

It was too damned still.

"You staged those murder scenes with the dolls as a clue that you had these children in your possession." She answered his last question at last. "You were giving my hints that they could be hurt by Serena if Special Agent Christopher Prince and the other FBI Agents didn't find the compound in time after the Zero Hour passed."

He shook his head and held himself tightly as if he would melt in the spot where he stood.

"You're wrong, Doctor. I'm sorry, but you are wrong. I don't remember designing any scenes or handling any dolls. Serena must have had someone else create these scenes that you are speaking of. I do remember hearing the Regent and Serena mentioning the need to keep your people off balance whenever they could, but I never heard them finalize any plans involving this particular method that you are speaking of right now."

Angel cocked a brow, considering any and all possibilities that she'd failed to explore before. Are you capable of lying to me about this, Hugh? Who else would Oracle have trusted with those scenes?

And then some alarm bells and whistles went off in her head...damn...this wasn't all on her head this time. She wanted to follow through this with him, but she knew time wasn't on her time now. She had missed a step—a very important clue somewhere. But for now, at the least, she needed Hugh Keaton to surface.

And she needed him right now.

"You've always underestimated your intellectual abilities, Hugh. Your ability to adapt to any situation or environment is unmatched. Your true enemies concentrate on your weaknesses until it is time to exploit you for their purpose. I want to look long and hard at your strengths."

"I have let them exploit me," Hugh found some stability in his stance. "I do have strengths."

"Yes, you have, Hugh. You knew that it was probable that I would be involved in this investigation since long before Pandora launched the 411 attacks on the city of Atlanta. You knew that I would know that you would have Atlanta's children in your possession. Your history had told me that you wouldn't hurt them—at least in any long term way. "

And then Angel cocked a brow.

"You wouldn't hurt them then," she said. "And you won't do anything now that would hinder their chances of reaching their loved ones."

Moses Jackson walked up to where the two adults were standing.

"Haven't we stayed here long enough, Miss?" He asked. "Are we going home now? Are you going to help him take us the rest of the way home?"

"Soon, Moses," Angel said with a tight smile. She quickly turned her concentration, her focus again on Hugh. "It is time to embrace your true self, Hugh Keaton. Come with me now. Let's all go home."

"And then?"

"And then we all began to pay the steep price for all of the mistakes we've made in our lives so far, Hugh. You will pay. I will pay. Moses and these children will also pay as Christopher Prince has all of these years."

"Chris..." he said. "My general...is my general coming to see us? Is he coming to save us?"

"He will," Angel methodically removed Roxanne Sanchez's cell phone from her pocket. "All that I need you to do is give me the permission to call him. He could help us dodge whoever it is that is in pursuit of us. Your old general could help these boys make it to safety the way that you wanted him to keep those boys safe all of those years ago."

"Safety," The word sounded heavenly as it came off of his lips. "I want these boys to feel safe again. I want it for myself so very badly."

Angel nodded and said: "Moses Jackson and these other boys will suffer nightmare of this ordeal for the rest of their lives, just like your general, Christopher Prince has. But they will live on, just as Christopher Prince has. Life is the key to all of this, Hugh. And perhaps they'll use this setback as a means to thrive the way that your first general has thrived. Let me call him, Hugh. He can help us."

Hugh Keaton nods an ok.

Angel reached her childhood friend after a handful of rings. She was thrilled to hear his voice. He had survived the Zero Hour, Scar, the earthquake, and all of the terrors that the Atlanta nights had thrown at them all.

And yet, what was he going through at that particular moment that he hadn't even realized that he was talking to her and not Roxanne Sanchez on the other woman's personal line. She gave him a terse update of what had recently happened, their likely position and the terms of Hugh Keaton's surrender.

The first new round of shots sounded close—and then a second round of shots spit passed where they were all standing.

She and Hugh both drove for the ground, taking Moses and the other boys down with them.

"Angel," Chris shouted into the receiver. "Angel,"

"Hurry, Christopher," The fear in Angel's voice was tangible and real. "I don't know how long we can make it out here."

And then the signal between the phones was lost.

A minute after the disconnection Angel wondered to herself: How did she forget to mention to Christopher that Roxanne was still alive, relatively well and at the Marta Station with other victims of the earthquake?
Chris

From this distance and elevation, it looked to Special Agent Christopher as if Louis Keaton (or whatever they profile referred to monsters as this morning) had shrouded the four surviving boys and his best friend Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree with his frail frame of a body. All of them looked as if they were nearing a panic even as Keaton slid from one spot to another as if not to give any alleged sniper in this area a less clean spot at the pedophile and raising the risk of hitting one of those children percentage points.

And yet this situation looked even more desperate in the 45 minutes or so that it had taken them to get here from the last time he'd spoken to Angel on the cell. He'd only tried ring her up once more since that conversation. And everything considered, the doctor had done a bang up job of describing their position.

Chris asked, "What in the hell happened here?"

Sheridan was wiping his latest round of perspiration off of his thick brows. He could only shrug an answer while he struggled to catch his breath. Normally a drive from just west of downtown out here to near Stone Mountain in eastern Atlanta would take about 20 minutes if you didn't run into any traffic snarls.

This murky Atlanta morning, however, didn't qualify as anything close to normal.

It took them that 20 minute count alone to maneuver through two neighborhoods near the mansion while being shot at street level by of gang of about 10 or 12 citizens who'd claimed the streets as territory of their own. Sheridan had lost a fifth of his convoy in the exchange and looked as if he'd taken a bullet in and out of his left shoulder for his trouble. The rest of the lost minutes were spent maneuvering around debris of cars, buildings and the occasional debris of human bodies that the earthquake had left in its wake.

Serena had hid the children well indeed.

Chris mouth went dry and he could feel a huge gust of wind whipping up dirt near his neck and ears. He felt a devastating shot of pain in his gut—that he wasn't able to mask from Sheridan's eye, but shrugged him off before he could ask him questions he didn't want to answer.

He was spending his last days alive in the generation of well laid planners: Serena Tennyson, Grace Edwards and his father Isaac Prince among others.

"It could be anybody following them," Sheridan said in a loud voice so he could be heard by Chris and the other half a dozen or so men in close proximity. "It could be the reminisce of a Pandora cell or one of those volunteer search parties that we'd organized a few weeks ago trying to play hero by taking Keaton out." Sheridan dropped his eyes. Either he was bracing them against the windstorm or trying to focus on a particular that he'd seen south of their position down there. His face reddened either from fatigue or embarrassment. "All of the resources that this department possesses and we have to depend on some weekend warriors to do the discovery for us."

Chris got close to Sheridan so he wouldn't have to yell. The man needed to learn the revelation that was told to him by cell on their way up here.

A Sargent Valarie Briscoe of the Atlanta Police Department, a professional ally and a personal friend of Chris for years now tearfully gave him the scoop of what might be going on out here. She said told him that she never believed that bullshit about him and any sexual misconduct with his now dead step daughter Erica Lovings. She also told him that she'd heard rumors that his brother Xavier Prince had bought it and from the hand of his own people at that, and that she was sorry for his loss, but her call wasn't about any of that.

What she told him next astounded him—and Sheridan as well when he passed the information on to the acting Director of the FBI.

"What?" Sheridan said in near exasperation. A pain shot through his shoulder. "You just can't make this shit up can you?"

Chris shook his head.

Sargent Briscoe told him that her second underneath him and a small group of men had broken off from the 'protect and serve' element of the APD into an independent crew of vigilantes who were calling themselves Hell's Gate. They had gotten valuable intel—she didn't know from where—of Keaton's approximate location and they had set out with scoped rifles and tons of ammunition in hopes of putting the man out of everyone's misery before sunset tonight.

"Of all the dumb luck it looks as if their information was concrete. Their out here...somewhere; look Sheridan, I wouldn't beat yourself up about it. These smaller cells of the APD have been showing up all over the city from what Briscoe told me. Some are fighting on the side of the light, while others have strayed along a darker path. Anyway, just remember that Pandora had the jump on us—this was their hideaway after all—and apparently they hadn't had any luck in finding Keaton either." Chris paused and then finished his thought: "We do have to keep this situation contained and not let those boys get hurt."

"We've got bring our own drinks to the party huh?"

"What?"

Justin Ryan shouted a goodbye into his cell phone, got out of the car he'd shared with Sheridan on the ride out here and angled his slight frame through the wind gust until he found himself standing next to the two FBI Agents. Chris looked behind where the former hostage negotiator had walked from a saw a bustle of activity to the south and east of their position.

Sheridan pointed out to an area 100 yards or so that Chris wouldn't have noted otherwise before the younger agent could open his mouth in protest. He put a hand on Chris' shoulder and turned him so he could see more men and equipment setting up points to the southwest and west as well.

Louis Keaton and anyone who sought to do the troubled man any harm were surrounded, but should be well outside of sight of the man just below them.

Sheridan had put a lot on the line and trusted Chris' judgement back at the mansion and now it was his turn to return that trust to his boss right now to get everyone a few feet below them out of this alive.

"I have my sources as well, Agent Prince," Sheridan managed a tight smile. "I've been told that there could be as many as six different parties out here in close proximity. I agree with you that this---Hell's Gate is probably our biggest threat though. Listen to this though: I'm convinced that gunshots that you heard over the cell were from another group. I've also been told that our good doctor put a round in the leader's side. Those men called off their pursuit to tend to that man's wounds."

"Angel and the others don't look like they've taken any direct fire yet?"

"They're alright," Sheridan's smile was gone as if it never had existed at all. "I would think that they are holding up in a physical sense as best as they can, though they've got to be fatigued, hungry and mentally spent by now."

Chris nodded and took the opportunity to steal another look below. Sheridan was on point. Keaton was not looking well especially. He would unravel the longer it took for this thing to settle. And when he emotionally collapsed people would die.

Ryan took the quick moment of silence to offer his opinion.

"I don't think that your assessment of this Keaton fellow is entirely accurate, Sheridan." He said and held up his hand to silence both men while he continued to his point. "Look, that monster squeezed the hell out of every moment he's been allotted to take these hostages in the first place."

"Damn you and your theories, Ryan," Chris spoke up. "He was and is still prepared to surrender to me. Angel—Dr. Hicks Dupree and I have already worked it out. And Sheridan's people are securing the perimeter against any and all enemies. We don't need you—"

Ryan chuckled.

"You and your doctor girlfriend have 'worked it out' as you say? I surely hope that those boys' parents have their insurance policies paid up—"

Chris snatched Ryan off of his feet by the collar in a second.

Sheridan wedged himself in between the men for the second time in the past few hours. Chris shoved the slight man away. Sheridan fixed a hardened gaze squarely on his subordinate. "Unfortunately, Agent Prince, I find myself siding with Mr. Ryan on this front. I do not doubt Dr. Hicks-Dupree assessment of the man or his situation. I've had my differences with that woman's approach to her job but not with the professionalism and expertise she exhibits once her head is screwed on correctly. My point is this, Chris, if Keaton were planning a peaceful surrender to you, which probability lessens with each passing second because all of these outside factors."

"Don't tell me you're giving up? I gave her my word that we would bring him in alive."

"Bring him back alive for what?" Ryan snorted. "Look around you, Agent Prince. Even if you take the earthquake damage out of the scenario the damage is done. Pandora and a House in Chains both got what they wanted: A shooting war." He put a hand on one of his slender hips and relaxed his stance. "Look, I can respect what you did back at that mansion. I can damn well respect what you saw in there. You were right. But we're here now. And there has to be a line between optimism and foolery. Respectfully, Agent Prince, I think that you're crossing that line here."

Chris exhaled...Ryan's words and Sheridan's silence was cutting deep into an area of his psyche that he didn't want to explore further. It pissed him off something bad that this skeleton of a man could be right in his assessment.

And then another shot rang out.

Chris saw Keaton's head spin around and back—perhaps in anticipation of taking a killing shot that never came. He screamed and the wind carried the sound far away from here. Angel looked as composed as she could manage under the circumstance. She had a small gun pointed in the direction that she likely thought the shot was fired from. Two of the boys had dropped to their knees and were wailing. In that moment Chris had decided that all three of them—himself, Sheridan and Justin Ryan were all wrong about this situation worsening further...

They were already there.

Sheridan looked as if he'd reached that conclusion as well.

"Look, I want you to talk to me, Agent Prince, give me something plausible to work with here."

"Dammit, everything that we do here is pure speculation, Sheridan. I know Keaton. Remember that, Sheridan, I know this man better than anybody else here, even Dr. Hicks Dupree. If he wanted those boys dead then he would have stayed behind at the compound where they were safely tucked away and waited on Serena Tennyson to command someone out to clit their throats if she hadn't planned to do the deed herself." Just like you had commanded, Dad, he thought. "We don't know if one or any of those boys have been molested."

"And?"

"And they are alive, Agent Sheridan." Chris replied. "They have been Atlanta's missing children. They have been found alive and that means a lot to the people of the city moving forward. It still means a hell of a lot to millions of people in this country of all races moving forward. Louis Keaton deserves to be arrested, tried, convicted and possibly even given a death center for what he's done here and what he's done in the past. He does not deserve to be shot down like some rabid dog. And this comes from a man that deserves to take that shot more than anyone who is here today."

Sheridan nodded after a time.

"Your point is well taken, Agent Prince. We'll set up as wide a perimeter as we can manage. I don't want anything getting through our net. I just don't know how much longer we'll be able to contain this situation and all of those scoped rifles out there. We also have no guarantees that we'll be able to locate and incapacitate those other search parties out there before someone squeezes off a round and takes Keaton out."

"Understood," Chris took out his weapon and handed it but first to the man who was making this last ditch effort possible. "I'm going in."

"You're doing what, Agent Prince?" Ryan through his skinny arms into the air, "Sheridan, you are going to let this man go through with this."

Chris spoke first: "Remember what I said before, Sheridan, I know Keaton and more importantly he knows me as well. He may even trust me to an extent. There are two people here who are the most capable of resolving this thing peacefully and that are Dr. Hicks Dupree and I."

"Then you better hurry," Ryan said in a grave voice. "I think your window of opportunity just got significantly shorter."

"How do you mean?" Sheridan asked.

When Special Agent Christopher Prince twisted himself around he immediately saw what the former hostage negotiator had seen. This was of crisis and kings. And the kings had sent the eye of the world to witness for them indeed.

Someone, who knew who, had tipped off the media to this locale and to the latest crisis among all the others that was taking place. At least two dozen reporters drove up to the mountain's side in pickup trucks and in jeeps and three wheelers. They hopped out of the vehicles as quickly as their legs would carry them and started making their way all around the area like ants on an anthill.

"This shit keeps getting worse and worse," Chris said to no one in particular.
Hugh

He first caught sight of Special Agent Christopher Prince as the man worked his way down to the hill to their position. His first general had gotten over half way down when Louis had taken notice of how fit he'd grown over the years.

Not too bad for a dead man, his other voice said from somewhere just underneath the surface of his conscious.

What are you saying, Hugh. What does that mean?

It means exactly what we said. But we have guessed that we have forgotten. The Dragon lady told us that she knew—that somehow she knew that our poor general was dying. She knew that our general was dead man.

Perhaps she had seen it in her flames.

Well he wasn't moving to badly for a dead man. Perhaps this is the way a man felt at his height in the weeks and days before his sickness set in, before the worse of his illness began to cripple his body...the way that our mind has been crippled over the years.

Hugh Keaton was only faintly aware that the other man had reached him at last.

He went on the defensive and slid himself behind the doctor. But then he realized he'd exposed himself to any potential shooter from his rear and inched himself up a foot or two. Angel looked ragged, but pleased to be reacquainted with her friend and the two shared a brief but emotional embrace.

"Hello, General," Keaton knew little else to say. "I mean hello, Christopher."

Chris caught Angel's look and stayed silent for the time being. She had that way about her. She knew that he was in the latter more advanced stages of a psychological flux as people in her profession would call it. She knew that it was better not to push him unless the situation offered her no other alternative. She had hoped that he would stay neutral during the first moments of this reunion with his general. She knew that something as a simple perception of disrespect of being addressed incorrectly could set either one of these men with a difficult history off.

"Keaton, I came just like I said that I would." Chris said but his body language was saying something else entirely. "Unfortunately, I'm not entirely alone. Look up there and over yonder."

Angel tugged at Keaton's arm to keep him still as he felt himself moving away.

"I'm sure that your general had little to no say so in the manner," She offered up the man's excuse for him. But Keaton noted that her tone was hinting at near contempt levels for the bureau. The disease of distrust was spreading. He had been an agent of Pandora. He knew that disease all too well. "I told you that Christopher would come for you and he has."

"Yes," Chris said. "I am here and I'm going to help you as much as I can, Keaton."

"My name is Hugh," Keaton said partly in pride partly in terror. Chris looked immediately into his friends big brown eyes for an explanation. The doctor had a measured look of satisfaction on her thick top lip. "My name is Hugh Keaton. Louis...Louis Pope was a boy who died with his family long ago trying to save me from my uncle. Yes, my name is Hugh. I won't respond to anything else."

"Alright, fine," Chris said excising the last of his patients. The other man looked around again, working something important or the other in his mind. Hugh Keaton looked with him. There were both civilians and uniformed people everywhere. Many were armed. "So where do we go from here, Hugh?"

"I've embraced my true self—and my destiny. I am sure that I won't be allowed to live much longer."

"And I have embraced my destiny as well," Agent Prince said in a sad voice. Angel, for one of the few times he'd ever known her, looked confused. "So I can appreciate where you are coming from. I'm here to spare you from any more pain." He made eye contact with the boys and Hugh commended the man for forcing himself to smile when it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do right now. "I want to spare all of you from any more pain."

"I wish that you could, Christopher." Hugh said. "I wish that you could keep your promise." And before the FBI Special Agent could usher any more of his lies the man who now referred to himself as Hugh Keaton said: "Please spare me any long spills about duty. I don't need to hear any monologues about the changing world we all live in either. You are here—you have risked what little life you have left to save these children only. You are here to save your doctor friend from my vile, evil clutches."

"I'm here to do that too, Hugh."

Keaton said nothing else for a time. He braced himself...they all did against another strong gust of wind that were becoming more and more frequent with the storm approaching. He stole a long glance around the mountain. He'd lived his entire youthful life up the road in Tennessee in or around mountain ranges just like this one—but he never really seemed to see them. This was a beautiful part of the world to live in.

This was a beautiful part of the world to die in.

And yet, Hugh seemed to only have eyes for Christopher Prince.

"Just look at you," He said again. "You are all grown up. You are a man now. You have become the man that your father always knew that you would be."

Angel flashed her look of confusion again. Chris fought off hurt...he rubbed salvia building at the corners of his mouth but had found his voice again.

"Ever since the day that he let you take me away from my mother and my brother Xavier...I became a man, Hugh. I became a man because I had to." And then Chris found eyes for young Moses Jackson and somehow he knew he was gazing at the childhood version of himself without having to state it aloud. Both generals knew it. "We wouldn't have survived any other way would we?"

"Survival," Keaton shook his head as the sadness of his plight nearly overwhelmed him. "I want to survive this, Christopher."

"I don't think it's too late," Angel said to him, but looked from Chris to the many faces surrounding their position, but strange and unfamiliar faces to her. "But there is danger all around us. It's probably worse, Hugh, than both you and I realize right Christopher?"

Agent Prince nodded with some urgency.

"She's right as usual, Hugh. We have to deal with the hand we've been given. You need to surrender to me as we three agreed that you would an hour and half ago. Are you prepared to do that? Are you strong enough to keep your emotions in control so we can all walk away from this alive?"

There are so many of them...and so few of us.

"There is a human sense of comfort and relative safety when you are sheltered under the umbrella of company and fellowship..." Hugh heard his voice trail off and he began to cry. "I may deserve so but I don't want to die. I'm so scared right now, Christopher. I want to live."

"So do I," Agent Prince said and it was the doctor who neared tears as her best friend's words meaning became clearer to her. "Let's start the ball rolling by releasing Dr. Hicks Dupree into my custody and care. Doctor, you will take these boys one by one to the care of your old comrade Agent Sheridan and his people just over that hill while I stay with Hugh."

"No," Hugh said quickly. "The doctor stays behind. She allowed herself to be detained to shield me from being potentially shot down by...by whoever is pursuing me. The boys stay as well. We all walk together or not at all. Otherwise, one of these trigger happy people may get an itchy finger. I'll be dead if only one of these men makes an error in judgement or conscious."

"I have to side with Hugh on this one, Christopher." Angel said. "He has done some horrible things, some unforgivable, and I'm sure that many people behind those guns out there aren't nearly as forgiving as you."

"Alright, I don't have the time to argue this point. As you said, Doctor, we already have impatient people with Hugh in their scopes as we speak. We need to move though before this gets anymore out of hand."

Hugh Keaton could see that for himself thank you. In the near distance he saw more civilians—probably those employed by the mass media—flooding the area with hopes of spreading their lies and innuendoes. He knew that his first general knew that all too well. For better or worse, the next few moments of his life would play out for the entire world to see.

And then he made an executive decision.

"Alright, Christopher, I've changed my mind. I'll go with your original plan. I'll release the children into the doctor's care if you'll tell these boys one thing for me first?"

Agent Prince squared his shoulders and stood his ground.

"One point, Hugh," He said. "And then we have to go."

"When your father let me take you, I promised him and subsequently promised you that I would never touch you no matter the personal or professional cost to me." Hugh said and then he specifically found the young eyes of Moses Jackson staring back up at him. "All those years ago, I kept my word to you. I didn't touch you. I want you to tell Moses that at the least a horrible human being like me can keep his word."

Christopher looked to the horizon—pained. Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree looked as if she wanted to go to her friend to comfort him...but the thought of leaving the children even more vulnerable to an errand or stray sniper's bullet kept her at bay.

"We need to go, Hugh," was the only answer that his first general could supply. "I won't be able to hold Sheridan and his people off for much longer."

"Tell them, Christopher," Hugh pleaded. "I need you to tell them that I kept my word."

"No," Chris said—and then clarified his lone words meaning so there would be no mistake. He looked at Moses Jackson once again. "This man, Hugh Keaton, gave me his word that he wouldn't molest me and he never did. But there are many types of hurt, many types of pain that one human being can administer onto another. I had nightmares about my captivity. I still do. You children—especially you, Moses, will suffer as I have suffered. But you will survive. You will all live on...as...as I continue to live on."

And you are right, Christopher...you are so very right.

We have hurt so many.

I have hurt so many.

And there was nothing that he could say or do that would be able to undo what had already been done.

But he would at least start with...

"I'm sorry. I know that now. I'm so very sorry for what I've done to all of you."

"I don't accept your apology, Hugh, I just can't." Chris said. "But I have a question for you as well."

Angel took an involuntary step towards her friend.

"Don't do this now, Christopher."

"Let him speak, Doctor," Hugh said. "The floor is his. Ask your question, General. I owe you an answer at the least."

"How did my father know to choose you? How did he know?"

Keaton looked away. He looked back and found all five sets of eyes burning through him awaiting his answer.

Chris patience was running thin.

"Answer me, damn you. You say that you owe me. Tell me the truth."

Keaton suddenly heard something...he could feel a new sensation blowing into this area and it wasn't the storm.

It was faint a first and he couldn't put a name to it.

And then the doctor and Agent Prince must have heard it as well and they reacted to it, especially Christopher because he began to swear and curse like Hugh Keaton had never heard a man swear and curse before.

The boys joined the grownups in the game of search and find—they looked to the skies for answers—

And then they all found that answer seemingly at once.

"Oh my God, no," It was Angel who had spoken.

The hornets were buzzing all around him just like his dead Uncle Templeton had long ago said that they would.

There were four helicopters flying towards him.

He must fly away.

He must.

When Keaton first started to run—he felt the doctor dive at his legs. He would remember that much at the least. She clawed at the one that was nearest to him, but failed to wrap her arms around the bone the way she would have preferred. Moses Jackson didn't quite understand what was going on...but he gave his best effort in helping her but missed as well.

Agent Prince had made a quick decision of his own—the same one that Hugh would have made in his place—and gathered and shielded the other boys as his top priority. He dove on top of them in an attempt to shield them from all seen and unseen dangers as his federal government training had instructed him to.

The FBI was running towards him.

Some of the journalist ran away.

It was ciaos in its most perfect form.

And then Hugh Keaton raised his arms and ran like the fool that his uncle had frightened him to be.

And after four or perhaps five steps Hugh heard the sound of firecrackers.

And he felt a hundred mosquito bites on his arms, torso, neck, legs and on his head.

And then they were standing over the top of him: The doctor; Agent Prince; various FBI personnel; reporters; Moses Jackson; and finally the other three boys he'd held against their will.

He did not know how much time had passed.

He could feel the doctor's touch...and the wetness of her tears as she kneeled down next to him.

Why would she cry for him after what he'd done? Why would anyone cry for him?

He saw TV cameras a plenty and heard the clicking sound of still ones taking hundreds of pictures of what was a very lonely boy from Memphis, Tennessee.

The doctor was still crying, but Hugh used the last of his strength to reach out for where Christopher Prince had stooped down. To the man's credit he only pulled back a little.

"Your father...Isaac Prince...the Caretaker sought me out, trusted me because I gave him my word." Keaton said as his breathing slowed with each passing second. "Sometimes a word is all that a man has...even a creature like me. I kept my word."

He saw the fading image of Agent Christopher nod at his words and excuse himself from the scene. Was everything fading, or were his own tears clouding his view. The doctor hadn't stopped crying. And for whatever reason her crying was all that he could hear.

Well, at least most of the physical pain was fading.

He fixed his attention of Moses who was staring back with what exactly...was it hurt, disgust, curiosity or some strange mix of all of them.

But then the boy surprised him, surprised them all by touching Hugh on his face. He wiped the tears from his eyes and off of his cheeks. Hugh was so thankful for that. He was so thankful that in his dying moments, that he could see Moses and the rest of them all so very clearly now.

And then—

And then, just as quickly, Moses got to his feet again and retreated back to where the other boys and Christopher Prince was standing...and he saw his generals together for the first and last time.

Hugh Keaton knew that there is a human sense of comfort and relative safety when you are sheltered under the umbrella of company and fellowship.

Even Atlanta's missing children knew this to be true.
Serena

So poor Louis Keaton was now dead;

Serena Tennyson touched the glass in front of the department store down here in Centennial Olympic Park first with her fingernail and then the skin on the palm side and rubbed it with some affection. She was far from alone. She was parked on the sidewalk in front of nearly 40 or 50 people who'd camped out and were watching a national telecast of the morning news.

This store is relative undamaged considering both the earthquake damage and looting that occurred along this block. The looting and petty theft had been the norm during the late night hours overnight. Perhaps the sunlight and a least a minimum presence of the an APD cell that called themselves Protect and Serve, who were still performing the duties as they were sworn to, had discouraged such reckless behavior.

And perhaps, just perhaps, the people of Atlanta had grown weary of violence all together.

She felt something for Louis. She really had. He had lived as such a misunderstood individual—ultimately even by her. He had grown much since she'd been in charge of his original training...and yet he had ultimately disappointed her at the same time. He could have grown into such more. That disappointment she felt extended to her seeing Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree on the news feed as well. Sure, they'd shared a certain kinship of course. Now she was seeing the other woman balling her eyes out national TV for a known pedophile was proving to be unsettling to say the least. Perhaps the doctor would have felt the same level of discomfort at my own emotional display when a known professional killer Danielle Rohm died when the earth underneath her swallowed her up whole.

She didn't see Christopher Prince on camera. That fact wasn't a real surprise, especially if Nicholas Sheridan was running the FBI now that Raymond Rice's betrayal had been exposed for the entire world to see. She was faintly interested if her old adversary was still alive or had the night claimed him as well. She was betting on his survival. She was counting on it. He had proven a resilient if not stubborn opponent just as his younger brother Xavier had been.

The Caretaker would have been so very proud of his offspring.

She looked on. She used her slim figure and her elbows to carve out just enough room to breathe her own air as the crowd grew expeditiously larger every few minutes. She saw Moses Jackson and three of the other surviving boys being escorted to and lowered into unmarked vehicles. When one of the boys looked back at the camera, his appearance brought out boisterous cheers and applause—and even tears from those people directly behind her. People of color were hugging one another. Others who looked like her were praising their God. Hours ago, you people may have been at each other's throats. Now they were interacting as if those hours had been years and even decades ago. Suddenly the cheering had become so fierce, so emotional that Serena could barely hear herself think.

And she needed to think.

Oracle had been out of contact with her associates for hours now. She did know that her suicide agents would have all but exhausted their use over the city by now.

There was only one command left for her give:

Whirlwind.

The strongest gust of wind she'd felt this morning whipped past where she and the others were standing. Is this a portent of what is to come? At this moment she was torn to whether or not to unleash the Dragon's version of Hell on this city. She looked around her and over the horizon. The conditions couldn't be more perfect—or riper from cataclysmic damage to the city's already frail infrastructure from the coming firestorm if she'd plotted it herself. The rioting had started the process. The earthquake had certainly hastened the destruction. And it was an act of destruction that if her flames hadn't anticipated.

And now the storm of the century, as some meteorologist was calling it, this wind maker of epic proportions was descending on the city.

And where are you right now, Thomas?

Parts of her wanted to abandon all that was coming and seek Thomas Pepper out. And yet, she wondered if reappearance in his life would ring destruction down on him as well. She'd been the common thread in the deaths of all the people she'd been associated and even grown to care about.

She'd lost her father and mother.

She'd lost Caretaker and the regent.

Louis Keaton was gone.

Even Danielle Rohm had died.

So what would happen if Serena found Thomas Pepper alive? She'd already introduced mayhem and destruction into his life when she commanded Shooter to kill both his maid and his assistant.

Why would you want me, Thomas?

An older woman brought her back to the moment as Serena felt her squeezing her thin hand with her wrinkled one. Serena looked back at her sharply—she'd never been comfortable with human contact...and yet when looked into the older woman's eyes and saw the smile lighting up her ancient face—

Suddenly the people on this particular strip of sidewalk in this small corner of Atlanta began to dance in the streets. Someone had turned on boom box. The music wasn't tuned to any music that remotely fit her taste, but she couldn't deny the upbeat rhythm that the song was generating through the speakers.

Serena pulled her hand out of the other woman's grasp—only to have it grabbed again this time by a boy no older than the children that she had kidnapped and locked in a hole with a predator. She felt the slightest shiver of...

Is that regret that you are feeling, Oracle, or is it remorse?

Maybe it was something that she couldn't put a name to, but she continued to feel something unsettling rattling at the pit of her stomach as if she could possibly throw up. She hoped that wasn't the case. She couldn't recall eating her last meal. It must have been days ago. And upchucking right now might be particularly unpleasant as a result.

The music still played. Everyone still danced, some of them freelancing while huge numbers of people looked as if they were performing an almost choreographed number as they stepped and spun around and repeated it nearly as one.

The older woman hadn't given up on enticing her. She grabbed her free hand and at long last Serena gave up on distancing herself from either of the stranger's grip. The track changed over to something more to her liking and as fatigued as she had been...she felt her hips and her feet moving to the beat until she discovered her body moving with the beat.

Maybe...just maybe Atlanta hadn't been a city too busy to hate.

Maybe it had been a city too busy to hate for long.

It is a pause and effect, she thought.

She bit back a smile but she could feel it on her face.

She danced.

She still had resources available to her. Perhaps she would use them to find Thomas Pepper and hope that he wasn't among the many ruins that the city had to offer.

Perhaps...in time...he would have her. Perhaps Serena Tennyson didn't have to be alone again. Perhaps she would age like all other human beings aged.

Perhaps she could avoid the prophecy that was witnessed to her when she found herself locked in a holding cell downtown during Deliverance.

Maybe I don't have to give this city to the flames.

She'd been determined to avoid the version of Whirlwind that forces outside of her command wished to unleash on this city and the country at large.

Perhaps it is not too late for me to call back my own flames.

She knew that she would have to spend the rest of her days peering over her shoulder, making sure that the FBI or any reminisce of a House in Chains was not there to subject her to arrest or revenge.

She could survive though. She could flourish.

Serena Tennyson felt her hands being passed around from one person in this large crowd to another and then another and she stopped just long enough to have a private dance with each one. She'd grown dizzy and drunk on the crowd's energy, its good nature and its love.

And then she felt the cold steel of cuffs biting at the skin around her wrist.

After a moment Serena went to her knees after two attempts at escape failed her. She didn't look up at first...she could not. She would not. Finally, she did look skyward and saw three—maybe four uniformed officers peering down at the prize that they had so neatly wrapped up. The officer nearest to her had cuffed her to his own wrist while the woman on the left side of her waist did the same action with her other wrist. Just by chance, she glared back at the huge TV screen they'd been watching minutes earlier—and saw her face taking up most of the screen with the words in smaller print below it saying: Serena Tennyson, leader of Pandora, is wanted for crimes against humanity.

After a moment of hesitation she began to scramble. She pulled against the cuffs but that only managed to force the steel to bite into her wrist and arms further. She screamed in both agonizing pain and grief.

That moment passed.

Serena surprised herself how quickly she had regained her self- control, all those years of training her mind and body to be disciplined were paying dividends. She felt her pulse slowing and her heart was no longer pounding mercilessly in her chest.

A hand full of other uniformed officers moved into the scene and used their own bodies to shield her from the possibility of her being hit by projectiles or even someone bold enough to try and physically confront her. The crowd that was in such a jovial celebratory mood minutes ago was now coming into slow but steady recognition of who just who she really was.

Is this how my role in all of this ends? Have the flames been telling me tall tales? Is it written for me to exit the game with a simple whimper and not a bang?

The officers pulled her to her feet. She faintly heard one of the officers read her rights to her. She exhaled deeply and began to march with them towards her unexpected destiny.

It was over.

It was finally all over.

And then she saw it.

An older model car bent the curve without slowing, its wheels straightened with lighting quickness and it began to cut and angel towards where she, the officers and dozens upon dozens were loitering.

Her mind told her to run but her body was slow to react and her cuffed partners were struggling to move themselves away from the car's deadly path.

And just before the car plowed into them—she was struck first at the terrible irony that she, the Oracle, the leader of Pandora was going to be killed by the selfless act of one of her own suicide agents.

If this was her last moment then Serena Tennyson was surprised by what she saw as she heard the screams of the first pedestrians run into and over—and that horrid sound that metal makes as it eats up human flesh.

She didn't see her life flash before her.

She failed to see silhouettes of her dead parents...or even the flames that she'd grown to trust and love rise in front of her.

In her final moments Serena Tennyson saw a vision of Thomas Pepper.

And he was dying as well.
Thomas

He questioned any man who could sleep through the remainder of the night the way that he had done so.

Lucy was still dead. She was very much so. He'd returned to her hotel room just as quickly as he'd abandoned it and found it on the bed where he'd left it. Her body had begun to rid itself of its body fluids. With all of the dead bodies on this floor between here and the elevator a horde of flies had flown in and were buzzing about. Thomas Pepper was thankful that he had wrapped the majority of Lucy's corpse securely before he'd left. It is a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. He sat on the bed for a second and noted that the air right here didn't smell any better either. The scent of blood and torn flesh and marrow pushed away the scent of anything else.

Thomas took the time to shroud Lucy's remains with the sheet and blanket from the bed to protect her from the pest. Satisfied, he got to his feet, stretching out the soreness from all of last night's tribulations of combat, running and sleeping on the couch in the next room. Instinct kicked in next: He pulled his cell phone out of his pants pocket and exhaled in jubilation when he noticed that he had service once more. Internet access was limited, but he shrugged it off, not upset with the lack of access of that particular luxury at this moment. He didn't need to see what was going on outside of this room to take a wild educated guess. In his mind's eye Thomas could picture hundreds upon hundreds of first responders pouring into the city. Atlanta had suffered through a series of events in a short span of time that this country had never seen before even during wartime: Every event from 411, Deliverance, Rapture to Scar and a moderately severe earthquake had hit this area—

Thomas walked to the bedroom window and saw a series of trees bending in the wake of a strong and prevalent wind gust.

Meteorologists were calling it the Storm of the Century.

If I believed in God then that means I believe in Satan—and that would mean that I believed that the latter was farting on us when we are already hurting the most.

He turned away from the window and found his way back to the bed without realizing that he had moved at all. He shooed a dozen flies away. He looked at the temporary coffin that he'd made for his former lover. He did not cry. There were no tears left to spare. Perhaps he'd grown dispassionate to this world while he slept. Perhaps all the fleeing he'd done from threat after threat and unseen danger to immediate harm over the past night—over the past weeks had robbed him of emotion.

It had already robbed him of so very much.

He used the remote and switched on the TV. Two CNN reporters that he'd seen around and about over the years were on the screen in a live shot street level in an area he couldn't immediately place. They looked fatigued themselves, though experience told him they'd probably been on the air a less than a couple of hours. He recognized the somber look that was weighing their eyelids down. People outside of his business were quick to criticize the media for over dramatization of high profile events. They blamed the media itself for making themselves part of the very stories that they actually covered. He knew these professionals. And Thomas Pepper could more than appreciate the inhumanity that they'd seen overnight. They had every right to be spooked.

The first shot their director showed the viewing audience was a panoramic view of different parts of the city. Atlanta looked like a warzone. What was particularly effective—what one professional could appreciate coming from another in his field—was the network's use of file tape of what these neighborhoods and sectors and streets looked like in the days before the Zero Hour and all the subsequent events including the earthquake occurred. Thomas saw several buildings leveled. And yet, what was particularly disturbing is that he could quickly know that it was a House in Chains' suicide bombers that had done the damage and not mother-nature. Atlanta residents...young and old, rich and poor, black and white, innocent and guilty who had entered churches, schools, gymnasiums and other places of supposed shelter and died a horrid death.

Another camera crew had focused a street side shot on the near south side. One reporter walked down a long alley where she scooped up one empty shell casing after the other after the other after the other and put them up screen level so that Thomas and everyone else could see all of them.

And then Thomas Pepper saw something he would not soon forget.

A female reporter saw something just out of camera range that caught her attention. The camera angle switched to the number 3 which was just above her left shoulder. Thomas knew this was one of a director's favorites as to allow the viewing audience to see what the journalist did almost simultaneously. It was a more than effective tool to give viewers the most intimate viewing experience that technology and human instinct could provide.

So Thomas Pepper and everyone else across the country saw what the reporter saw that had drawn her attention almost the same moment she did.

There was one arm hanging out of a dumpster. A stranger helped the reporter lift the heavy lid and all of the viewers saw the connecting body and nearly a dozen more dead people twisted in every direction in that dumpster as well.

The cameraman turned his camera away but not before the audio technician picked up the unmistakable sound of the reporter cursing and throwing up in the streets.

The feed switched to a BREAKING NEWS shot and it proved to Thomas Pepper without any doubt that things could and had gotten considerably worse. Fire seemed to be engulfing the Westside of the city off of I20. Thomas' first guess was that this was the result of the lethal combination of a fire from a suicide bombing and these wicked winds thrusting the flames into the heavy wooded areas out there.

And then he heard these same strong winds shaking this foundation at the core.

And then he smelled a burning sensation that was nearly overwhelming.

Although ignoring it was nearly impossibly, Thomas concentrated on what was being shown on the TV now. CNN had switched to some of the telecast from of its sister stations all across the country. He saw hundreds of dead bodies lying on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Triage centers were being overrun and overwhelmed in Harlem and Miami. Displaced refugees from all around the Beltway were camped out outside the gates of the White House in Washington, D.C. Reports of casualties, looting and suicide bombing during the night was being filtering in from Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Houston and countless others. The still photography shots were pouring in from all. The professional shots were telling; the amateur pictures mostly taken on cell phones were far worse: Men of color had been lynched and hung naked from trees in Montgomery. Four white school teachers had been raped and killed by the very students they thought they were protecting in a school house in St Louis. White Supremacist had torched a Mexican restaurant with the owner, every worker and several dozen patrons who had barricaded themselves inside in Glendale. And then he saw the frightening image of residents in Detroit waking up hundreds of yet to be unidentified naked white men and women hung to wooden X's with their throats cut.

Thomas Pepper didn't remember going to his knees and throwing up but there he was. He stabilized his weight as best as he could be squeezing Lucy Burgess foot. She didn't seem to mind. He didn't look up...he didn't need to... he heard could hear the last report as CNN had returned to a local feed once again.

The APD—or what was left of the civil servants who had begun calling themselves Protect and Serve—were confirming the rumored reports that the FBI had discovered the remains of the Circle, the Board, high level Peacekeepers and several civilians inside the dining room of a mansion here in Atlanta.

The cornier was verifying what Protect and Serve already knew—the highest remnants of a House in Chains had committed a mass suicide.

Thomas sprinted out of the hotel room leaving the door opened, the TV playing and Lucy's still dead body behind.

He finally halted his progress when he reached street level for the second time in many days to catch his breath. He slid as silently as a man of his bulk could manage along the hotel's wall. There were tears clouding his vision. He swiped at them angrily. Once he was able to focus on what was in front of him he could see one of downtown's tallest buildings glaring back at him from behind the haze of smoke.

And then he had a thought...or I being cursed with one of your visions, Serena.

If she were still alive could she would be headquartered in a building just like that one so she could look down and see her handy work. People were suffering because of her. He had suffered because of her.

Someone should make her suffer for her major role in this nationwide catastrophe.

He tried to shake off this uncomfortable—this unwanted sensation that had washed over him the way a thunderstorm rolls in over a city after a hot summer day. And it is like a heat. He'd never felt of burning of hate at the core of his being like he had at that moment. He couldn't explain it.

Thomas did know that he was hungry. He needed food. He looked south. And thankfully he saw almost immediately what he needed and thankfully it wasn't far away. A man and his wife of Middle Eastern descent were handing out soup bowls on a nearby corner. Yes, yes he could smell the food despite the heavy brushfire aromas that nearly drowned out every other smell in the world right now.

The man did not speak English but the warmth in his eyes and the smile on his lips moved mountains—and the line forming on that corner just as importantly. Thomas flashed his own smile when it was his turn to be served. He cooled it enough and spooned it back and forth into his waiting mouth until the delicious meal was gone. He turned to leave...not quite sure where he would go...but spied a crowd of people gathering in front of a nearby restaurant. I don't want any more trouble. Do you people understand that I don't need anymore—?

But to his relief, Thomas noticed that this crowd was far from unruly. They were, in fact, surprisingly pleasant as they used the particular landmark to start the line and patiently wait for their turn at breakfast.

Thomas made his way behind where the serving couple was standing, rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands and arms—and began to help them serve those who had come in hunger as he had.

After a few minutes the familiar stench of something fresh burning struck Thomas.

He could see the flames forming over one of the building's roof tops from the direction that he'd run from when he first attempted to reach Lucy Burgess and find her alive.

He ran towards the flames.

When he cleared the building that was obstructing his view Thomas saw it. And it broke his heart and his spirit all over again.

The church that had housed him when his life was in the most peril along his trip to Lucy's hotel room was consumed with flame.

Once again his mind and his body seemed to be on different planes of existence. He didn't remember someone tackling him along his way to the church's entrance. It had to be someone of considerable size and strength considering his own size and weight. When he finally tore his eyes away from the burning church to finally see his assailant—first in anger then curiosity...and finally in curiosity, his body went limp. He was looking into the dark face of the minister who had welcomed him into his church where his congregation would have gladly shunned him otherwise. The older man had tears in his own eyes but he did not loosen his grip on Thomas.

Thomas relaxed himself enough to hold the minister close to his own bosom...and soon found himself crying with the man.

After he had gathered himself enough, Thomas asked the man all of the obvious questions: Who would try and burn his church down? Did they use gasoline or some other form of ignition? Most importantly—was he able to get all of who had come to the church as a source of refuge out in time?

The bald headed minister nodded. Thomas Pepper hoped that the gesture was in response to his last inquiry—

And then both men reacted as they heard a nearby explosion.

Before either of them could fully react or even begin to comment Thomas heard two more nearby blast and turned just in time to see a fourth detonation with his own eyes. Some people hit the ground while others covered their heads not knowing when or where the next pipe bomb would ignite next. Thomas grabbed for his ears as the latest one did its thing to close by for comfort.

A stiff wind caught the flames and pushed them all around until fire engulfed entire street corners in a heartbeat.

It was Serena's Whirlwind. Thomas bit his knuckle hard enough to hurt. The pipe bombs are hers, nothing else makes any sense.

Thomas peered in the distance at the five star hotels that served as one of Atlanta's tallest buildings.

And then he looked down at his ringing cell phone.

"If you are alive, if you get this message in time, see me. You should know where to find me."

The text message was from Serena Tennyson.

He thought as long and as hard as conditions allowed him to. Thomas had entrusted years' worth of Oracle's personal profile to memory and all of that work, all of that study was paying off this morning. Again, if and when Serena had unleashed her long prophesied version of a Whirlwind—Pandora's final act of contempt against this city—she'd want to witness the Dragon's feast from the most panoramic view possible.

That high rise hotel, Thomas mused. She has to be there.

Thomas' first inkling was to try and reach local authorities...but after his third attempt at dialing them he realized that the lines had gone down again. Either the servers were being been overloaded with calls about these new rounds of explosions or the placement of the bombs themselves targeted city services.

He handed the minister who had befriended him one of his cards and promised to return when he could. And then he ran as fast as his large frame would carry him towards where he could only guess Serena was.

And somewhere along his long run, his allegro, Thomas decided that he would do something that he dreaded far more than watching his father slowly dying from his disease when the son was just a young man.

And between heavy breaths of exhaustion and smoke poisoning his lungs, Thomas decided that he would do something that he dreaded far worse than the memories of his mother abandoning him and his sisters just before his father died.

And after he was bent over and gagging from exhaustion at the footstep of Serena's supposed hotel, Thomas had decided that he would do something that he had dreaded far worse than when he held his press conference and told the world his findings about Pandora and the probable fate of Atlanta's missing children knowing that it would serve as the ignition of this literal firestorm his adapted home city that he loved so much was facing right now.

If Serena Tennyson was in this building—

If he could reach her...

Instinct once again instructed him to look down at his cell phone.

"I can see you. I am in room 1202 if you would like to see me for the last time as well."

Serena Tennyson was in this building.

He could reach her.

Thomas Pepper had decided that he would do the one thing that he most dreaded in the world:

He would find Serena and kill the only woman that he'd ever loved.
Angel

Christopher had told Angel that her husband Seth was here, somewhere, in this gigantic makeshift triage center that the Georgia Dome was serving as.

Seth is alive. He has been here in Atlanta all along.

Angel's entourage followed within a few steps of her in every turn. Special Agent Nicholas Sheridan, who was now serving as the interim head of the FBI, had assigned one female agent and two more male agents to her since they'd left Stone Mountain and Hugh Keaton's dead remains behind. Christopher told her that she'd better move quickly. Fulton, Cobb and most of the surrounding counties here in Northern Georgia were being placed under Martial Law indefinitely. The President of the United States was due to meet the governor of the state Georgia and the city's mayor here within the next 24 hours.

Overall, the earthquake's impact on casualties in the regional had been held to a minimum. Still, the extensive damage to property and infrastructure made an already hard job of transporting medical personnel and supplies into Metro Atlanta all the more difficult. Officials were far more concerned with the breakout of fires consuming entire blocks of the city from hundreds of unexplained explosions along the perimeter of the city limits.

As for her new found bodyguards, Sheridan told her they were here in part for her protection from retaliation from Serena Tennyson and her Pandora agents for her involvement in the safe recovery of Atlanta's missing children.

Those children returning to their homes and their parents are the lone reason that I'm not presently placing you under arrest, Doctor. Sheridan whispered in her ear on the way here.

Angel doubted it—that Serena had the time or the resources to spend on finding her. Pettiness wasn't Oracle's way. And yet these bombs and fires are. Angel hugged herself, suddenly cold. Had she finally filled her long awaited prophecy and unleashed the Whirlwind on the city. Everything that woman had done was manipulated or calculated to serve some preordained goal or goals no matter how randomized it seemed.

So Angel had thanked Sheridan kindly for his gestures but warned him at the same time that he, Christopher and any FBI forces available to them had better exhaust any remaining resources to find Serena before she fulfilled these goals.

She politely asked a staff member about the whereabouts of her husband. The woman shook her head no; she'd never worked with a Dr. Seth Dupree. A second staff member, a stout man, hastily excused himself saying he had no time for this right now. Both looked as if they'd worked for hours on end without relief.

Victims of the previous nights' events were still being wheeled into the facility at an alarming rate. Whether they were all local or regional Angel could not readily ascertain. All she did know is that she was at least partially responsible for this mess. And Sheridan has every right to want me under heavy surveillance.

The Georgia Dome floor was a bustle of activity. Doctors and nurses ran here and about. Angel's personal detail struggled to match her pace even with her damned limp growing more and more pronounced as she tired. She thought it might even be fun to try and ditch them, but chose not to—at least for now.

She finally garnered a young woman's attention who was taking a smoke break in an unauthorized area. One of her escorts flashed his badge at the woman. And Angel vowed not to take no for an answer regardless to the consequences of such a stand.

The woman exhaled smoke through her nose while nodding yes, she knew Dr. Dupree and informed Angel that the surgeon himself had become one of the dome's patents after passing out and suffering a concussion. She used her cigarette to point Angel in the general direction where he would be recovering and Angel began to limp on with her security detail still in tow right behind her.

As she neared the next door Angel actually started running.

The doctor stopped only when she'd reached the section that housed 20 beds nearly side by die in what the duty nurse termed non-life threating injury status. Angel heard her threesome halting their progress behind her. One of the men was cursing beneath his breath; the female agent got close and reminded the doctor that they were here for her protection. How in the hell could they do their jobs effectively if...

Angel ignored the federal agent. She was doing her usual job of pissing off the FBI and doing it well. She scanned the room and the sick people in those beds as best as she could. Angle didn't see her husband in one of them—at least at first glance. She took a long second look and wasn't having any better luck.

What if that nurse had been in error?

What if Seth were on another floor in this facility alone, or hurt, or even dead?

Angel wanted to apologize to him for the way she talked to him before she embarked on this adventure here in Atlanta with the FBI. She figured that he'd come here because of her, he had come to Atlanta to be close to her.

She wanted to tell him that she loved him for it.

Maybe it wasn't too late for her to be a better wife, a better woman.

Maybe she was saving the best of her for last.

Maybe she could come home again.

"Seth..."

She saw him lying in the fifth bed to the left and wondered how she missed seeing him before. She felt tears dropping down wetting her cheeks with his recognition. She'd cried more in the past 24 hours than the last 24 years of her life, but that was okay. It proved that she was human after all.

And if her husband was following a script, Dr. Seth Dupree opened his gray eyes when he heard her crying. She could see him twisting his head around to locate where in the hell he was.

"Angel,"

She got to her husband's side as quickly as the obstacles of the other beds and the working medical personnel allowed her to. She reached over and hugged him gently at first...but it was Seth how squeezed her tightly with all of the love and expectation of a man who thought that he'd lost someone that he loved dearly.

But she knew that it was even more than that.

Angel knew that her husband Seth never had seen her cry before.

"My sweet Angel, I never thought that I would see you again. There were so many times that I thought that you'd...so many times that I wondered if you had...

He didn't finish his thought. Instead he pulled her close to him and they shared a long passionate kiss.

"Are you hurt, Angel?" Seth looked her over, forever the doctor. "Did they hurt you? Did she hurt you?"

Angel wondered if Seth meant the FBI or Pandora when he asked his first question. The second question caused her to arch a brow. He must have been talking about the female agent that Sheridan had assigned to her side right now. There was no possible way that he knew about her issues with Roxanne Sanchez. Anyhow, there was plenty of time to satisfy their curiosity over the others activities since their last meeting later.

"I'm fine, sweetheart." She brushed the gray in his hair and felt the knot there from his fall. "Trust me, Seth, I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm good, really. How did you find me?"

"Christopher," She smiled and pointed at the FBI Agents with her. "He told me that he saw you here earlier."

Seth looked as if he was searching his memory banks and they were beginning to overflow with recollections that he'd experienced over the past hours.

And then the dark shadow of trepidation looked to consume the Gray Man...but the moment passed as quickly as it came.

My God, Seth, Angel kissed his fingers. My God what have you seen?

"I blacked out." He said as quickly as he could manage. "I can remember that much. One of the attending physicians recommended that I rest."

Seth laughed and Angel joined him.

Well, maybe you'll take the doctor's advice this time" Angel said as she felt more tears fell. She ran her fingers along his hairy cheeks and jaw. He had purple bruises there. There were bruises over his left eye and on the side of his neck and head. One mere fall hadn't caused all of this. What have you been through? Who hurt you? Had any of this have to do with his search for her over the past days? The mere thought of the potential truth caused her to ache inside even more.

"I don't know how to apologize to you enough, Seth. I don't know how to say I'm sorry enough for the things that I said to you the last time we quarreled."

Seth shook his head.

"Just know that I love you, Angel." He said. "That fact has only grown stronger since the last time I saw you."

"I know."

Another memory stirred him enough to cause him to sit up. He glanced over her shoulder and saw the FBI Agents and intentionally lowered his tone.

"New friends of yours,"

"More like old ones reincarnated," Angel matched his tone. "It's a long story."

He nodded, said, "My last patient was your friend Christopher Prince's partner, one of them, Agent Tabitha Blue. Do you think your friends could inquire about an update of one of their own?"

"No change," Angel confirmed with the female agent after she'd returned ten minutes later. Seth bit back a smile. Her husband was one of the finest surgeons in this region and even working while nearly exhausted she knew he was more than competent in his duties. "The doctor who assisted you during the procedure complimented you on a wondrous job. Christopher talked with the man personally. He said that you more than save Agent Blue's life, your work guaranteed her a full recovery. That fact was up in the air for much of the procedure."

Seth's look turned sour as if he'd bitten into a lemon.

"I hope that I haven't delayed the inevitable."

Angel hugged his head again.

"You did your very best, Doctor. That is all that any patient could ask of her physician."

He nodded in acknowledgement of the reminder of what they both knew well. And yet his frown returned. Seth was sniffing the room's air.

"What's with the burning smell?" He asked. "I know it's been a faint cloud hanging over the city from the brushfires since I arrived but it's stronger than ever now. Did something rupture during the quake that caused a new round of fires or something?"

Angel only looked over to where a wall blocked any and all views of the city from the belly of the Georgia Dome. You've done it haven't you, Serena. Goddamn you woman, you've gone and done it.

"The city is burning." Angel told her husband.

"What," Seth's gray eyebrows rose as his voice had and betrayed the depths of yet another bruise on his chest that Angel failed to see before. "What in the hell do you mean that the city's burning?'

Angel stood fully erect and held Seth's hand using his strength to balance her weight against her own mounting fatigue.

"Only a nuclear blast could truly level a city of this size, Seth," She said. "But for all intents and purposes the city's burning. I've heard the mention of hundreds of pipe bombs being detonated around the city's perimeter. We've also experienced wind gust equivalent of a category 2 hurricane over the past 4 to 6 hours. When you combine that lethal amount of explosives and the raw power of mother-nature you get...you get a Whirlwind effect."

"Could it have been more suicide bombers?"

Angel fixed her husband with a hard stare that the female officer standing behind her shared with her. Seth's last words felt more like a statement than a question. And he sounded as if he'd experienced the devastation of Scar not through television or internet but on a far more personal level.

Once again Angel Hicks Dupree wondered what terrors her husband had been exposed to since he'd arrived in Atlanta.

"No, she told him. "I believe that this—all of this is about Serena Tennyson and the vast belief she wields for her Dragon and her flames."

"Oh my God in Heaven," Was all that Seth could manage to say.

Seth attempted to lift himself out of his bed and stand up. Angel didn't fight him. She helped her husband to his feet. The open areas of his gown exposed more blemishes, scars and bruises on his lower back, thighs and calves. From a mere physical sense, he looked as if he'd suffered far worse in this ordeal than even she had. She knew of her husband's past traumatic episodes involving the boast accident and the loss of life as he reached early adulthood. She knew that he was strong but where her husband was at from a mental standpoint she could only guess without a thorough examination. She was as professional with her medical practice as Seth was at his—and professionals didn't guess about such a prognosis. But all she could do is guess at this point.

"I know about Roxane Sanchez," Seth said as a matter of fact. "I know that the two of you had unique relationship that bonded you together the rest of your lives," They watched each other—waited on the other to react to his news.

Angel said, "She's okay. I think that she's okay for the moment. We've spent some time together since you last saw her. We talked through some of our differences. I think it's highly unlikely that we will ever be besties but I think we reached some level of acceptance of whom the other woman is and where she is coming from when it comes to the unfortunate death of her sister. I respect her, Seth. I can't argue with the decisions that she's made. I can respect them." She saw a reflection of her big brown eyes in his gray ones. She could only guess what Seth and Roxanne were doing together. "I respect your decisions as well, Seth."

"For a time I was angry with you, Angel," Seth said to her. "I was confused about my own feelings. I knew that she wanted to kill you. I did everything that I could to reach you but you wouldn't answer my calls. Like I said, I was confused but I knew that I couldn't hurt you. I wanted to save you."

Angel nodded.

"You wanted to save me from Roxanne—"

"I wanted and still want to save you from yourself, Angel."

She pulled him close again. She closed her eyes and blocked out everyone and everything in this room...and soaked in all of her husband's love like a well overflowing with water.

"I know that you do, Seth. I know that more now than ever before. Even after everything that I've said to you, even after everything that I've done to you—done to us...

Seth lovingly placed his index finger on top of her thick lips to silence them.

They embraced and anyone in this room who was uncomfortable with that be damned.

Perhaps Angel could go home again.

Perhaps.
Roxanne

She felt the eyes of God watching her in this place.

They weren't, not in a physical sense at the least.

Hundreds of Atlanta residents of all races, creeds and colors had turned, as she had, to the Martin Luther King Memorial Center as a center of refuge, of solitude and for prayer in the hours before Martial Law was to be imposed on the city.

She'd remembered learning in middle school about the great Civil Rights leader and how he'd spoken to a crowd even more packed than this place was today. Roxanne Sanchez hadn't minded the intrusion of all of these other strangers—at least half as much as she would have believed she thought would have.

God's eyes weren't on her but the glaring of someone seemingly as powerful was.

Victor Gonzales had found her.

She was unsure of how she knew...but she knew nonetheless.

Roxanne limped out of the main building as quickly as her cast around her shattered ankle had allowed her. She heard her former lover walking up behind her...and perhaps a second set of heavier footsteps coming up behind her. If this man was to kill her she knew that he possessed the means to do so silently and discreetly enough not to disturb the other refugees. It was all that Roxanne Sanchez could wish for now. The other residents had been through so very much. They didn't deserve to be exposed to further violence in the one place where they thought that they'd it here—under the roof of a man who spent his life preaching the importance of non-violence to achieve equality.

They followed her into an area that served as a balcony to that you could look east into the heart of the city. The smoke out on the deck was near suffocating levels and Roxanne coughed into her hands. Time to die; and so she spun around quickly to face her executioners at last. She was right when she felt the Victor's presence here. She was also correct when she guessed that his man Gonzales was one step behind him. All of the events, all of the business of death and living over the past days hadn't dulled her instincts at the least.

Roxanne bit back tears despite the danger and the smoke present. Or at the least she'd convinced herself of such as the first tear threatened to run down her cheek. She cautioned herself against making any sudden movements in Victor's presence. She was unarmed. Even with her injuries she was more than a match against any of the residents foolish enough to attack her in the group below them. Victor and to a lesser extent Gonzales were another matter.

Victor gave their surroundings a once over. He seemed to especially find the statue of Martin Luther King Jr himself interesting. Roxanne felt a sudden bout of shame wash over her. On one hand she didn't want the refugees below to witness yet another murder in this city but an act of senseless violence here in front of a great man's statue felt wrong as well.

"I find it funny that you would seek asylum in a place like this one, Senorita," Victor spoke in his raspy voice at last. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You do like the company of powerful men."

Roxanne felt herself tense at the authority that his voice ushered out even with the simple words he was saying. It amazed her of how much that same voice had comforted her doing their lovemaking frightened her so much now.

"I can't say that it doesn't surprise me as well, Victor." She then acknowledged Gonzales with a curt nod but dared not take her dark eyes off her former lover for long. "Sometimes desperation forces us to search for strength and courage in places where we least expect to find them."

"Perhaps it does at that, but that fact alone won't save you from what's coming now, Senorita." Victor reached into his jacket pocket for his cigar—Roxanne tensed as she'd mistaken the gesture for him reaching for a mall gun. He gave the place another long once over and decided that this wasn't the place to share his Cuban experience. "If I in fact have chosen to kill you, Senorita, this place will do as well as any other."

"How did you find me, Victor?"

"The devils, as they say, are in the details. Those details also tend to be long and drawn out." He flashed a curt smile that Roxanne could remember adoring. "But you do deserve an answer. Let's just say that you danced once too often with a devil named Andre Knight of the Carver Street Apartments. He turned out to be an expensive but invaluable asset in finalizing my search."

Roxanne laughed aloud to hide her embarrassment.

"How could he?" Roxanne said as she pounded the smoky air with her fist. She'd held that little bastard when he'd lost his friends in the Peacekeeper's raid on Carver. How could he turn her over to a complete stranger to him? "One of the lasting things that you told me is that trusting people would be my undoing." And Maria had trusted Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree and she'd seen what the price her sister had paid for that trust. "I can't help but wonder how much of a reward he got for selling me out?"

Gonzales grin grew lopsided and disgusting looking. He pulled his jacket back far enough so Roxanne could see the butt of his gun without much effort.

"Don't worry about that, young lady." He said with his heavier Spanish accident shining through. "He asked for $5000 and we paid him every red cent."

Victor took a step towards her. "And then Gonzales here slowly killed him. Your boy died screaming leaving this world much the way I'm sure he did when he was brought into it. I got my refund but I will credit him with being right about one thing: he promised me that you weren't going anywhere anytime soon. Even after you found Agent Prince's step daughter in that dumpster you weren't going anywhere."

"I want you to leave Chris out of this." And for the first time Roxanne allowed her voice to slip into her more familiar dangerous tone that matched Victor's own. "This business is our business no one else's."

"I'm glad that you've taken my words to heart if not into practice, Senorita." He said. "If you'll remember me also telling you that showing mercy would also be your undoing." Roxanne was unsure if Victor's failure to comment on her last words meant that the man she now loved was safe from this former lover or not. She'd only spoken to Chris by phone after Angel sent the help that she promised that she would for her and the other victims of the Marta upheaval. "I'm disappointed that you haven't learned that for yourself by now."

"And what about honor, duty and family," Roxanne asked Victor but was thinking of Chris. She made him a promise that she would return to him when she could—if she could once she settled some old personal matters. He didn't argue at least that long. And she guessed that he needed the time to settle his own affairs with the FBI, this Serena Tennyson woman, and A House in Chains, especially after the murder of his brother Xavier. God, I want so badly to be there for you during this hard time you are facing, Chris. "Do these virtues mean anything to you, Victor?"

"Family causes us the most grief," Victor answered quickly and honestly. "You know that better than I do, Senorita. Duty is always a subjective matter not easily interoperated by the naked eye. And as for honor...well, our kind don't serve the most honorable men and women."

Roxanne stood her ground—even on her one good leg.

"Christopher Prince is an honorable man. Serena Tennyson and Pandora spread lies about his relationship with his step daughter to discredit him at a critical moment with their war with A House in Chains and the FBI. They were ready to go on the offensive against the citizens of Atlanta. I was foolish enough to believe these lies...if only for a short time. I redeemed myself by defending Chris and his cause." She cut her eyes at Victor. "But I'm sure that you know most if not all of this already."

Victor nodded but held back a grin.

"I do. What I don't know—what I want to know is this: Do you love him, Roxanne?"

"So you have been keeping even closer tabs on me than I already suspected, Victor Roxanne applauded his efforts. Her mockery echoed off of the nearby stones through the smoky air. Gonzales shifted in his stance tired of this game of words and innuendo. "How close have you truly been?"

"I've been close enough to smell the dirty stench of Joseph Champion lies every time the man opens his mouth."

Roxanne's dark eyes became slits.

And she a new revelation swam up to the surface in her mind.

"It was you in that black car that chased us down state," She sneered more than said to him. "You tried to kill us."

"No, If I wanted you dead you would be a corpse already." Victor's calm demeanor betrayed no need for deceptions here. He was in complete control and knew it. "I knew that you were getting some semblance of the truth out of Champion when you left for the state prison, so I thought I'd help you along."

"By chasing my only lead away?"

"I know your instincts for survival, Senorita. But your business was with Erica Lovings and her family. Champion, I believe, is involved in something much more profound and dangerous. I think I know a truth about him that you or anyone else in this city only suspect and have yet to fully digest. If you have dove any further into him you would be dead right now, Senorita, and not by my hand."

Roxanne heard the seriousness in his voice and worse than that—she suspected that he was right about Champion. Pride caused her to mask those feeling as best as her dark eyes would allow her. Victor had lost the privilege of seeing her like vulnerable like that long ago. Yet, it made her chest hurt nearly as badly as her ankle to know that she'd expended her time and energy seeking out retributions against Angel instead of staying on a larger threat: Joseph Champion.

How and when did I lose my objectivity? I should have kept this entire episode professional and not let the personal cloud my thinking and my judgement.

And in speaking of the personal—

"You unimaginable bastard," She said but the lack of venom left everyone standing here unconvinced. "Where else have you been tailing me?"

Victor stood with his legs spread apart, enjoying himself.

"I've always thought that funeral were overly dramatic and anticlimactic event, especially for the deaths of people who vastly underachieve in life. I will admit this however, that in this one circumstance, I thought that the burials of Denise Prince and Erica Lovings were a picturesque and dignified service. And then you're extended offer to the Doctor Seth Dupree to actually join you in as a coconspirator in the murder of his own wife is something so diabolical that even I wouldn't have indulged in. You've told me before that you were a monster, Senorita. I believe you now more than ever."

"I don't take pride looking back on the many things that I've done, Victor. I can't change the past. I'm going to move forward with whatever time that I have left. I'm not going back to the person that you met in Mexico, or even the woman that you knew that rose as the sun rose this morning. I'm not ever going back."

"You are doomed if you do not, Senorita."

Victor went for his cigar once again. He had his lighter out and had a good smoke going. Just another man and his vices, she thought. Gonzales looked almost bored as if rage and confrontation were normal human virtues and conversation and civility were alien concepts he could not understand.

"Perhaps I am doomed, Victor," Roxanne found her voice. "Perhaps I am doomed at that. I've said my peace now. We need to get on with our business at hand. If you are ready to kill me then I am ready to die."

"No, you are not ready," He took a long drag off of the Cuban and played with the smoke. "None of us ever are ready, Senorita, not really."

Roxanne only shrugged at his words.

"I don't understand this. You've proven to me as well as yourself that I can't outrun my past, Victor, you've shown me that I can't outrun you. I am through running, Victor. Andre told you before I died that I'm not going anywhere and he was right. I've been running from one thing or the other my entire life. I'm done running. So like I said a minute ago—we have business with each other. You said that I would live just long enough for you to see me suffer."

Victor took a long last pull from his cigar and then stamped the flame out on the post nearest to him.

"And I have seen you suffer," He pulled a pair of shades out of another of his jacket's pockets and cover his eyes with them gave her a long last look—and then turned to walk away. He stopped long enough to say: "My chase is over, Roxanne...but you are not through running, Roxanne. You've chosen a path that will keep you running as long as you continue to pursue it...as long as you continue to pursue him."

"And what does that supposed to mean, Victor?"

He turned back to her.

"It means that you never answered my question about your love for Agent Prince? Your non answer told me all the truth that I needed to know. There is darkness within him—and I'm not talking about his skin tone, Senorita—that will keep you running, that will keep you suffering for as long as you are with him. I know the type, Senorita; I am the type so I damned sure can recognize my brethern when I see it. You deserve better than either one of us could give you, Roxanne."

And then Victor Castillo turned and walked away.

"What," Gonzales said as exasperation flowed through his Spanish almost making him impossible to understand. "You pursued her all of this way, spared no expense only to walk away from her? Do you remember how much Mexican blood has been spilled because of the actions of this woman?"

Victor stopped walking, removed his shades and fixed Gonzales with a glare that could have melted artic ice.

"She did not heed my words, Gonzales. I did tell her not to dip her hands into cartel business and did nonetheless. I did tell her that someday when the time was right, that we would stop what we were doing and find her." And then Victor turned his attention away from his partner o Roxanne one last time. "I wanted to see you suffer for what you did down below and I have. I wanted to see you suffer before you end—and I have. But I expected to see you at the end of your suffering and not at the beginning of it."

Victor Castillo walked back from the direction where he'd come without looking back at her. Gonzales flashed a momentarily look of confusion at this entire episode and his role in it, buttoned his jacket and mirrored his partner's footsteps as he soon disappeared from Roxanne's sight.

And in the second or third minute of her solitude, Roxanne looked towards the fires that looked to consume much of Downtown Atlanta and wondered what hellfire that Victor had left her alive to face.
Serena

An inferno.

A city burning to the ground.

A whirlwind.

Whatever the media wanted to call it, it was occurring here, now, and there was no way to undo what had been done.

Serena Tennyson watched from her room on the highest floor that Raymond Rice had reserved for months, long before now.

She didn't know how much time she actually had left to watch it all. She had no idea how long before the authorities descended on this hotel and took her away from all that she had labored and sacrificed much in her life to now see manifest itself in front of the one good eye she had left.

She'd lost half her face to bruises and burns when the driver of the runaway car plunged into the crowd when she was still at street level. She was still wearing a single cuff on her left wrist. The other cuff—and the officer attached to it—had been ripped away when the lethal combination of steel and velocity separated them from Oracle. She was still bleeding from her wrist and arm, from a hole ripped in her side and where the flesh itself was torn from the side of her face.

A service worker had approached her when she'd first arrived back at this hotel. He was spewing out warnings that barely calculated in her brain: He was advising her and any other clientele to reenter this place at their own risk. Considering the building's height, the earthquake and now the prevailing hurricane force winds had made the hotel into a risky site to continue to patronize. In the interest of public safety—

And then he truly saw her condition...her face and all of his remaining thoughts and words lost their meaning.

Despite the terrible pain Serena was experiencing she was able to concentrate just enough to take the stairs and return to her headquarters several levels up. She did so without further communication or interference from hotel personnel.

She took several short pained gasp of breath when she reached her room at last. Once again her athletic background in cross country and marathons had served her well. Her parents would have been proud of her. Her father in particular had loved to watch her perform at the highest level at the meets. Always finish what you start, Serena, he had always instructed her, just finish what you start and everything else will be fine.

And I have done just that, Father, she would have smiled at self-consciously hearing her father's voice in her ear if only she possessed the lips to manage one.

She stood at one window for the longest time. Serena peered in every direction that the view allowed and then back again as she scanned the horizon. Hundreds of pipe bombs were still detonating in strategic locations throughout the city. The heavy gust of wind were an added bonus that her Whirlwind had not anticipated or needed to succeed. But I will take it nonetheless. She watched an area far west of her location...the wind caught the flames just right and merged the bonfire with another and then another wall of flames as it danced along the ground. The dry conditions that had existed for months in this region had been the final component in aiding a firestorm in intensity and size that was more impressive than anything than she could have imagined.

Atlanta was indeed burning.

No, she reminded herself quickly, it is being purged. It is being cleansed from the inside out.

Serena had seen all of this in the Dragon's flames.

She suddenly felt weak...her stomach...and her knees went wobbly.

Serena went down to a single knee and struggled to get back to her feet, exhaustion—or maybe something far more serious—nearly toppling her. Not now, She threw up then, not after all of this plotting and planning...not after all of the work that so many others have put in...all of the people who have sacrificed so that the Dragon could feast...

...and so that a new stronger Atlanta would rise from the ashes of the old.

When Serena at last pushed herself back to her feet she was amazed how much the same scenery she'd watched before...had changed. The firestorm looked to be burning out of control. This was no longer a controlled burn in her eyes. Closer to the hotels position she watched a family trying...and dying in a futile attempt to save their home from the flames. Two blocks over a convoy of firetrucks and the men responsible for operating them were blocked by fallen debris from the storm in one direction and by her Dragon's flames on the other. They are doomed. Serena watched another man catch fire just below her. Fall to the ground you fool, she screamed at dying man eternally. Fall to the ground and roll. It is your only chance of survival—

"I said fall to the ground."

"'He can't hear you, Serena."

Serena spun away from the window with all of the will and energy that she could muster and saw him standing there in the hotel room's doorway alone.

Thomas Pepper was alive.

Serena wanted to approach him. Oracle wanted to run away. Serena wanted to touch his face and see that he was indeed real. Oracle hid her face which had been torn from its skull—and settled on turning back to the window. Only the pleasant side of her face, the one that had existed before was exposed to the intruder.

"You're alive, Thomas. You are alive and got my messages." Serena stood at her height and clasp her hands behind her back. She would exhibit poise and exercise control no matter how much it pained her. And yet, Serena could see raindrops of fresh blood puddling on the floor by her feet. "Somehow, I knew that you were alive."

Thomas took a cautious step forward into the hotel room and closed the door behind him. Serena took a guarded glance in his direction. Once again Thomas appeared to have come alone...and unarmed. That doesn't guarantee your safety though. Thomas or any of the hotel staff who have seen you could have contacted the authorities by now.

"My God, Serena," He said to her, daring to touch her uninvited...and twisted her around just enough to get a full view of her injuries. When she saw him dart his eyes away she instantly knew that they were far worse than even she had imagined them to be. Most of my enemies and far too many of my allies have called me a monster—how timely that I look like one as well. "What happened to you? What caused...this?"

"An accident," She managed a grin that held no humor but caused her a new round of eye popping pain. Danielle Rohm, her dear dead Danielle Rohm had taught her to smile but the pain... "In truth, it really no longer matters now does it, Thomas? It's over now. It's almost over now."

"How can it not be over, Serena," Thomas pulled her close until the two of them were nearly nose to nose. Until her near rape at the hands of the guard in her holding cell before Rapture she had never been this close to a man before. "It is already at an end, Serena. What else could there possibly be left for you to do here?"

She did not answer right away. She stood there wrapped in his arms wishing that he would let her free...and hoping he would not.

He finally did release her. She turned back to the window to witness a Whirlwind in all of its preordained glory.

And she turned away so Thomas Pepper would not see her tears burning in her eyes.

Look at what you've done.

She saw more firestorm and destruction in a Whirlwind's wake.

She saw death and rebirth.

She saw prophecy and metaphor.

And she saw men and women and even little children reaching their end. And when that it was as terrible as they had all had imagined it would be. She watched as numbers of them were given to the flames.

Serena Tennyson thought she was looking out of her window in Hell itself.

And then she saw the devil who ruled there, but not the Dragon who had been promised to her...it was her own reflection that had glared back at her.

Oh my God, she thought but she had never believed in their God. How could she call his name?

She yanked out the firearm that she'd taken off of the dead officer who had been cuffed to her. Thomas backed away from her—and then ducked for cover as she fired several rounds into the glass until it shattered into several thousands of pieces. She heaved back and tossed the weapon out of the opened window. She screamed then as the smoky air burned her exposed nostrils and windpipe. My lungs are on fire.

"I had hoped that this would all end peacefully," Serena managed to say after a time. Thomas had finally risen up from behind his cover. She could hear sirens below...and hear her name specifically and the many curses that followed as the men exited those vehicles. "No matter what else that I've done here in this city, I want you to believe me when I tell you this."

"Stop it," Thomas screamed at her. He slowly rose to his feet again. And then he was standing over her again and she found herself sliding away from him. He pointed a thick finger at the space that the window once occupied. "Don't you dare try and justify this carnage to me, Serena."

"I petitioned for peace, Thomas. I fought with every fiber of my being. But there were too many adversaries in my path. Xavier Prince and a House in Chains wouldn't hear of it. The FBI was just competent enough to delay me. And Thomas-- Thomas there are forces within Pandora not under my command who are attempting to piece together a future far dimmer than the ideals and the vision that Isaac Prince passed down to me. They are going to commit a gen—"

"Then you should have fought harder, Serena." Each word the man said stung at her heart with more bile than the word before it. And then, as if his time of rage had passed, his tone lost much of his gruffness and it was if Thomas' entire body went limp. "You should have pushed your people and theirs for more concessions. You should have done something," Thomas looked over the window sill out into a Whirlwind. "You damned well should have done something to avoid this."

Thomas joined her as they both turned away from the window. She could feel his closeness and did not move away from it. Serena wished that he would hold her. She never felt more alone than she did right now: She didn't feel this kind of loneliness when her parents died...she didn't feel this type of loneliness when either Raymond Rice or Danielle Rohm were killed...

Serena Tennyson had betrayed the Dragon's love.

She was indeed alone.

And she wished more than ever that Thomas Pepper would hold her...before her own end.

Serena heard his breathing ease. His anger was soothing. And then he must have felt her hands quivering. It's suddenly as if the world has gone cold. To his credit...Thomas squeezed her hand that was still hole and true. She squeezed his thick fingers and did not let go.

She did not let go.

"Before they come for me I need to tell you about a vision that I recently had. I want to tell you about a vision that you were an integral part of."

And so she did. And when the tale had completed itself he said: "I can certainly believe that you thought that it was real, Serena. I know that you felt that it was. But ultimately, I believe that your visions as you see them are nothing but dreams. I think that your prophecies are little more than metaphors." He took a deep breath but she did not interrupt. "Your own self-conscious knew of what your conscious self was capable of. The option of turning away was a conflict of character from within. I guess my role as the genesis of the speaker for yourself conscious came from the time we spent together in my townhouse, nothing more—"

Dozens more pipe bombs explode in rapid succession as an angry wind simultaneously blows by. Thomas slid down the wall screaming in anguish as he frees Serena's hand.

And yet it is she that finds her voice first.

"What have I done, Thomas?" A single tear burns her eyelids as it runs down her exposed flesh. "What have I done?"

Thomas sits there and bites at his balled up fist.

"You have made some grave errors in judgement, Serena," Thomas Pepper said. He found enough of his own strength and dignity to rise to his full height. "But you were not alone. The Prince Brothers, the FBI, all of us involved in this have made terrible mistakes, Serena. Many lives have been lost as a result. I wish that I could put on a single reason why that came to be."

"We were misled," Serena said simply.

"What do you mean?"

"Once, a friend of mine told me with her last dying words something that I will always remember," She heard herself say. "And she told me something that I will never forget."

"Tell me," Thomas urged her to continue.

"I will always remember her telling me that your God...that our God forgives us no matter how severe our sins if we submit ourselves to his will and ask forgiveness."

"I believe that as well, Serena." Thomas darted his eyes away again. "Although I have not spoken to him in a great number of years."

"But even more, I will never forget what she told after that. She told me that she truly believed that her lord was working through me. And then she told me..." Serena no longer hid her tears from Thomas Pepper. "In her very last breath Danielle Rohm told me that she'd been misled."

Both of them paid heed to the dozens upon dozens of heavy footsteps marching on the floor towards the hotel's room door.

The FBI wasted little time bursting in and sliding to their knees and finding cover as they entered.

Special Agent Christopher Prince had taken the point.

Serena Tennyson released Thomas Pepper's hand quickly as she found the will and the way to slide to her knees as quickly as Prince ordered her to. She could see out of the corner of her eye as the large silhouette of Thomas as he obeyed the order as well. We are caught in a time loop, Thomas. We are at your place again before my Rapture—before Tempest Rising, before the Whirlwind consumed Atlanta with its hunger.

Agent Prince barked instructions out to the other agents to secure Thomas as he was not to be considered a combatant at this time. All of the remaining agents—too many for Serena to count—surrounded her and closed in step by step. All of my past charades have caught up to me at last. And yet, the mere thought of her sore, aching wrist suffering though a new round of being shackled caused her to slide back as far as the wall would allow her to.

They twisted her body until her lips kissed the floor beneath her as they cuffed her once again over her body's vibrant objections.

Thomas protested.

Serena screamed.

They stood her up quickly and Serena found herself facing out of the window one final time at a Whirlwind feasting on the countryside as far and as wide as her one good eye could see as Agent Christopher Prince read her rights to her once again.

It was glorious indeed.

It was haunting for sure.

The long prophesized Dragon had taken flight had feasted on the impurity of those below...but where the resurrection and order that was promised to her was.

Danielle Rohm had paid a terrible price for being misled. What price would she pay?

And as the agents walked her towards the hotel's door and her pending destiny—she learned that the Dragon had not forsaken her completely as the flames had provided her one final vision:

Serena Tennyson saw her own face in the flames and then the Dragon's betrayal was at last complete.

And then her flames extinguished themselves forever and the world went dark and cold. She could no longer see and she felt herself began to tremble.

Serena's death was mere heartbeats away and it was nothing left she could do to prevent it from happening.
Thomas

"Relax, Serena," Thomas Pepper watched Agent Nicholas Sheridan step towards Serena Tennyson who had escaped from the agents who had her in custody. She had dove towards the ledge where she'd shot out the window earlier. Several agents had drawn their guns but Agent Christopher Prince had instructed everyone in the room to hold their fire.

Sheridan held up a hand for peace: "I want you to listen to what Mr. Pepper has said, Serena and I want you to listen what I am saying. These men are not executioners. I will not sanction that sort uncivilized behavior here. Our job is to bring you to justice in a manner that protects you and my people. Your fate is to be decided by a jury of your peers. Do you understand me, Serena?"

"Forgive me, Agent Sheridan, if I am not comforted by your words." She leaned over the ledge further and Thomas gasped in horror. Everyone gun in the room was drawn on her, every safety lifted. "I saw Hugh Keaton's demise myself on TV or should I just ignore how he was brought to justice?"

Thomas shook off the agents holding him back and took a step forward. He could see Agent Prince shaking his head in a dangerous factor...but he did not most of his focus of a Pandora's field leader.

"What happened to Keaton was unfortunate, Serena, but I want you to remember that those were an independent body out of anyone's chain of command. And we also had an outside source of the media which contributed to his demise. Those factors don't exist here." Sheridan gave the room and Prince's room a once over. Thomas knew the seriousness and the volatility of this situation. Everyone in this room, including Thomas himself, had lost someone to Serena's schemes and treachery. Two police helicopters could be heard...and then Thomas could see them as they clearly came into view. Serena looked as if she heard the birds as well—but she looked as if she were struggling to see where they were at all. Serena's condition has worsened. My God, I think she has gone blind.

"Serena, do not panic, do you hear me?" Sheridan shouted to be heard over the already blistering wind being stirred up worse by the twins' thundering blades. "Those birds are mine. They are under my command. I am in command of every man and woman in this room. I know what happened to Hugh Keaton. I was informed of what nearly befell you in that holding cell while in the custody of the APD. I give you my word that you will leave this room alive. I also give you my word that you will make it to trial alive and unharmed. But I do need your help. I need you to surrender peacefully and without further incident right now."

Serena looked in the general direction of where the copters should have been. They hovered nearby but never penetrated past a certain barrier. He had not doubt that Sheridan meant every word that he said.

But he was not the one that Sheridan had to convince.

And Sheridan's men—including Agent Prince had Serena's spectacular escape from that same Atlanta courthouse that she was nearly raped at. Each of these men and women would also remember the deaths of each and every death that was caused at his townhouse by the mines that were laid on the path there at her instruction. They weren't privy to the conversations that you and I just had, Serena. They didn't see you remorse. And if they needed any further reminders of who Serena Tennyson was a what she had been about before—all they needed to do was look past those helicopters out there and look the hellfire that she ignited.

"Step back off that ledge, Serena." Sheridan said to her in a lower tone. He frowned with his bushy brows, frustrated, flustered...and then turned to the one woman who could possibly bring this all back from the brink.

Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree had entered the room.

"Serena," She stepped in the room and moved past a gathering of agents and then pushed past Chris Prince until she was standing next to Agent Sheridan. "I heard what you said. I heard you when you mentioned Hugh Keaton. I know that you know that I was there with him at the end. He fought all of his demons so that those boys that he had put in so much danger would survive. He was very brave in the face of so much uncertainty." Angel eyed Sheridan, he caught her meaning and he silently gave her the okay to take the lead here. "You relish control above all things, Serena. I know that you are hurting. I also believe that for the first time in your life you are truly afraid. I want you to use your control to aid you in getting through this."

"I...I don't want to die here, Angel."

"If you truly believe that your path was the righteous one then you should live long enough to defend your actions in a court of law." Thomas could hear Agent Prince grown at the mere thought of such a thing. "I know that you and your enemies have ordered all types of unforgivable actions from those who have served under your causes. But I know that you truly believe that suicide is a coward's weapon. You are many things, Serena Tennyson, but you are no coward."

Serena shook his head as the tears freely fell.

Sheridan said into the silence: "This has been stressful on everyone here. We have all sacrificed a great deal to get to this moment right here."

"We have at that, Agent Sheridan," Serena said in a shaky voice. "And we all have sacrificed so much, too much in fact. And you are right as well, Angel, I do have much to answer for. And I do have a story that needs to be told."

And then Thomas watched Agent Prince raise his gun and step forward.

"And the first story that all of these good men and women want to hear is who is the Caretaker?"

"Agent Prince," Sheridan said in a stern tone. "Stand down, Agent Prince, what are you doing?"

He didn't answer Sheridan. Instead, Prince moved himself into a position that no one was between himself and Serena. The other agents tensed at the new development and trained their full attention and their guns on her as well. Sheridan was seething. Dr. Hicks Dupree was hugging herself. Thomas felt at his heart would pound its way through his chest and surface itself.

"I want her to say it in front of this room full of people well before she gets to court, Sheridan." Chris said. "I want the world to hear it from her mouth right now before the courts and the judges and the lawyers get involved. Thousands of people have died over the past month because of this one question has gone unanswered for so long. Tell these people what you told me, Serena."

"Agent Prince, lower your weapon right now. That is an order." And then Thomas saw Sheridan react as he watched Serena lower her head. And somehow Sheridan knew the answer that apparently Agent Prince had already learned from Serena.

"Isaac Prince," Serena said evenly. "Your deputy director Raymond Rice was not the only high level authorities' figure who commanded Pandora's ranks.

All of the air seemed to leave Thomas Peeper...and everyone in this room. Most in the hotel did not know Isaac Prince personally but they knew him as the founder of a House in Chains. They all recognized the name. He must have been Chris and Xavier Prince's father.

"The Caretaker and Isaac Prince are one."

Thomas watched Agent Prince mostly. As dumbfounded as he was, Thomas could only guess at how devastating this revelation was for the man nearly standing in front of him. The born investigator in Thomas had to admit that he'd considered the possibility once or twice...but he had always steered away from it being absolute. No matter how logical or reasonable this conclusion may have played out...the truth of Isaac Prince consciously handing his own son over to a known pedophile was a fact not bred in reality. Thomas own mother leaving her children as his father lay dying was terrible enough—

Dr. Dupree's own anger at her friend's unexpected belligerence was melting off of her face. She looked as if she wanted to drop everything and go to Agent Prince and comfort him. Serena had yet to look up. Thomas had studied this woman and her organization for years—and yet they were far and away more ruthless and calculating than he had ever given them credit for.

Sheridan had recovered from whatever emotions he was feeling. He stepped over to where his subordinate was standing. He put his hand over the top of Agent Prince's and lowered both hand and gun in one motion. Working together Sheridan came out of the exchange with Prince's gun in his hand. He turned his attention to Serena and offered his other free one to Serena to step away from the ledge.

She struggled to find it...but eventually she took his hand in her own.

As she stepped down, Sheridan cuffed her hands behind her back with as much human grace, dignity, and compassion as he could manage.

He began to walk her past Agent Prince but she halted her progress when she thought she was near where he was standing. The torn side of her face was the one visible to Thomas.

"I appreciate your restraint, Chris," She said to him.

"Go to Hell, Serena,"

Serena tossed a blind look to where she guessed Thomas was standing. And then she turned back to Agent Prince.

"That chapter has already been written." She refused to budge when Sheridan tried to get her moving again. "Your chapter has been written as well, Chris, but not in the script that you may have been nudged into believing."

"Do you ever shut that mouth of yours, Serena?" Thomas was amazed that a man with such clear, dark skin could nearly turn a shade of red when angered. "What in the hell are you talking about now?"

"Your medical exam reports from a recent physical that you have taken," Serena said patiently. "They were exaggerated...bogus...inaccurate. You may choose to use whatever terminology that you wish."

"But my personal physician said—"

"You doctor said what he was instructed to say under constant stress and threat to his personal safety and that of his immediate family. Your mother's illness and eventual demise was a far too convenient resource for me not to use at the appropriate time. In the end though, it was her disease and not yours."

Thomas winced at Serena's latest revelation. He stepped behind Sheridan as if this trained government law enforcement worker might need his help in restraining Agent Prince. Sheridan kept his look neutral as he forced Serena's momentum forward.

"With the exception of the need to drop a few pounds, Agent Prince, you are as healthy as anyone else in this room." She said as Sheridan pushed her through the door with his armed one armed contingency giving them over to another.

Thomas saw Chris biting back tears of what? Were they...were they tears of joy...were they tears of anger...

Thomas followed Sheridan and Serena out of the door as close as the federal agents would allow him to. Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree was even closer to Sheridan and his prisoner.

"I consider you my equal in every way, Doctor," Thomas was unsure of how Serena knew that the other woman was marching with them. "In fact, for a short time I thought that you were my sister in arms, I thought you were my other wing that the Dragon had promised to reveal to me. You should have been. You were the one who could have aided Pandora to a glorious victory. With you at my side we could have avoided all of these unfortunate casualties. We could have avoided this Whirlwind that has been unleashed on the city of Atlanta."

"I'm not like you, Serena," Angel said, but she continued to hug herself. "I'm nothing like you at all."

"Oh yes you are, Doctor and you and I both know this to be true," Serena said as they approached the first flight of stairs on the long route to street level. "But that is not the reason that I pity you...Angel."

"You feel pity for me?"

"Oh yes, Doctor. I don't have any other word for the tribulation that you are now going to face. I have been lonely, Doctor. I know what it feels like. And I know that the only thing in the world that you are afraid of is being lonely. But you are headed for a season of loneliness like no other, a loneliness that will have you begging my flames to take you from your suffering."

And then they left a stunned and visibly shaken Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree on that floor while they moved on.

On the ground level at last, Sheridan turned Serena over to yet another group of well-armed men who placed her in the back of a nondescript looking van of no color. There were two agents seated on either side of her, a driver, another agent with his gun pointed at her from the front seat and one last agent seated on the passenger side carrying a radio. He spoke into it as the both the side and back doors bolted in place behind them with audible clicks.

Sheridan shadowed the entire operation and Thomas Pepper from two steps behind him. The FBI agent looked at Thomas for a full minute and nodded at him once...but the larger man caught multiple messages in the simplest of gestures. He thought it said: You have been helpful to my agency that I serve and a country that I love, Mr. Pepper. I don't quite understand the nature of your relationship with Serena Tennyson—I don't think that I want to know. It may have taken my people hours more to find her on our own. Your phone call to us telling us where she was may have saved lives today. You deserve a moment to say your goodbye to her.

And then Special Agent Nicholas Sheridan took one more step back into the shadows of the hotel. It was all the privacy that the two of them would be allowed.

Thomas thought that it would be enough.

"I don't love you, Thomas," Serena said to him softly and without preamble. "I can't. I don't know that I am capable of exhibiting that kind of emotion."

Thomas nodded.

"I know, Serena. You don't have to explain.to me. I'm unsure of what my feelings truly are for you as well." He heard the hesitation in his own voice. "I came here to your hotel with the intention of somehow, someway...killing you for all of the pain that you've caused.

"I know, Thomas. I saw your feelings in my flames as well. Your moment passed. Like I said before, I'm not sure what to call the feelings that I carry inside for you. But for the first time in my life...for the first time I felt something that was not a fraternal love for men like Isaac Prince, Raymond Rice or my father of course. And then Danielle Rohm taught me what it was like to have a sister." Serena paused in thought. "Perhaps that is why this final goodbye that we are sharing feels so sad to me."

"I'm going to see you often over the next few months, Serena." Thomas reminded her of her coming trial. He tried his best to concentrate on the beautiful woman that the right side of Serena Tennyson's face that still showed through—but the other side would not be ignored...

"There won't be a trial, Thomas." She said after a long silence that stirred Thomas heartstrings and tested Sheridan's patience. "I've seen it in the flames. I won't live long enough to see a trial. More importantly to me, right now, I'm going to die without ever feeling what romantic love is like. I want that now more than anything else in the world, Thomas. I wish I could have had that with...you."

Thomas heard the agent sitting on the passenger side of the van speak into his radio and heard the engine fire up as a response to whatever was said to him.

"Serena," Sheridan spoke up over the van's engine and the helicopters that had renewed their presence on the scene. Thomas watched as six more vans that looked just like the one in front of him took their place on the next street. Thomas got the plan at once. Three of the cars would be placed in front of the one escorting this one, while three would be set behind it. "Once again, you have my word that you will be protected every step of the way in the coming process."

The officer carrying the radio said: "Agent Sheridan, the prisoner's escort convoy is ready and at your disposal, sir."

"Very well," Sheridan pulled Thomas aside so that he wouldn't be threatened by the onslaught on vehicles that were passing him at a rapid pace. Something caused Thomas to look skyward—and he saw snipers there as well. He imagined them atop the buildings lining the route all the way to the courthouse. Thomas belief that Serena's anxiety was just that, anxiety with little substance to support her claims of imminent danger comforted him at least. "I will be in car four. Mr. Pepper, if you will join me, I will need you to make an official statement for the record."

Thomas nodded automatically.

"Of course, Agent Sheridan,"

The helicopters took their own strategic positions around the caravan as well. And then Thomas saw Agent Christopher Prince and Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree step out from the stairwell of the hotel as well. The doctor had her arms wrapped around her friend's torso and he guessed that she was whispering her own words of comfort and support to him as he had to Serena moments earlier.

Serena's van begins moving slowly and Serena is asked to sit in the seat that had been assigned to her.

"I'm asking your forgiveness for my sins, Thomas," And then she said louder a voice so that all who occupied the area would hear her clearly. "I am asking you all to forgive me for my sins. I won't live long enough to pay for them by your definition of justice. I've seen it in the flames—"

"I forgive you, Serena," Thomas wasn't sure why he said it. He was even more unsure when he heard himself say it again.

On the main street, Thomas could see the first three cars of the caravan starting up. Serena's van had some catching up to do to match their speed and make up the distance—

"I'm going to die, Thomas," Serena screamed. He could hear her crying now. "I don't want to die, Thomas—and I don't want you to die either—"

Serena's van straightened itself into traffic and Thomas watched the wheels turn right ever so slightly as it began to bend the corner. Serena's pleas for mercy drew down in volume as the van drove out of range—

And then the van exploded and the fireball licked one of the two helicopters that was hovering above the way a lizard would welcome an unrespecting fly to be the honored guest to dinner.

The eruption knocked Thomas Pepper and everyone who was previously standing on the street down to the ground.

No—no—no—no—no—no--

There was a moment of confusion...a second moment of madness... and a last moment of mad confusion until Thomas Pepper saw dozens upon dozens of agent approaching the fireball from all sides. Agent Christopher Prince was one of the first people on the scene standing as close to this massacre would allow. Angel limped as fast as her diseased left leg let her—until it failed her at last and she ungraciously tumbled back to the ground from which she came. Agent Nicholas Sheridan lost it: He pulled out his gun and the one he'd extracted from Agent Prince inside Serena's hotel room and unleashed a barge of bullets into the smoky air above until both clips were empty. The copter that had barely escaped the fireball circled back and forth over the wreckage of van and its dead sister.

Thomas Pepper didn't move.

He couldn't move.

All of his extremities had gone numb and were unresponsive. He wished his feet to walk and they would not.

But he knew what was working just fine indeed.

Thomas could feel the hot tears running down his face, he could feel the snot spilling out of his nose.

But what he crying simply for her—or was he desperate to know if her prognosis she'd revealed to him with her last breath was true.

And he could hear his voice...oh yes, he could hear the words, however faint, coming from out of his mouth slow and repetitious.

"I forgive you, Serena...I forgive you...I forgive...I..."

End of Episode 8

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Sneek Peek at Whirlwind

Stop.Look. Listen.

But don't you dare inquire any further

You don't want to see what I've seen.

You don't want to know what I know.

Xavier Prince, Louis/Hugh Keaton and Serena Tennyson are dead but their legacy of belligerence, unpredictability and ruthlessness cast a large, dark shadow of uncernity over the lives of those that were left behind.

Atlanta has paid a heavy price and now lies in ruins. And the country that all three loved so much teeters ever closer to the edge of an abyss from which it may never fully recover.

And yet, the worse is still to come.

Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree and Thomas Pepper have learned the Whirlwind's secrets—all of her secrets.

The two of them have discovered a plot far more calculating, harrowing and audacious than anyone of them would have possibly imagined.

And they already be too late to stop it.

Exposing the truth about the Whirlwind may be the one thing that sets it free.

Dedication

As I've said before, this one is for...well, for me. This tale has been in my pipeline for a long time.
Nest Egg Publishing Note:

This was a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are use factiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Nest Egg Presents: Where are our Children

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Episode 9: Whirlwind (Coming Soon)

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