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Lightning Unleashed

By Elizabeth Bell

This story is dedicated to all mothers who have loved and raised a child they did not birth. You are a Goddess!

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author.

We have your son

Chapter 1 - We Have Your Son

Karen remembered when she and her son moved to Jonestown, Texas. They weren’t too far from Houston, which meant Sammy, her mischievous little seven-year-old, could go to a bigger school with lots of kids to play with while she could stay home and sell online custom sleepwear and keep their modest two-story house spotless. As far as the neighbors knew, Sammy’s father was not in the picture, and both Karen and Sammy made it a point never to discuss him. She found out, after their many moves to homes in isolated country towns they had lived in, the bigger cities didn’t give a shit about fathers as long as the mother provided for her kid, paid her taxes, and minded the law.

Recently, Sammy had gone on a field trip to NanoTech Incorporated with his school and somehow got away from the group with his best friend, Josh Spiel. In stumbling around the restricted hallway, they wound up knocking over several containers of God-knew what, all over the area, bruising and burying themselves in the process. Luckily, the boxes were Styrofoam, and whatever was packed in them was light.

Other than scraped knees and elbows, Sammy had said one of the project managers who came out of a room with a keyscan card, had pinched his butt while helping him up. Sammy had then compounded the move by screaming insults at the flustered employee, kicking him in the shin, and calling him a pedo. Karen looked, but because he was slightly battered, she had seen nothing and so dismissed it as an overreaction to getting in trouble.

Both boys were now banned from Nanotech, which was no great loss to Karen, who didn’t even know what it was. She had called the school to give them a tongue lashing and highly recommend they hire more competent aides, before turning her displeasure on her son for his penchant for not paying attention. This took place a few days ago, and the boys’ slumber party planned a month before that fateful field trip was almost canceled, but Karen and Josh’s mom, Rene, gave in to the boys’ begging. What the Hades, she thought at the time, they won their little league softball game, so why not let Sammy stay Thursday till Sunday at Josh’s? He could just ride to school with them that Friday and go camping on the weekend, and Karen would have a little break.

While she had no friends, Karen liked the slim blue-eyed woman, the mother of her son’s best friend. Rene was deaf and a bit clumsy and had recently dropped her phone in the toilet, so she and Karen had been sending notes in the boys’ backpacks, the old fashioned way until Rene could get to the store to get another phone. On that day, Karen had sent a note to the bus driver to allow Sammy to be dropped off at Josh’s house instead of home. Her four-day child-free hiatus had loomed like a marvelous cake she could devour now that she successfully handed Sammy into someone else’s hands.

This was the reason she was being tortured.

Through slitted gummy eyes, she watched the fourth fingernail of her left hand be pried up. The pain had her screaming into the filthy gag shoved in her mouth. Through burning tears, she watched the pink meat darken from a dainty shell color to an angry maroon, which began to sprout beads of blood as had the other three before it.

“Damn, she’s tough.” The man who spoke that was dressed like the other two, in dark slacks and black sweaters with turtlenecks. It was a little chilly outside, but Karen was sure they wore these clothes to inspire fear. She didn’t know them, and had at first thought they were some cult that had followed her to Texas.

They made sure she was done screaming before removing the gag. She dragged in her breath, letting it out in a soft sob. The one torturing her had a dark crewcut sprinkled with gray, and cold blue eyes. They were clean-shaven, and from that, she deduced they might be the government, though why they had taken an interest in her son, she hadn’t found out yet.

“Look, Mrs. Ways, we don’t want to keep hurting you, but we will. I know you don’t understand, but it’s vital we get Sammy. In fact, I believe I can say that it’s a life or death situation. Surely, you don’t want your son to suffer because of you, do you??”

She took a deep breath. Her voice was a mere croak now as she asked the same question she had been asking for the last hour and a half. “What do you want with my son?”

The three looked annoyed now. The one who had tied her to the chair with fishing twine shook his head. “Jason, just kill her and get it over with. Once it’s on the news, the boy will turn up.”

Jason, who must have been her torturer, shrugged. “It’s not just the kid we need. We also need to know how she knew he was infected and who else knows. Get me the pliers I’ll start on her teeth.”

“I think we should shove something long and hard up her ass,” volunteered one.

“That kind of thing is for later, trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

“Shame, she’s so damn old. We could have had a little piece of ass.”

“Old? You’re griping about old Paul? When we had that assignment in Russia...”

Karen ignored them. She deliberately rubbed her wrists against the fishing twine to make them bleed and give her some lubrication. While they had wrapped her hands to the armrest of the chair, her legs and feet were free, and she leaned over slightly as if overcome with pain and fear.

She made a mental note of what they were saying, although she was mildly amused at being dismissed as too old. Her face was stern, with black hair cut to curl under her ears, her jowls were somewhat soft and hung down, but even at her age, she looked as though there was no possible way any of them had been older than her.

“Go out to the SUV, get on the radio, and see if there’s an update,” Jason said.

The one called Paul, who seemed to have a rape fetish, shrugged and headed upstairs. When this whole thing had started, she had found out some information. They had been watching her and Sammy for a week for some unknown reason. The sudden stop of Sammy’s bus with no Sammy threw them in a panic.

They had broken in, hit her hard enough to stun her, then dragged her to the basement. They had then stuffed a rag in her mouth, tied her hands, and believed they were going to get information out of her.

Karen braced her feet on the floor, set apart, and leaned forward a bit more, getting the back legs of the chair to raise at an angle. She could have screamed, but she knew most of her neighbors would be at work. Besides, she didn’t want help, not until she was finished with these bastards. She needed to find out what had happened to Sammy. An infection had occurred, fine; if these were government men, it had to do with the Nanotech corporation. She impatiently flung a chunk of black, sweaty hair from her eyes and glared at them.

****

Jason chuckled at her look. “I gotta hand it to you, Mrs. Ways, you’re one tough broad, but I’ve been doing this for—”

He dunked with a grunt as she stood in a stoop and swung the chair with all her might, hitting Jason dead on. One of the chair legs caught him square in the nose, making his eyes water, and he staggered back. He cursed angrily after hearing noises, which he could only assume was Worthington treated to the same thing. What the hell did this woman think she was going to accomplish? So she busted his nose, so what? She had to have known that it was the best she was going to do.

Jason heard an odd gurgling sound. He pulled out his knife and squinted to see if the woman was still alive or if Worthington had lost patience with her and killed her. It took him a moment to process what he was seeing. Worthington was up against the wall of the basement, blood pouring from his nose and mouth. Mrs. Ways was grinning at Jason. She was still tied to the chair, but she had somehow managed to drive one of the back legs into Worthingtons stomach skewering him against the wall, which wasn’t fucking possible, no way. Even Paul, the biggest guy there, wouldn’t have the strength to do that. He fumbled for his gun.

Her eyes seemed to glow as she repositioned her feet. He brought his piece up and fired. It had a silencer, so the only noises were muffled thwipping sounds as the bullets bit through the air. Karen merely swung around again, holding Worthington’s weight up, letting his body eat the bullets. If he had still been alive, Jason took care of that problem.

While Jason hesitated, stunned by this sudden change in the situation, she swung the chair with all her might, throwing the dead body hanging off the chair legs onto Jason, who grunted, unprepared for it. It crashed into him, knocking him over. While he struggled to get out from under the deadweight, Karen leaned against the wall then threw the chair against the wall, once, twice, the third time it cracked. James wiggled out from under the body, his stomach curdling as he tried not to think too much about what he was seeing. Madness lay down that path. The fourth time, there was a splinter as the chair began to come apart. All the while, Karen jerked at her hands, smearing the blood as she tried to get them loose.

Jason picked up his gun as another crack sounded through the basement. Karen turned her back on him, hunching down, using what was left of the chair as her cover. He watched the bullet fly by her ear. She cried out in pain as another hit her calf. With a mighty grunt, she spread her body out like a starfish, gained her feet, and shed the pieces of the chair that had still been on her.

****

Karen angrily brushed off the fishing line, glad the last one, Paul, was it? Had just wrapped it on the armrests and not tied it, making it easier to get free.

She spotted the knife Jason pulled out, and she scooped it up, still walking grimly toward him. He was frantically reloading his gun, looking both pissed and worried. He tensed, no doubt ready to fight her hand to hand if he needed to. He was still twisting to get the lower half of his body out from under his dead partner.

****

Except Karen didn’t try to take the gun. Nor did she seem interested in escaping. Before Jason had an inkling of what she meant to do, she clumsily jumped on top of him and sunk the knife into his back. He screamed just as his hands went limp. Everything lost feeling except for above his upper chest. His left hand danced foolishly with no control over it. The gun clattered to the floor. He knew without being told she had just severed his spinal cord,

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 06.05.2020
ISBN: 978-3-7487-3982-1

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