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  Martin pushed through and stepped into a different world. Steel reinforced walls surrounded him on four sides. An airlock door was directly in front of him. After an eye scan and entering a password, the door slid open. While from the outside the warehouse looked like a decrepit old building, the inside had every modern convenience. In fact, the outside was simply a shell. They had cleared out the entirety of the inside of the warehouse and built a new interior, complete with walls and ceiling.

  And while the area around the warehouse may have looked abandoned, he had been under surveillance for two blocks. Every car and pedestrian within five miles of the warehouse was inspected. If the individuals continued on their way, they would never know the derelict warehouse was anything but abandoned. But if anyone dared to try to enter the warehouse or even its property, well, that would not end well for them.

  He stepped into the main hub of the warehouse. The low hum of computers and work greeted him. On the far wall to his right were servers encased in refrigerated glass containers. In front of them were a dozen cubicles where his analysts worked. On his left was a long line of glass walls holding his office, and then in the back was his small apartment. On the other side was a small lounge area. It contained three leather couches, a couple of beat-up chairs, and a small kitchen area.

  He ignored all of the analysts and headed for his office. He stepped into the room, tapping a button on the console on his desk that would darken the glass around him. No one would be able to see in, but he would be able to see everything happening outside the room. Shaking off his jacket, he hung it on the stand by the door.

  Stacy Mal hustled in. She placed a coffee on the desk in front of him. At forty-two years of age, Stacy still dressed like the college kid she had been when Martin had recruited her. She wore her blonde hair in a ponytail, a Harvard sweatshirt, jeans, and Converse sneakers. From the back, she could easily be mistaken for a college kid. But from the front it was clear from the lines in her face that she had lived a life.

  Stacy placed two files on the desk in front of him, next to the coffee. “I have something for you.”

  Martin took a seat behind the desk and pulled one of the files close. He scanned the filename: Sandra Gillibrand. It took him a moment to place it. The case out in Kansas. It had been a D.E.A.D. case. Two science experiments from Area 51, the Blue Boys had targeted the son at the home. It was the farthest east the creatures had traveled. Sandra Gillibrand was the mother and had taken down one of the Blue Boys, not an easy task.

  But the second one had been taken down by a creature that had never been meant to escape Area 51. It should have died there.

  I should have killed it years ago. “What did you find?”

  “You know the basics: Sandra Gillibrand, single mother, former Marine, widow. Luke Gillibrand, age ten, autistic. Nothing for the last ten years sent up any red flags. They’ve been struggling financially, she has a strained relationship with her parents. And Luke has had some trouble at school due to behavioral issues.”

  “Aggression?”

  “No. He’s been targeted by bullies.”

  Martin rubbed his eyes. “Why are you bringing this to me?”

  “I did a search on Luke’s father. He died in Iraq before Luke was born. Luke never met him.”

  A headache was building behind Martin’s eyes. He scrounged in the desk drawer to his right for some ibuprofen. Latching on to the bottle, he said, “Yes, and?”

  “And his career was pretty unremarkable except for one thing: He was part of a project called Antaeus.”

  Popping two pills, he swallowed them down with some coffee. Antaeus was an interesting choice of names. In mythology, Antaeus was the son of Poseidon and Gaia. He was incredibly strong when physically connected to the earth. “I’m not familiar with the project.”

  “I thought as much. It was actually a project spearheaded and designed by Robert Buckley.”

  Stacy had all of his attention now. Robert Buckley, his former mentor, had taught Martin almost everything he knew. But Martin had slowly outpaced him, developing his own base of knowledge and cache of secrets. And apparently, Buckley had kept his own secrets as well, including Project Antaeus.

  Stacy continued. “Antaeus involved trying to create a more advanced soldier. The soldiers were given shots under the guise of vitamin supplements, to enhance their abilities. Then they were studied over the course of a year.”

  Another Captain America attempt. “And the results of the study?”

  Stacy shook her head. “A complete failure. Most of the soldiers were killed in action by the end of the year. But even before that, they showed no greater ability, no higher kill rate, no improvement at all in their functioning.”

  “What about the ones that didn’t die?”

  “They’re all dead now. If they didn’t die in Iraq, they did when they got home.”

  Martin met Stacy’s eyes. Apparently Buckley made sure that all traces of the project had disappeared.

  “But I believe they overlooked one piece of evidence: Luke.” Stacy pointed to a line on the file he was reading.

  It was the dates that the project had run and then been officially abandoned. Martin looked up and smiled. Sandra Gillibrand became pregnant while her husband was on leave, and while he was part of the project.

  Martin sat back at his desk. “What was in the supplements?”

  “It’s in the other file. Buckley created the supplement from some sort of sample they had at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.”

  Martin went still. No, that bastard. He wouldn’t.

  He pulled the file to him and quickly scanned through the data, his anger rising. If Buckley wasn’t dead, Martin would take great joy in killing him all over again. He closed the file. “I’m going to need a strike team. Tell them to bring me Luke Gillibrand. I want him unharmed.”

  Stacy nodded. “What about the mother? She’ll defend him.”

  Martin waved her away. “She’s unimportant. If she gets in the way, kill her.”

  Chapter Four

  Tribune, Kansas

  Sandra Gillibrand’s eyes flew open, her heart pounding. The images of the blue creature reaching for Luke stayed in the forefront of her mind. It’s a nightmare. It’s not real.

  The words didn’t help, because she knew they had been real. The Blue Boys had been at her home. They had tried to kill her and her son. If not for Sammy …

  She stopped that line of thinking. She didn’t know what to make of the winged creature that had saved them. But she knew that contemplating who or what he was would go nowhere, especially in the early morning hours.

  She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her heart rate while her gaze raked the room for any sign that something was wrong. The bedroom looked as it always did these days. The blinds were drawn tight, but the night light in the corner provided enough of a glow to see the three beige walls and one dark green. At one point, the green wall had been beige as well. She and Noah had stenciled ‘Always kiss me goodnight’ on it the first week they had moved in. A month after he died in Iraq, she’d painted over it, unable to sleep in the room otherwise.

  She hadn’t shared her bed with another man in the ten years since. She’d had two casual relationships in that time, but she’d never brought them home. Home was her and Luke.

  The only other person who’d slept in her bed had been her son, Luke. He’d slept there most of his toddler years and then on and off until age eight, when he’d stopped altogether. But after what had happened in the cornfield, he had not wanted to be more than a few feet from her, especially in sleep.

  The gray blankets shifted as Luke rolled to his side. Sandra reached across the bed as the first moan began. “Luke, Luke. Wake up.”

  Sandra’s ten-year-old son moaned again, his eyes still closed. But his chest rose and fell quickly, his breathing coming out in pants. The blankets and sheet had become entangled in his legs. She pulled them free, smoothing them around him. “Wake up, honey.”
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  Luke’s eyes flew open as he jolted upright. His brown eyes were huge as they scanned the room, his head shifting from side to side.

  Sandra was careful not to touch him. Sometimes her touch made it worse when he was not fully awake. “It’s all right, honey. It was just a dream.”

  Luke’s head continued to swivel back and forth, his chest heaving before he seemed to be able to focus on Sandra. He stared at her, looking heartbreakingly young, his bottom lip trembling. “Mom?”

  Sandra forced a small smile to her lips. “It’s me, baby. Everything’s fine. It was just a bad dream.”

  Luke slid back down to the bed. Sandra reached over and pulled the blankets back up to his chin, tucking them in around him again. “Go back to sleep. Mama’s here.”

  “You won’t let the bad men get me?”

  Sandra pushed the hair back from his forehead. “Never.”

  Luke nodded his head. Sandra sat next to him, her back against the headboard as his breathing slowed and evened out.

  You won’t let the bad men get me? He’d asked her the same question every night since it had happened. He never mentioned the Blue Boys. They weren’t what had scared him. No, for Luke it was the government people who’d shown up afterward that brought out his fear and no doubt crowded his nightmares.

  She pushed back his hair once again and then traced the contour of his face. She loved him more than she could possibly explain. And each night he slipped into a world of nightmares that she could not protect him from.

  After what they had been through, she knew it was normal. The government still hadn’t explained how it was that blue apes had somehow appeared at their home. They hadn’t explained where they had come from or how they’d escaped. And they certainly hadn’t explained why they seemed to have targeted Luke.

  And they definitely hadn’t explained Sammy, the dark winged creature that had saved him from the same blue apes. Of course, Sandra had kept her mentions of Sammy short, practically nondescript. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because he saved Luke. And she had a feeling that whatever the government intended toward Sammy, it wouldn’t be good for the creature.

  At the same time, she was wracked with guilt. What if she had read the creature wrong? What if he actually was dangerous? He had saved Luke, but those wings of his were not soft, fluffy angel wings. They were dark, leathery, and came to a sharp point at the edges.

  Those wings were built for battle or destruction.

  Sandra ran a hand through her hair, knowing that once again she was tying her mind up in knots. She relived the events of that night, like she’d done a dozen times a day. Her memories slowed when she came to the follow-up after the incident. She hadn’t liked the first D.E.A.D. agent that she had met. But the second one, Norah Tidwell, she had been different. Sandra had the feeling Norah knew that she had been holding back. But Norah hadn’t called her on it.

  Sandra reached over to the bedside table and pulled up the business card that Norah had given her. The card was now worn at the corners. Sandra must’ve looked at it twelve times a day lately. Once again, she wondered if maybe she should call her. If maybe the agent might be able to tell them something, anything, that might help Luke sleep.

  That might help me sleep.

  With a sigh, Sandra stood, slipping the card into the pocket of her sweatpants. She knew from experience that she wasn’t going to sleep any more. A quick glance showed that it was four o’clock. She had to be at the diner at eight after she got Luke to school, assuming he would even go to school. Some days he refused, and she didn’t have the heart to fight him on it.

  But with him asleep, it was a good time to check the latest rental listings. Sandra had decided that she and Luke needed to move. The house had too many bad memories now. She hoped that maybe a new place without those memories might help Luke sleep a little bit easier. But she also knew mentioning it to him would just open a whole new can of worms. She planned on telling him about moving once she had everything set up.

  Making her way downstairs, she set up the old coffee maker on the counter and pulled out a box of cereal. By the time she had her cereal set up, the coffee had started to brew. Replacing the coffeepot with her mug, she waited while staring out the window above the sink for the mug to fill. Unnerved by the darkness outside, she quickly pulled the curtains shut.

  Replacing the mug with the coffeepot, she took the bowl of cereal and the mug to the table and set them up next to her laptop. Carefully booting it up, she sipped on the coffee while she waited for the laptop to boot up. It was ancient and had to weigh close to ten pounds, and it had Windows 95 as its operating system. But a new laptop wasn’t in the budget. She’d been hoping to go to college in the fall, but she wasn’t sure if she would be able to afford it and a new laptop. She’d gotten money from the government for their “trouble.” Some had gone to car repairs, she’d started a college fund for Luke, and she hoped the rest could help her get a master’s degree at the local community college. A laptop was an extravagance at this point.

  When the laptop was finally ready, she did another search for apartments and houses to rent. There was still nothing that would work for them. The ones in their school district were simply too expensive. And the ones outside of their school district were simply unthinkable. Luke struggled at school. Kids were simply not that understanding of a sensitive autistic boy like Luke. But she also knew that Luke would be even more terrified by a new school. That would set them back even further.

  Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

  She felt tears building against the back of her eyes. She reached up, rubbing her eyes hard, pushing against her eyelids and hopefully pushing away the tears. She didn’t have time for tears. She didn’t have time to give into that kind of weakness. She was all Luke had. She needed to stay strong. But some days, like right now, it was so overwhelming. She shoved the thoughts away and took a bite of her now soggy cereal. She ate on autopilot, her mind blessedly blank.

  She stood up and placed her bowl in the kitchen sink, quickly rinsing it out and washing it and the spoon before placing them in the dish rack next to the sink. She started to refill her coffee when she heard movement upstairs. Her eyes darted to the clock. It was barely five. Luke was going to have a rough day if he got up this early.

  Oh, who am I kidding? Every day’s a rough day lately.

  Luke barreled down the steps. Sandra placed the mug quickly on the counter and hurried over to him. “Luke? What’s the matter, honey?”

  Luke gripped her hand, pulling her toward the door. “They’re coming. We need to go.”

  Sandra dug in her feet, holding herself where she was. What was this? Was he sleepwalking? He looked awake. “No one’s coming, honey. We’re fine. It was just a dream.”

  Luke reached up to his head and yanked on his hair. “No, they’re coming. We have to go. Sammy says we have to go.” Tears brimmed in his eyes, and the look on his face was full of terror.

  The hair on the back of Sandra’s neck rose. She glanced around their small kitchen. It was quiet. Nothing was wrong. And yet …

  Sandra grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door, grabbing her pocketbook from the hook by the door along with her keys, then she slipped her feet into her sneakers. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Chapter Five

  The Coast of Nova Scotia

  Iggy leapt for the branch five feet from the ground. Despite the fact he stood only slightly over two feet tall and had a stocky body with a small potbelly, he made the leap with no problem. Talons extended from each of his hands, reminding Norah of lobster claws. The sun filtered through the branches, highlighting the small patch of white hair on his head between his pointed ears.

  His white bandage stood out against his green skin. According to Greg, he was healing incredibly fast. But with each acrobatic move he made, she tensed, expecting him to rip open the stitches Greg had placed. When he reached a few branches higher, Norah lost sight of him for a moment, his green skin ble
nding into the leaves. But then she caught sight of his red shorts as he leaped down, throwing a somersault before grabbing a branch to slow his fall and rolling to his feet on the ground.

  In less than a breath, he swung himself into the next tree. In seconds, he’d made his way to the top of the tree as well. Norah made her way to the base, her hands on her hips as she looked up at him. “You are seriously fast.”

  “Ig, Ig.”

  Iggy leaped from the top of the tree, plunging six feet before grabbing a hold of a branch from the next tree over and slinging himself to the top of it.

  Norah released the breath she’d been holding when he’d leaped, her heart pounding. Well, that decides it. I am never having kids.

  Iggy chattered away happily, not even noticing how terrified his antics made Norah. And why should he? He was just doing what came naturally to him. He wasn’t human. He wasn’t even from Earth. She needed to learn what he could do so that Iggy just being Iggy didn’t set her heart threatening to pound its way out of her chest.

  Norah shook her head at the thought. She had never been one to tie herself down. She’d had a few relationships over the years, but none had really stuck for the long term. She’d moved from place to place, and she’d liked the thrill of checking out a new place and finding places to haunt. But when it was time to pack up, she’d happily done so, ready for the next adventure.

  It was why working for D.E.A.D. after her military career was over had been such a good fit. She and her former D.E.A.D. partner, Bob Maxwell, had crisscrossed the country tracking down their targets. All had been escapees from Area 51. Norah wasn’t sure how long the government had been creating alien hybrid creatures in their labs, but she had personally seen the database with over fifty different types. Threat level for the targets ranged from level 1–5, although Norah had only seen one creature ever labeled a level 5. All the cases she had been given were level four: terminate on sight. And now she knew that the threat level had been a smoke screen. It was a termination mission she was being sent on. No creature was supposed to survive.