Free Winter's Legacy: Future Days (Winter's Saga Book 6) by Karen Luellen Page B

draped in his arms.  Cole moved over, making room for the girl who looked closer to dead than alive.  Evan’s face was grim as he positioned her body carefully.  He moved to put her seat belt on and with Cole’s help had her secured in seconds. 
    “You good to drive, Creed?”  Evan asked.  As the two remaining who could fight, it was up to them to get every body out alive.
    “I’ll drive like a bat outta hell if it means we survive tonight,” Creed muttered.
    “Good, ’cause I’m pretty sure we’re gonna be followed, and I need to shoot.”
    Creed looked over at Evan—a question clearly written in his eyes.
    “Flames.”
    “Copy that.”  Creed slipped behind the steering wheel and shoved the keys into the ignition.  A quick glance proved Evan had retrieved Kylie’s lighter and was ready.  His window was rolled down and the smell of exhaust fumes were starting to pour into the closed-in garage.   
    Creed pushed the garage door opener and braced himself.
     

12  Company Leader
     
    “What the hell do you mean they got away?” Williams was livid.  He had been glowering at the destroyed equipment and dead soldiers at the make-shift base near the Winter’s yellow house on the hill in Cairo.  What should have been a smooth, surgical attack had exploded in his face—literally.
    His limousine pulled up beside him and out stepped Stanley Marks who moved to open the door for the Director.  Just inside the limo was Dr. Percival Chaunders.  His fat, greasy hands shook as he struggled to measure out a powerful opioid painkiller in a syringe for Williams.  Williams had insisted Chaunders come with him to Cairo as his personal doctor.  Without his daughter’s restorative blood, the Director’s health was failing much more rapidly than he had anticipated.
    “Sir,” Trent Hollier tried to use a calming tone, but he was just as incensed as the Director at the operation’s failure.  He was badly burned, but had survived the torching by ducking behind a thick coffee table.  “Dr. Winter and half the family escaped.  The four remaining were all male, trained and highly formidable.” 
    Hollier wasn’t just an excellent soldier, he was brilliant, too.  Not many others had risen to the ranks of company leader at nineteen.  His specialty was his skill with a blade, but he was well versed in all standard issue weaponry.
    “Highly formidable?  We had fifty metasoldiers!  Fifty against four?  I want explanations and I want them now!”  From just inside the limo, Chaunders flinched reflexively.
    Kerry Braden, Trent’s second-in-command, approached with a small stack of papers in his thick hands.  Trent nodded to Kerry wordlessly ordering him to a silent, at-ready position off to the side.
    “Sir, Kylie Monroe’s intel concerning Evan Winter didn’t prepare us enough.  He was the one responsible for the returned fire after the initial RPG.”
    Williams narrowed his eyes.  What was left of the lids was bloody and torn, pulling away from his bulging eyeballs, but Trent forced himself not to stare at the grotesque effect.
    “We were cautioned he could manipulate fire.  What more warning did you need, Company Leader?”
    “Sir, we had no idea how well he could control it.  He killed,” Trent looked down at the report still in his hand, “ten soldiers and left three more severely burned at the perimeter trench.”
    “What?  I had no idea so many were lost!”
    “We chose this site as a tactically offensive position—we didn’t recognize the need for defensive attributes, sir.”
    “Continue your report, Hollier.” Dr. Williams spoke through gritted dentures.
    “We’re still counting the number of losses at the Winter house.”
    “How many soldiers do I have left?”  Williams flung his arms angrily, spittle flapping from his foaming mouth.  Chaunders ducked further back into the limousine with the still-full syringe hoping to stay out of Williams’ way.
    “T hirty-eight