The Clash (The Permutation Archives Book 5) Read online

  The Clash

  The Permutation Archives Book 5

  By

  Kindra Sowder

  Published by

  Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly, LLC.

  Novi, Michigan 48374

  This Book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The Clash

  Copyright © 2018 by Kindra Sowder

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Artist: Pretty AF Designs

  Edited by: Elizabeth A. Lance

  EAL Editing Services

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

  Dedication

  To my sister, Jewell. A shining light in the dark that can never be extinguished.

  She has continued to inspire me with her will-power, her strength, and undying love that – even in the direst of moments – will always bring that same bravery to others.

  I love you, sissy. This final installment of your favorite series is for you.

  “Who overcomes

  By force, hath overcome but half his foe.”

  John Milton ‘Paradise Lost’

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  Darkness.

  It was all I could see, but plenty of sounds greeted me from beyond the leaden walls of my prison. This, I was certain, was a tactic to instill fear in me that I had sworn to Cecilia and Julius was absent. I had been through far too much at the hands of King and those that followed him – willingly or not – to be afraid of him.

  That left my mind wide open to other sources of terror, one being the complete and utter blackness I found myself in. It reminded me of the moments of my death after King’s attack on Kiawah Island, except this darkness was finite. There would be a time where it would cease to exist. That was the difference, and it made me much less afraid.

  Pain was another source. The agony in my missing leg had become a severe burning and tearing pain even though anything from the knee down had been severed. Even then, my foot felt like Hellfire burned it up, and there was nothing else to occupy my mind to dull it. Nothing except for the noises of computers, hushed whispers, and Emerson King’s – our president’s – orders. I knew with a burning certainty that I was the topic of discussion, but could never make out more than my name. While King’s videos sent to the Fallen Paradigm by John Baker had alluded to a portion of King’s plans, it didn’t divulge enough, and when the attack came, there was no way for us to prepare.

  Leaning my head back against the wall, hair, and skin oily from what felt like days of not showering, I gritted my teeth past the ripping sensation that tore through my missing limb. Sightless as a newborn kitten, I leaned forward stiffly and rolled up my pant leg, exposing the metal of my prosthetic limb. I ran my hand over the coolness of it, hoping that I could trick my brain into thinking I was soothing the appendage. It did nothing. Somehow, the nerves still felt as active as ever even though they were no longer attached. Clenching my jaw past the pain, my fingers grazed the prosthetic until I found exactly what I was looking for. A tiny, nearly undetectable button that would release the magnetic pull between the sleeve and the prosthetic itself so I could remove it. I pressed the button and heard a small hiss, the vacuum releasing pressure, and the magnets disengaged, liberating my remaining limb from bondage.

  As soon as I pulled the prosthetic and the sleeve away, I felt my flesh and muscles expand, and the pain increased exponentially. Almost to the point that I cried out, but I had made the decision I wouldn’t show weakness. Not in King’s presence or any others affiliated with him, father or not. He had already seen enough at the Spartan Compound. He didn’t need more ammunition.

  I am a giant.

  I repeated it to myself until I began to believe it, but that didn’t deaden the discomfort. Placing my palm on the bottom of the stump, I applied a small amount of pressure, the nerves underneath lighting up with fresh agony.

  “Ow! Son of a bitch,” I hissed past my grinding teeth.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, holding back the tears that stung my eyes and threatened to unleash in rivers down my cheeks.

  Slowly, I pushed the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding through pursed lips, curling my fingertips into the soft, meaty flesh in hopes the equally spaced small points of pressure would ease the discomfort.

  A voice, one I came to know well, echoed through my miniscule cage.

  “With the new technology available, Mila, my scientists and doctors at Fuji-O’Hara can take care of that pesky problem of yours,” King’s voice resonated through the tiny space.

  I could hear him, but couldn’t see him, which made the sound of his voice much more sinister than usual. Instead of looking up, knowing I wouldn’t find the source of the sound, I continued to focus as well as I could on my leg in the dark.

  “No thanks. Everything with you comes with a price tag,” I replied.

  My voice didn’t tremble from the pain, which made me oddly proud of myself considering my circumstances. I should have been terrified, anxious, and jumpy – along with a whole host of other emotions. There were remnants of each, but not so much that I couldn’t stifle them to avoid King’s use of them to his advantage.

  “Phantom limb syndrome will haunt you for the rest of your life, Mila.”

  My name. He would say it over and over again as he spoke to me to give the illusion that what I wanted or needed was of the utmost importance. It was a shame I knew exactly what games he played to meet his ends. Otherwise, I would have taken the bait.

  “And, strangely, I’m so okay with that that I am going to deny whatever,” I motioned with my hand in circles toward the ceiling, “cure you’re offering.”

  I am a giant. Do not show fear. Do not show that you are willing to listen, no matter what he says.

  “As my daughter, you will be getting only the finest care, Mila.”

  The use of my name again. I had to remember that I wasn’t as important to him alive as a part of me – the part that knew he was my biological father – wanted to believe. Sweat broke out over my upper lip and across my hairline, the room becoming stifling with uncirculated air. Regardless of what he offered for his own selfish reasons, I shook my head.

  “Even if it means the regrowth of your leg?” King asked, the wall across from me turning from the unforgiving lead and into the nearly glass-like partition.

  I hadn’t noticed it before due to the dimness of the plane when I had first awoken in King’s clutches, but he had a painful looking gash over his left eye. It had been closed with some kind of special, skin-safe glue that they used in the emergency rooms. It was stiff, uncomfortable, but he ignored it as he did most things.

  “Looks like someone got their licks in,” I chuckled, refusing to meet his eyes.

  He laughed, his fingers coming up to touch his injury. “That sister of yours is just like you and your mother. Nothing but tr
ouble. So, what about my proposal?”

  Closing my eyes again, I refused to even look at him. I knew that, if our eyes met, he would clearly see that the loss of the limb had been one of the most painful experiences of my life. But that didn’t affect me nearly as much as the loss of my mother and the reunion with my sister just to be ripped apart yet again because of the man who created me in almost every way imaginable. He helped give me life. He had also helped trigger my rebellious streak, fighting against his authority even more so than I had before I was kidnapped and subjected to his whims. What he offered now didn’t matter because I had experienced much worse up to that point. Whatever he offered was not an instant fix. Not even close. It was a Band-Aid for a much larger problem that he had helped to create.

  When I opened my eyes and glanced up, continuing to rub my leg with my palm, King watched me intently. Dark eyes focused purely on what I had to do to soothe my aching limb as if the motion was a study of some kind. Just the thought caused my stomach to lurch, bile rising into my throat as nausea pulled at my gag reflex.

  “Not even if it can regrow my leg.”

  “You are a stubborn one, aren’t you?”

  His eyebrows shot up in amusement as well as annoyance, his expression hardening as his lips set into a straight line.

  “That’s what Mom used to say, but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” I jabbed.

  It was an intentional taunt at his absence growing up. He knew I existed, which made it even worse. So many things could have been different if it weren’t for his willing absence from my life, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was the vindictive, cold man in front of me that felt nothing and wanted nothing but what suited him best. My existence did neither for him in my earlier life. Only now did anything I did or who I was matter to him at all.

  In mock sincerity, he placed his hand over his heart, as if I had wounded him somehow.

  “That hurts, Mila. I’m only a man. I do have feelings,” he stated, his voice showing no hint of emotion.

  I rolled my eyes and replied, “You’re no man, King. I’ve known that for the last five years. You’re a monster, and monsters don’t feel a damn thing.”

  His brow furrowed, and anger flashed in his black eyes for all of a second, his perfectly manicured hands now clenched at his sides, his pristine suit still without a single wrinkle. Those orbs bore into me, but I faked my resolve. On the inside, I was slightly quaking, but I couldn’t show him any of that. Just like the times before when we had come face-to-face. Nothing had changed except for the severity of the hatred I felt for the man.

  “Maybe, sometimes, they feel things more deeply than you want to admit, Mila. Have you ever taken a moment to ask a monster what it feels?”

  Shaking my head, I allowed my gaze to meet his, vibrant green colliding with lifeless black.

  “What’s the point of that? They either lie or use others to meet their own selfish needs. I mean, look where we are now. My own father who denied my existence my entire life, even let another man raise me, is using his daughter to meet his political agenda. I mean nothing to you, and there’s no need to pretend just because you’ve taken everything else from me.”

  “Do you think I’m pretending? To care?” he asked, seemingly genuine, but I knew better.

  I had seen him in action since he assassinated the man that came before him five years prior. I saw it in his eyes in my vision when he murdered my father, the man to take his place, in cold blood when I was a child. Something I hadn’t known about until Cato, in his infinite wisdom inside my skull, showed me the event. Each revelation changing everything about my life – what it was and what it would become.

  “Yes, I do,” I answered.

  I meant the words wholeheartedly. There was no need for him to fake his love for me. If he did love me, it wasn’t in the way a father loves his daughter. It was the way a scientist loves his creation when scrutinizing it under a microscope. It was clear in the calculated way he studied my reactions to his words.

  My gaze held his, and as I watched, his lips curled up into a wide grin and his eyes brightened – glimmering with pleasure. And there he was again. The monster from my nightmares come to life, only much better. Laughter erupted from between his lips in short bursts, nostrils flaring with each cacophony of sound that made its way through the speakers in my prison. It was at that moment I saw the similarities in our facial features, realizing I should have known we had a connection long ago. From the first moments I sat in front of him, staring deep into those dark eyes that held nothing in them but vanity.

  Power-hungry. That was the best way to describe him. After all, that was the reason he had killed so many. If it wasn’t political power, it was physical, housed within the bodies and minds of others that he wanted only for himself.

  “Now, you are quite entertaining, Mila Hunter.” He chuckled, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with his laughter. “Quite entertaining.”

  It wasn’t my aim. Not in the slightest, but at least I knew exactly where I stood with our president – my father – our dictator. Nothing and everything had prepared me for the level of arrogance in Emerson King that I was currently seeing. Not that it had been the first time, because it hadn’t, and it surely wouldn’t be the last.

  His hands came together, and he steepled his fingers over his lips, his dark laughter causing a few of his soldiers in the background to glance back at him with wide and terrified eyes. Even they knew what he was like, and feared his wrath. I had been up close and personal with it and survived on multiple occasions, which made me wish I could tell them there was nothing to worry about, but that wouldn’t have been the truth. I couldn’t lie to them, so I let my glance graze over theirs just enough for them to see that a word should not be uttered in defiance of his actions toward me.

  With a smirk, I said, “Then I guess I’m glad I could be useful.”

  “Oh, you will be, my dear,” he said, the glinting fire in his eyes igniting with new fury. “You have no idea.”

  I tilted my head, my heart fluttering in my chest at the thought of being useful to the man in any way at all. From what I knew, I could only be useful for one thing, and that was destruction. I didn’t create. I only destroyed. There was no way around that. Sweat broke out over my entire body, running into my eyes and stinging. My mind raced as images from my visions, and my nightmares flashed before my eyes. Explosions, death, decay. All of it glared at me through the haze of my unconscious, Cato’s presence hanging just at my back. Too warm and the pressure far too much to bear. His presence inside me had been relatively quiet as of late, which made his renewed vigor much more alarming.

  Trying to remain seemingly calm from the outside, I looked him directly in the eyes and hardened my face, using the same expression he was so apt at when he wanted to be indecipherable.

  “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

  My voice was cold, fully calculated and toneless to ensure he couldn’t hear the slight tinge of fear that rolled through my body as well as the curiosity.

  He didn’t look away. His onyx eyes made him look dead and unfeeling, like all that lay inside of him was a void filled with absolutely nothing. Maybe greed, but not much else. If he felt anything at all, he kept it so well hidden that not even anger – which we all knew he was capable of – was noticeable. The corners of his lips perked up, but just barely, as he dropped his hands to his sides and took one step backward. One of his overly polished dress shoes glinted blue from the lights of the computers around and behind him. With his flair for the dramatic, he put his hands out to the side, palms up toward the ceiling as if he were putting on a show.

  “All in due time, Mila. All in due time.”

  With those words, the lead-turned-glass changed back into the dark and unforgiving metal that would continue to contain my ability until it
was time. Time for what, I wish I knew. His plan was massive, involving home-grown terror. He had weaved a story, turning the Fallen Paradigm and the Specials into a terrorist regime instead of human beings that only wanted freedom away from experimentation, tyranny, and war. It was our only goal, and unfortunately, it would take bringing the war straight to King and Fuji-O’Hara’s doorstep to make it all stop.

  That just left me to figure out how to escape from King’s clutches, find the Fallen Paradigm again, and wage all-out war. To take down the regime that would continue to prosecute my people and turn them into monsters in the eyes of those that were already afraid of everything. Why not just add one more thing to the list, King may ask, but that was not an option. We wanted to co-exist. Peacefully. It was the only desired result from the entire thing. Before, I wanted to gain their respect. That was the only way I saw to stop the fear and the violence between them and us, but I learned quickly enough – with Cato’s death – that peaceful resolution was no longer a viable choice. King saw to that, and when Nero betrayed us, the path we had to take solidified.

  Now, here I was. Taken captive by the same man I wanted to respect me for who and what I was. Our tyrant. My father.

  The words still sent a chill up my spine, causing me to wonder just how much of him resided inside my body. How much of his genetics influenced all of who I had become over my lifetime? How much of his genetics influenced what I did? How I reacted? My ability? The man that raised me, the man King had also murdered, seemed to have a much greater impact on the years prior, but since the blood testing and kidnapping, I barely saw the remnants of what he and my mother had raised me to be.

  Both were gone, and nothing would be right ever again, but I would do my best to turn our world into something worthy of them and their vision. My great-grandfather’s vision that he passed down to my mother, who then instilled it in me in the midst of this heated battle that would surely be coming to a head soon enough. I could feel it like a red-hot poker in my gut.