But Quenton still had his needs, and the girl’s budding adolescence gnawed at him, creating desires that even prayer cannot staunch. But this public display of nudity-this was something altogether different. The girl was teasing him, charging his insides with electricity.
Lilith moans louder as she slips her fingers beneath her bikini bottom and pleasures herself.
It is more than Quenton can handle. Leaving the bathroom, he heads outside.
Feeling his presence, Lilith opens her eyes. ‘Something you wanted?’
Quenton grabs her by the arm, dragging her to her feet. ‘You wanna be a bad girl? I’ll show you what we do with bad girls-’
Lilith slips inside the nexus.
A moment later, Quenton Morehead finds himself on his back on the freshly mowed lawn, staring up at the blue heavens and his granddaughter’s surreal azure eyes.
Lilith’s fist blots out the view as it wallops his nose.
‘Oww… God… damn you, you little whore!’ Blood spurts from both nostrils.
‘Whore? Whores get paid, Quenton.’
‘I have paid you! Fourteen years I’ve fed you and clothed you and kept a roof over your head. You owe me!’
Still straddling him, she fondles her breasts. ‘You want this, Quenton? Come and get it.’
He reaches for her, but she hits him again, the furious, impossibly fast blow knocking loose his front teeth.
Lilith is on her feet, her bikini bottoms twirling around her index finger as she struts, naked, back into the house. ‘Be sure to put the lawn mower away before you come in.’
Quenton rolls over, spitting out two bloody teeth. Only thing I’m gonna do is beat the hell outta you, then do you ’til you walk funny.
16
‘… nineteen… twenty… twenty-one…’
Eighty-two-year-old inmate Pierre Robert Borgia sucks air through his teeth, his face red, his muscles trembling as he completes his daily regimen of sit-ups.
‘… twenty-two… twenty-three… twenty-four…’
It has been nearly fifteen years since the former secretary of state was incarcerated for ordering the murder of Michael Gabriel.
‘… twenty-five… twenty-six… twenty-seven…’
Borgia has been a model prisoner. He has helped tutor inmates in a literacy program. He has led prayer groups on Sundays.
‘… twenty-eight… twenty-nine… thirty…’
Daily video-mail has kept him apprized of his family’s efforts to reduce his sentence. He knows parole is just around the corner.
‘… thirty-one… thirty-two… thirty-three…’
Exercise has helped keep Borgia’s blood pressure in check. Daily meditation has preserved his sanity.
The thought of revenge keeps him alive.
‘… thirty-four… thirty-five… thirty-six…’
Borgia’s anger had once been directed solely at the son of his arch rival-a man who had assaulted him onstage three decades earlier, costing him his right eye.
With Michael Gabriel dead, Borgia’s anger has been redirected at someone else.
‘… thirty-seven… thirty… eight… thirty… nine… forty!’
Borgia lies back on the cold linoleum floor of his four-by-seven-foot cell. He gazes at the projection of a tropical shoreline on his wall as he catches his breath.
‘Computer… activate CNN.’
The holographic ocean disappears, replaced by cinder block. The news broadcast begins a moment later.
‘… in the wake of Jordan Ann Katras’s death late last week, former U.S. president Ennis Chaney was nominated earlier today as Secretary General of the United Nations Security Council.’
‘Ahhhh!’ Borgia kicks the wall, Chaney’s face distorting on his shoe.
‘In other news, the World Basketball Association has added two new European teams to its Eastern Conference…’
‘Computer, cease broadcast!’
The transmission ends.
Borgia’s pulse races, his blood pressure soaring. He wheezes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. Repeats the exercise until his pulse stops pounding in his ears, then gets on his hands and knees, resuming his workout.
‘One… two… three… four…’
There is one person Borgia despises more than any other human being, one person whose very name causes his blood to boil, his ulcer to bleed…
‘… five… six… seven… eight…’
Parole is coming.
Pierre Borgia counts the days.
Longboat Key, Florida 2:35 p.m.
‘Come on, Manny. Apply the formula, then figure out the answer!’
Immanuel Gabriel stares at his Vision-Station, a high-resolution curved computer monitor, five feet tall and six feet wide, that encompasses his entire forward field of vision. ‘I told you, Mr. Hopper, I can’t do it.’
‘Sure you can,’ the tutor insists. ‘Watch and learn.’ Scott Hopper leans over the teen and types in an equation designed to calculate G forces and the speed of light. ‘There, I plugged in the values, now you do the math.’
‘Who cares about this stuff? I’m not interested in being an astronaut, I’m gonna play pro ball.’
‘Sure you are. Now just apply the damn formula so we can end the lesson.’
‘I’m ending it now.’
‘Sit down, please-’
‘No. I want to shoot hoops before dinner.’
‘Not until you finish the rest of these problems. Your brother finished an hour ago, and he’s doing quantum physics.’
‘Whoop-dee-do.’
‘Sit down!’
‘Drop dead.’
Hopper swallows his retort as Jacob enters the classroom. ‘Jacob, see if you can talk some sense into your brother; he won’t listen to a damn thing I have to say.’
The instructor walks out.
Immanuel kisses his middle finger, then flips it at Scott Hopper’s back.
‘I need to talk with you, Manny. I spoke with our father again.’
‘And I spoke with the Easter Bunny. He says they need you back at the Funny Farm-’
In a lightning maneuver, Jacob grabs his brother by his hips and hoists him clear off his feet.
‘Let me go-’
‘I’ve had it with you, Manny. You’re way behind in your training and-’
Immanuel kicks his brother in the chest, the blow powerful enough to send both boys tumbling to the floor.
The dark-haired twin leaps to his feet. ‘I’ve had it with you, too, asshole. I’ve had it with your stupid delusions, and you always bossing me around. Most of all, I’m sick of living in this prison camp.’
‘It’s for our own good. There are crazy people out there-’
‘There’s crazy people in here!’ Immanuel picks up his chair in frustration and smashes it through the computer screen, sending shattered fragments flying in all directions.
‘Stop! Do you have any idea how much that costs?’
‘Doesn’t cost me a damn thing.’ Immanuel reaches for another chair.
Jacob intercepts, grabbing him in a powerful wrestling hold. ‘Knock it off, Manny. I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘Hurt me?’ Tears of frustration flow from Immanuel’s ebony eyes. ‘You’re killing me.’
‘How am I killing you? Answer me!’
‘Get off-’
Jacob releases him. ‘We live in paradise. You have everything you could ever want or need.’
‘Bullshit, What I need is freedom. I need friends my age. I’m tired of playing pick-up games with the guards. I want to compete on teams. And I want to meet some girls. Girls, Jake, as in the opposite sex, or did that Hunahpu gene take away your balls?’
‘I have sexual desires, I even have a girlfriend.’
‘Yeah? Who? Rosie palm and her five sisters?’
‘Her name’s Lilith. We talk on… on the Internet. She wants to get together, but I can’t.’
‘See, that’s what I’m talking about. Go see her! Screw your brains out.’