A frown caused his dark brow to furrow as he looked down at the duffle bag at his feet. A moment of confusion washed over the man as he wondered why he was standing atop a twenty story building.

His heart jolted as the voice in his head reminded him of his mission. He’d tried everything he could think of to prevent what he now knew was inevitable.

“I don’t want to do this!” the man cried out, anguished and ashamed as he stared up into the bright morning sky. He wasn’t sure if he was pleading with God or . . . the voices he’d lived with since he’d turned eighteen. Either way, it didn’t really matter what he wanted. It only mattered that he comply with their demands.

Shaking his head he drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. No, it didn’t matter what he wanted. It was too late to change what was coming. All he could do, now, was try to save as many lives as possible.

Letting out a mirthless chuckle, he shook his head again. In a short time, everyone would make up their own stories, their own truths as to why he did what he was about to do. None of them would come close to the truth. He barely believed it himself and he’d lived with it for ten years. It was only fitting, he decided, that it happen today.

His twenty-eighth birthday.

The morning sunlight flashed off the building across the street, making him squint against it. It was a beautiful day. Too beautiful for what was to come. The sky shouldn’t be that pure shade of blue and the white, fluffy clouds should be darker, angrier. It would suit the coming events much better. But, if it was raining and ugly out, he wouldn’t be there, doing what he didn’t want to do.

He looked down over the ledge at the crowd below and prayed for a miracle. One that would send him back to a time where he believed he had a choice of what his life would be.

He missed the time before . . . when his only worries had been keeping his grades up and which college had the best premed courses. When his heartbeat picked up and he couldn’t help the shy smile that formed of its own accord when Jenny Masterson was nearby.

He’d been a different person back then. A different life. One he barely remembered most of the time. The voices kept those things hidden behind the darkness. Occasionally, the good memories would resurface and it gave him the strength to fight against them.

 Why was he here again? Oh, yeah.

He watched a young couple walking, hand-in-hand, as they dodged through the throng of people at the street festival below. They looked so happy. Do they know? he wondered. Would they have changed their plans if they did?

The thumping music and murmur of their laughter rose up to greet him, bringing back a distant memory of when he was a kid, himself. How his family had gone to a carnival and he’d eaten too much cotton candy and threw up. Sammy had teased him mercilessly about “pink vomit” for years after that. It had become a family joke.

He lifted his face to heaven and prayed that his brother would forgive him one day. A deep ache of regret squeezed his heart knowing what his actions today would do to his twin. But it couldn’t be helped. He’d lost the battle, and this was his penance.

Those who died today would save millions in the end. Their sacrifices would not be in vein, he consoled himself, and once the truth came to light it would lead to his own redemption.

Resignedly, he opened the duffle bag he’d lugged up twenty flights of stairs and began to slowly place the pieces together. He slid the bump stock into place.

His mind was blank as he followed the instructions from the voices in his head until the rifle was assembled and the high-powered scope was set into place. Rubbing the moisture from his eyes, he then peered through the lens of the rifle scope.

Him, he decided as the blurred image of a middle-aged man with a paunch belly and a scruffy beard sharpened in the crosshairs. He slowly squeezed the trigger as he eased out the breath he held.

The man fell to his knees, almost simultaneous with the loud crack of the rifle shot, and then onto his face. He watched the woman beside the dead man look down in confusion. Then her uncertainty turned to shock and she screamed as she dropped to her knees at her man’s side.

A few people turned to see what was going on and looked as if they were about to offer their assistance. Then, a ceaseless barrage of gunfire had the terrified crowd screaming as they scurried for cover.

The music screeched to a discordant halt, replaced by panicked shouts and stampeding feet. When the clip was empty, he mindlessly slapped a second clip into the rifle and continued firing.

He didn’t bother using the scope as he sent the spray of bullets in a wide arc into the panic-fueled mob below. His mind was numb, his eyes unfocused; he couldn’t stop.

They were in control of him, mind and body.

Someone, a cop or an armed civilian, returned fire. A chip of cement sliced across his cheek and blood seeped from the graze, mixing with the dried tears he’d shed for the lives that would be lost. He didn’t bother wiping it away nor did he acknowledge the sting of the injury. Nothing penetrated the darkness that had blanketed his mind.

The relentless thrumming in his ears blocked out the screams of agony and the sharp popping of his weapon. When the rifle was empty once more, he reached for the third clip.

His hand stilled. He lifted his head, tilting it to the side. He listened to the chaos erupting below as the breeze caressed his face. In the distance he could hear the sirens shrieking to the rescue. A car alarm was blaring below, and there was weeping. It was heart-wrenching and that, more than anything else, brought him back to his senses.

They were gone . . . the voices had quieted. For the first time in too long to remember, he was alone in his own head and he smiled.

Then laughed as the relief washed over him. Then, he fell to his knees and wept. His body trembled and his shoulders shook with wracking sobs as he held the rifle in a loose grip.

So many innocent lives stolen away because he was too weak to fight them any longer.

He thanked God his parents weren’t around to see what he’d done . . . what he’d become.

“God, forgive me,” he whispered, rising to his feet before stepping up onto the ledge of the roof and then tossing the rifle into the void.

He looked up into the sky once more, lifted both of his hands, extending his middle fingers.

“Fuck you, you bastards!” he bellowed and then pointed to the dead and dying on the ground. “I stopped you! That’s what we humans call free will!”

Laughing at his triumph, he spread his arms wide and smiled. “I’m finally free, Sammy. I’m finally free.”

He closed his eyes and leaned forward, letting gravity take over.

  Chapter One

05:00 hours, Friday 25 October

With his back and legs straight, shoulders tense and his arms bulging, Sam Jackson began his morning routine of one hundred rapid pushups. His nose came within an inch of the dark blue rug that covered the hardwood floor, before his biceps flexed, pushing his well-toned body up again. The sweat poured off him, coating his bare chest and dampening the olive green boxers he’d slept in.

When that didn’t wipe away the images that haunted him, Sam rolled onto his back and began a punishing round of sit ups. His shoulders barely grazed the floor before he was up again, twisting his body as he tapped his knees with opposite elbows.

From years of military service, Sam had honed his body into a lethal fighting machine. At the age of twenty-eight, and at the rank of Second Lieutenant, he’d already surpassed several of the goals he’d set for himself even before joining the Corps.

He and Seth had both known from a young age what they wanted to do with their lives.

Sam pushed himself through the grueling routine, blanking his mind. He didn’t want to remember that time. When they’d slipped out, after their folks had gone to bed, and taken the Dragonflyer, their family cabin cruiser, out onto Lake Hartwell to celebrate their eighteenth birthday.

Pain echoed inside his head as he tried to fight off the memories.

Most of the time, Sam had no problem locking everything about that time in a mental box and forgetting about it.

It was how he’d survived two tours in Iraq as well as life when he return stateside.

But this time nothing worked. The nausea he’d felt back then made his stomach churn and his throat burned with acid as he fought back the need to vomit.

Sam increased the speed of his routine, grunting with the exertion of each rep. He closed his eyes, hoping to blot out the image of his mother’s worried face as she stood over him.

The image of his father trying to bring Seth around flashed across his eyelids. The sound of the old man’s voice as he tried to waken Seth, and the fear in it, increased Sam’s heartrate more than the arduous calisthenics he was putting himself through.

As the memories refused to relinquish their hold on him, Sam’s eyes burned with sweat and—though he would forever refuse to admit—tears as his mind replayed the scene.

Once he’d finally wakened, the nightmare that had Seth in its grip refused to release him as he had fought violently against the hands that tried to keep him calm.  

“They’re coming back!” Seth had screamed, over and over again as he tried to escape. “We have to get away! We have to get away or they’ll kill us all!”

The worst part, Sam recalled, was the blood that seeped from Seth’s nose and ears as he grabbed their father’s shirt, begging him to listen. “They put something in our brains, Dad. You have to believe me. They made me watch as they did it to Sam, too. We have to go to the hospital and get them to take it out.”

“It’s okay, son,” their father told Seth as he gently wiped at the streaming blood. “We’ll get you the help you need.”

“You promise?” he asked, finally calming down just a little. Then, Seth’s eyes widened and his breath panted out. “They’re coming!”

Seth had been so far out of his head that he’d punched their father in the face and tried to jump over the side of the boat.

The ache at the back of his head and in his temples, forced Sam’s mind back to the present. He let himself fall onto his back, covering his eyes with his arm as his heart pounded. He felt the warmth trickle from his nose and swiped his hand over it, holding up his bloody fingers.

“Damn it,” he grumbled as he pulled himself to his feet and headed for the shower.

He dropped his damp shorts onto the floor before stepping under the cool spray. He dipped his head down, watching the dripping blood as it swirled around his feet.

He didn’t want to think about his brother and what had happened back then. He didn’t want to think about the death of their parents, or his time spent in the Middle East.

Nor did he want to think about the woman he’d once thought of building a life with. She’d walked away from him, nearly two years ago, without a backward glance. The three years they’d spent together before that, had meant nothing to her, apparently, but everything to Sam.

Why, he wondered, had every painful event he’d experienced over the past decade come back to haunt him today?

Sam turned off the shower with a frustrated twist and then jerked the plastic curtain aside. He grabbed the clean, white towel, swiping it over his close cropped, black hair and then over his face, wiping away the last traces of his bloody nose, leaving the towel stained.

He stared down at the pink and crimson splotches and his heart gave one hard jolt before settling back in his chest. His eyes blurred for a brief moment, then just beyond the edges of his vision, shadows shimmered.

He dropped the towel and took a step backward, bumping into the toilet where he lost his balance. He felt himself sliding into panic mode. Something else he hadn’t done since he’d finished basic training at Parris Island, where he now trained new recruits.

 The shadows drew closer, their long, thin arms reaching for him. Sam threw up his hands as if he could ward off the goblins, knowing in the deepest part of his subconscious mind that if they wanted him, nothing would stop them.

The episode lasted less than a moment before it drifted away like a whisp of smoke in a strong wind.

It didn’t matter. The damage was done. The nightmare from his youth had returned with a vengeance, tearing at his brain and shaking every barricade Sam had built over the years to their foundations.

What made the episode worse was that he was wide awake and lucid. That, as far as he could remember, had never happened before.

He was a soldier, damn it. He had witnessed some of the most horrific abominations one human being could do to another and remained stoic, knowing that the death of the terrorists who perpetrated those atrocities was justice for the victims.

He’d watched the love of his life walk away telling him, “It’s for the best, Sam.” Did he fall apart when his heart was shattered by her? Hell no, he did not.

Why then, he wondered again as he continued to try to rub away the ache in his head, was this happening now?

When no answer seemed to come, he drew in a long, slow breath and then released it through his nostrils. He repeated the breathing exercise until his heartrate declined and the thumping in his temples eased.

He slowly rose to his feet and took a tentative step. When the thumping in his brain didn’t seem to increase, he counted himself marginally better.

He made his way into his bedroom feeling more confident with each step. By the time he stood in front of the walk-in closet, he felt almost normal. His headache was nearly gone and he no longer felt as though his heart was trying to make a break for it through his ribcage.

After quickly dressing, ensuring that his tie was straight and his black shoes gleamed like new, Sam walked into his neat kitchen for his first cup of coffee of the day. In spite of the incident he’d experienced in the bathroom, he wouldn’t have to leave for at least another hour.

Sitting at the small kitchen table, a steaming mug of black coffee at his elbow, Sam scanned the headlines on his smart phone. He tried to focus his mind on the local happenings, thinking he might decide to go out to dinner. Maybe somewhere in Savannah. It was his and Seth’s birthday after all.

From as far back as Sam could remember, he and Seth had been practically inseparable.

At least they had been until the night of their eighteenth birthday.

Sam picked up his mug and stared down into the depths of the dark brew. “Happy birthday, Seth,” he said, his voice low and subdued, before taking a deep drink.

He missed his brother; they hadn’t spoken since they’d buried their parents six months ago.

He set the cup down and stared into space for a moment as a slow smile tilted his wide, full lips. Memories of what they’d been as children all but wiped away the dregs of the morning. He pushed himself to his feet and hurried to his home office.

It took him several minutes to find the disc with the pictures of he and Seth when they were kids. He knew it was in the desk somewhere. He sat down in the leather chair, pulling open drawers and then slamming them shut again, before finally finding it.

With a triumphant chuckle, he slid the disc into the DVD drive and transferred them to a SIM card.

Sam was going to track Seth down, he decided as he waited for the transfer to finish. It was their birthday, after all, and they should be spending it together. They were all each other had left.

Maybe, if Seth was staying close enough, they could meet for coffee or something to celebrate their birthday together. Like they used to when they were kids.

Thinking the pictures would be a nice gift for his brother, Sam placed the card into a small plastic holder and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

They might give Seth something good to remember, Sam told himself as he rose to his feet. Maybe if Seth could see what life had been like, before the horrors of his mental illness had dug its tentacles inside his mind, Sam and Seth could be a family again.

Thinking of their childhood had lifted Sam’s mood, shoving aside the remnants of whatever it was that had him in its grip after his shower.

Grabbing his keys, his briefcase and his phone off the kitchen counter, Sam stepped into the small laundry room and out the door that led to the two car garage.

As he turned to lock the door that led into the house, he felt the little hairs on the back of his neck tingle. He’d felt the sensation before, usually when he was in a combat situation. It was the first time since he’d been stateside, however.

He glanced around, taking in every detail of his surroundings. He knew every inch of his home, the garage and everything in it. Nothing seemed out of place.

Once inside the car, he watched in his rearview mirror as the automatic door lifted. He slowly backed out, pressing the button on the remote once he cleared the door. He waited until the metal had touched the asphalt before continuing to back out of his driveway.

The street was quiet, a few lights were on in some of the houses in the upper, middle-class, neighborhood. A car up the street was backing out of the driveway, and the sun was just cresting over the horizon, painting the dark sky with a pink haze to the east.

He tried to shake off the unease and remind himself that today he was going to do everything in his power to reconnect with Seth.

“Come hell or high water,” as his grandfather used to say.

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