"What's your name?"

"Dr. Fredrick Bjorn."

"Well, I guess it was safe enough for you to hold the rat then, wasn't it?" He continued to chuckle at his prank.

Fredrick, on the other hand, felt faint for the first time in twenty-five years.

"I'll go retrieve the white rat and we'll start the race to the finish again."

Bjorn slowly removed the electrode from the back of the rat's head, enjoying the pain filled squeaks still emanating from the creature. He walked slowly back to the starting box, looking into the dazed rat eyes as he shuffled.

He had been working with humans for so long, he had forgotten the thrill he could get from holding a helpless creature in his hands, to feel its heart race against his fingertips, to watch its entire body stand rigid with fear. It gave him a rush. Humans were still his favorite, but this rat setup wasn't so bad, Bjorn decided.

Now as for Arkdone's little prank, he would have to remember the bastard's sadistic sense of humor. Apparently, he was recruited to replace a former physician who had, in Arkdone's words, "served his purpose."

Bjorn appreciated the challenge his new boss provided and felt a sick sense of admiration for someone so callous to those around him.

Both rats were back in the starting box. "Now, let the race begin," Arkdone announced as though to a crowd of a hundred people instead of just Bjorn and the rats.

The white rat took off running his usual path flawlessly toward the cheese.

The brown rat took a few steps and started wandering back into the starting box, then turned in several circles before stopping to lick his paw and clean his face.

"There, you see? No memory of the maze he knew perfectly moments before."

"How permanent is the loss?"

"Completely. He will never regain his former memory, but we can build new ones on the blank slate that is his mind." Arkdone nodded meaningfully.

"You're planning to use this on the Winter Clan, aren't you?"

"You catch on quickly, Bjorn. That's what I like about you. I think you'll fit in just fine here." Arkdone patted Bjorn on the back so enthusiastically, the doctor had to catch himself against the maze.

"They will make beautiful butterflies, don't you agree?"

"Magnificent, sir."

The music, playing on a continuous loop came to a dramatic end just as Arkdone flipped the switch off. "It's all in the timing," he mumbled to himself. "I play Mozart's Requiem to mark the death of the Winter Clan and the birth of my most powerful Monarch Slaves. It's all in the timing, Bjorn." Arkdone began to chuckle to himself, but the laughter morphed into gales of mirth that echoed off the stark walls of the laboratory.

White mouse ate.

Brown mouse huddled into a corner of the maze and buried his nose.

Chapter 57 Tough as Nails.

"Okay, the trap should be right up here past the curve in the road."

"Why does highway patrol always like to put speed traps between two small towns?" Farrow grumbled.

"Well, these guys aren't highway patrol. They're local cops and they are probably asked to keep a certain quota of ticketed speeders so their townships gather some funds."

"Do you know that, or are you just guessing?" she narrowed her eyes at Alik, unconvinced.

"I'm completely guessing," Alik grinned mischievously. His head pivoted to watch the black-and-white vehicle as they passed. "There's Officer Small-Town now and sure enough he was noshing on a bear claw."

"You have to be kidding!" Farrow giggled.

"Yeah, I'm kidding. He was holding his radar gun in one hand and noshing on a bear claw with the other," Alik chucked at the image he painted.

"Have you ever-"

POP!.

Flap, flap, flap "Damn it!" Farrow gripped the steering wheel tightly, trying to control the pull of the wheel toward the blown left front tire. The whole vehicle shuddered enough to make their heads hurt.

"Okay, it's okay, just slow down and pull over," Alik coaxed yelling over the rim on asphalt screams.

"That scared the hell out of me." Farrow white-knuckled the steering wheel to force it to the right side of the road against its will to pull left toward the flat. Sparks were flying off the metal rim as the entire rubber tire disintegrated immediately.

She pulled to a stop just off the shoulder of the four lane road. She was breathing hard, fear and adrenaline still pumping through the fright of nearly losing control of the SUV.

Alik gave her a moment to be still and breathe before speaking. "Well, either we have a flat tire or you just gained a ton of weight," he nodded toward the tilted horizon of the SUV's dashboard making his side sit much higher than Farrow's left.

"Please tell me we have a spare," she groaned.

"We have a spare." Alik didn't move to get out of the SUV.

"Please tell me you know how to change a tire!" Farrow frowned at Alik.

"Of course I do! I was just giving my retro-cog time to process what happened." He squinted his bright indigo eyes. "I think a truck passed by here earlier and a few nails rolling around the bed fell out."

"Great," Farrow breathed, unbuckling her seat belt. She checked her side mirror to be sure a car wasn't going to barrel into her when she opened her door.

Alik jumped out, too.

Together they stared at the tire, or what was left of it anyway.

"We are so lucky we weren't going 90mph when we hit that nail," Farrow shivered at the thought.

"No such thing as luck. It was a blessing,"Alik heard himself say the same words he'd heard his mother say his whole life. He looked over at Farrow and grinned. She was still shaking from the fear of trying to control the SUV. "You did great, Farrow. Mom and Theo will be proud of you when they hear how you didn't lose control of the SUV. You have some skilled reflexes."

"Oh yeah, well when I get my shakes under control, I'll help fix this."

"I don't need help, pretty little lady," Alik said in his most exaggerated East Texas drawl. "I can have this fixed faster than a cat on a hot tin roof."

Farrow smiled despite herself and watched Alik John-Wayne walk to the back of the SUV. She crossed her arms and leaned against the hood, telling herself to calm down.

You've been in worse scrapes than a stupid blown tire, Farrow. Get it together.

That's when she realized it wasn't the blown tire that got her so worked up. It was the thought of letting down all the people whose very lives were depending on her to get to Louisville safely that made her heart panic. She sighed, intentionally forcing herself to breathe.

That's when she noticed a big black F150 ahead as it pulled up to the stop sign and looked as though it was about to enter the highway to head north, the same direction they were heading. The driver leered at her, his bloodshot eyes scanning her up and down before he made an illegal right-hand turn and drove the shoulder until he stopped only a few yards away. Farrow could now see three men piled into the front seat. The engine thrummed loudly, but country music could still be heard twanging over it. The vehicle's tires were huge, monster-truck style. The kind Freud would have a thing or two to comment about.

Farrow uncrossed her arms and inconspicuously pulled the knife she always kept in her boot, into her left hand. Being ambidextrous had helped tremendously throughout the years especially when it came to hand-to-hand combat. Her opponents were always surprised at her dual abilities.

The driver opened his door and leaped out of his overcompensating truck. In his hands was a blackened and greasy crow bar. His two cohorts followed him with less grace. One had a beer gut that was a true testament to his redneck ways and the other was skinny and had tattoos all over neck and arms. All three men wore ball caps that looked to have been dipped in pigs' slop.

"Hey beautiful, you need help with that flat." It was a statement, not a question. He tapped his left hand with the crow bar From behind Farrow, she heard Alik's voice rumble, "No, thanks guys. I've got it."

Farrow risked a glace back at him and blinked twice to be sure. Alik had grown even more huge.

What the heck? Farrow thought to herself, eyes wide with wonder.

The three men were a little surprised, too. Alik was holding the spare tire like it was as light as an inflatable pool toy. His eyes glowed, but the color was different from the bright indigo when he was retro-cognitioning. There wasn't any blue to them now-they were pure violet.

The two guys who were obviously the driver's sidekicks glanced at their leader, nervousness obvious in the way they shifted both their footing and eyes.

"Why don't you get moving, boy? We'll take care of the lady from here." The driver narrowed his beady eyes and nodded his head away as though showing Alik the door.

"She's with me," Alik growled protectively.

"She's too much a woman for you, boy. Beat it. I ain't asking nicely again." He warned.

"I'm not going anywhere," Alik seethed, dropping the tire next to the blown one, emptying his hands. He took four steps toward the redneck interlopers. Farrow watched his huge body move and was in awe.

Every step had his muscles growing larger, his T-shirt stretching to the very brink of ripping across the wide, thick chest. His biceps were throbbing with his heartbeat and growing with every pulse. Already a tall guy, Alik seemed to grow even taller by at least three inches. His jeans tightened around his muscular glutes and thighs.

"You need to leave." Alik's voice was deeper than it was a moment before. "I won't ask nicely again."

The driver looked back at his minions and nodded. They ran to Alik and grabbed both his arms. Their plan was text book. Two hold the victim down and the leader beats the crap out of him. The thought of them holding Farrow down so the beer-swilling driver could do something vile to her made Alik feel a burst of rage.

He raised his arms, the men still attached, lifting their weight easily before swatting them aside. They flew and landed in the grass beyond the shoulder of the road. The driver thought he'd take advantage of the distraction and came at Alik with the iron crow bar, swinging it at the back of his head.

Faster than even Farrow's eyes could see, Alik spun on his heels and caught the bar in his right hand. "Oh, you're going to regret that." He twisted the bar out of the driver's hand and tossed it under his SUV before grabbing the idiot by the throat and lifting him off his feet with one hand. His bloodshot eyes bugged out as he grabbed and scratched Alik's wrist.

"Behind you!" Farrow yelled, just in time for Alik to see the two idiots come at him with fists raised. He tossed the driver aside and turned to meet his attackers with huge fists of his own. One punch to beer-gut guy's face and his head whipped back hard enough to cause a concussion. He flew three feet back in the air and crumpled to the ground.

Tattoo guy flipped a butterfly knife out of his pocket and held it menacingly toward Alik before jumping forward to attack. In what looked like one swift movement, Alik blocked the hand holding the weapon with one massive forearm and punched him in the throat with the other hand. He was disarmed and flat on his back holding his neck inside four seconds.

The driver sat holding his dislocated elbow painfully. "What are you?"

"I'm the 'boy' who just kicked your ass. Now get out of here before I finish what you started."

The driver and tattoo guy hobbled to their feet and helped beer-gut guy stand. They all looked as though a steamroller had hit them, leaving them dazed, bloody and confused.

Farrow watched them climb painfully into the ridiculously tall truck and perform an illegal U-turn to get back on the highway.

Alik turned to look at Farrow, his bright violet eyes filled with concern.

"Are you okay?"

Farrow could only nod at first.

"When I heard the way that guy talked to you, I wanted to rip his head off." Alik's whole body shuddered as he walked toward Farrow, who still held the knife in her hand.

"Um, thanks Alik, but I really could have taken care of myself."

"You've taken care of yourself your whole life. No one was going to get away with speaking to you like that. I hope you don't mind that I stepped in." He was reaching for her shoulders, carefully rubbing them as though trying to soothe her, when it was obviously he that needed soothing.

"Alik, what happened to you?" Farrow asked, her mouth still wanting to hang agape.

"I don't know, I just felt this surge of energy and my whole body tingling with what I assumed at first was adrenaline, until I felt my clothes get too tight. My heart felt like it grew, too...pounding like a racehorse in my chest. I just felt..." he looked down at himself-still wide and unbelievably huge, "...a massive burst of..."

"Rage?" Farrow offered.

"I just wanted to protect you. I felt compelled to do whatever it took to keep you safe." Alik looked down at himself in disbelief. "Apparently, my evolution has another part to it. Meg's was like this. She kept discovering new and sometimes scary things she could do after her evolution."

"So you think this is part of your evolution?"

Alik was nodding. "I'd love to run this by Evan, or even Meg."

"From what I understood, during your evolution your abilities are enhanced further. Meg's sensitivity to emotions turned into empath abilities, psychometry, and 'influencing' others."

"I was the one with perfect memory and advanced strength. It would make sense for me to become retro-cognitive and now, apparently I can get upset and become even bigger and stronger." Alik was shaking his head in amazement.

"But Meg always had had some negative effects because of her advanced gifts. You know the headaches and dizziness. I don't feel any negative effects except the occasional motion sickness for the retro-cogging. My body's response to anger hasn't come with any caveats so far.

"I wonder if you'll get stretch marks," Farrow teased.

"That's not funny!" Alik looked more closely at his skin.

"Vain!"

"No, but if I'm going to go all giant, I don't want to look like a baggy, loose-skinned, freak when I'm normal."

"This is truly something to think about."

"The stretch marks?"

"No, the hulking-out thing."