The Eye of God: A Sigma Force Novel

TAILS

Rachel waited outside the exam room for her uncle to finish meeting with his physician. Vigor had only come to the hospital upon her firm insistence, especially as she had no sound basis for demanding this battery of tests.

The door finally cracked open. She heard her uncle laugh, shake the doctor’s hand, and come out.

“Well, I hope that satisfies you,” Vigor said to her. “Clean bill of health.”

“And the full-body MRI results?”

“Besides some arthritis in my hips and lower back, nothing.” Vigor scooped an arm around her waist and headed toward the exit. “For a man in such good health in his sixties, the doctor said I should expect to live to a hundred.”

Rachel could tell he was joking, but she also noted a flicker at the edge of his eyes, like he was trying to remember something.

“What?” she asked.

“I know you insisted on this cancer screening—”

She sighed loudly enough to cut him off. “Sorry. Ever since coming back from Olkhon Island, I just had this bad feeling, like you were sick or something.” She shook her head. “I’m just being silly.”

“That’s just it; as I was lying there with that machine clacking loudly around me, I was almost sure you were right, too.”

“Only because of my insistence.”

“Maybe…” He sounded unconvinced and stopped before they reached the hospital doors. “I have to tell you something, Rachel. Back when I placed that crystal Eye atop the cross of St. Thomas, I felt this tearing inside me, like my very being was being ripped out… or split apart. It felt like I was riding a fountain of white light. I was sure I was dead. Then in a blink I was back, and there were Gray, Duncan, and Jada bursting inside to check on me.”

Rachel squeezed his hand. “And I’m glad you were safe.”

He stared down at her. “For just a moment then, as I turned to face them, I was overwhelmed with grief, like I’d lost you.”

“But I was fine,” she said—okay, just barely.

She again pictured that silver coin flipping in the air, bouncing across the wood planks of the floor, of Pak placing his boot on it. She had been furious at Seichan for telling him where Gray and the others had gone.

Then Pak had lifted his boot, revealing the backside of the coin.

Tails.

Pak had such a disappointed look on his face. She was suddenly sure in that moment, if it had come up heads, he would have killed her.

“I survived,” Rachel said.

“Well, I know that because you came running in after the others a minute or so later.” He headed back with her toward the door. “But it makes me wonder why we both had premonitions of doom for the other. I mean, I could have had cancer, I suppose. If some cell in my body flipped the wrong switch—up instead of down—I could very well be riddled with tumors.”

“Heads or tails,” Rachel mumbled.

Vigor smiled at her. “So much of life and death is random chance.”

“That’s disheartening.”

“Not if you trust who is flipping the coins.”

She rolled her eyes at him.

He pressed his point. “There are a thousand paths into the future, forks after forks in the road ahead. Who knows, if one road closes, maybe another opens in another universe… and your soul, your consciousness, leaps over to continue that journey ever forward, always finding the right path.”

Still, Rachel considered those paths left behind, of possibilities that would be gone forever. A flicker of sadness pierced through her, as though she had lost dear friends.

“You see,” Vigor said, drawing her attention back. “There’s always a path forward.”

“To where?” she asked.

Vigor pushed open the door, blinding her with the brightness of the new day. “Everywhere.”