As he watched, Elizabeth tensed. A guard grabbed Elizabeth and pinned her arms behind her back. The guard yanked her across the lab, hauling her toward the lab’s door.
“Stop it!” Elizabeth yelled. “Let me go, right now!”
But the guard didn’t let her go. And Landon reached for a syringe.
“Don’t!” Elizabeth screamed. “Not to him!”
Landon put the needle over Sawyer’s body. Then he pierced Sawyer’s chest.
The guard had dragged Elizabeth to the door. “Sawyer!”
Landon reached for the second needle. He moved behind Sawyer, placing the needle at the back of his head. But Landon paused and glanced over at Elizabeth. “Don’t you want him back?”
Before she could answer, Landon gave Sawyer the injection.
“Stop! Let me go, please!” Elizabeth begged the guard.
Landon frowned down at Sawyer. “Nothing is happening.”
The guard hauled Elizabeth into the hallway. A nurse slammed the door shut behind them. More needles were brought to Landon. The bastard grabbed one and injected the formula into Sawyer’s heart again.
And Elizabeth was there. She’d ripped open the door to the lab. “Don’t give him too much!” Elizabeth yelled. “Don’t—”
Landon administered another dose to Sawyer. “He’s not fucking moving. This doesn’t work.” Sweat covered his forehead. “I have to tell Wright this doesn’t work!”
The guard grabbed her again. And once more, she was physically pulled out of the lab. A nurse shut the door.
Then…
In the video. Sawyer sat up. Landon started smiling. He reached out his hand to Sawyer.
Only I threw the bastard across the room. Sawyer felt his eyes widen as he watched the scene. He’d just tossed the bastard a good ten feet. Landon’s body smashed into a glass viewing window. Elizabeth’s horrified face was on the other side of that window.
The guards inside that lab room immediately pulled their weapons. They aimed at Sawyer. They fired.
But Sawyer didn’t stop. He jumped off the table. He ran right at them. He attacked, punching, kicking, taking their weapons—firing on them.
The nurses were racing for freedom. They screamed as they fled into the hallway.
Sawyer kept attacking the guards.
Watching that terrible scene, Sawyer could only shake his head. He’d been so out of control. Dangerous. A monster. “Who stopped me?” The question ripped from him.
But then he saw—on those two freaking monitors—he watched as Elizabeth rushed back into the lab. Landon was on the floor, trying to crawl for the door. And Sawyer had taken a gun from one of the guards.
“Sawyer!” Elizabeth yelled his name.
At her call, his head lifted. He still held the gun in his hand. His eyes immediately locked on her.
“Sawyer, put down the gun,” Elizabeth told him, her voice shaking. It sounded as if she were begging him.
He looked at the gun in his hand.
She crept closer to him. Behind her, Landon kept crawling toward the door.
“Put it down,” Elizabeth pleaded. “I know…I know this is confusing and scary, but I can help you. I will help you.”
He glanced back at her…and he…he aimed the gun at her.
“No!” The video was still playing, but Sawyer had just shouted that denial. No, no way would he hurt Elizabeth. “No!”
“This is why I didn’t want this fucking video shown,” Jay muttered as he raked a hand through his hair.
On the screens, Elizabeth had frozen, seemingly rooted to the spot. “Sawyer? It’s…it’s me.”
But on the monitors, he was staring at her with no recognition.
“Shoot him!” Landon thundered.
Elizabeth looked over her shoulder. A guard stood near the doorway, and he held a gun—one that was aimed right at Sawyer. “No!”
The guard’s finger began to squeeze the trigger. Elizabeth threw her body forward, placing herself between the guard and Sawyer.
The bullet hit her in the chest, and as she fell… “Sawyer!”
He stared down at her, watching as the blood covered her body.
A fog—no, a gas—began to fill the lab. The gun fell from Sawyer’s fingers. He staggered forward, and then he sagged to his knees, right beside Elizabeth.
And then Sawyer reached out to her. His hand pressed to her chest as he shuddered. For an instant, pain—grief?—flashed on his face, but he collapsed, his body falling on top of hers.
A few moments later, the lab door opened again. The people who rushed in were wearing masks that covered their faces. They dragged Sawyer away from Elizabeth, but he roused enough to fight them. To fight them and try to reach for her once more.
The video ended.
Sawyer’s chest was tight. His muscles were locked with tension. With fury. With fear. Elizabeth.
“I swear,” Jay cocked his head as he studied Sawyer now. “I swear, it seemed like you recognized her at the end.”
Sawyer’s head turned toward Elizabeth. “You took that bullet for me.”
One of her shoulders lifted in a shrug that wasn’t casual. “I’d lost you once. I wasn’t going to let someone kill you again.”
“You loved him that much?”
“No.” She gave a hard, negative shake of her head. “I love you that much. It’s not him, it’s you. You’re the same. No matter what happened with Lazarus, you are the same. You are the same strong, brave man I always knew.”
A brave man who’d attacked guards? No, no, he was—
“I see it when I look in your eyes. Landon gave you twice the dosage. Yes, when you woke up, you were out of control, but you fought your way back. Because you are strong. And you are fierce, and you will always be the man I love.”
An alarm began to sound. A shrill shriek that had his body immediately going into fight mode as he pulled Elizabeth closer. “What in the hell is that? What’s happening?”
Jay was already typing on his keyboard once more. “Security footage, I need a live feed from outside now…Shit.” The live feed appeared on the monitors. The feed showed several guards slumped near the entrance gate. Dead? Or unconscious?
“On my way,” West immediately barked as he headed for the door.
“If a Lazarus soldier is out there, you won’t stop him.” Sawyer was certain. “You need me. I’ll go.” He stared down at Elizabeth. “Stay inside. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Not ever again, I swear it.”
Her eyes were wide. “You think it’s Bryce? But…do you feel him? Has he contacted you again?”
Actually, Sawyer hadn’t felt anything on their psychic link. But he sent out a message now—not one to Bryce, but to Flynn. We’ve got trouble. Guards outside are unconscious, maybe dead. I need you to keep Elizabeth safe while I take care of the threat.
Immediately, Flynn’s voice was in his head. I’m coming, too. You need me—
I need you to keep her safe. Her and Cecelia. If something happens to me, you make sure no one so much as touches them, you got me?
“There’s a safe room in this house,” Jay announced. “One of the reasons I decided to make it my base while I was in Arizona. I can keep Elizabeth and Cecelia there. No one will get in.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Sawyer—”
He kissed her. Had to do it. “I won’t lose you again. No one will take me from you ever again.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “I’ll come back. I swear, I will always come back to you.”
Then he let her go. Sawyer glared at Jay and West. “You keep her safe—or I will kick your asses.”
West handed him a gun. “Take this.”
“You keep it for—”
“I have another. And I get that you’re all enhanced and shit, but nothing beats a bullet. Take it.”
He didn’t wait any longer. Sawyer took the gun. And as he slipped from that house, he let the shield in his mind lower as he began to hunt. Bryce, you fucking bastard…are you here
?
There was no answer. Just a thick, heavy silence.
And then Sawyer found the first body. A guard who was lying in a pool of his blood. His neck had been broken, and he’d been stabbed, again and again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“This way!” Jay called, voice sharp. “The safe room is just under the stairs. It’s reinforced with steel. There is no way anyone is getting inside once we seal that door. Super solder or no—”
Footsteps clattered on the stairs. Elizabeth looked up to see Flynn and Cecelia rushing toward them. When they reached the landing. Flynn ran toward her, his hand tight around Cecelia’s wrist. “Bryce doesn’t get her.” His eyes glittered. “He doesn’t get near either one of you, Elizabeth. I swear it.”
Her stomach twisted in fear. “Is he here? Do you feel him?” And, even worse, if he was there, what if he started influencing the others? Just what could he do? She didn’t know the limits of his power. Didn’t know what she’d made when she’d played Frankenstein.
“I can’t feel anything.” Flynn shook his head and urged Cecelia inside the open safe room. “It’s like someone put up a wall. I don’t know where the threat is coming—”
Gunfire exploded. It burst out sharp and fast and Flynn jerked when the bullets slammed into his back. His eyes were on Elizabeth, and they’d flared wide. “Get…safe…”
She wasn’t going in there without him. West was at her side, and he bent, aiming and firing at whoever had attacked them. The blasts were so loud. Elizabeth grabbed Flynn’s arm and dragged him away from the gunfire. West kept firing—
West went down. Blood splattered onto the wall behind him.
“Oh, the fuck, no,” Jay yelled. He rushed back out of the safe room, grabbed West, and heaved him over his shoulder. He was running back toward them when—
A bullet hit him. It slammed into Jay’s leg, going in the back of his thigh and bursting out of the front. His leg immediately crumpled, and he hit the marble floor.
***
The guards were all dead. They’d been lying face-down, so Sawyer hadn’t been able to see the blood in their video feed. Blood that covered their torsos. They’d all been killed in the same manner. Broken necks first—then stabbed. Fucking overkill.
There were at least seven dead bodies.
It takes time to kill seven men. The killer had been out there, going through the men one at a time, and Sawyer hadn’t known. He hadn’t heard anything, hadn’t sensed anything.
Gunfire blasted.
His head jerked at the sound, whipping toward the mansion. Bullets flew in a fast thunder, an exchange of gunfire, and he leapt forward, fear nearly choking him. He’d left Elizabeth in that house. She should have been safe.
Elizabeth. Elizabeth! Rage and fear poured through his veins, and he ran fast, so fast. He’d destroy whoever was in that house. Whoever had fired at Elizabeth would be dead.
Attack. Destroy. Kill…
The sinister, twisting thoughts burned in his mind. They were the only warning he had that Bryce was close. Because in the next instant, gunfire was thundering again. Only this time, the gunfire didn’t come from the house.
It came from behind me. The bastard was out here, waiting for me. Waiting for me to lower my guard. To turn my back.
Sawyer threw his body to the left, and the bullet burned over his side.
***
“Get in the safe room!” Jay bellowed. “Go! The door automatically locks when you close it—go!”
No, she wasn’t going to leave him and West out there. She scrambled toward them. She—
Elizabeth.
The voice stilled her. It was a voice that filled her mind. Only her mind. Because no one had said anything out loud. That voice was so familiar. And utterly terrifying. Without a word, Elizabeth immediately spun around. Cecelia had been surging after her, obviously determined to help, too.
Elizabeth shoved her back, sending Cecelia tumbling into the safe room, and then Elizabeth yanked the door closed, sealing Cecelia inside.
But keeping myself out.
Laughter echoed around her. Her shoulders stiffened as she turned back to the face the shooter. She found him standing just behind Jay, with a gun pointed at her former lover’s head.
Sadly, Elizabeth expelled a long sigh. “You just had to try the formula for yourself, didn’t you, Landon?”
And Dr. Landon Meyer—arrogant asshole, government pencil pusher, and now Lazarus soldier—slammed the gun into the side of Jay’s head. Jay slumped on the marble tile, blood dripping from his head, even as Elizabeth lunged toward him.
“No, Elizabeth, dear, you stand right there.” Landon lifted the gun and pointed it at her. “And, of course, I tried the formula. Got a trusted associate to help me. I mean, seriously, did you truly believe I’d let all of that power go to waste?”
***
Sawyer’s body rolled and he came up in a crouch, the gun West had given him gripped tightly in his hand. His gaze scanned to the right. Bryce was there. Why hide, Five? Come out and I’ll kick your ass.
Bryce didn’t answer, but a dark pulse of rage filled Sawyer’s mind. Sawyer eased out a slow breath. His eyes narrowed as he stared into the darkness. Dawn was due soon, but the night still reigned. So very close.
But Sawyer didn’t need light to find Bryce. He just let his senses out, sending them surging into the dark. He listened, so intently, for the faintest of breaths, for the weak beat of a heart—got you.
Sawyer fired into the shadows just as Bryce lunged forward. The bullet found its target, sinking deep into Bryce’s right shoulder. The gun dropped from his suddenly useless fingers as Bryce bellowed his fury. Sawyer fired again, and the second bullet hit the bastard in the chest. Bryce fell, his body twitching on the ground. In an instant, Sawyer was on him. He put his gun right under Bryce’s chin. “Make another move, and it will be your last.”
Bryce froze.
Rage beat at Sawyer, making his temples throb.
Attack. Destroy. Kill.
Sawyer gave a grim laugh. “That shit doesn’t work now. I think I’ve built an immunity to you…see, once I knew the thoughts and feelings weren’t mine, it got easier to beat them back. I’m not some puppet on a string. You don’t control me.”
Blood poured from Bryce’s wounds.
“How the hell did you find us so fast?” Sawyer demanded. “I cut out my tracker.”
Bryce’s eyes widened. “T-tracker?”
“Yeah, the fucking GPS tracker that Landon shoved into us so he could always find our team. I cut mine out. Don’t know how the fuck you found me, thought you—”
“F-followed him…” Bryce jerked. His skin had gone stark white. “M-made me…f-follow…”
“Him?” Sawyer thought of the gunfire he’d heard in the mansion. Bryce couldn’t have fired those shots, not when the asshole had been lying in wait outside. “Who’s in there? I killed Three. The bastard was out of control. Probably because of you. Who else have you screwed in the head? Is Subject Four up there? Is he the one who helped you kill all those guards at the gate?”
“N-not me…” Blood dripped from Bryce’s lips. “Not…g-guards…didn’t kill…th-them…”
“Right. Like I believe your bullshit.” His finger wanted to squeeze the trigger. “You’re done.” He had to get to Elizabeth. And he had to make sure that Bryce never threatened her again. “You think you’re going to take Elizabeth away? Hell, no. You’re just going to die. You will just—”
“L-Landon…” Bryce could barely speak. His breath came in rough, slow pants. “He’s…one…killed…”
“What?”
“F-followed h-him here…he…he’s the one…wants Elizabeth…made me…made me t-taunt you…wants…you…weak…”
Landon? Landon Meyer?
But Bryce wasn’t saying anything else. His body had gone still, and when Sawyer put his hand to the guy’s pulse, there was no beat. No weak flutter. Nothing. He’s gone.
Fuck. Saw
yer shoved to his feet and ran for the mansion. Bryce’s final words kept playing in his head, over and over again. Landon was a scientist, not a super soldier. Wasn’t he?
Sawyer burst through the front door of the mansion, the gun gripped in his hand. The door flew back and banged into the wall, and the scene before him made Sawyer’s heart stop.
West was on the floor, a pool of blood beneath him. Jay was unconscious next to him, his body in a heap. And Landon—Landon stood just a few feet away from Elizabeth. A gun was in the doctor’s hand. A gun that he had aimed right at Elizabeth’s head.
When Landon glimpsed Sawyer, he lunged forward. Landon grabbed Elizabeth and hauled her in front of him, using her body as a shield even as he put the gun to her head. “You should be dead!” Landon spat. “What the hell use is Bryce if he can’t get one job done?”
Sawyer’s gaze was on Elizabeth. She was afraid. He could see her fear, and he hated it. “Let her go.”
“Do I look stupid? Hell, no. I release her, and you’ll shoot me. That’s not how this is going to work. You drop your gun, and then we’ll talk about letting Elizabeth go free.”
Sawyer’s jaw clenched.
“Don’t,” Elizabeth’s voice was soft. Her dark eyes were on Sawyer. “Don’t drop your gun. If you do, he’ll shoot you.”
Yeah, Sawyer figured that would happen.
“If he doesn’t drop it,” Landon snapped as spittle flew from his mouth. “I’ll shoot you, Elizabeth. The hero over there can watch you fall, just like before. Only this time, the bullet will be in your head. You’ll die, and he won’t be able to bring you back. What do you think that will do to him? You’re the only emotional connection the guy seems to have. Losing you…” He laughed. “I bet it will rip his world apart.”
It would. Sawyer knew it. She was his center. No, she was his world, and Landon couldn’t take her away.
“You won’t shoot me.” Elizabeth lifted her chin and her gaze never left Sawyer’s. “You need me. I’m Lazarus, remember? Not you.”
“I’ve already improved your formula, I made it better! I don’t need—”
“You. Need. Me. That’s why Wright came to me in D.C., isn’t it? Because you told him I had to get back in the program. You messed with the formula, and something went wrong.”