He groaned. “I think the show’s about to start. Let’s…oh, shit…take our seats, shall we?”
The others helped Eden get him onto his feet and walked him to the back of the truck. Landon counted the seconds. The truck bed was illuminated for the first six feet. Then there was nothing but darkness. Like an abyss. Fields and Eden vaulted into the truck to pull him up and Landon pushed from the ground.
“Stop grabbing my ass, cop.”
“Shut up and start helping, asshole,” Landon grumbled before resuming his count. “20…21…”
She wished he would stop. It didn’t matter if the count was up or down, whatever number it ended on wasn’t one Eden wanted to know.
“22…”
“I don’t feel so good.” Mitch was trying to help, but his abs were spasming, his arms pulling against them uncontrollably. Even the curses coming out of his mouth were broken up.
As soon as his knee was on the floorboard, Landon jumped up and Eden stepped back to let the men drag Mitch the rest of the way. She took the syringe out of her pocket, gripping it so tightly she was afraid it would break.
He never got up from his knees, dragging himself to the chains. She knew he was furious, not at what was happening but at how it was happening, that there were witnesses to what he thought was his weakness.
He wasn’t weak. He’d never been weak.
“This isn’t normal,” Landon said. “Seizures don’t work like this.”
“I’ll try to get it right…next time.” Mitch’s body let go and he rolled onto his back. On top of the chalk outline he’d made Landon draw. His version of irony, she supposed.
Not funny.
“I need…” Mitch groaned. “Babe, I need…another beer.”
“Damn it, Mitch! It isn’t funny!”
As the men cuffed his ankles, Eden caressed his face, tears running down her cheeks. He yanked her towards him, his fist wrapped around her shirt. It may have just been an involuntary muscle contraction, but it didn’t matter. She wanted to be close to him.
“Love you.”
Landon pried Mitch’s fingers off of her. He used his weight to pull Mitch’s arm to the floor and his knee to hold it still. Then he attached the cuff around Mitch’s wrist.
“29…30…” Landon looked close to tears, but he did what he had to.
“Stop this, Mitch,” she moaned. “Make it stop.”
His body answered with more powerful convulsions, but he mouthed, ‘It’s okay.’
“Liar.” She nodded, wishing he wasn’t lying but knowing better. “I don’t want you to go.”
Landon took the syringe out of her hand. It was better that he do it. Because she couldn’t move. There was no guarantee this would even work. All their hope stemmed from a Clinic employee—not the most reliable of sources. Just because he was right about the seizure didn’t mean he was telling the truth about the remedy.
Then she felt hands on her shoulders and then was dragged backwards. She threw her elbow out behind her and heard a grunt as she hit Fields. Without apologizing or thinking, she scrambled back to Mitch on her knees.
When the next spasm hit, Mitch cried out and his entire body lifted off the floor, the cuffs and chains snapping taut with the movement. And Eden understood why Fields had pulled her back. If she’d stayed where she was, with her head so close to Mitch’s, one or both of their jaws would be broken.
“I’ll figure it out, Mitch. I’ll find a way to make this stop.”
His beautiful hazel eyes disappeared leaving only white as they rolled back in his head.
At Landon’s count of thirty-eight, Mitch started to truly seize, full-force, no take-backs. His body convulsed the way it had when he’d been hit with the Taser.
But this was worse. Because this was now.
“Hurry, Landon!” She held Mitch’s head to prevent his skull from slamming into the floor. The skin on her knuckles opened up, the rough plywood shoving splinters into her flesh.
Landon popped the plunger guard and the needle cap off and, with one of his hands and both of Fields’, immobilized Mitch’s arm. The rest of his body convulsed violently in the little give the chains allowed. His feet hammered the floor with enough force to shake the truck. To shake Eden’s body and mind.
Landon shoved the needle in and pressed the plunger down hard. The cry Mitch released broke Eden in half. A few seconds of agony later, he went completely limp in her arms.
Her whimper echoed off the walls. A weak sound, a tragic sound, something that could only be caused by losing. They waited without speaking or moving or doing anything other than hoping. Thirty seconds. Forty-five. One of her tears landed on his cheek.
Then he started to transform, his body lengthening, thickening. His hair growing coarse against her fingers, his facial features more severe—similar but so different from the face she could look at forever. His beauty was taken away along with everything good inside him. But he was breathing and, for that, Eden was happy.
“It’s working,” Landon said, standing up. “It has to be working.”
She pulled away, so she wouldn’t be touching him when he opened his eyes. His heavy head thumped onto the floor.
Ice-cold blue irises stared into hers. “Hi, honey. I’m home.” His laughter filled the air, guttural, horrible, chilling.
Numbing.
Nothing left to see here, folks. Mitch was gone now.
“Let’s go,” she said before jumping down and walking to the cab of the truck, not looking back. When Mitch disappeared, her emotions did too, tucked into her subconscious, useless. As if a light switch had been thrown—on to off in a matter of seconds. Maybe it was a good thing Hyde was here. She could put away her feelings for another day and focus on how to make sure there was another day.
Landon pulled down the back door and clicked the lock, muffling Hyde’s cackling. She climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition, hoping the deep hum of diesel would drown his voice out of her head.
When Fields knocked on her window, she barely flinched. “Keep them safe, okay?”
“I will,” he said. “You keep you safe, okay?”
This was probably how a father would say goodbye to his daughter when she left for college. Fields was more of a father than she’d ever had. But instead of clothes and plastic dorm furniture in the U-Haul, there was Hyde.
Not quite the same thing. But he might be the best she’d ever have.
Chapter XII
Ryan waited impatiently for Newman’s call. The man was an imbecile, but how much brainpower did it take to kidnap and kill people? As much as Ryan didn’t want to go back to Florida, it might be necessary. See the old neighborhood, get some good Cuban food, visit his father’s grave.
Except that last one was never going to happen. Because his father didn’t have a grave.
The Abnormal monster didn’t leave enough to bury.
But Ryan would turn things around, make things the way they should be, create something good out of the bad. At least for himself.
When his phone rang, he poured himself a bourbon before he answered. It was important that underlings knew he had better things to do than wait around for them. A lesson he’d learned when Jolie Cabot had called him drunk and irritable because things with Turner and Colfax weren’t going her way. How many days later did she die? He preferred not to think about it because it made him angry—at her, at the two Abnormals who were threatening everything he’d worked for, and at himself.
He took a sip and then accepted the call. “Good news first.” He really needed some good news.
“Not sure what’s going on with the Hyde, but that police chief says the ex-cop and the girl are leaving South Florida. But he didn’t know where to.”
Ryan kept his voice calm, like always, but he set his glass down so it didn’t shatter in his hand. “That’s not good news, Newman. Not at all. How much do they know?”
“All I know is what the guy told me—they’re leaving South Flor
ida and if they get caught, they’ll blame him.”
People like Colfax, Turner and Landon didn’t run away, they ran towards. The idiots. “They’re coming here.” Ryan stood and walked to the glass wall of his office. The view calmed him, the pacing not as much. So he stopped doing it.
How the hell did they figure out where he was? “They are either very lucky or it looks like you did the right thing with Harris. Although I wish it had happened before he talked to Landon.”
“Then can you untie me now and let me do what I’m good at?”
He would never know exactly what Harris had told Landon, but it would be stupid to assume he hadn’t mentioned other things—like the names of their other labs, including the one here in Dallas, and how to make and keep Turner human. Thankfully Harris didn’t know much more than that. “It would have been nice to know exactly what Harris told them.”
“Once they’re all dead, it won’t matter what he told them.”
“I’ll be sure to let you know the minute I want your advice, Newman. But for right now, you need to keep your fucking mouth shut and let me think.”
“I don’t like it when people are disrespectful to me. No matter who they are.”
Ryan’s stupid-radar must still be on the fritz, because there was no other explanation as to why everyone he hired was so moronic.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. It needed a trim. “If you think I’m going to apologize, then you’re even stupider than I thought you were. You do what you’re told because I’m paying you to do it. However, this time there’s a bonus involved.”
“I’m still going to need that apology,” the idiot muttered.
“Does fifteen more a piece make my insult sting any less?”
He paused. “Yeah. That’ll do.”
Ryan had been so close to expanding The Clinic’s mission—turning it from just the one facility in Florida that Ian had set up into two. Then four. Then as many as Ryan could manage, which by his figuring was as many as there was financing to build and people with enough intelligence to do what he told them to and nothing more.
Of course, now that plan would have to be delayed because of Colfax and Turner. The irony wasn’t lost on him—while trying to gain control of their Abnormal sides, they’d lost control of their human sides. Double the irony, actually, because it was perfect little Eden Colfax who was fucking up his life again.
But once those two were muzzled, things could continue as he wanted them. He’d have Colfax and, if possible, they would continue the testing they were doing on Hyde01 with Hyde0016—Turner. Because there was something intensely poetic about that. And if Turner happened to die, there were others who could fill the position.
Newman cleared his throat. “I might be able to get to them before they hit Dallas if I move quick.”
“And what? Shoot the men on the side of a freeway? And then hide three hundred pounds of dead Hyde, two hundred of dead Landon, and a hundred pounds of unconscious Colfax somewhere before anyone notices?” Before Newman could reply, Ryan added, “Those were rhetorical questions.”
“Wha—?”
“It means you shouldn’t answer them. And ‘shut up’ means you should be quiet until I say you can speak.” He went back to his chair, sat down, and took a long sip of his drink.
Maybe this was a blessing. With the Florida facility being unusable, he would’ve brought Colfax here eventually anyway. The lab was already set-up, there were still a few empty cages, and he’d juggle the dorm rooms so she would have the nicest one. Once he’d chosen a scientist he could trust enough to replace Bradford, Ryan would be more hands-on.
By the time his drink was gone and the ice hit his lips, he’d decided. “If they’re coming here looking for me, then maybe I should let them.”
“Not a bad idea to use you as bait,” Newman said. “I can—”
“I’m not bait. Ever,” Ryan snapped. “Bait is the little guy. The prey. The temptation for a larger fish. There are no larger fish, and I’m no one’s fucking prey. If I have to flush them out, I will.” Like a falcon, not a dog. “But I’d rather not. So here’s what going to happen: I’ll figure out a way to get their attention. Once we know where they are, you take care of Landon and the Hyde, if it’s not already dead by then. Kill them only if you have to.”
“And the woman?”
The woman who wasn’t really a woman. Somehow she’d become more than that—not with pharmaceuticals—by her own nature. Within her was the solution to every question he’d ever had about the Abnormals, how he would go from answering to the Board to owning the Board.
The way it should be.
“Colfax doesn’t die. I don’t care how you make it happen, but I want her breathing when you bring her in.” And if that plan failed as badly as so many others, Ryan would still be more ‘hands-on,’ but they would be bloody when he did it. He would kill Newman and any other throat he could get his hands on.
“And Newman? Whatever you do, if you see her with a man you don’t recognize, don’t shoot him. Because that’ll be me. Got it?”
“Why bother with her?”
“Because she knows something I don’t.” And I think our meeting is overdue.
Chapter XIII
They drove straight through, only stopping for food, bathroom breaks, and a catnap. At every stop Landon checked on Hyde, cracking the door a tiny bit to check his bindings, but not enough for any passerby to see their cargo. Along the way, they secured an empty warehouse in a sea of empty warehouses on the east end of Dallas. According to Google Maps, it looked safe and far away from everything.
Google Maps was right. Eden pulled the truck through the large roll-up loading door and parked in the center of the warehouse. Damn, there was a lot of space. A lot of hollow, cold, hard space.
“Think pillows and a few knick-knacks will brighten up the place?” When she heard the echo of her voice, she looked up, imagining she would see it being carried away. At least there was a lot of light from the windows near the ceiling. Not that they’d be around long enough to think of it as home. She hoped.
Garbage, a few old chairs, a three-legged table, and some old building materials were the only signs of civilization. Probably leftovers from when a building developer realized the place was a bigger shithole than he’d thought and no one would ever want to live here. She sure as hell didn’t.
But there were a few things they could use—the table, some plywood, one decent chair. Off to the side was a small reception area with a long built-in desk, a separate office, and a truly disgusting bathroom. It was enough to make her miss the luxury of the brothel.
“This place is screaming for an extreme makeover,” she said. “Or a wrecking ball.”
Landon was already unpacking the car. “Think of it like camping. On cement. With a shitty view and stagnant air.”
Despite Eden’s desire to bring Mitch back now, she knew it was a bad idea. Hyde might need some more time to fully recover from the seizure before it was even safe for Mitch to use his body again. And it wasn’t as if they could ask Hyde and expect the truth. In addition, and worse, was that bringing him back also brought the possibility of the RLS-7 not working. Their supply was already limited.
So angrily, disgustedly, and guiltily, Eden made the call. Hyde would stay in the truck, chained down at all times. Different city, different cage. Mitch wouldn’t be revived until they knew more, had more of the drug, or had no other choice. Landon didn’t say a word, maybe because he understood how much strength it took her to make a decision that condemned Mitch to more time in his prison.
She unlocked the back of the truck and pulled the chain to raise the door. The heat was almost suffocating. Texas weather was better than what they drove through, but inside the truck it was still hellishly hot. Getting their sleeping bags and clothes would have to wait until it cooled down a little. They could do the supply run for flashlights, batteries, and food first.
Add air freshener to the list. “How you
doing in there, big fella?” She climbed up and checked his bindings.
“I got an itch,” Hyde muttered. “Need you to scratch it…with your tongue.”
“I’ll keep the door open to air the place out but, if you start yelling, I’m going to change my mind.” She backed away from him—you don’t turn your back on evil, even if it’s strapped down.
“Hey,” he called. “Take the toddler with you. He needs a snack. And a diaper change.”
“What?”
“Come out, little mouse,” he sang in a rough falsetto. “And go away. You’re stinking up the place.”
Eden stepped forward confused. “What—?”
Her suitcase slid forward by itself. Then a sleeping bag moved. And then she saw him.
Justin.
“Oh my god.” She wanted to scream, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ but she didn’t. Because he looked so terrified. Shell-shocked from spending hours, days, trapped in here with Hyde. Alone. Because she didn’t check…she didn’t want to be close to Hyde…she didn’t think…
“Come here,” she said softly, moving towards him.
Small and shaky steps brought him out of the shadows. Where it had been too dark for them to see the boy who’d stowed away, hiding behind all of their stuff. He bumped into the wall, staying as far away from Hyde as he could get.
What did the bastard say to him? She could barely stand to be around him and hear his ramblings. Justin had been trapped in here, unable to get away since they left Florida.
She remembered the first night she’d seen Hyde and the things he said to her, so she knew the kinds of filth Justin must have heard. That moment, flattened to her chair by the weight of her new reality, had been the most frightening moment of her life. But she could have left, gotten up and walked out the door. Justin had been huddled in the back of a moving truck, no way to escape and nowhere to run.
“You’re okay now. I’m going to take you out of here.” She put her arm around him and led him to the edge, jumping out first and helping him down.