“No one’s going to force you.” His head shook. “It’s your choice.”
“No, Fields, it’s not. They already tried it once. But it didn’t work. The girl almost”—she took a breath so the next word would have all of the power she wanted it to—“died. She was so young that her Jekyll wasn’t mature enough to carry the fetus.”
“Don’t listen to her!” Alex said, coming around the desk, her hands shaking as she tried to fill the syringe. “You know how Jekylls lie.”
Eden’s grip on the bars tightened. “You need to shut your mouth before your nose starts growing, Alex. Or better yet, come clean. Purge yourself of all that bullshit. It’s worth a shot, right?”
Alex tore her gaze off of Fields and glared at Eden. “Listen to the tough girl locked up in a cage, surrounded by her enemy. Everyone is expendable.”
“Finally! She speaks the truth!” Eden yelled. “You realize that goes for you too, right Alex? You’re just as expendable as I am. Maybe more. Because I’m a freak-of-nature who my enemies want to breed. Hmm… Which one of us do you think they’d keep around if it came down to it? The Abnormal one they can use, or the abnormally-bitchy one they already have used?”
“Enough!” Fields yelled. Then he backed away from Alex, staring at her. “You tell me the truth, or I tell her the truth.”
“Tell me the truth about what?” Eden asked. These people’s lies could fill a ten volume set, where the heck was he going to start?
Fields spoke through his teeth, his body tense. “Tell her who Hyde01 was.”
Was?
“I am telling you the truth,” Alex said. “We didn’t do anything to Alicia.” Her words were sputtered, her eyes were wide, and her head was shaking side-to-side slightly even as she denied it. Every part of her body screamed, ‘I am a huge, fucking liar’.
Fields was a big man. And it turns out that big men have equally big tears. As they fell down his cheeks, he didn’t move—not to brush them away, not to strike. His stillness making everything and everyone in the room follow suit.
“I. Don’t. Believe. You,” he said to Alex, barely moving his mouth. “She said she had flashbacks, but I told her they were just bad dreams. I thought they were just sick fantasies her Jekyll was showing her. And then, when she almost bled to death, you told me it was her Jekyll’s fault. And I believed you.” Suddenly, he flipped around to Eden and headed straight for her, his hands grabbing the bars between them. “Do you know what they did to my daughter?”
She shook her head. “I wish I did. I wish I could tell you what they’re doing to any of us, but I just don’t know. I won’t lie to you though, Fields. You know I won’t. They want to breed me. They’ve done it before. To Mitch’s sister and, yes, to someone too young to carry full-term.” She shrugged. “Maybe it was Alicia, I don’t know. I don’t even know how many of us there are, how many of us The Clinic is using.”
“Not many. Not here, at least. Just a few women and a few men. But this isn’t the only facility—”
“Don’t!” Alex screamed from behind him.
He turned to face her. “When I’m done with her, you’re going to tell me exactly what you’ve done.”
“You need to believe me,” Alex begged. “I haven’t done anything wrong. And telling her anything will only make her more vengeful and more dangerous. Think of Alicia. Come on, Fields, we’re close to a cure! I know some parts of this aren’t pretty, but what we’re doing could give Alicia a normal life. So that one day she’ll get married and have—”
“Have babies?” When he turned back to Eden, gone was the look of sadness, of anguish, of betrayal. All that was left was a man, a father, who would protect what he loved. A father who was finally speaking the truth. “That thing in there, Hyde01, started everything. He was normal, for a Hyde. But then…”
“Fields, shut up!”
“…the board decided they needed a control.” He spoke quickly, as if afraid his courage would fail before he got all the words out. “Every experiment needs a control, someone who gets a placebo instead of the drug they’re testing.”
He jerked, shock filling his face, and then spun around. “You bitch!” His arm shot out, and all Eden saw was Alex flying to the side and hitting the ground a few feet away. Then he reached over his shoulder and yanked out a syringe.
“I’m so sorry, Eden,” he said, turning. But not like before. This time his movements were sluggish, off-balance. He was blinking like crazy as he fought whatever Alex had injected him with.
“It’s okay,” she lied. “Let me out, and I’ll try to help you.” That wasn’t a lie—he’d just proven he could be trusted by taking a syringe in the neck.
He nodded, stumbling forward a step. “They were testing on their own founder…to see what happens to your kind…when you don’t have the serum…” he slurred. “And now…now he never comes back.”
“Let me out, Fields.”
“Please.” He fumbled for something under his shirt, pulling out a long chain with a key on the end. “Find Alicia and tell her...” Just as he pulled it over his head, his eyebrows bunched, and his eyes widened. “…sorry.” Then his body fell forward, smacking into the bars of the cage.
Holding her head, Alex slowly got to her feet. “I really wish you hadn’t mentioned Alicia, Eden.” She snatched the chain out of his hand, walked calmly back to the desk, picked up her cell phone, and ordered whoever was on the other end of the line to come and pick up the trash.
CHAPTER XXIII
The Clinic’s facility was so utterly and disappointingly anti-climatic, neither Landon nor Mitch spoke for a long time. It was dark and they couldn’t get too close, but from what they could tell, The Big Bad Clinic was contained in a white one-story building with a few windows that were either blacked-out or had the kind of film that made them opaque. An industrial-sized door in the front and who-knows-what in the back. Probably a golf course and a nice fountain. It was so fucking normal! No guards patrolling the area, no barbed-wire gate, no mean-looking dogs. In fact, the only growling was coming from Mitch.
“Can we please stop doing drive-bys and do something?” Mitch grumbled on their fourth time around the block. “Just let me out, I’ll knock on their front door and tell them I’m new in the neighborhood.”
Landon scoffed. “Before beating them with a bundt cake?”
“You got a better idea?”
“They know both of you,” Carter said from the passenger seat, his head against the glass, his wheezing breath fogging up the window near his mouth. “The second someone sees one of your faces, all hell will break lose. We need to wait until things settle down a bit. In about an hour, there’s a shift-change. The new guards start their rounds on the opposite side of the facility, so it’ll be easier to go in unnoticed. And since we can use my keycard, you shouldn’t have to shoot up the place too much.”
If Mitch wasn’t still pretending to wear the handcuffs, he would’ve smacked the back of Carter’s head. “They gave you a key to the place? Why didn’t you tell us that earlier?”
He shrugged. “Slipped my mind. Probably because of the near-concussion you gave me.”
“Great, more waiting,” he bitched. “Then, with any luck, we go in, find Eden, and get her out in no time.” Oh, and burn the motherfucking place down. But Mitch didn’t mention that.
“Our first stop is the cage room,” Carter said.
“Why do they have her in a cage? I thought she was going to help them.” Mitch knew he had no right to say anything—seeing as how he’d put her in one as well, but they’d known who she was. He hadn’t. It was a small consolation, but he held onto it. He needed as wide a gap as possible between their actions and his.
“I don’t know for sure if she’s still there. They might’ve taken her back to her room. We’ll have to check.”
“Then why don’t we go to her room first?” Mitch wanted to crawl into the front seat. Or grab Carter by the neck and yank his head around. You know, not to break an
ything, but to see his ugly face. Because there was something off about this whole thing. And he might be able to figure it out if he knew the boy scout was lying.
“No, the cage room first. Then, if she’s not there, we’ll check her room.”
What the fuck is in the cage room besides cages?
“I’ll distract the guard and then signal you,” Carter said. “But if you screw it up, I’m not helping.”
“You’re a great guy, you know that?”
“Thanks. Oh, and one more thing. If they find us—which we have about a 1% chance of not happening—don’t let them tase you.”
“They don’t have any real guns?” Landon asked, confused. Apparently unhappy that these bad guys worked differently than all the other bad guys he’d dealt with.
Carter shook his head. “No, but all of them carry Dart Tasers.”
“Yeah,” Mitch grumbled. “We’ve met.”
Carter turned to look at Mitch, his grin a cold reminder of their relationship. “They tased you? Damn, I wish I’d seen that.”
“As soon as I get hold of one of them, I’ll show you how they work. Maybe take a video so you can have a souvenir.”
“Considering that you’re still here to threaten me, it means that the Taser wasn’t turned all the way up. The ones the guards use aren’t your average, off-the-shelf variety. These are the hard-core, black-market, customized, you-do-not-want-to-mess-with-them kind.”
Landon grimaced. “This is South Florida. Nothing should surprise me.”
“You don’t understand. Not only do the darts make them able to be used at a longer distance, these are rigged for Abnormals. At the low-volt setting, they’re just garden-variety-incapacitating, but on high? They could put down Mitch’s more interesting side.”
“They’re strong enough to knock out Hyde?”
Carter shook his head. “They’re strong enough to kill Hyde.”
The silence got irritating quick. Mitch didn’t want Landon to start worrying or Carter to start celebrating. “Okay, good to know. Any other little tidbits to tell us?”
“Not that I can think of,” Carter said. “Maybe you shouldn’t have hit me so hard.”
“Maybe.” But it had been worth it.
A long while later, Carter needed to take a piss. So they parked the car a couple blocks from The Clinic’s facility. And because they’d already forced him to hand over the keycard to Emerald City, it made no difference to Mitch if Carter was using his tiny bladder as an excuse to run for it. Mitch had been dealing with bad fucking karma his whole life. Carter would get what was coming to him. Because karma couldn’t give a rat’s ass about intent. No, that shit was all about action. And Carter’s actions were so far away from good, there was a strong possibility that he was taking Hyde classes.
Not to mention that a slug could outrace the little prick at this point. In the short time they’d been driving, Carter’s complexion had grown paler, until even his lips lacked color.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” Landon asked, after the kid had gone a few feet into the bushes.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. You just concentrate on getting Eden out. Whatever happens, just do that. Got it?”
“Damn it, Turner.” Landon didn’t turn around, he simply refocused the rearview mirror, and they spoke to each other’s reflections. “Don’t do anything that’ll get me killed.”
Mitch smiled. “I don’t want to be a hero. I just don’t want you to do that whole ‘leave no man behind’ shit I see on TV.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Wait. Seriously? You’re not even going to argue with me?”
“Oh. No, Turner,” he said, dead-pan. “Don’t sacrifice yourself for all of the rest of us. If it comes down to you or me, save yourself.” He opened the car door. “Happy now?”
“You could’ve been more sincere about it.” He looked at the WTF-expression Landon wore.
“I’m going to check on him,” Landon said. “Make sure he’s still conscious. You just stay here and be pretty.”
“I’m on it.” Fuck it all, Mitch had a friend. First time ever. He finally had a friend who could put up with his bullshit, who protected him from himself, and who might end up in a lot more trouble than he deserved. “You’re exactly the kind of asshole I can respect, you know that, Landon?”
Then, after one more scowl, the cop turned away. “Bet you say that to all the guys you almost kill.”
Mitch still had a lot to make up for. And he would probably run out of time before he’d done it.
§ § §
As soon as Carter tapped his watch and gave the thumbs-up signal, they went in ninja-style. Minus the all-black, lethal throwing-stars, and any knowledge of martial arts, that is. Not to mention that Landon practically had to carry Carter in. The guy was almost staggering. Every time Mitch asked him what the hell was wrong with him or Landon asked him if he wanted to go to the hospital, Carter just ignored them.
“Seriously, man,” Landon said. “You don’t look so good. Are you sure you don’t need help?”
“No,” Mitch said. “We’re doing this now. We don’t have time to take him anywhere.”
Landon scowled at him. “We can leave him at that strip mall we saw, call 9-1-1, and then come back here.”
Carter pulled away from Landon’s side, balancing on his own two feet. “I need to get inside. Get my medicine. Then I’ll feel better.”
Landon tried to argue. But, for once and only once, Mitch was on Carter’s side. The kid’s knowledge of the layout of the place meant that no matter what, he was coming along for the ride. Even if they had to drag him in by the scruff of his neck.
“You get us inside,” Mitch said, “and you can have whatever you want.”
While Mitch and Landon stayed behind, peeping around some bushes like Toms, ready for an old lady to come out and start yelling at them, Carter finally came through and did something productive. He went to go tell the guard who-the-fuck-knew and who-the-fuck-cared to get him away from the door.
Mitch knew there was a huge chance that the kid would turn on them. In fact, he expected it. So, when they caught up him, Mitch would keep it short—knock him out and stuff him in a room he couldn’t get out of until they were done.
“We need to get rid of Carter.”
Landon flinched. “We’re not killing him.”
“Of course not.” Although the thought had crossed his mind. Frequently. “He’s on his way there already, without us doing anything.”
Landon nodded, his mouth tight. “What do you want to do?”
“We can’t have him changing sides again. Plus, he’s oddly concerned with getting inside the cage room. And not because Eden’s in there. He’s about as trustworthy as I am. So I say we knock him out until it’s over.”
Landon just grunted.
“Think of it this way, Landon: He’ll probably be safer that way. If this gets rough, he’ll get hurt. You know, ‘cause he fights worse than you do.”
“So knocking him senseless is your way of helping him out?”
He nodded. “I can be helpful.”
Carter waved at them from the back entrance.
As they ran across the grass, Landon said, “Remind me to never ask for your help.”
“I’d say no anyway, so don’t worry about it.”
“Fine, but let me do it. I know where to hit him without causing permanent paralysis.”
“You never let me have any fun.”
When they neared the door, Carter shoved something in his pocket. “I already shut down the camera feed.”
“What was that?” Mitch asked. If the kid had a weapon, he needed to know about it. About two hours ago.
“Nothing,” Carter mumbled.
“Hand it over, or I’m dumping your body somewhere in Alligator Alley.” He stuck out his palm, and, after a quick glance to Landon who said, “Give it up, kid,” Carter placed an empty syringe into Mitch’s hand. Whatever had filled it was blue. Nothing shot
into a vein should be blue. Nothing.
“What the fuck was in it?”
“The guard, he…I don’t…” Whatever he was stuttering was left hanging. One thing was for sure—Carter had completely lost any leftover traces of morality that he might’ve had.
“You just bring that kind of stuff with you wherever you go or what?” He knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it come out of Carter’s mouth.
“Fine,” he said, his face pointed towards the ground. “I brought it as protection. For you.”
There it was—the answer Mitch had been waiting for. But it didn’t stop him from mouthing off because…well, because that’s who he was. “Protection, huh? I usually opt for condoms, but whatever floats, dude. Although…geez, this is awkward.” He sighed. “You’re not my type. Not to mention that my dick…” Another sigh. “Yeah, my dick is the only thing I don’t want to shove up your ass.”
“Are you going to kill me?” he said weakly.
“Nah,” he said, slapping Carter’s shoulder. “Not enough time. Sure as hell is tempting, though.”
“Can we break this up,” Landon said, “and get what we came here for?”
Even though the empty syringe was no longer a weapon—unless Mitch tried poking someone to death—he shoved it into his pocket, and they took off down the hallway. Slowly. Brain-numbingly slowly. Thanks to Carter’s quickly decreasing ability to walk straight.
Landon stood behind him, shaking his head unhappily like he still wasn’t convinced this was a good idea. Which it wasn’t. When it came down to it, none of this was a good idea. And if Mitch thought too much about it, he’d probably decide to wait until they came up with a decent plan before trying anything. So he didn’t think about it.
“I need to get the medication,” Carter mumbled, his gait jerky. “Need to find my medication.”
“Whatever,” Mitch mumbled back.
Was that what Carter wanted in the cage room? His meds? Which meant that Eden was probably nowhere near the place, and the prick just needed their help to get his precious drugs. Which also meant that he couldn’t simply ask the-Clinic-powers-that-be for a prescription. So he was probably just as unwanted here as they were. That actually eased Mitch’s paranoia—at least Carter wasn’t setting them up for an ambush. Sometimes, being unwanted was a good thing.