by CJ Lyons
We were inside a glass-walled room. Security monitors and computers lined two walls. Some kind of control room? No one sat at the monitors, making me wonder if their manpower was stretched thin. If so, maybe I could use that to my advantage.
The entire first floor of the warehouse sprawled before me through a second glass door and the office’s windows. I was surprised by the bright lighting. Windows that appeared covered only by plywood on the outside were completely sealed on the inside with some kind of metallic foil. To prevent both light and heat from escaping? Altering the building’s thermal image, maybe?
The floor space was immaculate, the concrete floor freshly painted. There were several self-enclosed glass cubicles with airlocks at their entrances. Inside them I saw laboratory equipment. On the outside were biohazard suits.
“That’s at least a Level Three biocontainment lab,” I said in wonder. “What the hell are you people working on?”
Tommaso grinned. “One guess.”
I whirled on him. “Prions? Are you crazy? Do you have any idea how dangerous—” I broke off. Of course they did. They were the ones who’d unleashed the fatal insomnia here in Cambria City. They’d infected all those children and who knew how many more. “What have you done? What do you want?”
“You’ll see. All in good time.” Tommaso nodded to the man in black, who entered a code on a keypad beside the inner door. It opened, and we entered the main floor. My ears popped with the vibration of air scrubbers. I glanced overhead. There was a sprinkler system with newer pipes extending to the biohazard labs as well as extra ventilation ducts, obviously also recently installed.
Despite the large area, I didn’t see anyone else. Until they steered me around to the other side of the control room, to an area with two bunk beds and a makeshift kitchen. Leaning against a concrete support pillar in the center of the area, two men with guns flanking him, was Devon.
“Hey, doc,” he said jauntily, despite the fact one eye was swollen shut and his lip was split. “Welcome to the party.”
One of his guards elbowed him in the belly, hard enough to double him over, gasping.
“Stop it,” I cried, flashing back to the scene of Jacob in the alley. “Tell me what you want from us.”
“From you,” Tommaso corrected. “First, tell me what Jacob said.”
“How did you know he’d be able to talk to me?”
“What did Jacob tell you?” Tommaso repeated, his tone totally normal, making his request all the more macabre.
I focused on him, trying to search out any humanity. “Jacob said you targeted him because of me. Said he was my weakness, my vulnerable spot.”
Tommaso nodded but appeared unconvinced. “Exact words. He had a message for you, yes? A name he shared with you?”
I inhaled, closed my eyes for a moment, Jacob’s voice echoing in my head. “Patient Zero. He said you called me Patient Zero.”
In epidemiology, Patient Zero was the first patient to show signs of a disease during an epidemic. If that was me, then…“Is this some kind of terrorist plot? To create an epidemic of fatal insomnia?”
Tommaso chuckled, as did the man in black. I turned to face the other two men, the ones guarding Devon. They were also smiling, as if my words were funny.
Before I could ask anything more, two shots sounded from above us, followed in rapid succession by two more. The men on either side of Devon fell to the ground. He sprang up, grabbing the gun from the man closest to him, and firing at the man in black beside me. But Devon’s shot missed because the man in black was already running for cover and firing back at the person overhead. I glanced up. It was Flynn, leaning over the staircase railing.
Tommaso raised his gun, taking aim at Devon, but I shoved him, hard, and his shot went wide. Devon scrambled for cover behind the concrete column. Tommaso grabbed me, pulling me tight against his body as a shield, backing us up against the wall of the control room.
“Anyone makes a move, she dies,” he shouted.
Flynn had already vanished from sight, and Devon was hidden behind the support beam. Tommaso kept us moving, back to the electronically controlled door, his gun jabbed into my neck.
He keyed the code into the door his movements too fast for me to see which numbers he hit, and then we were behind it, inside the control room. He released me. I ran to the exterior door, the solid metal one, and tugged at it. No luck. It was also electronically controlled.
He ignored me to work at the computers, typing with one hand while pointing his gun at me with the other. I watched as the man in black skulked behind a lab bench filled with equipment and sneaked up behind Devon. I shouted a warning as he raised his gun, but my words echoed against the glass walls.
“Soundproof,” Tommaso informed me without stopping his frantic typing.
No matter. Flynn sidled from the shadows and took out the man with a shot to the back of the head. She ran to Devon, helped him to his feet. Blood covered most of his face. I was surprised he’d been able to aim at all.
Only Tommaso remained. I stepped toward him. He was quick to gesture with his gun in warning.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he returned to the computer. It was obvious I wouldn’t be getting out without him unlocking the doors. Which meant I couldn’t tackle him until then.
“Following protocol. No one can know what we were doing here. It’s a shame to lose such a productive facility, but,” he threw a smile at me that lacked any humanity, as if I was a prized possession, “I have what we came for.”
“Who’s we?” I repeated, trying to distract him as I moved closer. Over his shoulder, I saw that he was starting some kind of program. Something to do with the fire sprinklers, it appeared from the schematics.
“Who are we? I guess you could call us your new family.” For some reason, the thought made him smile even wider. He turned to me, gesturing with the pistol. “It’s done.”
“What? What’s done?” Past him, through the window, I saw Flynn and Devon on the move. They weren’t coming to the control room. Obviously, they realized that Tommaso controlled the locks. Instead, they were headed toward the staircase Flynn had come down.
“A software virus to purge all of our data. And,” his gaze moved to stare out at the containment labs, which were filling with smoke, “caustic soda to purge the rest.”
Caustic soda. Also known as sodium hydroxide. Lye. The only chemical shown to eradicate prions. Which meant these people didn’t want to cause an epidemic. What did they want?
I didn’t have time to ask. To my horror, the sprinklers outside the containment labs began to spray a cloudy fluid. A fluid that when it hit any surface produced a corrosive smoke. He was flooding the entire floor space with lye.
“No,” I yelled, lunging toward the computer.
He yanked me back, the gun pressed to my side again. “Too late, Dr. Rossi. Time to go.”
The area beyond the control room window was filling with yellow-gray smoke, billowing as the ventilation system carried the lye throughout the space. I’d lost sight of Flynn and Devon. Had they made it? Or were they choking to death inside the caustic alkaline cloud, their skin and throats and eyes and airways literally melting?
Chapter Fifty
“Drop the remote, Gena,” Ryder told her. The music from upstairs had stopped. Jimmy taking care of business. But with only one exit, it would take time to evacuate everyone. “There’s no way out.”
Kravitz was no dummy. She glanced up, her expression a strange cross between dreamy apathy and bitter anger. “There was supposed to be. Before you showed up. Of course, everything was going just fine until your friend Rossi decided to meddle. Convince Tymara to talk to the cops, testify.”
She held the remote up as if she was going to kiss it, her thumb poised over the buttons. “Guess she’ll think twice about doing that again.”
“Just tell me why,” Ryder said, hoping to play to her innate narcissism. “You’re a legal rock star. You could have gotten Eugene
off after he raped Tymara. Why torture and leave her for dead? Why kill all those people at the school?”
The look she gave him was pitying. “Have you ever been in love, detective? If you ever had, you’d know. You never abandon the one you love. Anyone who does deserves their own special Hell. I just made certain they got it, that’s all.”
Ryder didn’t have an answer to that. Other than it was clear Kravitz recognized no boundaries and had an unquenchable hunger for drama. Which made her particularly dangerous.
She raised her eyebrows in a seductive pout that made him want to vomit. “What do you say, lover boy? We can walk out of here together if you give me that gun of yours.”
He considered stalling, giving Jimmy more time to clear the civilians and time for backup to arrive. But no way in hell was someone as sick and twisted as Kravitz going to fall for stall tactics. And no way in hell was he going to let her walk out of here with that remote.
“Well, Gena,” he drawled, leaching all the adrenaline from his voice even as he shifted his weight and braced his elbows. “I’d love to take you—”
Two shots to the head, one to the chest as she rolled off her perch. The remote skittered across the floor. Ryder approached her, still aiming for a kill shot.
Too late for that. Mission accomplished.
* * *
All I could think about as Tommaso dragged me out of the building and toward the SUV was Flynn and Devon. If they’d found shelter or made it up to the second floor, they might last a few minutes at most. But given the powerful ventilation system, the gas would find them, sooner rather than later.
We reached the SUV. Tommaso stopped, car keys in the hand wrapped around my body, pistol in the other. He clearly was used to his men performing thuggish jobs like kidnapping, because he seemed confused about how to proceed.
Not me. I knew exactly what to do.
In a move I’d practiced hundreds of times during the self-defense courses the Advocacy Center hosted, I dropped my weight onto his right forearm, the one with the gun, propelling it away from me as I grabbed his wrist. Using my momentum as I spun free from his grip, I twisted his hand up and in while also stepping behind him, his arm now angled in the direction opposite of what nature intended.
He squealed, falling to his knees. The pistol clattered to the pavement. I kept pushing, adrenaline fueling my movement, and felt the delicate tendons of his wrist pop. His hand flopped, useless, as he screamed again.
The whole thing happened in a blur, much faster than I’d ever practiced. I was huffing, my pulse racing, exhilarated—and a tiny bit surprised that it had worked. I reached for the gun and the car keys. Then I opened the rear door. A mesh grating separated the cargo area from the passenger seats, perfect for my needs. “Get in.”
He obeyed, and I leapt into the driver’s seat, fastened my seat belt, and prayed for decent air bags as I rammed the SUV into drive and floored the accelerator. I aimed for the solid brick wall away from the reinforced entrance.
Old building, soft brick, weak mortar…it should work, I told myself. But I couldn’t help but close my eyes as the SUV crashed.
The sound was deafening and the recoil jolted through my entire body, but I kept my foot on the gas until we were through. The SUV skidded through the bunk beds, the air bag snapping my head back. Thunder sounded, and the SUV shook violently. I pushed the deflated air bag out of my way and hit the brakes. The SUV continued sliding across the concrete floor, a wave of collapsing bricks falling behind us.
The lye shower had ended, but smoke remained, dangerous in its own right. I turned on the SUV’s headlights, realized the futility of finding Flynn and Devon in the haze. Best I could do was provide them with a clear path free from the building. The SUV responded, although sluggish. At least one tire had blown. I steered the truck to the staircase on the far side of the bunk beds, where I’d last seen Flynn and Devon. Two figures appeared through the smoke, looking more like alien astronauts than humans. Of course, the biohazard suits!
They opened the doors and jumped into the backseat, closing them before the fumes could contaminate the inside of the SUV. I gunned the engine again and steered the SUV through the rabble around the opening I’d come in through. The broken bricks had formed a small mountain at the base of the opening, more falling sporadically from above, but the SUV gamely maneuvered over it.
A minute later, we were back outside in the snow. Devon and Flynn climbed out and shucked their suits, but I sat in the driver’s seat, trembling. The windshield was starred and chipped, the snow fell heavily enough to make the world outside appear as if I was trapped inside a snow globe.
Flynn opened the driver’s door. “Nice timing,” she said with a grin. The only time I’d ever seen Flynn smile was when either she’d just killed someone or someone was trying to kill her. The thought made me laugh. I choked it back, forcing my body to obey my commands to climb free of the SUV.
Devon held a gun on Tommaso, but it was hard to say which of them was more banged up. Tommaso cradled his right hand in his left, wincing in pain. Devon’s face had blood smeared all over it, but his teeth flashed white in the night as he raised the pistol. “Let’s go,” he ordered. “Time for answers.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Flynn took charge of Tommaso and led the way through the tunnels as I helped Devon. I hated being back inside the tunnel complex, but it was the safest place. Plus, it would give us privacy while we figured out what to do with Tommaso.
“Tommaso destroyed their computers. If he doesn’t talk, we’ll never know who they were or what they were up to,” I told Devon as we trudged through the maze. At least this time there was light. Last time I was down here, it had been in total darkness. “What did you see?”
“I saw enough to piece together some of the puzzle. Obviously, they’re behind the fatal insomnia outbreak. But who are they? And what do they have to gain from a group of children dying? From what I overheard, I’m not sure they have a cure for it. In fact, they sounded a bit desperate. To find you.”
Me? I had no cure or answers. “So the cure the man told me about isn’t for fatal insomnia?”
“No. Probably to reverse PXA overdoses. There was a ton of PXA there. I think it was part of their research, maybe a treatment like Louise said?”
I was silent, thinking of Jacob. Could I have saved him if I’d called the man in black instead of letting Devon chase after them?
He followed my thoughts effortlessly. “Those guys never would have given you the PXA reversal agent in time to save Jacob. You know that.”
I was silent for a long moment. I did know that. Wasn’t sure if knowing could ever be the same as believing. “We should still try to find it. It could help others.”
“Don’t worry, I grabbed a dose. Hope it’s enough for you to analyze.”
Flynn was a good twenty feet ahead of us. We’d reached the area beneath Good Sam—at least, I thought we had. I didn’t recognize the anonymous metal doors painted an ominous shade of red.
“Where to?” Flynn asked Devon, gesturing with the gun she aimed at Tommaso. He didn’t make eye contact with us, appeared to have totally surrendered. But Flynn obviously wasn’t taking anything for granted.
“Room D-22,” Devon answered. Flynn nodded and disappeared around a corner. “Wait here,” he told me. “I’ll be right back.” He followed more slowly behind Flynn.
I slumped against the concrete wall, barely able to stay on my feet. If Tommaso and his people were willing to beat Jacob nearly to death, to go to that extreme merely to test how far my fatal insomnia abilities extended, what would they do in revenge for me destroying their lab?
Who would they target next? My family? Ryder?
I shook my head. No. No one else was going to die because of me.
“We’re ready.” Devon beckoned me down the hall to the room where he and Flynn had taken Tommaso. “Just follow my lead.”
He swung the heavy door open. Inside was a dental clinic. Most
of the equipment dated back to when the tunnels had been built as a fallout shelter during the Cold War, but it was all clean, shining under the bright exam light that glared on the man strapped into the chair.
Wide leather restraints encircled Tommaso’s chest, ankles, wrists, and forehead. Flynn stood behind him, watching and waiting, gun still in her hand.
Devon strode in, an aura of command surrounding him, making his injuries seem trivial. He looked at me over his shoulder as I followed him in. “There’s only one way to get him to talk. I need your help to do it.”
I glanced up, confused. Me? The leather straps restraining Tommaso creaked as he strained against them. Devon lifted a towel from an instrument tray. On it was a glass bottle and a syringe. He used the syringe to draw clear fluid from the bottle.
I marveled at the fact that he’d had this ready, waiting. Doubt clouded me as I wondered why Devon would be ready to host a prisoner and interrogate him. I opened my mouth to protest, but one look at the expression chiseled into Devon’s face stopped me.
Esme.
He was doing this for her. He’d do anything for her—even kill a man in cold blood.
How far would I go to save her and the other children?
“You know what we call PXA on the street?” Devon asked Tommaso as he casually tapped air bubbles from the syringe. “Death Head.”
Tommaso appeared frightened for the first time as he fought the thick leather restraints that held him in place. “No. Please. I have a family.”
Devon sat down on the dentist’s stool, wheeled it so he was in the man’s field of vision, right beside him. “So do I. Her name is Esme. She’s ten years old. And you’re going to tell me how to cure her.”
He was bluffing. I hoped. The light sparked against the shiny metal syringe.
“I don’t know anything.” Tommaso’s words were laced with acid bitterness.
“I think you know a lot. Like which drug will save you from an overdose of PXA. Like what a drug like PXA has to do with fatal insomnia. Like who is behind all this.” Devon lowered the syringe until the tip of the needle pressed against a vein in Tommaso’s arm that bulged even without a tourniquet as he strained to escape. “Like how we save our children.”