by Nicole Snow
Ember herself is proof positive that when people get too deep in my business, they suffer – and I’d rather keep Langley, her mother, and the rest of the town out of it.
I look at her for a second, my temples throbbing. We’re here, aren’t we? The point where ignorance, where keeping her in the dark, is only doing more harm.
Suppressing a sigh, I offer her my hand, even as I wonder if I’m really doing what’s right for me, for her, for everyone in Heart’s Edge.
“Will you come with me today?” I ask. “I’ll close the clinic and let the volunteers have at the emergencies. We need to talk, Ember. And we have somewhere important to be.”
15
Not Here For Your Dogma (Ember)
By the light of day, I feel a little silly.
Especially when the first thing I thought, when Doc offered to take me somewhere with him, was that he was taking me somewhere to get rid of me.
Somewhere, maybe, where nobody would ever find me in a new life under a fake ID.
I’m starting to think I watch too many thriller movies. And maybe my mother’s not the only drama queen in the family.
I think I have a right to be wary, though. Uncertain.
Anyone besides a hardened soldier would be nervous after several men with guns came rushing at them, and I qualify pretty well as anyone. I feel like my whole world just shifted on its axis, exposing realities that I’ve never dared imagine before.
In one of those realities, I slept the night in Dr. Gray Caldwell’s strong arms.
In Gray’s bed.
In Gray’s flipping shirt, which I’m currently using as a sort of makeshift dress until we can stop by my cabin for a change of clothes. Dear Lord.
I told myself last night that I was done with Doc and his secrets. Over it, hands washed, so ready to pretend none of this ever happened.
But the truth is, I really almost am as bad as his jackals at the clinic. Because all it takes is a whiff of his scent baked into that shirt to make me feel twisty and hot inside. The thin fabric rubs my whole body, a forbidden caress, wrapped around me with its oversized fabric shifting against my skin.
Maybe it’s the leftover adrenaline, but there’s a serious pulsing in my thighs now, a wet burn growing against my panties, my nipples hardening to peaks that ache every time the fabric of my borrowed shirt rubs against them.
Considering how easily I overheat every time Doc does something that reminds me he’s so much more than a mild-mannered vet, and there’s a dark side to him most people don’t see...
I’m starting to wonder if I’m some kind of weird thrill chaser.
Or am I just so fatally head over heels for this man that all it takes is his borrowed shirt against my naked skin to turn me on? To make me ignite?
I’m almost grateful to escape from him for a few minutes, after he lets me off at my cabin at Charming, but he waits outside with the air of a man determined to guard my every step.
Holy wow. So he really was serious about protecting me.
I head inside, and in my bedroom I take a moment to wash off quickly before throwing on a comfortable pair of cutoff shorts, a t-shirt, and a light jacket for good measure, then a pair of sensible hiking boots. If I’m going to end up running over mountainsides today, then I’m definitely doing it in the right shoes this time. My ankle could use the support of the tight-laced boots, anyway.
This time, I check four times to make sure my phone stays where it belongs, tucked in my pocket. Doc brought my lab coat from the office and salvaged it.
It’s a little amazing, really. Feels like people just took care of things for me while I was out cold in Doc’s arms. My phone is fully charged, and my Audi rests parked in the lane outside the cabin. I guess someone drove it from the clinic. I’ll probably never know who, because I’m realizing in Heart’s Edge who doesn’t matter.
Everyone pitches in for everyone, one way or another. This place has that small-town-with-a-big-heart hospitality in spades.
I feel more human and less like a fragile bit of glass by the time I step outside and back into Doc’s truck. He gives me a long look as I settle in, but says nothing as we pull out. I let my gaze drift out the window, watching as we make our way up the highway, toward the main road. Everything looks so peaceful here, with the flowers lining the road and people going about their business at the feed store, the diner, the little grocer.
So innocent on the surface. It’s hard to believe anything dark lurks beneath the surface. But I can’t deny it, not after yesterday.
I’m okay until Doc pulls off on the same service road that Fuchsia did. Then I’m tense.
I’m tense, coiled, holding my breath, thighs tight and ready to run.
This place – the entire valley, really – screams danger now. I can’t help how my pulse ratchets up as we draw closer and closer to the area where those men almost shot me.
At that turn-off into the woods, Doc stops, giving me a curious look. “Is this where she turned?” he asks.
I nod slowly, staring frozen at the tree-lined tunnel into the woods. Doc reaches over, his hand resting against the seat next to my thigh, this heavy warmth that reminds me he’s here, he’s badass, and he won’t let anything happen.
“I know this isn’t easy. I just want to have a quick look around,” he says. “I can step out here and you can wait, or you can come with me.”
“W-with you!” I blurt out almost too fast.
No way would I consider anything else. I don’t want to be alone out here.
He only nods and turns his truck down the narrow path, following the wheel-ruts left behind by the SUV and maybe generations of vehicles before.
The shadows close over us. My pulse skips and flutters, but I keep an eye on my surroundings, this time noting markers I can use to find my way out without getting lost.
Not that I think Doc would let me get lost, but I just feel like I should’ve been smarter. I wish I’d thought about things like this before chasing after Fuchsia, instead of just following an impulse and getting caught up in the rush.
I won’t make that mistake again.
He slows as the outline of the cabin’s peaked, collapsing roof shows through the trees. But there’s no one here.
Fuchsia’s SUV is gone. Vanished.
There’s no sign of the men with guns, or the tall man with the scars and the tattoos.
It’s eerie. Almost like it never happened except for in my own imagination, but the table she was using is still there. So are the remnants of a recent campfire, charred and blackened bits of wood resting in the pit.
Then I see the grass. All around the cabin, it’s trampled, like many feet stomped all over it.
Doc parks where Fuchsia’s SUV used to be, then gets out, moving slowly, his gaze scanning around critically with a slow, piercing sweep. I can see him as the soldier he once was. Even if he was a doctor, he still had the military combat training that makes him fierce, formidable, this warrior on the hunt.
I watch him through the windshield as he takes several long strides, soaking in his concentration, his ferocity, the sharp thoughtful focus transforming his features. Slowly, I get out of the truck and shift to lean against the hood. I don’t want to be in the way, I just want to be near him.
He circles the house, scanning the ground, the tumbles of wood bits, the old odds and ends left around the place. It looks like dishes, bent nails, other things I can’t identify. He steps over the collapsed wall and inside, then sinks down into a crouch, running his fingers over the blast of soot from a campfire against the concrete floor, before he calls over his shoulder to me.
“You say she was camping here?”
I nod, wrapping my arms around myself. “She had a tent.”
His lips flicker in a faint, sardonic smile. “Say what you will, but you’ve got to admire a woman looking so put together while she lives out of a tent.”
I can’t help giggling. “Maybe she’s found a new career? Rustic fashion tips.”
“We’d all be better off if she chose it over what she does now.”
“Which is?”
He glances up, holding me in those vivid green eyes. I expect him to deflect me, but he only answers, “Something between corporate spy and assassin.”
I wince. “Oh, God. Has she really ever killed people?”
“Probably, and more still that I’m certain I don’t know about. Not by pulling triggers herself, mostly by her actions. She’s responsible for many, many lives...and so am I.”
I suck in a rough breath, my heart twisting with a quiet ache.
“I have trouble believing that.”
“There are many things you won’t believe about me, Ember.” He sifts ashes through his fingertips, looking down at them pensively, then stands and paces over to study the table off to one side of the room. “I’m trying to rectify that, if I can ever find the words. But don’t doubt that everything I tell you is true.”
I bite my lip. “What about the burned man? Nine? Has he killed people, too?”
“Only one, and it was self-defense.” He shakes his head. “Nine’s reputation grows like a mammoth in the telling...he’s nothing but a victim in all of this.”
I frown. “So it is him? Nine? That’s really his name? The one everybody talks about?”
“It might as well be, now.” He lifts his head, looking at me, a certain pensive sorrow haunting his eyes, the line of his brow. “You’ve heard the legends of the monster of Heart’s Edge?”
“Only a little,” I admit. “Things people whisper about in the diner, and once I heard he rescued Haley’s niece? Felicity said he’s like...some kind of escaped convict? And he used to work with the government?”
“All the legends are true and false, but about the only part with a shred of fact is that he did save Tara when she was lost in these woods.” Doc slips his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his pensive gaze turned somewhere else.
Somewhere far away. I realize he’s looking out across the valley again, a glint in his eye like he can see a thousand miles.
“Nine’s a man, sure enough. A good man who earned a bad name. And a long time ago, before Fuchsia and her ilk nearly destroyed Heart’s Edge...he was one of my closest friends.”
Holy hell. I don’t know what to say.
He seems lost in the past, buried in it, really. Part of me wants to go over and comfort him. But part of me also wants to give him his space and his words, without crowding in on him anymore without being invited.
And part of me nearly shrieks at the top of my lungs as something black darts at me. Just a small dark blur like a shadow without an owner.
I scream, flopping away, my heart pounding nails. Doc whips around sharply, starting quickly toward me, biting off, “Ember!”
I can’t respond. I’m frozen, staring at this thing as it stops moving.
Then a pair of wide gold eyes stare up at me, a pink tongue darting out against a black nose. “Mew?”
Baxter. Oh my God, Baxter.
Fuchsia’s freaking cat.
I hiss out a huge sigh of relief, sucking in several more steadying breaths. I sink down into a crouch and offer the sleek black cat my fingers. She sniffs them, lifting her little face so her teeth show, and then her fluffy head butts under my palm. I melt into scratching behind her ears until she purrs.
“Did you get left behind, sweetheart?” I murmur. “Did that mean, scary witch-lady leave you like the awful person she is?”
“It’s entirely possible,” Doc answers. “Or it’s possible she was taken and had no choice but to abandon her pet.”
I frown. “Taken? Who would be after her?”
“That’s part of everything I need to tell you.” He stops next to me and bends to run one hand down Baxter’s back, making her spine arch. “She looks hungry. Let’s take her home. Once we’re done out here, we can feed her and find her a bed.”
Finally, a good idea. “Okay!”
I give Baxter one more scratch behind the ears, looping my arms underneath her furry bulk and lifting her up against my chest. She’s a bigger cat than she looks with that slimming black fur, heavy, but she melts against me like a happy blob. I hug her against my chest and stand, carrying her toward the truck.
“Let’s get you nice and comfortable, baby girl,” I murmur, spilling her onto the seat before climbing in after her.
I end up with a free lap warmer for the rest of the drive. Baxter stays curled up, a soft black lump on my thighs, purring fit to shake through me as I stroke her.
Doc stays silent, so silent, his jaw tight. But I realize, as I look up from playing with the cat, that we’re not heading back into town.
We’re making a detour, driving deeper into the valley.
There’s an old road here I hadn’t noticed before, buried under dust and debris. The cracked pavement bleeds its dust-stains into the yellow, overgrown earth, grit gathered in its nooks and hollows and clinging there.
The road leads toward the burned ruins of a building I’ve noticed before, that I heard was once an old hotel. But it’s the mountain face next to it that’s really eerie. There’s some kind of hole there, a tunnel into the dark rock, the mouth of it so black that not even the morning sun can pierce it to illuminate what’s inside.
I feel a chill. Doc pulls up not far from the ruins of the building and parks the truck. He just sits there for a long time, his weathered hands on the steering wheel, gripping tight, his gaze locked on those ruins.
“Gray?” I ask softly, hugging Baxter closer. “Where are we?”
“What used to be the Paradise Hotel,” he answers grimly. “The place where my life changed forever.”
16
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie (Doc)
Eight Years Ago
I don’t know how I can tell something’s wrong the instant I step into the lab.
Everything looks the same. People in lab coats and hazmat suits bustling around, murmuring over clipboards and comparing notes on screens, pushing sample carts down the white-lit hallways. A large pallet full of cages goes trundling past, full of sedated, half-asleep rhesus monkeys. Healthy. Alive.
The next test batch.
It makes my stomach turn, knowing what’s in store for them, but that’s not what’s making my spine prickle and my skin tighten.
It’s almost like a scent in the air. Or a static tingle.
Like the way the whole atmosphere gets so heavy and still with ozone you can smell it, right before a huge tornado comes crashing down like an angry fist. And today I think that tornado may be aiming straight at my head.
It doesn’t take long to notice. No one will look at me.
It’s subtle, but there. Not like people are preoccupied as they stream past me down the halls.
More like they’re deliberately trying not to see me. Acting like I’m suddenly as infectious as SP-73, and whatever has contaminated me will plague them if they so much as make eye contact.
I wonder, then, what Fuchsia’s been saying.
Gossiping about 'the bleeding heart doctor,' who’s gone soft just when things are getting real. Do I have a pink slip coming? Maybe that’s what I need to feel human again.
I suppose if it was too bad, I wouldn’t be standing here right now, watching Galentron personnel go about their business. There would have been a rustle outside my quarters as I tried to sleep, restlessly during the day when we’re on reverse hours here, working at night, sleeping during the day. I might have heard something. I might not.
Then there’d be a black bag over my head. A drive out to a heavily guarded airstrip somewhere near Missoula with a one-way pass to a city of my choice and orders never to come back.
Or would the hood have stayed over my head as they dropped me in some secluded place? And then nothing.
I doubt I’d have even heard the bullet coming.
Still, I know Leo will at least be straight with me about what he’s heard. He always is. He may be a security guard, but he’s g
ot high-level clearance, and he overhears things around the bunks. If anyone can give me a heads-up about what’s barreling my way, it’s him.
And he knows what I know.
About the virus.
About the planned staged epidemic.
About what Galentron’s willing to do to see how their demon toy performs in the field.
He’s just as pissed off about it as I am. Just as unsure what to do, even though we’ve both decided, without saying it, that we have to do something.
The problem is, I can’t find him.
He’s always late for his shifts, usually stealing a smoke or slipping off to town to steal a few minutes with his girl, the mayor’s daughter. This time, he’s not on the outdoor loading dock where I usually find him puffing away at a pack of Lucky Strikes.
I’d worry about cancer killing me, he always says, giving me that wry, tired smile of his, but I know Galentron will do it first.
I wish that line wasn’t so fucking real.
I’m trying not to think about it, now, as I make my way down the hall to my own lab – the sterile high-containment unit, limited in access to me, Fuchsia, a few other researchers, plus high-level administrators and military outsiders. It’s the vault where SP-73 is cultivated and stored, kept in an inert, mostly harmless state at subzero temperatures.
It takes heat to make it active.
Heat for it to grow.
Like the heat of a human body.
Then it comes alive at a horrifying, unnatural speed. It seems to grow deadlier with every test. In the latest rounds, it starts to cause catastrophic organ damage and killing fever in under an hour or two. With humans, who knows what it’ll do.
I’m picturing so many human bodies right now.
The pretty waitress I see at the diner sometimes on my rare forays into town. The blustering Mayor Bell, who we meet with now and then to discuss keeping our secrets under wraps. The quiet, earthy townsfolk moving in and out of the shops, blissfully unaware there’s a monster in their town.