Her cell phone pinged as she approached the aging front doors of the building. It was Lily.
If you can wait, I’ll come with you.
Kendra responded as she strode into the unwelcoming, deserted building lobby.
There’s no time left for waiting. I need answers—now.
But the message didn’t send as her cell service dropped as soon as she was a few feet inside. A weird feeling crept over her, like she was being watched—and not just by the security cameras.
Nearly giving her a heart attack, Sky jumped out of the shadows, making a ‘silence’ motion with her finger to her lips. Pulling herself together, Kendra nodded, understanding as Sky motioned to the elevator, signaling the number ‘five’ with her fingers.
Okay…
Kendra watched as the sly brunette disappeared again and wondered if she was covering her. Or not? Determined to keep it snappy, Kendra hit the button to call the elevator, hearing clanking noises inside the shaft that didn’t instill confidence. As the door creaked open, revealing a mirrored cab inside, Kendra hesitated. But she didn’t have a choice. Sky planted her hands on her back, shoving her inside the elevator.
The door closed swiftly as Kendra tumbled in, grasping at the cab walls. What the hell? She looked around frantically, feeling the motion of being cranked up, floor by floor. In a split second, she realized she was getting into something that was not as it had been advertised. Claustrophobia kicked in, but not nearly as pronounced as the fear of what was going to happen next.
Stopping at the fifth floor, the doors shakily opened, revealing a high-security entrance that was much more modern and expensive-looking than anything else she’d seen in the building. Out of the elevator, she tepidly paced through wide-open security doors into the shadows beyond. No one was at the guard post—that she saw.
Down a long dim hallway on that top floor, everything was still. Silent. She slowly crept forward, listening for anything. Wasn’t Sky supposed to be there? She felt a chill but saw no windows. The hallway was barren, with nothing but vinyl flooring and occasional secure doors lining the walls.
Halfway along, she peered through an open door, spotting a lab inside. It looked a bit like her lab, except bigger and more expensive.
Then she saw him.
A youthful man with thick raven hair, possibly in his thirties, was bent over a microscope at the lab bench. Adjusting dials, he made notes on a pad, seemingly entrenched in his work.
“Come in,” he said, his gaze remaining downcast.
“Who…me?”
“Yes, of course. I thought you wanted to see this.” He scribbled away, seeming to record his observations.
She stepped through the doorframe but stopped short of the lab bench. It was long, white and bare—except for his station, which was peppered with samples and notes. There was something about him that made her not want to get too close, something that felt off.
“I told them you’d never come,” he mused as he looked through his microscope. “But you’ve gone and proved me wrong.”
Kendra inched back, realization dawning. The scientists. It’s a trap.
He continued, his gaze still averted. “Genetic editing… You did know it was possible, didn’t you?”
“I just didn’t think we were there yet,” she replied from several yards away, ready to bolt.
“CRISPR changed everything,” he sighed, reeling her in. “You should keep up with your journals. Any scientist worth her salt would make a point to keep up, at least in my time.”
In his time?
Curiosity overtook her sense. Kendra tilted her head, analyzing the seemingly youthful man in front of her. The speed at which he worked and the method he employed triggered her suspicion.
“How old are you?”
“Ninety— I was damn near on my deathbed before we figured it out,” he laughed, his eyes on the microscope. “All we had to do was find a way to tell my cells to behave like younger cells, and voila, here I am. I haven’t felt this good in about, well—in about sixty years, right?”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but she didn’t doubt it was the truth. The cutting edge of science was beyond imagination at points. She was seeing what was next.
He pulled back from the microscope again, jotting in his pad. It was so bizarre—the whole conversation, he had never once looked at her.
“I could give you eternal youth, you know.” He grinned downward as he carried on with his work.
“Is that what you did to him?” Her tone grew angry, inescapably so.
“No, he didn’t want that.”
She found herself striding forward, glaring down on the man’s notes. She recognized the structure of the virus, the live organism, found in the victims’ plasma. Lab-made, just like Lily had thought.
Lab-edited, just like Delta.
Kendra snapped, “So what did he want?”
The scientist grinned again, wicked and pleased. “He wanted to be the best—toughest, fastest, strongest. He wanted to be fearless. A highly competitive subject, dominant in his field. He always needs to triumph, that one. Worked for me, since I wanted to succeed, too.”
Irritated, Kendra sucked in air, knowing that was exactly what he was like. She pressed, “Tell me how to reverse it.”
“Ha—well, there’s always a way, but I don’t think he wants that.” He tossed aside his pad, fiddling for another sample.
“Of course he does. He can’t control it.”
“He can’t—but we can.”
“How?”
“A kill-switch.” The scientist’s gaze finally shot up to her, revealing his blood-red irises.
Kendra gasped, stumbling back from the bench as the scientist’s red eyes followed her. Clearly amused at her horror, he collected his samples, spinning away from the bench and striding to the back of the lab.
I have to get out of here.
She jumped back across the doorframe, into the hallway, but then it happened. She heard smashing and crashing in the distance, and a man yelling at the top of his lungs. Anger and hatred permeated the space. The lab door slid shut, locking in front of her, trapping her in the hall. She fumbled, her shoes squeaking on the vinyl flooring, hitting the concrete wall behind her.
Her mind screaming, Kendra struggled to breathe. She was in danger. And Leo? Her son. Why the hell had she come here? Her own obsession with doing everything on her own had driven her into danger.
Then she heard heavy footsteps coming down the hallway, further validating her realization. She immediately dove to the side into a large, unlocked storage room and hid behind a rolling cabinet. Her heart pounding, she heard a man talking loudly in the halls. Was he talking to her or himself? She couldn’t quite make out what he was saying.
Sucking in breath, her heart pumping, she hovered her fingers over her phone. She couldn’t make a call—her signal was still gone. What the hell am I supposed to do?
Sweat beaded on her chest. Shit, shit, shit. The worst was happening. Why did I come here? It was all a goddamn mistake. Such a mistake. Going it alone wasn’t the answer, was never going to be the answer. She had to think of her son. He couldn’t grow up without a mother. How could she be so careless?
She should have listened to her sister, listened to anyone. Listened to Delta? She cringed at the truth in that question. They’d been warning her all along—and she’d proved them right. She had to do everything alone. She refused to be rescued.
The madman’s yelling echoed through the lab’s long hallway—and she could hear him breaking down doors at the end of the hall.
Kendra ran her fingers over her face, realizing the hard truth. She had to stay alive for more than just herself now. She had a son. She had responsibilities. And if someone was a danger to her, they were a danger to her child as well. Her mindset shifted in a split second with the sudden realization. She’d been so used to taking herself for granted that she’d forgotten how it affected the people she loved the most.
<
br /> I need help.
“I shouldn’t have come alone. I can’t do this by myself anymore,” she panted to herself as she felt a tear rolling down her cheek. “I just can’t.”
More smashing glass came from down the hallway, signaling a man who had lost all control.
“Fuck.” She pressed her fingers to her lips, thinking about Leo’s face.
One thing she never admitted to herself was how much he looked like his father. His beautiful olive skin, golden hair and dark eyes, like a Northern Italian. His face even looked like his father’s, something she never breathed out loud.
But she’d always known.
Trembling ran up her arms and thighs as she ran her fingers over her phone. A rogue single bar of cell service appeared. Kendra jumped. She had to make a decision.
The deep, dark, much-avoided truth was that Delta was the only man she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, who would show up to save her. And he would absolutely fucking destroy whoever laid a finger on her.
She bit her lip and dialed his number, waiting for her cell to connect.
But the call dropped, and her signal went cold.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Come out,” the man’s angry voice called for her, echoing in the hallway. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Terrified, Kendra slid down the side of the cabinet, feeling things escalating fast. Her heart beat out of her throat, cortisol rising through her sinuses. She was so goddamn vulnerable, she thought, as her eyes darted back and forth for an exit.
Kendra felt tears springing to her eyes. The call to Delta still hadn’t gone through. She stuffed away her phone, debating what the fuck to do. Run and hide deeper in the lab? Could she make it unseen, unheard through the back and get into the parking lot? All she knew was to stay hidden—stay out of sight. Her mind analyzed the options, immediately struck by fear. She would never be able to make it.
Not by herself.
Peering around the cabinet where she was hiding, she got a quick glimpse through the partially open storage room door, seeing into the hallway again, assessing.
Then she saw him—the angry man.
It wasn’t the scientist. That wasn’t who was freaking out, smashing things and yelling after her.
It was Hunter.
What in God’s name is he doing here?
From her vantage point, Hunter stood in the hall, glaring back and forth, searching. His face was beet red, along with his bulging neck, sitting on top of a body in a pure fighting stance. Whatever he’d done, his transformation was complete. She gripped her bag tighter as she realized he was carrying a semi-automatic assault rifle. As heavy as it probably was, it swung in his arm like it weighed nothing.
“Why are you hiding from me?” Hunter’s angry voice echoed throughout the hall. “I know you are here. They told me you came.”
His neck started twitching, sending his head in a bizarre cocking motion. Before she knew what was happening, a deep, rage-filled bellow came out of his mouth and blood trickled from his lip like he’d bitten himself. She sucked in air, whipping back behind the cabinet, gripping her tote bag like a life raft. She again chastised herself for being so reckless, for coming there.
Then gunshots rang out from the lobby, telling Kendra everything she needed to know. It was all going downhill quickly.
She dug her cream-colored flats into the vinyl flooring under her feet as she crouched lower, trying to breathe. She mentally visualized the emergency exit down the hallway, flexing to prepare to run. She could get to the side of the building—and run to the main street, call the cops.
She stood and looked around the cabinet yet again, readying herself. Hunter was moving into a different lab, clearly searching for her. It was a matter of time before he came into the storage room. She could run in the opposite direction—and make it out. But just as she started to stand, an eerie silence filled the building that made her catch her breath and stumble backward for balance.
Sinking against the cabinet, she darted her focus left and right, but she didn’t dare move a muscle or peek out. Heavy footsteps were all that she heard—the sound of hard leather boots hitting the flooring—and they were getting closer to her. Her heart rising in her chest, through her throat, she shot her terrified eyes to the left as he crested the corner—a crazed Hunter with bloodshot eyes and a face that screamed murder.
Clenching his jaw, standing several inches taller than her, he reached forward and grabbed her by the neck of her halter, pulling her toward him. Shaking, grasping at his boulder-hard hands, she tried to wrench him off her.
“Let me go,” she pleaded as she tried to escape, but his grasp only tightened and he turned, bringing her with him.
“Nah, we need you. Isn’t that what Sky told you?” he said, pushing her forward as he made his way through the building, heading toward the lab.
“What?” Kendra coughed.
He laughed. “Come on. We are all sick of Delta’s shit. It’s time to join the team.”
His thick boots crunched broken glass on the ground that had fallen victim to his anger, and he stuck his rifle in her back as he moved her along, forcing her to go where he wanted.
“Let me go,” she cried out again, her voice cracking in fear as every victim’s face flashed across her mind.
She was about to become a victim.
“I’m getting tired of playing second fiddle to that asshole,” he spat, foaming at the mouth, clearly out of control and beyond enraged. “It’s time you see me for who I really am. I’m the guy who wins, not him.”
All she felt was his rifle jabbing into her back, and his grunting for her to keep moving or he’d kill her. She tripped over a chair leg in front of her, falling onto the table beside it. The man’s bear paw landed on her shoulder, peeling her back up—forcing her to look into his hateful eyes.
Should I try to fight him, grab the gun? Or should I bolt and test my luck?
Veins visibly pulsed hot blood up his throat and jaw, showcasing muscles that looked jacked up. Quickly, his attitude snapped, showing her that she was onto something—the man was on something.
“So, you came to fix your boyfriend?” He snarled. “Yeah, we’d like to fucking fix him up, too.”
“I just want to go,” Kendra shouted.
“They kept asking me how to get him back in here. I told them all we had to do was get you.” He laughed, revealing a neck too thick to be natural. “Get her, and he’ll come. That’s what I said.”
“What—”
He lunged forward, grabbing her throat and lifting her off the ground. Suffocating, all she could see was the rage in his eyes—and the pleasure he was taking from hurting her.
“Hell, it worked when I drove you off the road. It worked at the bar. And now—I bet it’s going to work right now.”
It has all been a trap.
But Kendra couldn’t breathe anymore. She was suffocating. Everything came crashing before her eyes—her son, Delta, her sister… Blackness crept into her vision.
Just as she felt her throat about to collapse, a man in full black with a black mask covering his face crashed into the hallway, leaping at Hunter. But it was a masked man she’d seen many times before.
Delta? the last lucid part of her mind questioned, trying to connect what she was seeing. Is it really Delta?
The man in black sent his rock-hard fist into her assailant’s face, impacting faster and harder than anyone could have expected. Upon contact, Hunter’s grip on Kendra’s throat opened, dropping her from his grasp. She sucked in air as fast as she could and heard Hunter’s assault rifle clatter to the ground. As she fell, she couldn’t find the ground safely and collapsed backward, whacking the back of her head on the corner of one of the glass cabinets in the hallway. Immediately, things got fuzzy, and blood began trickling down the back of her neck.
Hunter stumbled to the side of the hall, leaning against the wall to collect himself. Delta stood tall, menacing. There was no doubt what he w
as prepared to do.
Lying on the ground, Kendra watched the battle unfold through dizziness and a pounding head. It was then she knew that she’d hit her head too hard to get up and walk away.
She was at Delta’s mercy.
She just had to have faith.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Delta squared himself to Hunter, fighting over Kendra’s slumped body that was bleeding out on the ground. Hunter’s metamorphosis was clearly complete. He’d finally altered his genes just enough to entrench the results. Delta knew exactly what that was.
It was damn lucky that he’d geo-fenced Kendra’s car, because he would have never gotten there in time otherwise. With his son in the picture, he couldn’t deny his heightened protective instinct—his heightened need to fucking kill any man who hurt either of them.
He stared down Hunter, feeling violence course through his veins. Icy chills rans up his rippling biceps, which were tightening and flexing. Focused, he was about to slaughter. That other instinct he had—the one built for missions in hellholes—was at the forefront. He had transformed into the side of him that was a ruthless warrior, ready to do whatever was necessary.
Keeping his eyes on the crazed man in front of him, Delta was prepared to fight. The assault rifle was on the ground, to the side, and Delta’s pistol was in his waistband.
“I was hoping you’d come, too,” Hunter snarled, touching a mass of blood pouring out of his brow from a fresh gash that would no doubt need sutures.
But Delta wished he’d hit him harder. Hunter was stronger, more powerful than ever before. He had been preparing for that moment. Delta silently stalked him, circling—flexed and fearful for the first time. He didn’t know what was going to happen. He just knew that he couldn’t lose her.
“Time’s up.” Hunter jumped forward. “You’ve been out to pasture for too long.”
“So, kill me—like you killed the others?” Delta blew up, striking Hunter square in the jaw.
Hunter spat out blood, his shoulders heaving, and he lunged again.
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