Strange Case, an Urban Fantasy (Hyde Book III)

by Lauren Stewart

  “I can’t look at you right now.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, her head low, her eyes stinging with tears again. She couldn’t blame him for this either. It was her fault and—

  “Jesus, babe, you’re covered in it. I can’t think while his blood is all over you. Go change your clothes.” Justin’s blood. He was upset about the blood, not about her.

  She ran, relieved but still trembling from the adrenaline of the last… Wow, how long had it been?

  Mitch followed her into the office and changed his shirt while she ripped all of her clothes off and slipped into jeans and a tank top.

  “We do this together because I’m never letting you out of my sight again.” He spun her towards the door, his fingers digging into her bicep. “But I swear to you, Eden, if you die, I’ll make sure a huge chunk of the world dies with you. So don’t let that fucking happen.”

  His free hand lashed out to grab the edge of the door like an anchor, his body pressing forward with anger-infused momentum.

  “Danielle,” he yelled before blowing out a breath and relaxing the grip he had on Eden’s arm. “I would greatly appreciate it if you could go be with Landon.” Every word was controlled, monotone, as if it was the only way he could get it out. “He’s at Baylor Medical Center. Please make sure he doesn’t die and that they test for whatever shit he injected himself with.” He swallowed. “Justin had a phone. If it’s on him, then I’m sorry, but you need to get it. Use it to call a cab and then call me with updates. Lots of updates.”

  “If you’re going to Malvers,” Danielle handed him a lanyard with a card hanging from it, “This will get you into the building and all the labs, but it won’t work on any of the offices.”

  “Thank you.” He took a deep breath. “If you don’t hear from us in a few hours, tell Landon he’s an asshole. A well-loved asshole.”

  Mitch took Eden’s hand, kissed her palm gently, and said, “Your chariot awaits, my love.” Her heart broke a little more when he smiled. So beautiful. “And by ‘chariot’, I mean some guy’s Mercedes I car-napped from the valet line. He’s probably already reported it stolen, so we might need to switch it out. But from now on, I’m sticking to things and people I trust, so we’re not taking the POS.” He tilted his head, slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled the car keys out. “You are pretty damn amazing.”

  “A girl’s gotta be prepared for anything.”

  “Hopefully for some good things soon, too.”

  As they drove, Eden felt his anger slowly overtake the calm he’d had just a moment ago. It had been the eye of the storm, and now he was heading back in. About halfway there, he slammed his fist onto the dash so hard, she heard it crack.

  “He doesn’t die. Got it? He feels. He feels every evil he’s ever done come back on him. Until he has no choice but to understand what he is.”

  Chapter XXXIX

  Ryan used the office building’s side entrance and kept his back to the camera, so the security guard wouldn’t see his injuries and the incredible amount of blood covering him.

  Because that kid sure knew how to bleed.

  The entire trip here—on foot and then in some woman’s car —all he could think about was getting to his serum. That’s it. Everything else could wait until he had that shit in his hand. Even though he couldn’t inject himself for another hour yet, having it near him would make him feel safe.

  As soon as he got to his office, he booted up his computer and accessed the building’s security cameras. If Turner didn’t die at the Shop, he'd be coming here. So Ryan didn’t plan on staying long—just enough time to grab the serum and clean himself up a little.

  It had been a huge risk telling them where the Shop was. Maybe it was even a mistake. If they somehow overpowered Newman and his men and found out what was in the basement…

  “Damn it!” Ryan handled himself beautifully the whole time Eden was beating him. But he’d lost control with Turner. That prick had figured out something Ryan had kept hidden for years. From everyone.

  And threatening to force Ryan to transform… For that alone he deserved to die. If Newman hadn’t already taken the bastard out, Ryan would. Happily. And that went for Eden, too. But before she died, Ryan would show her how right she was about him. Because, to find out how she’d integrated her sides, he would do ten times the damage she’d done to him.

  Control yourself and you can control others. It wasn’t working—he’d never felt more out of control.

  Newman didn’t answer his phone. After the third try, Ryan’s arm twitched with the desire to throw the phone at the wall. Two possibilities—Newman couldn’t pick up because he was too busy doing what he was supposed to do. Or…Ryan’s problems were only getting bigger, and it was time to switch into damage-control mode.

  Control yourself first. He took his remaining supply of the serum and a pack of syringes out of his safe. Two vials, one of which was practically empty. The shelf life on this shit wasn’t great. He wouldn’t stake his life on the dregs at the bottom, not with the way he was feeling today, so he put the almost-empty one back. There was one more vial at the Shop. Two vials would last for months, but he still felt naked without a guaranteed source of more.

  Sinclair better be all she’s cracked up to be. She would make a gallon of the stuff for him, even if he had to keep her chained up for the next fifty years.

  Next, he called the basement’s emergency number.

  One of the zookeepers answered. “Mr. Whittley?”

  “Yeah. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’ve been trying to call you, sir.”

  “Presumably so you could tell me what’s going on. So do it.”

  “Something happened upstairs. It sounded like lots of shooting, but I’m the only one here, so…should I go upstairs to check?”

  “No, lock the basement down completely.” With the phone in the crook of his neck, he filled a syringe on the way to his private bathroom and then set it and the vial down on the counter. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t open the door for anyone.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How are the animals?”

  “They got really riled up when the shooting started, but they’re calming down now.”

  “Don’t sedate them yet, but make sure the darts are ready.” He hung up. After tossing his bloody shirt on the floor, he accessed the damage in the mirror.

  Shit. He'd heal but not fast enough. Not with the meeting with the Board members scheduled for tomorrow. How was he going to explain his face? Mugging? Bar fight?

  Bitch who needed to learn her place?

  She’d really worked her magic on him. The pain was worth it though. It had been fascinating to watch her struggle with herself, giving into the darkness and then pulling herself back out of it. As much as he detested her, he had to admit that she was amazing. The only one who knew how to integrate her Abnormal side with her human side—something Ryan would be more than happy to kill for. He couldn't let her slip away.

  Once he found the right people, he'd turn the Shop into a better version of the Florida facility. Better because he'd be there to monitor it. He was done trusting something so fucking important to idiots.

  Sinclair would produce the serum he needed and then start working on something better. Something so that he would be more like the bitch who’d been so precious to Ian. Beyond everything and everyone else. Something so that Ryan would never be dependent on anything or anyone ever again. So that he didn’t have to report to the Board because there wouldn’t be a Board. It would be just him, a miracle the world would never see coming, and whoever would pay him what it was worth.

  He was so close, his mouth was already watering.

  You want soldiers who never tired, barely ate, were always happy to kill and were fucking good at it? Sure, he could make them for you. Or maybe—small chance in hell of this actually happening—but maybe someone would want peace. To free the world from psychos and killers and rapists. Ryan could make
that happen too.

  And everyone else could go screw themselves. Control—that’s what he was offering and that’s what he would receive. He'd been paying his dues to evil since he was fifteen—to his Hyde, to Ian, to the Board.

  I fucking deserve this. And no bitch in the world was going to take it away from him.

  He carefully slipped a clean shirt on and buttoned it up slowly, his fingers still sore and swollen from his time with Eden. After slipping the syringe into his pocket, he went to his wall safe, trading the vial and everything he’d taken from Eden’s warehouse in for his gun.

  Now to find out what the hell is happening at the Shop.

  It was silent, deathly silent. The Shop’s basement was well insulated, so if the Hydes were making any noise down there, Ryan wouldn’t hear it. But he’d hoped that on the ground level there’d be some crying, at least. Turner whining to be let go, Eden whimpering. No, they’d probably be stoic, standing strong in their delusions of mortality. If they were still alive—which Eden had better be—he’d know soon enough.

  As he walked down the hall, he noted the occasional bullet hole in the wall, crumbled drywall on the floor. But no blood. Was that a good sign or a bad one?

  Bad one. The inner room that held the two cages and lab equipment was now a tomb. What a mess. There were bodies everywhere, and not a single one of them was someone he wanted dead. After kicking the dead idiot who was supposed to control this shit for him, he contemplated his next move.

  It was late, and there was only one zookeeper on the overnight shift. He could help Ryan move the bodies and clean up the blood, but that wouldn’t be enough. Not with Turner, Eden, and now Landon out there somewhere.

  They’d probably found that kid’s body already. Great, yet another reason for them to come after him. And they knew where this place was.

  “Fuck!” His voice echoed off the ceiling. It needed to be shut down. All of it.

  Calm down. Control yourself. His movements were slow as he took Newman’s cell phone out of the dead man’s pocket and dialed Alex’s number.

  “You’re needed,” he said as soon as she answered. He listened to her grovel for a bit, tell him that Turner found her but she didn’t tell him anything. Yeah, right. Since she still didn’t know what Ryan was, Turner must have figured that out on his own. But the man was persuasive. If he got Ryan to talk, Alex didn’t stand a chance.

  “You can shut up now, Alex. What you need to do is listen carefully to the instructions I am about to give you. Then you will follow those instructions to the letter. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You will come meet me at the Shop.” Since she’d never been here before, Ryan gave her the address and the keycode to get inside the ground level. “We need to get the files together, get the Normals ready to go, and terminate the other projects that live here.”

  “What about the board meeting tomorrow?”

  He paused. He had no intention of meeting with them looking like a punching bag, and there was no way to lie his way out of all this. No fucking way. So he’d end the operation in Dallas and start again somewhere else. Maybe California. He was glad he hadn’t let Newman kill Alex. He was going to need her.

  “Ryan, are you still there?”

  “Yeah,” he said, snapping back into the game.

  “What about the Board?” she asked. Not a single question about all the other things he’d said. Instead, she was just worried about the Board.

  Clueless. “You worry about dismantling the facility. I’ll take care of the Board.”

  Chapter XL

  Mitch knew exactly where the bastard would go after leaving Justin in a puddle of blood. Whittley probably hadn’t even washed his hands yet, only worrying about the serum that would save his own ass, at every other ass’s expense.

  His rage had settled a bit, but not his anger. He forced himself to focus on his emotions without giving himself over to them. Hyde would gladly come out to help murder someone, and Mitch accepted that in a way he’d never been able to do before.

  Admitting you have a problem is the first step to solving it or some shit like that. And to accept something truly evil in yourself, you first have to acknowledge that it’s part of you. And like it or not—way closer to not—Hyde was a part of him.

  He glanced at Eden to make sure she was alright. Not that he’d be able to see that, but it made him feel a bit better to know that she hadn’t clawed through the seat or, possibly worse, stopped feeling anything. Even though he never wanted her to feel sad, he needed her to feel something. To not push down her emotions so well, they couldn’t come back up.

  For a few minutes, neither of them spoke—too much to say to know where to begin. He owed her an apology for what happened back at Whittley’s Shop. But since then something even worse happened. Something that both of them felt to their cores. He’d barely known the kid, but...

  ‘I want to talk.’ Justin’s one request for doing what Mitch had basically ordered him to do. The same thing that got him killed. As much as Mitch didn’t want to have that conversation an hour ago, he’d give his goddamn balls for the chance now.

  Fucking kid. Fucking stupid-ass— No, it wasn’t the kid’s fault. It was his.

  And Eden had known the kid, had felt something for him. So whatever Mitch was feeling right now was nothing in comparison to what she must be. So the little control she’d garnered since beating the shit out of Whittley was probably completely gone now. Huge do-si-do right back into hate and violence.

  By killing Justin, Whittley had signed his own death warrant, put a seal on that fucker, and sent it out by FedEx. But Mitch was not shopping for caskets today—not for his allies and not for his enemies. It would take everything he had in him to stop her from doing to Whittley what Mitch had done to Hyde01.

  Please let this end well. And soon. Neither of them could take much more.

  “Where are we going, Mitch?” He was so deep in his own barely-functioning brain, her voice made him flinch. She’d probably been wondering about it since they left, trusting his judgment. But his judgment was seriously flawed right now.

  “I thought we were supposed to be a team,” she said. “Teams share information. Like, why one member seems so confident about where the bad guy is while the other team member can think of a whole bunch of places to check.”

  “Whittley needs to shoot up soon. He’s a workaholic and probably prefers to leave the work at work. Thinking of new ways to torture and manipulate people isn’t conducive to a calm home environment. It fucks with the Feng Shui of the place.”

  “His office.” She nodded and took a deep breath. “If that stuff works, I don’t want to hear a single word about your pride. Or I’ll start doping you secretly. Understood?”

  “If it works, you can poke me as much as you want to while we’re celebrating on an island somewhere. All I ask is that you kiss the injection site and put a Spiderman Band-Aid on it.”

  “The Hulk hits a little too close to home, huh?”

  “Funny girl. I look way better in green.”

  “Yeah, you do. Okay, now it’s my turn.”

  “For…?”

  “Danielle thinks the J-0026 is what changed me.” She reminded him of the mega-dose Chastity had snorted. He thought it was strange that he’d forgotten. Until he remembered what came after that. Four days of utter perfection. The moment his life had started being something other than total shit.

  “That high of a concentration should’ve killed me, would’ve killed me if I were totally human. Danielle’s theory is that it integrated my sides instead.” She paused. “So it’s an option for you.”

  “Why don’t we consider that option two, with option one being the dose Whittley’s using.” Because option two might be something that would kill everyone but her. “Plus, there is nothing fun or hot about shoving something up your nose.” He grimaced. “Yeah, I’m not sure I could pull that off.”

  “If it would work, I’d sho
ve it up your ass.”

  “Language, babe! Language,” he said, laughing. “You’re not shoving anything anywhere. Especially not there.”

  Mitch kept his hand on her until they reached the last bit of cover. From here to the building’s front door was open space.

  Eden peeked. “All clear.” They already knew Newman had taken out the guard, but there were worse things than security guards.

  He took the ‘Bring the Bastard Back’ syringe out of his pocket. “I’m gonna hang onto this because it’s all we have for now. But you should probably know which pocket it’s in, just in case you need to stick me. If that happens—hopefully in a room with Whittley—run fast and lock the door behind you.”

  She fisted his shirt. “Don’t you dare die.” Damn, she was beautiful. And so strong. Yeah, she was pissed, but he’d take her any way he could.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her into him, resting his forehead on hers. “I love you, Eden Colfax. You made me love you. Thanks for not listening to me until I stopped being an idiot.” Lifting her off her feet, he kissed her. As if it was their last, as if everything was about to end and they would never have another chance.

  He lowered her slowly because she looked a bit wobbly. Maybe he’d squeezed her too tightly. “Shit, babe. I didn’t mean to make you stop breathing.”

  “Every time you touch me, I stop breathing.”

  “Me too. So let’s make sure we keep doing it. And that touching each other is the only reason either of us do.” He took her hand and ran for The Clinic’s front door. One swipe of Danielle’s keycard and the door slid open. If getting out was as easy as getting in, Mitch might start believing good luck actually existed.

  They didn’t need to check the sign on the wall to know where Whittley’s office would be. “Southwest corner, third floor.” Big man on campus always got the top corner with the best view.

  There was a big chance that Whittley had already limped here and limped away, but aside from Jessica, people didn’t stop for strangers anymore, especially when they were covered in blood—theirs and a sixteen-year-old boy’s. So it must have taken him awhile to bum a ride.