Luke

by Terra Wolf

  This was my fight.

  I crept past some cargo units and saw several plastic quarantine areas set up. There were children and babies in all of them. These bastards were sicker than I thought. There were a couple areas off to the right that were darker. The lights had been turned off. I was hopeful that the people there were just sleeping, that they weren’t built to hold their dead. Experiments gone wrong. I saw two men in suits and the same doctor that had been at the lab. The woman who had assigned me to Tasha. So it was a test. She had already known about me before she would have given me the assignment. The hour she gave me with Tasha was her way out. To not be implicated with the others. I wondered if Frank was in on it too. How had I not seen that?

  “We have you surrounded. We’re sending a team in. There will be no negotiations. Release the prisoners, and nobody dies today.” I heard Sarge’s voice boom out of the megaphone. The doctor and two other men looked up. I saw another uniform at the other end of the lab. He nodded to me and I knew that it was go time.

  “Hands up! Everybody put your hands up!”

  The men immediately sank to their knees and put their hands behind their heads. One was blubbering about how he didn’t know what was going on, and he was just an investor. Liar.

  The doctor didn’t move right away. She just folded her arms across her chest looking arrogant and defiant.

  “That was fast. Thought it would take you a little bit longer to figure this out, Harrison. So I guess you know your girlfriend is here, and your child. I’m so glad you took the bait to come work for us. It left her unprotected just long enough for us to set her up. Though, as we told her, she’ll be compensated fully. I don’t see why you felt the need to involve the police. Though I guess you are police after all, but that do-gooder mentality really won’t get you anywhere.”

  “Shut the hell up and get on your knees,” I said as I continued to point my gun at her head. “And tell me where my family is.”

  The uniform behind me had both men in cuffs and I knew he was ready to escort them out, but without the doctor in custody, we couldn’t move any further.

  “Why should I? You know you can’t win this. It’s bigger than you. It’s bigger than all of us.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We’ve got people inside the government. We’ve got people everywhere.”

  “You don’t have any friends in here anymore.”

  “These two? Really, they’re nothing. Acquisitions and investments. Nobodies compared to Sable and Frank.”

  “Frank?”

  “Oh, you didn’t know. He was playing you! He’s actually playing everyone. You just wait and see how invested he really is in the cause.”

  “The cause? You’re a nut job.”

  “I believe that you things are animals, everyone will see soon enough.”

  “I am done playing your games. Make a choice, lady. Go out alive, or not. I’ve got a family to find.”

  “Not,” was all she said before she took a syringe and shoved it into her throat. Whatever she injected herself with worked immediately, and she fell to the floor with a thud. It made me hate her even more, that I couldn’t have taken her out myself. The men in suits were horrified, but I just stepped over her body and walked through the plastic quarantine units, desperately searching until I found Camden crying in a plastic crib. All that he was in was a diaper, with a scratchy sheet wrapped around him. I picked him up and shushed him, walking through the plastic, calling for Penelope.

  “Penny? Penny, where the hell are you?”

  I heard a yell in the distance. I continued to rock Camden as I walked toward the calling. I stepped into one of the dark rooms and flicked on the light. A single luminescent bulb hung above her. She was strapped to a chair and looked tired, but for the most part, okay.

  “You’re not hurt, are you?” I said as I attempted to remove her straps with one arm while the other still rocked Camden back and forth.

  “No! They just wanted blood samples. I’m so glad you’re okay!”

  She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I squeezed her tightly. She leaned down to kiss Camden again and again. “I love you so much. Mommy will never let anything happen to you. Mommy and Daddy love you, Camden.”

  I looked down at the tiny bundle in my arms and the beautiful woman in front of me and realized that there was nothing better in the world. And that my team and I wouldn’t stop until all of Purest was eliminated. Because I wouldn’t let what happened to my family happen to anyone else’s. Now they were in my arms and I was whole.

  My mate, my baby, and me.

  The complete package.

  Everything I ever wanted was literally in my arms.

  And nothing would ever take that away.

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