Breed of Havoc (The Breed Chronicles #3)

by Lanie Jordan

  I pounded on the glass. This time, I could see it as the sound vibrated off it. It was bright pink. I moved around, to the next side and hit again, watching the shape appear. I did this for each wall until I could see the entirety of it. A box. They had me in a damn box.

  But one thing I didn’t see: an exit.

  I went around again, feeling for any lines or hinges. By the time I reached my starting point again, in front of Creeper, I still hadn’t found anything. Just the box. I pounded on the glass again until my hands went numb, until the fear turned into anger. I stormed over the cot and tried pulling it from the ground. It didn’t budge.

  I had no weapons. I had no way out.

  The anger made way for the fear again. I tried blocking it out, because fear was useless, but it was impossible. “Let. Me. Out!”

  I’d always mocked people in movies who said those words, hoping they’d do any good at all. But I said them now, over and over, until my voice was horse.

  Until Creeper chuckled.

  “What do you want with me?” My voice broke, but this time, I couldn’t tell if it was from anger or fear. Just like I couldn’t tell if the tears that threatened to fall were from anger or fear. Or maybe a good dose of both.

  Bright lights flashed on and blinded me. When I could see again, I immediately wanted the darkness back. They had me in a glass cage inside a big room, and outside my cage, there were at least half a dozen people watching me.

  I glanced up and saw cameras in each of the corners. On the roof of the room, there were vents of some kind.

  I almost laughed. Dr. Cherry’s rat, the one she experimented on, had a cage similar to the one I was being held in. Was this how the rat had felt with an audience? Looking out to the people watching it. Looking out, waiting and wondering what those people were going to do. Wondering what was going to happen next.

  I’d felt bad for the rat before, but now I felt bad and I could relate to it.

  When I got out of here, I was going to talk to Dr. Cherry about her rat’s home. It needed something better, something less see-through. Less…box-like.

  I glared at the people outside, then found Creeper again and held his gaze.

  He made a motion to someone, a flick of his hand, and I spun around as a door outside my room opened and two gowned people walked in. One pushed a metal tray with a cloth over the top, hiding its contents, and the other pushed in a chair, similar to the one in Doc’s lab. The one I sat in when she used to draw my blood. I didn’t need to know what was under the cloth, because it couldn’t be anything good.

  Is that what they wanted? My blood?

  “One of you is gonna get something broken,” I threatened darkly.

  “You won’t be harmed.”

  I didn’t turn to Creeper this time. Instead, I shook my head. “Someone will be if you’re planning to do what I think you’re planning to do.”

  “Oh? And what do you think we’re going to do?”

  Now I did turn, but only enough so I could see him while keeping the others in view. “You want my blood. But you’re going to be disappointed, because whoever comes in here is gonna lose theirs first.”

  “Is that so?” The amusement was back in his voice now.

  “Yeah, that’s so.”

  As much as I liked training, especially in Combat, I really wasn’t so violent. I didn’t normally feel so violent. But I meant every single word I’d said. The first person I got my hands on was going to be in some pain. I’d make damn sure of it. I’d kick, punch, claw, bite—whatever I had to do to cause it.

  Ignoring Creeper, I turned back and faced the two people waiting right outside the door. One I thought was a woman, judging the shape of her brown eyes and the thin arch of her brows. The other was definitely a guy. His brows were thick, and his eyes were dark brown. They had lines at the side—crow’s feet?—so he was probably older. It didn’t matter, though. Young or old, I had no problem kicking their asses.

  They both stared back at me, their expressions filled with…I wasn’t sure. Curiosity, maybe? They weren’t looking at me like I was a person. They were looking at me like I was some unknown creature. Goosebumps raised on my arms. It reminded me of last Phase, of the look Brian had given me—the one that made me think he was trying to figure out how my insides worked.

  The look hadn’t been this creepy, and he hadn’t had a tray of unknown supplies or a chair with straps on it.

  I stepped forward until I stood opposite of the people waiting outside, with only the glass between us. If those people were planning on coming in, then there had to be a way out. I only had to find it.

  “If you’re looking for an exit,” he drawled, “you’re not going to find one.”

  “If there’s a way in, then there’s a way out.” They’d gotten me in here, hadn’t they? They hadn’t just built this…this cage around me.

  Had they?

  His cheeks raised in a twisted smile. “We’ll see.”

  When he moved away, everyone else took a step back. The two with the chair stayed where they were and I kept my eyes on them.

  A strange hissing sound broke the silence. I frowned. A bitter sweet scent followed the sound. Too sweet, too bitter. My gaze lifted when I felt air hit my shoulders. Above me, a red fog floated out of the vents. I took a deep breath and held it. Two or three minutes passed before my lungs started to burn. I gasped, gulping in greedy amounts of air. My eyes started to get heavy again. I blinked to keep them open.

  I held on as long as I could, but eventually I collapsed to the ground, coughing and gasping for breath. I was alone in the room. I was alone, even though I was surrounded by people. People with unknown, probably bad, intentions. Men with calm eyes and expressionless voices. Men with guns.

  I managed to say, “Ah, hell,” before I went under.

  *~*~*

  It happened like a switch. One second I’d been out cold, and the next I was awake. No confusion, no second-guessing or wondering where I was this time. My mind was completely clear and I almost wished it hadn’t been. I almost wished for that moment of ignorance when I didn’t know where I was or who I was with.

  Not that I knew either of those thing now. I wasn’t at the CGE where I should’ve been—that was about the only thing I knew.

  This time, when I tried moving my arms, they didn’t budge. My eyes snapped open and I looked down. They were strapped over the arms of the chair. I followed a thin piece of plastic to the crook of each of my elbows, where IVs had been started. Dark red flowed down one tube; a bright, almost neon blue flowed up the other. I struggled against them, bucking and squirming, trying to free my arms. It didn’t help.

  I was stronger than this, damnit! Wasn’t I? Isn’t that what Dr. Cherry had said, that I was getting stronger? Wasn’t that how I’d hurt Rachel? So why couldn’t I get free of a stupid chair?

  What good did demon DNA and extra strength do me if it didn’t help when I needed it to?

  Demon DNA.

  The thought hit me like a brick to the head. I almost laughed that it’d taken me so long to figure out what these people wanted. My DNA. Wasn’t it the reason Greene and Dr. Cherry kept calling me special?

  Was that really what this was all about? My stupid DNA again?

  “You’re awake,” a voice said.

  My heart jumped to my throat. I couldn’t see the person it belonged to, but it wasn’t a voice I recognized. This time it was a woman’s.

  “Let me out of this damn thing!” I demanded, struggling against the straps again.

  The woman said nothing, only moved closer and looked down at me.

  “What are you doing? What is that blue stuff you’re pumping into me?” All the questions that ran through my mind tumbled out of my mouth. “What am I doing here? Where is ‘here’? Why did you guys grab—”

  “Stay calm. This will be a lot quicker and easier if you do.”

  She stepped away, somewhere behind me, and I couldn’t see her anymore. I heard things, like me
tal clinking against metal, and my brain went haywire. I’d joked with Greene last Phase about the tests he’d wanted Doc to run. I’d joked about them not needing to cut my head open or anything, but were these people about to do that? Were they going to cut me open to see how things looked inside?

  I wanted to dismiss it as irrational, baseless fear, but could I afford to? These people—whoever they were, whatever they really wanted—had drugged me, abducted me, locked me in a glass box, and then they’d drugged me again. Now they had me strapped to a chair with IVs running in both of my arms, and they were getting ready to do…something.

  It was the something that worried me.

  There were more weird sounds.

  I change my mind! I didn’t want to know what they were doing, because I didn’t want them to be doing anything!

  Peter would tell me to learn everything possible about my enemy. Dale, in his scruffy voice, would tell me not to be an idiot and lose my head. Linc… Linc wouldn’t tell me anything. He’d just look at me, and then we’d both kick some ass.

  God, I missed him. Even if he had been a jerk the last time I’d seen him.

  When the woman stepped in front of me again, my gaze fell her to feet. I thought of Tasha and smiled. She wouldn’t approve of the woman’s shoes in a million years. “You have really crappy taste in shoes.”

  Her head twitched, like she’d glanced down really fast. Then she turned a slow circle and faced me. Her eyebrows shot upward. “My shoes?”

  “Yes. Those things you’re wearing on your feet.” I lowered my head and pointed with my fingers, since they were the only things I could move. “They’re ugly.” Okay, so insulting her shoes wasn’t exactly the best Plan of Attack, but if she was distracted and talking to me, then she wasn’t doing other…stuff. And it’d buy me time to think of something better. Like how to escape and execute said Plan of Attack—which, unfortunately, was pretty much still in the planning stages.

  She looked down at them again. Her brows creased together in ugly lines.

  “Worthy of a good burning,” I continued, my tone as conversational as I could make it despite everything inside me shaking. “My friend is a shoe-a-holic.” The woman started to turn away, toward that mysterious covered tray of mysterious supplies and my heart went frantic. I jerked against the restraints and kicked the chair. “Hey, we’re talking here!”

  “I have a job to do,” she said stiffly.

  “And what’s your job, exactly? Lead Abductee Torturer? Personally, I’d get another job, cause yours sucks. And since I’m on the other side of it, I think I’m the perfect judge of just how much.”

  “You haven’t been tortured and you won’t be. You won’t be harmed at all.”

  “Oh?” My voice turned to liquid steel now and my eyes narrowed. “What do you call abducting me? Or shooting me with darts to drug me? Locking me in a cage like a rat? Shoving needles into my arms? That’s not harm? You need to check your dictionary, chick.”

  “You were not physically harmed. You were examined once you were brought in to be sure, and there wasn’t a scratch on you. The darts—and the needles—are necessary measures to ensure you’re not harmed. Nothing that has been done to you will have any lasting side-effects.”

  Lasting side-effects. Yeah, they didn’t last because I healed too damn fast. They lasted long enough to knock my ass out so they could drag me to Where The Hell Ever, examine me—

  A fiery rage started in my stomach then spread throughout my body. To my arms, legs. My fingers curled into fists and my arms strained against the straps until they cut into my skin. “What do you mean I was examined?”

  “Upon your arrival, you were examined by one of our doctors. We wanted to be sure you weren’t harmed.”

  “Is that how you get your kicks?” I was yelling now. “By examining people when they’re unconscious and…” I trailed off because I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.

  “I understand that might be disconcerting to hear, but the examination was done by a woman and it was only to ensure—”

  “I wasn’t hurt. Yeah, yeah. I heard you the first time.” I laughed. “How considerate of you to worry about the person you’ve abducted against their will,” I said, tone dry. I tried to focus on the good part of what she’d said, that it’d been done by another woman. But even that knowledge didn’t help much. Strangers—kidnappers, no less—had drugged and examined me. They had… No. I shook my head violently. I wasn’t going to think about it. Couldn’t. It’d do me no good.

  Part of me wished I knew exactly what had happened during the times I was knocked out, but the other half of me… That half of me was glad I didn’t know. Though I couldn’t decide which—if either—was the lesser of two evils.

  “While you’re with us, you’ll be treated decently.”

  “Again, I think you need to check your dictionary, because our definitions are definitely different.”

  Her lips turned down slightly in a frown. “Perhaps they are.”

  “Look, just tell me what you want.”

  “I was told you already knew, or had guessed.”

  “My DNA? It has to be more than that. I’m not stupid. Your people managed to inject something into me—twice. If you only wanted blood samples, you could have taken those. You didn’t have to bring me…here.”

  And that was something I hadn’t considered until now. They could have taken samples back at the CGE. They could’ve knocked me out, drawn their samples, and gone far, far away. They could have left me there, but they hadn’t. They went to a lot of effort to not only break into the CGE, but to track me down and leave with me.

  They’d stabbed Adam without a second thought. Who knew what else they had done? But why had they gone through so much trouble? They had been careful not to hurt me, I realized now, though I had no idea why. No one had attacked me or fought back, even after I’d clobbered at least three of their people.

  Still wish I could’ve gotten more.

  The woman’s head tilted to the side. She said nothing for a minute, but then she gave a slow, barely noticeable nod. “What do you know of the CGE’s work?”

  “They research anomalies in DNA.”

  “Their real work.”

  I said nothing.

  “We know what they do.” Her eyes narrowed and darkened. Even her tone was darker when she added, “We know what they’ve done. To you. To others like you.”

  “Done to me? Lady, what the hell are you talking about? They haven’t done anything to me.”

  “They have and you don’t even realize it.”

  “Okay, seriously. I’m not playing dumb here, but what are you talking about?” The CGE had taken me from The Pond, but I’d agreed. Hell, I would have begged to leave that place.

  “They’re the bad guys.” Her tone was pleading. “We took you to save you.”

  The laugh bubbled up unexpectedly. “They’re the bad guys? I take back all the dictionary comments I’ve made, because whatever one you’ve been reading is freaking ass backward. You’re the one who kidnapped me, and yet, they’re somehow the ones in the wrong? What drugs are you on?”

  “I know they must make you think that, even feel that, but it’s not true. Not at all.”

  I couldn’t tell what was worse: the fact that she looked sad when she’d said it, or that it seemed like she actually believed every single word she’d said. I’d been confused before, and still was about most things, but now I was just…baffled. No, something stronger than that, because baffled didn’t come close to the level of confusion I’d reached.

  The woman was crazy. Not the crazy-for-abducting-me way. But flat out insane.

  “Man, your boss—wherever that creep is lurking, and I’m sure he’s around here somewhere—really needs to do a psych eval on you, because you’ve lost it. Seriously lost it. Do you hear yourself? Do you honestly believe what you’re saying? Because I don’t and I won’t. Ever.”

  The woman’s eyes went wide. “I’m—”
r />   “Get to work, doctor” a voice said.

  At the sound of the now all-too-familiar voice, I laughed again. “See? I told you Creeper was around here somewhere.” I struggled to look over my shoulder. “You know you’ve got some crazy people working for you? Certifiable-crazy, not just stupid-crazy. I mean, she’s obviously both. But seriously, I recommend a psych eval. Stat. And maybe one for yourself while you’re at it, because your marbles aren’t all there, either.”

  “Keep quiet,” he said to me. “Do you need assistance, doctor?”

  “You’re a doctor? I thought you all took an oath to do no harm? Wait, I know! You’re helping me. Sorry, I forgot.”

  She glanced at me. “I’m—”

  “Finish your work,” Creeper said.

  “Well, even crazy dogs try to make their masters happy, I guess. Jump, doggy, jump!”

  “Will you shut up?”

  “Jump!”

  “Shut up! Shut up, shut up!” the doctor shouted. “What we’re doing is important. Why don’t you see that?”

  I snorted. “Because I have eyes that aren’t clouded by crazy?”

  She whirled away from me, stormed back to the tray, and flipped the cover off with a snap of her wrist. It few across the room and fell to the floor at my feet.

  I heard the sound of gloves snapping against skin.

  And just like that, fear overrode anger. My blood ran cold again, my heart raced. I heard it in my head like a speeding train.

  When she stormed over to me, needle in hand, I shook my head. “Don’t even think about it! I swear, when I get out of this chair—and I will, if I have to break my own damn arms to do it—I’ll jab that needle in your eye.” Apparently my truly violent side had been dormant this entire time, because I meant what I said.

  Ignoring me, she bent over near my arm. Her coat fell over my hand. I felt the sting of the needle against my skin and yanked on her jacket. As her head dropped, I leaned forward and delivered a head-butt that left me seeing stars.

  She clutched her face and tried twisting away, but I didn’t let go of her coat.

  “Damnit! Someone get in there!” Creeper yelled.

  The doctor sobbed, blood dripping from her hopefully-broken nose. “Let me go!”