Scott’s expression turned hopeful.
“But when I sensed his presence behind you at his house,” Janis continued, “he felt like the black part, the element that does bad.”
“Oh.” Scott frowned. “So, like a split personality?”
“Or … different personalities.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Scott. It’s not making a ton of sense to me right now, either.”
The backs of his fingers brushed her forearm. “We’re going to be here a few more days, so we don’t have to figure everything out this minute. And, hey,” he said, snaking his hand back into his lap. “About what happened at the prince’s palace.”
Janis sensed what was coming. “No, Scott, I—”
He held up a hand. “Tyler explained everything … and I’m, ah … look, I’m a jerk, all right. A jerk for doubting you. A jerk for attacking him like I did. And if you don’t want to do this anymore.” He gestured between them. “I’d understand. I’d be eternally miserable, but I’d understand.”
“Scott, the reason I was so anxious to retrieve that piece of myself was because I didn’t want to share it with anyone but you.”
Scott’s brown eyes grew large. “Really?”
“Really. And if anyone’s the jerk, it’s me for not telling you what happened in Missouri sooner.”
He made the you-me gesture again. “So you still want to do this?”
“And this.” She balled up the front of his collar and tugged him toward her until his soft lips were moving against hers. Several head-spinning seconds passed. Then, like freeing a butterfly from cupped hands, Janis let a part of herself go.
As they eased apart, Scott’s face glowed. He touched a hand to his chest. “Is that…?”
She nodded. “Keep it safe.”
They turned toward the door as a military nurse entered to check Janis’s vital signs and hang a new IV bag. When she left, Scott was holding the stuffed camel, fixing the red ribbon around its neck.
“So, what’s next?” Janis asked.
“Huh?” He tucked the camel back beside her. “Well, Kilmer’s more upset than I’ve ever seen him. I have a feeling he’s going to use whatever down time we have to go after the Scale, to get Jesse back.”
Janis found herself nodding. She still couldn’t read their director, but she could follow his line of reasoning easily enough. “Never mind what the Scale already know about us,” she said, “Jesse knows everything. Oakwood, our abilities, our identities. There’s no telling how much he’ll share.”
“So, it’s either take them out or relocate our program from Oakwood.”
“If the second option’s even possible,” Janis mumbled, thinking about the neighborhood’s vast underworld infrastructure on which the Champions Program depended.
“Who are they, though? What’s their reason for being?”
“I’m not sure even Kilmer knows.” Janis said. She watched another worrying thought send creases through Scott’s brow.
“What if Jesse doesn’t want to come back?” he asked.
“Then we’re going to have a heck of a fight on our hands.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“But listen.” Janis took his hand and kneaded her thumbs into his palm. “What if they’re not the only ones with an insider? Not the only ones with access to someone whose loyalties might be divided?”
Scott frowned before his face broke open in understanding. “Mr. Shine?” he asked.
Janis remembered staring wide-eyed at the two dangling halves of the severed snake. Poison’s all up here in the mouth, the man had told them. But even that you can use, if’n you know what you’re doing.
“Mr. Shine,” she said.
37
Gainesville, Florida
Reginald watched the veins in the crook of his arm engorge beneath the bite of rubber tubing. With practiced eased, he slid the tip of the needle into the largest knot and depressed the plunger. As cold, life-extending serum seeped inside him, Reginald shut his eyes.
She waited till the last minute, he thought. Wanted to leave no doubt as to who’s in charge here.
Indeed, hours before the parcel arrived, Reginald had begun to succumb to the symptoms: progressive weakness, fatigue, shortness of breath. He fell twice. By midday, his shirt was soaked through. An hour later, he vomited up his breakfast. He’d been brushing his teeth when the knock sounded on the door, followed by the blessed cry of “UPS.”
Reginald withdrew the needle and set it on the coffee table, next to the empty bottle of Vitrin. An opened note, which had been wrapped around the delivered bottle, read “Good work.”
And that was the problem. Reginald had done good work. The Champions’ names, addresses, abilities, strengths and weaknesses—he’d included everything in the report. What choice had there been? He couldn’t gamble on what the Scale already knew versus what they didn’t. Had she withheld the Vitrin, he would have been in his death throes by dinnertime.
And just when he was starting to piece together who the Scale were and how they operated.
Reginald limped to his bedroom and swapped his damp shirt for a dry one, buttoning it up the front. Already he could feel his strength returning. The Vitrin would blunt the more cancerous effects of his advancing mutations—for the next two weeks, anyway. He took his pistol from his bedside table and carried it back to the living room. From his chair, he eyed the note.
Good work.
He’d bought himself and the Champions some time, but that was all. The only way he was going to protect those kids would be to take out the Scale, and the only way to do that would be to nail them at their source. Problem was, he didn’t have that information. Not yet. He was going to need more than two weeks, though. He was going to need months, maybe a year.
Leaning forward, he flipped the note over and reread the back side.
“You’re halfway back in our confidence. The subjects remain of use, for now, but it’s time to cull the herd. Choose one: Margaret Graystone or Tyler Bast.
“No body, no Vitrin.”
Of course, there was a third choice: going to Director Kilmer. But Kilmer would bundle those kids away, which was exactly the wrong response. The Scale would pull back into the shadows themselves. And when they decided to strike, Reginald wouldn’t be around anymore. It was a game of repulsive alternatives—lord knew, he’d been playing it for the last ten years.
But it wasn’t just about the Champions anymore. The fate of the entire world, East and West, was at stake. If he could just lure the Scale a little further into the light…
Reginald tapped the pistol barrel against his knee as his eyes flicked between the two names.
Margaret Graystone … Tyler Bast…
He winced as he made his decision.
“Goddammit.”
The series continues...
XGeneration 5: Cry Little Sister
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Books by Brad Magnarella
PROF CROFT
Demon Moon
XGENERATION
You Don’t Know Me
The Watchers
Silent Generation
Pressure Drop
Cry Little Sister
Greatest Good
Dead Hand
Table of Contents
XGeneration Series
Description
Recap
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
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24
25
26
27
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29
30
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XGeneration (Book 4): Pressure Drop Page 26