Rectify Injustice (The Exceptional S. Beaufont Book 6)

by Sarah Noffke

  “Of course, sir,” Sophia said in a rush, meeting Mika Lenna’s cold, dark eyes. At his back, she spied Evan giving her an apologetic expression. He’d obviously done everything he could think of to stall the man, but it hadn’t worked for long. However, it had worked well enough.

  She slid her hand into her pocket, trying to hide her phone and the jump drive. Mika Lenna’s sinister gaze was locked on her, not seeing anything else. It was weird to consider what she’d learned about this man. He had genetically done some strange things to himself, enhancing himself into a werewolf. Besides being intimidating and scary, Sophia didn’t see how he could be a werewolf, but being locked in the small office with him, she hoped not to learn, especially without her sword.

  He held his hand up to her face and snapped his fingers, a crisp, loud sound. “Update. Give it to me now!”

  Sophia swallowed and nodded and attempted to smile.

  “The project is well underway,” she said, trying her Australian accent, which wasn’t good.

  “I know it’s underway,” he snapped. “It’s close to being another complete failure. What are the pathogens saying about the current mutation?”

  “Mutation,” Sophia repeated, picking up a file folder on the desk and flipping through it. “Good question.”

  Mika Lenna ripped the folder from her hands and threw it across the office, nearly hitting Evan. “Don’t look at notes. I want the report directly from you.”

  Catching the look in Evan’s eyes, Sophia knew what he was thinking. They were both considering killing Mika right then. They probably had a good chance with both of them there. Trin had made it clear she wanted to finish this man, though, and she did deserve that.

  If things got any more tense, Sophia was going to have no choice but to defend herself. She was pretty certain Mika Lenna was moments away from attacking her. She felt him needling at her thoughts, trying to get access.

  “Directly from me,” Sophia said, repeating his words to buy time. “The report goes as follows. All of the subjects are displaying—”

  Never before was Sophia so grateful to hear sirens. She was pretty certain she smiled at the interruption.

  Mika Lenna tensed and his eyes widened. He swung around, looking at the office, as though expecting invaders.

  “Evacuate,” he urged. “Take the tunnels. You know the drill. We are being invaded. Remember, if you’re caught, whatever they do to you for not talking will be nothing compared to what I do if you share my secrets.”

  The leader of the Saverus Corporation stalked toward the door, moving in a blur as he shifted into the form of a werewolf—one that was unnatural and disgusting in every way.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Eight

  Downhill from here, Hiker thought, as he took off on Bell, flying fast over the Saverus headquarters. He was surprised to find how quickly the cyborgs sprang into action. He shouldn’t have been, having seen them at the Gullington. Now they were motivated too, and hungry for revenge.

  Lunis, Coral, and Simi had already been surrounding the headquarters before Sophia sent the message. They’d scouted out the underground tunnels Trin had told them about and blocked the passages from those who would use them for escaping. Mahkah and Hiker would circle overhead and keep an eye on things from the sky.

  This was good for Hiker from a leadership standpoint. He didn’t yet trust the gold harp in his pocket. Yes, it calmed him, but in battle, his emotions could still get the best of him. Hiker knew all too well the power flowing in his veins was both enough to save the world and damn it to hell for all time. So slight was the line between good and evil. It made him think of the dragon eggs ready to hatch at the Gullington. Some would be good. Others would be evil. The results of those hatchings would affect the world for a very long time.

  Trin Currante had waited too long for this moment. Her men had too. Whatever happened next, she would accept as long as it involved making Mika Lenna pay. Yes, she wanted her life back and her human body, but if nothing else, she wanted to make the man who had taken everything feel the pain he’d caused others.

  From the blimp she’d commandeered when she’d escaped Mika Lenna originally, Trin soared over the top of Saverus’ headquarters, the riders on their dragons flanking them.

  It should have been weird to go from enemies to allies with the Dragon Elite, but nothing seemed more natural. They represented justice, after all. She realized she should have gone to them originally and explained what had happened. She should have asked for help rather than invade the Gullington, stealing dragon eggs for her own gain.

  When everything had been stolen from her, she had forgotten how to trust. Strangely, the Dragon Elite was restoring her faith in humanity, something she never thought possible.

  She was the first one to disembark from the blimp, sliding down the ropes streaming over the side. With a loud thud, she landed on the roof of the warehouse and had a déjà vu moment from the first time she did this. It would be different this time. Mika Lenna wasn’t getting away.

  When the alarm in the lab sounded, Wilder was already by the door. Most of the scientists jerked their heads up in alarm.

  The last few minutes had given Wilder the time to figure out what to do. He was the first out the door when the alarm sounded. He flicked his wrist at the locked cages against the wall, releasing all of the rabid animals. Then he yanked the door shut and locked all the evil scientists in with the animals they created.

  What would follow, he didn’t want to see. As he sped down the hallway, he heard the screams and knew that revenge was underway.

  Sophia and Evan allowed themselves only a moment to breathe after Mika Lenna ran from the office morphing into the worst kind of monster she could have ever considered.

  She knew what Evan was thinking on this mission. Like her, he didn’t want to run into whatever Mika Lenna was becoming. They were all too glad to let Trin Currante have the kill after being in that man’s presence for only a few minutes.

  When the alarms were blaring and she was certain Mika Lenna was gone, she pulled off her disguise and took off down the hallway. Chaos was everywhere as scientists ran, probably in the direction of the underground tunnels.

  Sophia couldn’t communicate with Lunis due to the magitech in the facility, but she knew the dragons were waiting to meet the scientists, lining them up and taking them into custody. If anyone tried to flee, the dragons were all too happy to turn them into barbeque. That wasn’t the normal way for the Dragon Elite, but the stakes were different with Saverus.

  Running the opposite direction as everyone else, Sophia got strange looks, but probably because she was no longer wearing the glamour that looked like Victoria Clearbeam. She was just about to go the direction of the underground tunnels when she saw a face that made everything better.

  “Wilder!” Sophia exclaimed, opening her arms to him.

  The expression of pure horror on his face stopped her and nearly made Evan run her over.

  “Run!” Wilder yelled and grabbed her arm as he passed, yanking her in the opposite direction.

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Nine

  Chased by she didn’t know what, Sophia allowed Wilder to pull her down the long corridor.

  A quick glance over her shoulder told her she was probably better off not knowing deranged woodland creatures who appeared hungry for blood were pursuing them.

  “What are they?” Sophia asked, employing her enhanced speed to get away from the creatures.

  “I don’t know,” Wilder admitted, pushing Evan to speed up in front of them. “I let them out on the scientists, but some jerk opened the door, probably to escape getting eaten.”

  “Now your act of heroism has become a punishment,” Sophia said, wheeling around a corner. At the far end of the hallway, the other scientists were bottlenecked, trying to get through a single push door. They thought they were getting away, but if things went according to plan, no one was getting out of here without a trial.

  Sophia tur
ned and held up her hand. She couldn’t hurt the creatures, which were a product of animal testing, but she couldn’t stand there and get eaten by them either. She threw up a barrier that locked them on the far side of the hallway. She would have felt remorse for the humans running behind the creatures also looking for this exit if she didn’t know that karma had a way of coming full circle.

  The rabid creatures turned once they realized there was a dead end due to an invisible barrier and gave their full attention to the scientists looking for a way out. With horrified expressions, the scientists spun and hauled ass in the opposite direction. They would try and escape through the front door—where they’d undoubtedly be met by cyborgs looking for retribution.

  The scene on the ground was chaos Hiker observed from the sky as he circled on Bell. Around the entire perimeter of Saverus were cyborgs, their weaponized arms pointed at every exit and their steel fists ready for a fight.

  When the first set of scientists ran from the building, they skidded to a halt at the sight, realizing there was no escape.

  The cyborgs had been told to apprehend the scientists. The House of Fourteen would then take over, putting them all into custody. From Hiker’s position in the sky, he saw the Warriors from the House of Fourteen striding in from a neighboring road, Liv Beaufont in the lead, flanked by her husband, Stefan Ludwig. Trudy DeVries was on the other side of him. Many would have thought that only three Warriors wouldn’t be enough to do a cleanup job this big, but they’d be wrong. Hiker knew the Dragon Elite was the best, but a very close second were the Warriors for the House.

  He pulled his gaze to the roof of the Saverus headquarters. Trin had been the first to land, followed quickly by many of her men. She had figured out where the underground tunnels were and the quickest way there from the roof.

  A cyborg with a saw for a hand cut an opening in the metal roof, and one by one, the cyborgs disappeared. According to Trin, it would take her less than a minute to slip into the corridor right outside the tunnel. That’s where she’d find Mika Lenna. That would be how he planned to escape with all his other routes blocked. It would be where Trin Currante delivered justice.

  Having studied the last facility Mika Lenna had, Trin Currante figured out how the man had mapped things out. She was betting that he had done things the same way for this facility. So far, she’d been right. She dropped through the various levels of the warehouse, cutting through ceilings and descending farther until she was at the final one that led to the underground tunnels.

  Impatiently, she waited for the cut to be made. When the circle of the ceiling dropped through, Trin allowed one of her men to check. He glanced up relief in his eyes.

  “All clear besides friends,” he said, hope in his one human eye.

  Friends? she wondered. It was a foreign word. Trin didn’t have any friends. Not even her men did she consider friends. Then she dropped through and knew what he meant—the dragonriders stood on one side of the corridor. On the other was the door that led to the underground and to Mika Lenna.

  Chapter One Hundred Forty

  Riot, please, Lunis thought from his place blocking the three routes to the underground tunnels as the scientists continued to spill into the area, looking for a way out and realizing going back the way they came wasn’t an option. He was just waiting for them to rebel and give him a reason to turn them all to toast.

  Unfortunately, at the sight of the three dragons blocking all of the escape routes, the scientists backed up, bewildered.

  Several of the corridors to Saverus fed into this underground area where the tunnels sped off in different directions under the city and ended in random locations. Mika Lenna had believed he’d thought of everything, but he hadn’t counted on the Dragon Elite.

  Swishing his tail back and forth, Lunis lowered his head as a bold scientist approached him.

  “Just want to pass through that tunnel behind you,” the man said, offering his hand to the dragon like he was a dog who needed to smell him first before allowing him to be petted.

  The guy was about to find himself without a hand if he got any closer. Remembering the warning Sophia had given him about resorting to violence last, he sneered at the man, smoke billowing from his nostrils. To his disappointment, that was enough to make the guy back up, which meant Lunis couldn’t eat him for trespassing.

  Hunched down in the underground space, Lunis hoped things proceeded quickly. Not only was it not the best fit in the underground area, but he was also hungry after looking at all these jerk mortals who would make better side dishes than members of society. He really didn’t understand how awful people like this continued to exist, but it consoled him to know he and Sophia were putting them in their place.

  All the restraint Lunis had been practicing was threatened when something unlike anything he had ever seen stepped out of the only empty corridor. The others were full of scientists pushing and shoving, trying to get out until they realized they weren’t going anywhere with dragons obstructing their paths.

  The monster that strode out of the hallway wasn’t man nor animal. It was supposed to be a werewolf, but Lunis knew from the collective consciousness of the dragons that werewolves were beautiful creatures who were both man and wolf. This beast was neither. It was unnatural.

  Whatever Mika Lenna had made himself into, it was gross with rippling muscles, red eyes, and oversized fangs. The way he moved—jerky and full of rage—put a weird fear into the dragon. Still, he held up his head and opened his mouth as Mika Lenna charged in his direction in a show of power through intimidation.

  He might have lost his mind, but even Mika Lenna knew better than to push these boundaries. Although huge, Mika Lenna was a fraction of the size of Lunis and had nothing to match his fire and teeth. He stopped short of being fried and just in time as a figure as unnatural as he was stepped out of the corridor, followed by Sophia and the others.

  Sophia was on guard when the cyborg known as Trin slipped through the ceiling just ahead of them in the corridor. Then she was relieved. Everything had gone to plan for the most part. The worst of it and the hardest part was next, and it all rested on Trin’s shoulders, as she’d intended.

  Giving the cyborg a vote of confidence, Sophia held up her hand in the direction of the door at the end of the hallway. “He’ll be through there. We have your back, Trin. If anything goes wrong, we’ll step in and save you.”

  Trin sucked in a breath, her mechanical hair retracting and stretching. She shook her head, making a clicking sound. “I won’t need your help. Let him kill me, but this fight is between him and me. I was one of his first. The first to survive. I’ll be the one to end him, or I’ll die trying. If I do, I expect you to kill him. I’ll be watching from the afterlife, waiting to follow him to the pits of hell, where I intend to make his eternity excruciating.”

  Sophia could hardly fathom the things that had been done to Trin to make her so bitter, but she knew the resentment was well-warranted. She only hoped this act of revenge was enough to start to quell the fires in Trin’s soul. A cure would take some time since they had just gotten the research from Saverus. Still, Sophia wanted healing for the cyborgs. She wanted it for all who had suffered at Mika Lenna’s hands.

  That was her final wish as she followed the cyborgs to the underground area.

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-One

  “How to be dead,” Trin yelled clear and loud, her mechanical voice echoing in the underground area. “Is that what you’re obsessed with, Mika Lenna?”

  Sophia and the guys spilled out behind the cyborg and watched her walk across the open concrete space. It was mostly dark, except for a few lights on the dark walls. Obstructing much of the open area were the nervous scientists, clinging to each other and unable to go anywhere. The corridors they’d come through were blocked by cyborgs, and the underground tunnels they had intended to take to safety were blocked by dragons.

  Sophia’s gaze connected with Lunis on the far side. He was like a cork in the tunne
l, blocking any attempt to get through. It looked like many of the scientists were close to doing anything to squeeze by, even if it meant losing a limb or two in the process. More likely, they’d be charred until they were medium-rare.

  Mika Lenna wasn’t hard to spot amidst the chaos of the fearful scientists. They all backed away from the genetically altered monster as he craned his neck to one side and then the other like he was still morphing.

  The suit he’d worn earlier still fit, but only in places. He was more animal than man now. As he turned in the circle of scientists, dragons, and riders to face the cyborg he created, his hand rocked forward, and he caught himself like a four-legged beast. He was a werewolf by many standards, but everything about him was wrong.

  “Trin,” he growled. “My biggest mistake.”

  “You wanted me dead more than alive,” she said, striding forward, the hydraulics of her legs making hissing sounds. “You wanted to be more monster than human. Look what you’ve done to the world around you. You’ve killed it.”

  He shook his snout, which once looked like a man’s but was growing more disfigured by the moment. He didn’t seem in control of the change happening to him. It was all going wrong.

  “Notice I never made another cyborg out of a woman,” he spat. “They don’t take to change well. They don’t know how to conform. Your lot refuses to do things the right way.”