Strange Case, an Urban Fantasy (Hyde Book III)

by Stewart, Lauren

  Ignore the tingles and stick to the violence. She grimaced and shook her head. I mean, getting him to talk. Shit. What was going on with her? Yeah, lots and lots of therapy.

  “Is Ryan your real name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Huh.”

  He sighed. “And to think you don’t believe me. After everything we’ve been through together.”

  “I thought the devil would’ve had more originality. You know, something more dramatic for his first-born.”

  He laughed. “He got more creative with his next child.”

  “Did he beat the shit out of you when you were little? Please tell me he did.”

  “How about I tell you that I’m beginning to question your sanity?”

  Her laugh was so bitter, it almost brought tears to her eyes. “I’m doing less than what you did to me and the others. So maybe you should take a minute to question your own sanity.”

  “‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.’ Did you know that, contrary to popular belief, Einstein never said that?” Despite having nothing going for him, he looked at her with incredible confidence. It ate at hers.

  “The most admirable thing about Abnormals is their honesty with themselves,” he said. “They might lie to others but they never lie to themselves or try to be something they’re not. It’s something I’ve tried to implement in my own life. So, no, I’m not insane. And I don’t think you are either. Although I could be wrong.”

  “Your opinion is about as important to me as your life is right now.”

  “What are you going to do with me, Eden? Keep me tied up forever? You’re not going to kill me—that I know. And since I have nothing to tell you, I think this is something referred to as an ‘impasse’.”

  “I figured we could hang out for a little while, chat, work out some stress, that kind of thing.”

  “Working out some stress sounds interesting. Are you going to fuck me?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” She moved behind him, leaning down to whisper. “But I’m the only one who will be smiling afterwards.”

  Chapter XXV

  Just another day at the office that isn’t. Landon squeezed Danielle’s hand as they went inside the building. She was clutching the purse that now held a vial of each of the drugs and all of the files he’d brought from Florida, in addition to her gun.

  He peeked into the security office. “Hey, Rick. I came in early to help the doc with something. I’ll be back before my shift starts.”

  Rick popped a brow. “‘Help’ the doc with something? Wow. Seriously, Nicolas, my hat is off to you, man. I’m in awe.” He put his hand on his heart.

  Wrong assumption, but one that could work for them. “Yeah, um…listen. Is there any way you could turn off the cameras in the lab for a little while?” He smirked. “It would be better if some things weren’t caught on camera, if you know what I mean.”

  “In awe,” Rick repeated. “But…if I turn the cameras off, I won’t get to watch.”

  “And I won’t have to think about why the keyboard is sticky. Turn them off.”

  “Alright, alright.” He swung his chair to the console. “These things glitch all the time. How long do you need?”

  “As long as she wants it.”

  “Awe!” Rick called as Landon shut the door and followed Danielle towards the lab.

  “Sorry about that,” he said quietly. “When we’re done, I’ll tell him I made the whole thing up.”

  “There are rumors about me and almost every man here. No one believes them anymore. Probably because of the other rumors going around. Honestly, it’s a good thing everyone was talking about it or I would’ve never known I was frigid. And gay.”

  Shit, I like her a lot. “Slow down,” he said, touching her arm gently. “Unless you always run to work.”

  She slowed, agitated but in control. He knew how much potential trouble he was creating for her. But they were out of options, time, direction, you name it. Mitch was a time bomb on its last few ticks, and Eden was in trouble—two more reasons that Landon needed to keep it together. It was something he was good at—years of fruitless searching taught him patience and self-control.

  After verifying that Rick turned the cameras off, Landon watched Danielle fuss with equipment, shuffle the vials around, and flip through files.

  Then his phone rang. “Yeah?”

  “It’s Justin.” He spoke quickly, nervously—nothing like the typical lazy tone of a typical teenager. “Eden came back a little while ago and she had the guy tied up with her. Not tied up with her. He’s tied up and he’s with her. Separate—”

  “Slow and easy, kid. Eden’s there?”

  “She’s at the warehouse, yeah.”

  “Where are you?”

  “She sent me out for food.”

  That just didn’t sound right. She escapes from a kidnapper, brings him back to the warehouse, and sends the kid out for snacks? Not likely. Especially for someone who barely eats to begin with.

  “Justin, call Mitch and tell him that she’s back. And also tell him to move his ass. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Okay?”

  “But my phone—”

  Landon heard something across the room shatter.

  “Stupid,” Danielle grumbled, bending down to pick up whatever she’d just dropped. In order for her to be productive, he needed to calm her down, which also meant he needed to end this call.

  “I gotta go, Justin.”

  “But my phone—”

  “Call Mitch. He and Eden can hold down the fort until I get back.” He hung up and went to help Danielle pick up the larger pieces of glass. “Take a few deep breaths. I can handle the glass.”

  She stood and started rummaging through her supplies again, still frantic. “This is going to take time. More time than Turner might have, I don’t know. It’s like asking someone who’s never seen flour to whip up a cake…in twenty minutes…without a recipe. I don’t know anything about the other compounds.” She’d gone through the files on the drive here, but it was a lot to go through, even for someone who could look at them without their eyes crossing.

  “You don’t have to understand them. If I tell you what they do to Turner, maybe the files will help you piece something together.” Something that would keep him from transforming so abruptly and with so much risk. “All we need is a start. Or a time-released capsule to slow it down.”

  Really? A time-release capsule. Wow, that was just brilliant. He couldn’t believe he’d even considered doing this without her. He lifted up one of the bottles. “This was in whatever they were giving Carter. He was human, not Abnormal, but maybe it would help an Abnormal be less abnormal, you know?” Another brilliant idea, idiot. Just stop talking.

  “It’s not quite that simple.”

  “Yeah, didn’t think so.”

  She looked back down at the file, flipping pages and sighing a lot. “Whatever they were giving Carter was a composite drug, a mixture of GU-121 and two others—neither of which I’ve ever heard of.” She held up two containers. “All I know is that maybe this one brings out the Abnormal side and maybe Bradford developed the other one by using them. Maybe. So even with the components and kinda-sorta knowing what two of them do to Turner, there are still way too many unknowns. I can’t risk someone’s life on that many maybes.”

  “Even ‘maybe’ is better than what we have right now.”

  “Drug testing takes a huge amount of time and research before we even use animals. And human trials?” She shook her head so fast, she became a beautiful blur. “You’ve got to be kidding. GU-121 alone is years away from human trials. If the FDA found out that someone had been testing it on humans, they’d send out everyone they had with pitchforks. No one in Texas would need to turn on the lights because there’d be so many torches. Really. It’s just…so far beyond imagining.”

  Landon looked at her, hearing the answer leaving her mouth so casually, but afraid to hope. “Is t
hat true?”

  “What? The torches? No, of course not, but—”

  “What would the FDA do and how long would it take?”

  “Um…” She looked up from her work which entailed putting some kind of liquid into some kind of beaker. “They’d start an investigation that would probably take years, maybe longer, depending on what they found.” Then she went back to work, as if she were a swimmer and had only turned her head to take a breath.

  Human trials. He wanted to smack his head against the counter. Damn it. He should have figured that out before now. Headline: ‘Government Agency Discovers Secret Human Drug Trials’. Effect: The Clinic doesn’t get taken down by Eden, Turner, or him. It gets taken down by someone entirely different, in public, someone so big and far-reaching that the bastards can’t hide. Without connecting any of it to the Abnormals.

  He’d been so focused on not exposing them, so blinded by the fear they’d be discovered, that he missed the way around it. The whole truth didn’t need to come out, just part of it. That a non-FDA approved drug was being used on people. Normal people.

  “What if the FDA found Carter’s file?” No, it goes to multiple agencies and anyone else who wants a look. Until there were so many eyes on it, no amount of bribery could cover it up.

  “They may take it seriously, or they may not. But studies are faked all the time. The public only hears about a small fraction of them, usually the ones uncovered by competing labs or manufacturers. Because the FDA can’t look into all of them.” She came back up for air, looking at him intently. “If the drug was found in human tissue, it would prove far more than a bunch of paperwork. Unbiased tests from a reputable lab would be hard to ignore.”

  There was no chance The Clinic had left a body behind, not one they’d been experimenting on. But Landon called Joe at the Fort Lauderdale precinct anyway, just to make sure.

  It was a very short call.

  Carter’s body was gone and an autopsy was never ordered. So along with all of Carter’s drug-laced tissue went their chance of proving The Clinic had conducted illegal experiments. They couldn’t use any of the Abnormals as proof, because it would pull an investigation in the wrong direction—towards the Abnormals, not towards The Clinic.

  “From the look on your face,” Danielle said, “I’m going to assume it’s a no-go.”

  “Correct assumption.” Landon ran a hand over his mouth. So many people dead, and the one body he really needs is—

  Oh shit. The idea landed on him like an anvil in a Wiley Coyote cartoon. Think, dickhead. Really think it through. They needed to recreate what The Clinic did to Carter. Inject the stuff into the veins of a full-blooded human, have a blood-sample taken, and then leak the files and the blood to the FDA.

  Provided Danielle could figure out how to brew up a batch of what they’d given Carter, it just might work. Of course, they would also need a normal guy be the test subject.

  Just a normal guy. Sure. Luckily, he knew one who was just stupid enough to do it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Not as much as he might be soon. “Could you recreate the composite drug they gave Carter?”

  “Within a certain margin of error, probably. But that’s not proof, that’s just chemistry.”

  He swallowed. “I could take it.”

  “What?” She paused, probably trying to figure out why he’d just said something so stupid. “You? No. No, that’s a terrible idea. What if I don’t do it right? And even if I do, Carter died.”

  She was right—Carter died. And so did a lot of other people. And, if this didn’t end soon, there would be even more.

  Landon was healthy, strong, unlike Carter was. “The kid was close to death before they even got hold of him. He shouldn’t have been able to stand but, when we found him, he was walking. They gave him the drug and he recovered freakishly faster than he should have. Then when they stopped giving it to him, he got worse.” And worse. And then died. But don’t focus on that part.

  “So,” he continued, “since he was dying and the drug helped him heal, it stands to reason that, without it, he just went back to dying. Because I’m healthy, it should bounce me up a little bit and then drop me off right where I started.”

  She stared at him as if he’d left his brain back at the warehouse. “You know absolutely nothing about science, do you?”

  “I passed Chemistry…the second time around.” He smiled. She still looked worried.

  “I know nothing about the composite, and not enough about GU-121. Not yet. And not at all for this particular use. Once they’re combined anything could happen. I mean, anything. And that doesn’t even speak to the fact that I may not do it right.”

  The more Landon thought about it, the less risky it seemed. Less risky than what he’d faced everyday as a cop. A shitload less risky than going anywhere with Turner—something he’d done without hesitation, knowing full well that there was a really good chance he wouldn’t make it out.

  This needed to end. Landon’s body was strong, but his mind was so goddamn fatigued. After years of looking for justice, or vengeance, or whatever it was, his career disappeared faster than a nice set of rims with a ‘free’ sign hanging off them.

  As screwed up as they all were, Turner and Eden were his family now, and The Clinic wanted them gone too. The bastards wouldn’t stop until they’d taken away everything Landon valued. Most of it was already gone.

  If he did this, it would end all of the bullshit.

  Was it risky? Hell yes. But life was risk. Love was risk. Anything meaningful or important carried risk.

  Screw it. He was in. “You don’t have to give me a full dose—just enough to have it show up in a blood test. We need outside witnesses and unbiased testing.” That wasn’t going to happen if Danielle drew his blood here, especially not once the truth starts coming out about this facility’s ugly stepsister who used to live in South Florida. “So give it to me and then take me to the hospital.”

  She looked at him, then at the vials in front of her. “No.”

  “Please, it’s the only way.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  He couldn’t force her even if he wanted to. She was new to all of this. She hadn’t lived through all that he had or seen what he’d seen, and hopefully she never would. They’d find another way. Not sure what way, but he, Eden, and Turner would keep looking. Hell, if they could get through today, Landon might have more time to try to change Danielle’s mind.

  “It’s okay. I understand.” He held out his hands for the vials, but she tucked them closer to her. A big goddamn red flag shot up in his mind. “I need those. Now, Danielle. Give them to me.”

  “You’ll have to wait a minute.” Her eyes darted around the file in front of her.

  That’s not going to happen. He was already in motion when she spoke again, stopping right before he reached her.

  “I’ll give you what’s left after I mix something up, dilute it with saline, fill a syringe with it, put the syringe on the counter, and then walk away with my back to you.” Her voice grew softer. “What you choose to do then is up to you.”

  He took a breath and let it out slowly. “Thank you.” He didn’t know what he’d done to earn so much trust, but whatever it was, he wanted to hang onto it.

  “I don’t deserve it,” she said. “But I’ll do my best and then cross my fingers and pray it gives you what you need without killing you.”

  He held up his hand, fingers crossed. “I’m way ahead of you.”

  She pulled an envelope out of the file and unfolded the paper inside of it. “What’s this?” Her eyes moved at sight-speed across one page and then another and then stopped.

  He recognized it as soon as he got a good look. “Carter’s confession. He left it on my desk.”

  What a day that had been. The look on Eden’s face flashed through his mind. He saw what might have been her lowest point—disappointment, confusion, humiliation, doubt, fear. The two of them had been sitting in his
car. Eden was flipping through all the notes Carter had taken—mood changes, dosage schedule, and sleeping habits. And then she found Carter’s letter. Landon wasn’t actually sure she’d ever even read it.

  “She inhaled the drug he was giving her?” Danielle asked. “Snorted it?”

  “Just once.” He nodded. “Her Abnormal side found it and probably thought it was cocaine.”

  She blinked, tilted her head, and sighed for about thirty seconds. “It was the powder form of something that was normally diluted in her milk, right?”

  “Does that mean something?”

  “Well, she snorted a highly-condensed form. I don’t know enough about this particular drug, but none of them come out of pixie sticks. That much of a non-diluted pharmaceutical…it should’ve killed her.”

  “Well, Eden’s pretty tough. Now more than ever.”

  “Okay, but the diluted form affected her, so…” She nodded. “I’d like to talk to her.”

  “I’d like to introduce you.” If I’m still around. He stepped back, giving her some space while she used pipettes and beakers and various other crap he hadn’t seen since high school. All he could do now was watch. And hope like hell this wasn’t going to be his end.

  Never lifting her head from her work, she berated him with questions, and he answered truthfully. Not only did she deserve it, if he was about to die, he didn’t really want his last moments to be built on deceit and capped off with a guilty conscience.

  Eventually she filled a syringe with something, sighed, and put it onto the counter. “I have absolutely no idea if this is going to work, Nick. None whatsoever.” When she turned towards him, her eyes were wide but tired-looking. “If you die, it will be your own fault. I won’t feel bad at all because I told you I couldn’t do this.”

  “I would never blame you for anything.” He moved closer to her and tipped her chin up, holding it gently so she’d focus her teary eyes on him. “Thank you.”

  He brushed his lips against hers gently, because he didn’t know if he was allowed to, if he was asking too much from someone he was already asking too much from. She had every right to push him away and tell him to piss off. Every right.