by Elle Gray
The door to my cell clicks then opens. “Oh, speak of the devil,” I crack. “I was just thinking about you.”
The CBO grins. I don’t know his name—or maybe it was just beaten out of me. He’s about six-five and looks like he was chiseled out of rock. He’s got a black stripe of hair down the center of his head and a long, scraggly lumberjack’s beard. His eyes are blue, and he’s got that rich, all-over California golden tan. They obviously imported him for these sessions.
He kind of looks like a demented GI Joe figure, dressed in camouflage tactical pants, thick boots, and an olive green t-shirt that’s stretched so tightly over his muscles, I’m certain at some point it’s just going to explode in a hail of fabric. The crazed light in his eyes and malicious smile does nothing to diminish that observation.
“Time for your daily interrogation,” he barks, his voice deep and gruff.
“I was just wondering what we call these little get-togethers,” I reply. “I think it’d be more appropriate if we called them, ‘you working out your mommy issues sessions.’ What do you think? Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, I’ll grant you that, but I think we can work on that.”
He chuckles, but grabs me by the hair and pulls me to my feet. Before I’m even ready though, he drives his fist into my stomach and I double over, wheezing.
“Done with the stupid commentary?” he asks.
“For now,” I gasp. “Just need to get my air back.”
He pushes me roughly toward the door. “Go. Walk.”
I shuffle along the corridor, making sure to take in my surroundings. We pass other cells on the way to the interrogation room. When I was first taken here, it took me a minute to realize where I am. Other people are being held here. In some of the rooms, people are hooked up to IVs. Others are attached to machines, the functions of which I can’t possibly fathom. The people look bedraggled and scraggly. Dirty and malnourished. Some of the women are dressed in short skirts, fishnets, and tight tops. There are men and women, young and old, black and white. Some are alive—but I’ve seen others wheeled out on gurneys, sheets pulled over their heads, clearly dead.
It finally dawned on me after the first few trips that these are the people who’ve gone missing around the city. The homeless, runaways, and prostitutes. This is where the transient population Marcy was going on about has disappeared to—Rogers’ subterranean lab. He’s experimenting on them. He’s using Seattle’s transient population as his human guinea pigs.
The CBO pushes me into the interrogation room roughly. It’s stark white and ten by ten, just a little larger than my cell. Harsh overhead fluorescents make the room glow annoyingly bright. As usual, my wrists are attached to shackles that hang down from the ceiling and the CBO backs off. A moment later, the door opens—and rather than Rogers, this time it’s Sjoberg who walks in. He looks at me and grins.
“You have spirit, Mr. Arrington,” he says. “Most people would have broken by now.”
“By now? How long have I been down here?”
“Two days.”
“Oh. Feels a lot longer than that,” I say.
“I imagine it does,” he replies. “Are you ready to answer my questions?”
“Can you give me half an hour to make myself pretty first?”
Sjoberg chuckles but nods to the CBO, who steps forward and drives his fist into my gut again. My breath explodes out of me, and I sag, letting the shackles hold me up while I gasp for air. I swallow hard, my entire body trembles, and bile billows up in the back of my throat.
“You’re experimenting on people down here,” I say.
Sjoberg nods. “We are. And we are making some tremendous breakthroughs in the treatment of a vast array of diseases.”
“But these are people.”
He shrugs. “Advancements require sacrifice,” he says. “Besides, it’s not like anybody will notice these people are missing, much less miss them.”
“You’re a monster.”
“Great men are often thought of as monsters because they have the will to do what others won’t,” he says, almost too readily. It sounds like a speech he’s given before. “They will put the needs of the many ahead of the deaths of the few.”
“Is that how you justify murdering God knows how many people?”
“These are barely people. They live like animals,” he spits. “Actually, animals don’t even live as poorly as this garbage. At the very least, they can stop being a burden on society and die knowing they’ve done something good, something to help the whole of humanity.”
“I’m pretty sure Josef Mengele said something very similar to that.”
A smile flickers across his lips and he nods to the CBO, who delivers an exceptionally hard fist to my stomach. This time I do throw up all over the floor beneath me and hang there, gasping and wheezing.
“Now, there were two men tasked with tailing you who disappeared,” Sjoberg says. “Where are they?”
“Maybe they ran away and joined the circus.”
The punch this time snaps my head back and fills my mouth with the taste of my blood. It flows from my nose, dripping from my chin to mix with the puddle of bile and foam I just spit up.
“Where are Devers and Staley?”
“Sorry, I might have left them in my other pants.”
Sjoberg chuckles in disbelief. “What is the point of this continued defiance, Mr. Arrington? Why do you insist on making jokes when you can end your pain and suffering by just answering my questions?”
“I’m sharpening my standup skills,” I offer. “I’m hoping to tour all the hot comedy clubs when we’re done here.”
Sjoberg sighs and nods. The CBO steps forward and delivers a hail of fists to every part of my body. When he’s done, my body is limp and I’m hanging by the shackles, pain squeezing me tight like a steel band constricting my entire torso. I gasp and wheeze, trying desperately to draw air into my lungs.
“Where are my men, Mr. Arrington?”
I slowly raise my head and stare at him. My face is swollen, and I can only see clearly out of my left eye. My lips are split. I’m relatively certain I’ve ingested more blood in the last couple of days than Dracula has in his entire life.
“Last I knew, they were with the SPD. They were cutting a deal.”
“Lies,” he says coldly.
A wheezing laugh escapes me. “This is why I tell jokes instead of answering your questions. No matter what I say, you won’t believe me. So, what’s the point? Might as well have a laugh before you turn Gorilla-boy over here loose on me.”
“Fine. I’ll bite,” he growls. “How do you know my men are with the SPD?”
My grin grows feral. “Because I turned them over to the cops.”
Sjoberg smiles but I see concern ripple across his features. He isn’t sure whether I’m lying or not. For the first time since this all started, he’s uncertain and off-balance. It feels good to see him that way. But then he clears his throat and reasserts control of himself, turning his eyes to me.
“If that were true, the police would no doubt have come in force already,” he says.
I attempt to shrug, but a new lance of pain shoots down my shoulder, so I opt instead for a pause. “The wheels of justice do move slowly.”
“Let’s move to a different topic. Your late wife collected quite a bit of material on me,” he says. “Where is it?”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“Safe. As in it’s in a safe,” I clarify. “And I’ve given instructions to a friend to open said safe and release all the materials in it if they don’t hear from me at a predetermined time.”
“More lies,” he fires back.
“Are you sure about that?”
CBO steps forward and drives his foot into my groin, and this time, a shrieking yelp bursts from my throat. I’m immediately inundated by waves of nausea and can’t hold it back. The vomit bursts from my mouth and spills down the front of my shirt.
“Where are the materials?�
�� he roars.
“Hidden inside a box of Cracker Jacks.”
The CBO steps forward but Sjoberg holds his hand up, stopping him. He sighs heavily as he looks at me.
“What am I going to do with you, Mr. Arrington?”
“Turn me loose with a pat on the back and a ‘thanks for dropping by’?”
“Your humor, if that’s what you choose to call it, is childish and immature. It’s boring.”
“I have been called all three things—and worse—before by better men than you,” I counter.
“I have no doubt,” he rumbles. “But my patience with you is at an end, Mr. Arrington. You will either start answering my questions, or I will turn you over to Dr. Rogers, who is very anxious to get you on his table.”
“It always feels good to be a man in demand,” I quip.
“I’m tired of listening to him. Get him out of here,” Sjoberg snaps.
Amazingly enough, I could probably walk, but I’d rather be an inconvenience to the CBO so I let my body go limp, forcing him to carry me back to my cell. It’s a great plan until he drops me on the floor like a sack of dirty laundry. The jarring impact sends pain to every corner of my body. As I lay there in agony though, I can’t keep myself from laughing—and I laugh hysterically.
Is this what going mad feels like?
Thirty-Three
Lomtin Laboratories; Subfloor 1, Cell 2D, Main Campus, Seattle, WA
My eyes snap open as I hear the heavy thud of footsteps and the jangling of keys coming down the hallway. Must be time for my daily beating. But today is going to be different. It’s the third day. Today is the day everything is going to change. Maybe my body is getting used to these daily beatings, because I don’t hurt as much as I did yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel like a sack of hammered dog crap, but at least the swelling has gone down in my eye. Or maybe it’s just the adrenaline of knowing what I’m about to do fueling me right now.
When I hear the key hit the lock, I curl myself into a ball on the floor. The door flies open and the CBO walks in and nudges me in the thigh with his boot.
“You alive?” he asks.
I don’t move and don’t say a word. I simply lie there. He nudges me with his boot again.
“Get up,” he snaps. “It’s Q&A time. Let’s go.”
When I still don’t move, he mutters under his breath and leans down to grab me. In a flash of movement, I grab his arm and pull him down low enough for me to swing my legs up and around his neck. He grabs hold of my thigh and tries to yank it off his neck, but I grip him hard. I squeeze with my legs for all I’m worth, adding in a few hard blows to the face with my fist, just because I really don’t like this guy.
Blood flows from his nose and mouth and his face is turning purple as I keep squeezing, cutting off his air supply. His eyes grow wide, practically bugging out of his skull as I keep the pressure on—and keep delivering blow after blow to his face. A choked, sputtering gasp bursts from his throat, spraying blood and spittle everywhere. He beats uselessly on my legs. I just keep the pressure going and eventually, he goes limp. I squeeze even harder for another full minute, just to be sure.
When I’m certain the CBO is dead, I get to my feet and quickly strip out of my clothes and take his, leaving him facedown and naked on my cell floor. I lock the door then turn and run, looking for an exit. The CBO has a keycard clipped to his belt that will let me access the elevator. But as I round the corner, I find myself staring at Dr. Rogers and two more of those Black Crown men. He sees me and his eyes grow wide, but he points to me and the two mercs come running. I’m in no shape to fight my way out against a whole army of those Black Crown thugs, but I may not have any choice. The only thing that’s certain right now is that the elevator is a no-go for me.
I turn and bolt, running as hard and fast as I can through the labyrinth of corridors. I only ever took one route—from my cell to the beating room and back again. Outside of that one path, I have no idea where I am or how to get out. I am now effectively lost. All I can do is keep running in the hope I get lucky and find another elevator or a set of stairs. All around me, the sound of an alarm is blaring, which incites the rest of the people being held here to yell and scream. Some of them are even cheering for me as I rush by their cell.
I round a corner and barrel into one of the mercs. We both recover quickly and are back on our feet in a heartbeat. He rushes me but I’m ready for him and shoulder roll past him. I’m back on my feet and closing with him as he turns around and I drive the heel of my hand up into his nose. I hear the crack and the blood starts to flow as he drops instantly with a hard thud.
Guns aren’t allowed on the subterranean floors, but he’s got a retractable steel baton, so I grab that. I snap my wrist, extending the steel rod and locking it into place as I keep running. My body is singing with pain and feels like it’s threatening to shut down, but I bear down and bury it. My legs feel weaker than they ever have before, and I fear they’re going to give out beneath me. I force myself to press on though. I need to find a way out.
A black-clad merc rounds a corner ahead of me, so I bullrush him. He pulls his own baton and runs at me, and as he closes with me, he draws his arm back, ready to strike. I drop to my butt and slide right past him, slamming my baton into his ankle as I go. He howls in pain and topples over, clutching his injured leg. I scramble to my feet and rush back to him, clubbing him over the head. His howling stops immediately.
I turn the corner he’d come from and let out a shout of triumph when I see a door marked ‘Staircase’ up ahead of me. As I get within ten yards of the door, it flies open and two more mercs rush out of it. God, they just keep coming.
The only thing I have going for me is that they’re both surprised when they see me. It’s a split-second hesitation, but it’s all I need. I slam the baton into the side of the head of the man nearest to me. He staggers backward, blood flowing out of the cut I opened in sheets. I step forward and take a massive downward swing that drops him in a heap.
I barely see the second baton coming at me in time, but I get mine up enough to block the worst of the blow. It thumps pretty hard into the side of my head. I stagger backward, barely buying myself a moment to clear my wavering vision. But the man presses his attack and comes at me. He takes a vicious cut with his baton, and I drop to a knee, barely avoiding being decapitated—and presenting myself with an opportunity. I know it’s not sporting to do this, but my life is hanging in the balance, so screw the rules of polite society.
I muster all the strength I can manage and swing my baton upward—straight into his groin. The man howls in agony and drops his own baton to clutch his injured parts. I bring the butt of my baton down on the back of his head at the same time and hear a hard crunch as I drop the man like a dirty shirt. I grab the door and yank it open, then pound up the stairs, running for freedom and hoping everything I’d gamed out came to fruition. If it doesn’t, this is going to get really awkward, really fast.
If this doesn’t work, I’ll be dead in minutes, or worse—or hooked to one of Dr. Rogers’ machines having God knows what done to me until I beg for the release of death.
I cut a glance behind me to make sure none of the guards are coming after me. So far, so good. All that’s left between me and the door that leads to the main lobby is a long hallway. My steps are faltering and my vision is dimming, but I summon my very last ounce of strength, hoping beyond hope that my plan paid off.
And then the door crashes open in front of me. A whole squad bursts into the room, automatic weapons raised and pointing at my face.
“Freeze!” one of them barks.
I nearly tip over from my momentum and come to a stop, barely keeping upright at this point. This is it. I’ve been caught. I’ve had an incredible run of luck so far. I gave it my best effort and fought like hell, but there’s nowhere for me to run. I can’t fight my way out of this one. This is how I die.
At least I did what I could to make Veronica proud.
“Paxton?”
I only catch a brief glimpse of her face as my vision darkens, but for a second, she kind of looks familiar. She kind of looks like…
“Blake?”
Thirty-Four
“Get him some adrenaline,” Blake shouts to her men, her voice distant and muffled. “I need three strike teams down those stairs, stat!”
I’m only vaguely aware of being dragged out of the hallway as a hail of boots thunders past me. Eventually, someone comes up to hand Blake an epi-pen and she jabs it into my thigh. I’d cry out in shock, but honestly, it feels like a tickle compared to what the CBO put me through.
I feel my heartbeat picking back up and my vision clearing. My head is still throbbing and my entire body screams out in pain, but I’m slowly but surely regaining my vision and hearing.
“I need you to stay with me, Pax,” Blake is saying, her voice becoming clearer with each word. “Stay with me.”
“I’m right here,” I mumble. I take in a deep breath and the rush of oxygen brings me back to awareness. “I’m right here.”
I slowly sit up and take a look around to see the lobby of Lomtin Labs filled with men and women in dark blue windbreakers with FBI stenciled across the breast and back arresting everybody in sight.
“We did it,” I whisper, turning back to look directly at Blake.
She throws herself into my arms and squeezes me tight. A moment later, she backs off and looks at me and her eyes grow wide, as if seeing the rough shape, I’m in for the first time.
“Jesus, what happened to you?” she gasps.
“Long story.”
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
“I’m fine,” I insist.
“The hell you are. I just jabbed you with an epi-pen to keep you conscious. You’re going to a hospital,” she orders. “But not before you tell me what’s going on.”