He covered himself with his pants, pretending he had a shy bone in his body. “Stop staring at me.”
“Put on your pants and I will.”
When he smirked at her and dropped the pants, she groaned, tearing her eyes away from his amazing physique. “I’m hungry for food, Mitch. Not that.” It was a lie, but a harmless one.
“I give you five minutes before you’re hungry for something else.”
“Damn, you’re cocky.”
“No, just hopeful.” He came to her and ran the back of his hand along her jaw. Then he flipped it over, cupping her chin in his palm and kissing her with the kind of passion that was probably illegal in Florida. Their lips reached out to each other, even as they pulled back to breathe. “And horny.”
She pushed his chest, sending him back a step. “Food first. Put on your damn pants.” She turned and went through the door before he could argue…or distract her again.
“Yeah,” he grumbled. “I’ll be down in a sec. Save me something.”
As she left him, she knew things would be okay. While he still claimed he didn’t want their serum, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t control her, couldn’t make decisions for her. And she’d decided that the way it was going to be. For a little while, The Clinic would get what they wanted—her. And in exchange, she would get what she wanted—him.
The pleasurable stench of fast food hit her halfway down the stairs. Delicious. She hurried into the waiting room where Landon was already stuffing his mouth.
“I got you a couple burgers and some fries.” He nodded towards a bag on the floor, grease spots making Rorschach blots on the brown paper. “Figured you might need more than one.”
“Thanks,” she said, pulling a masterpiece of cheap ingredients out, barely able to wait until she’d unwrapped it before biting in.
“Better than the food they gave you at The Clinic?”
“Oh yeah.” She wondered if Justin ate what they’d given her. How long could a teenager live on vending machine food? Probably forever. She realized that she’d barely mentioned Justin. If they knew The Clinic was helping a kid, wouldn’t Mitch and Landon be more likely to believe that their enemy wasn’t as evil as they thought, and be more agreeable to what she had planned? A business arrangement. Nothing more.
“Landon?” She stopped, holding a hand up to let him know she’d speak just as soon as she swallowed. “There’s a teenager at The Clinic. He lives there and seems to like it.”
“Like it? What are they doing to him?”
“Nothing. They just strap him up when he’s due to transform. His Hyde is still predictable, but he didn’t say anything about medication.”
“That seems highly unlikely, doesn’t it? We already know they enjoy keeping people in the dark.”
“I guess. But supposedly the serum doesn’t work on all of us. Since he had nowhere else to go, they took him in. Doesn’t that mean they aren’t all bad?”
“Evil is a funny thing, Eden. Except in the case of Hyde, it isn’t always clear-cut. No one thinks what they’re doing is evil. They always find a way to rationalize even the worst behavior.” He squinted at her slightly. “You don’t really believe them, do you?”
She shook her head. “But I know we need them, or what they can give us. Mitch needs the serum, and they’re the only ones who have it.”
“Hmm… I thought Mitch was pretty clear on that.”
“You know better than to listen to him,” she joked, wanting to quell the deep look of suspicion on his face.
“Any chow left?” Mitch called from the stairs, a spring in his step as if they were going to plan a party. When he saw her, his smile grew and his eyes softened. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she said back.
“I need to get laid,” Landon grumbled.
“Yes. Yes, you do,” Mitch said, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Jeez, enough with the post-coital crap. Can we focus for a minute?”
“Yeah, we can plan while we eat,” Mitch said. “Okay, I’ve been thinking about this for…” He searched the ceiling for just the right word. “A while now. Anyway, I think—”
“No, you don’t get to think,” Landon said, crumpling up a wrapper and tossing it into the bag. “I’m the one with training. I’ll do the thinking. Eden goes in with a microphone.”
She whipped her head toward him. Why would she need a microphone?
He continued speaking, unaware of the confusion that had just slammed into her. “While I’d love to be able to get one from the station, there’s no way. Tech is way too organized for us to sneak that shit out. So we get the best we can from one of the shops around here that sells security equipment.”
Eden stepped back, aware of their conversation but removed from it. Not that it mattered—they were arguing about her as if she wasn’t there. They could plan all they wanted, she already knew what she was going to do. Honestly, the more involved and over-protective they got, the harder it would be for her. All she had to do was turn herself in and get the serum from Alex. Once Mitch understood that The Clinic would follow through on their offer and that she’d be okay, he’d agree to take it. Problem solved. Without their interference.
“Then we call Eden’s friend, Fields”—Landon pulled out the cell phone and battery and set them on the table next to him—“and tell him she’s ready to come in and play nice. When they pick her up, we follow her back.”
“No,” Mitch said, echoing her thought. She didn’t need them checking up on her, staking the place out for no reason. They needed to stay out of it.
“She’ll have a mic,” Landon grumbled. “If something happens, we move-in faster. But we need to know where the hell the place is.”
“No.”
“How about instead of just one word, you use two, maybe three,” Landon said disgustedly.
Mitch put down his food. “She. Isn’t. Bait. How many was that?”
Great. If they kept this up, she’d have to break up a fight. “I’ll be fine. They won’t hurt me.” Unless, of course, two willful men jumped in to rescue someone who didn’t need rescuing.
“You don’t go in alone. Landon doesn’t need me shotgun—he’s just going to be driving a car.” He turned to Landon. “You don’t need me to hold your hand, do you?”
“Well, I don’t need you to hold my hand either,” she snapped back. “I can take care of myself.”
“You think I haven’t realized that yet? I know you can take care of yourself, but I’m not sure Landon will be happy having a nervous-wreck telling him how to drive. So I go along for security. Mine, not yours.”
“I’m not even sure why you think you need to come at all,” she said. “You’ve already made your choice. You won’t give them what they want. That’s fine.” Because she would do it for him. They could test her, make her live in a box, and do as many brain scans as they wanted. As long as they gave her enough serum to keep Mitch safe. The rest she’d sort out later.
The men looked at her oddly.
“Why do you want to go back, Eden?” Landon asked quietly.
She smiled nervously. What was she missing? “To get the serum.”
“I told you that I’m not interested in their serum.”
“You told me that you wouldn’t give them what they wanted. Not that you wouldn’t take it if they gave it to you.” Why did they want to follow her? She thought they were just being men, but… All this time she’d been so focused on her mission that she hadn’t thought they’d have one of their own. “What happened to the syringe I gave you, Landon?” Then she looked at Mitch. “Didn’t you take it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“For all we know,” Landon said, “it was liquid arsenic.”
She understood their mistrust. It made sense considering how quickly all of this was happening. “But if I made sure it was the real stuff, you’d take it, right? If I get it for you?”
“No,” Mitch said. “I told you no.”
With each small shake of his head, her hopes crumbled a bit more. Like the walls of a condemned building scheduled for tear-down.
“We agreed, remember?” he asked solemnly. She stared at him in silence. Suffocating silence. When she slowly nodded, he mouthed, “It’ll be okay.” She didn’t respond, didn’t blink.
“So,” he said after a moment, turning away from her. “If we want to get out of this intact, we need to stop being defensive and waiting for shit to happen to us. We need to batten down the hatches, put on our grubbies, and get our hands dirty.”
“There’s a surprise,” Landon muttered. “Turner wants to get violent.”
“When it comes to that place, you’d better believe it. I want it wiped off the fucking Earth. I want to shove those Tasers so far up their—”
“Wait!” Eden said. “Can’t you just stay here for a bit longer? Let me go figure stuff out so we can avoid starting an outright war?” Because you don’t shoot your supplier, not when they’re the only one.
He looked at her like she had just told him she wanted to go shoe shopping. “They already started it. Don’t you remember? Let me refresh your memory—me, gyrating on the floor after they zapped my ass. I wasn’t dancing.”
“I know, but…”
“Are you worried about that kid?” Landon asked. “We’ll make sure any innocent people are free before we take the place apart. Don’t worry.”
“No.” They couldn’t take the place apart. She’d known that they were angry, that they wanted to know the truth. But she’d thought that, once they understood what The Clinic was, they would want to leave South Florida, not bring the entire place down.
“What innocent people?” Mitch said, tearing into another burger. She watched him, trying to understand how he could eat while they discussed something that would mean the end of his life.
“Eden says there’s a kid living there. We’ll have to make sure he’s not around during the fight.”
“Motherfuckers!” Mitch plopped down on the couch next to Landon. “There’s a kid in there? Well, that makes it a tad more complicated, doesn’t it?”
Landon nodded, and then they both looked at her. She didn’t respond, didn’t move, still trying to process what-and-when things had gone wrong.
Landon’s voice rang in her ears. “Since I’m the one with training—not to mention that I’ve been dreaming of this day for a lot longer than either of you have even known about The Clinic—let me tell you what we’re going to do.”
The men leaned towards each other as they spoke. An occasional insult was thrown, but mostly they agreed on their goal: To take down The Clinic without getting any of them killed.
“No, you can’t do that!” Her heart clenched, her vision started to constrict, drawing in on itself, darkening. That wasn’t right.
Mitch stood and approached her, his arms out in front of him. “I thought you understood what was going to happen.”
“Understand that you’ll knowingly not do something that will keep you alive?” Her jaw shook, breaking up her words. “That you’d destroy everyone’s chance at a normal life? How am I supposed to understand that?” She’d deluded herself, thinking they would understand how deeply they and The Clinic needed each other. She’d thought it had been about free will. It wasn’t. It was about revenge.
“We’ll do what we can for the kid and anyone else they have in there,” Mitch said. “But if they knew what The Clinic was really doing, don’t you think they’d want the same thing we do?”
“This isn’t what I want.” Her pulse spiked as she realized how opposing their goals were. And if he got his, he’d destroy hers. And himself. “No! You can’t go there. You can’t…”
He took her hands, ducking down to catch her eyes. “It’s the only way we’ll know what’s going on. We need records, files, information. And then, yes, I’m going to wipe them off the face of the fucking Earth for all the shit they’ve done. But you’ll be fine.” He glanced at Landon. “Right? She’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, completely. We’ll be right there. And I’ll make a few calls, have some friends on stand-by, just in case we need reinforcements. But, until we know more, I don’t want to bring in anyone who still has something to lose.”
What was he talking about? They all had something to lose. Each other. Themselves. Their humanity.
Mitch wrapped his arms around her. “And I’ll be right next to you the whole time, being a good boy until we’re inside. So you’ll be fine. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Promise.” The end of his kiss met with him turning back to Landon, continuing plans that would get them nothing but revenge. Revenge that might cost at least one, if not all, of them their lives. There was nothing sweet or cold about it.
“So we call them, what, tomorrow morning?” Landon asked. “That gives us enough time to get a mic and some shut-eye.”
She closed her mouth, her mind, her feelings. How could they expect her to just sit back and not do anything? When it was within her power to help? No. If Mitch was too stubborn, too stupid, to save himself, then she’d do it for him. Even if she had to betray him to do it.
“Weren’t we supposed to take a nap at some point?” Mitch asked.
“We got a little distracted, didn’t we?” she said. The day was a blur for her—incredible pleasure followed by intense grief and a conclusion that left her only one choice. She wouldn’t allow him to kill himself—by fighting them or by not taking the serum.
“Is that what you call it?” Landon grumbled. “Well, the next time you get ‘distracted’, do you mind doing it a little more quietly?”
Mitch slapped him on the shoulder. “You got it, man.” Then he took her hand and put his finger to his lips. “Let’s go get distracted quietly.”
Eden laughed at his wicked grin, enjoying it for as long as she could. But her smile was wooden. Their plan left her hollow. Any hope of things working out for them was stretched taut in her mind. Like a tree in a hurricane—no matter how much she tried to bend, it would inevitably break in half. But she still had to try.
“Go get some sleep, Landon,” Mitch called as he stepped behind her and pushed her to the stairs.
“Uh-huh.”
They got as far as the top step before he grabbed her waist and pressed her against the wall, blinding her with a kiss. The heat of his hands on her ass promised pleasure. And the moan she released as his hips rolled on hers promised it wouldn’t be quiet.
CHAPTER XXII
After they both were so sated even breathing was a chore, he suggested they go across the hall to the BDSM-themed room.
“I’m going to need a break,” she said laughing. “I can’t feel my legs.”
“Then we nap first.” His smirk disappeared. “Seriously though, while I’m all for kink, the cage is...” His eyes darkened with regret. “The cage is too much of a reminder of him. You know what I mean?”
She nodded as he pulled her off the futon. “Yeah, I know.” All too well. The cage provided as much fear as it did security.
“But, just in case, I need to be in there while we rest.”
“It’s okay. Landon told me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’ll have to thank him later.”
“Don’t be mad, he’s just worried.”
“I’m not mad, I’m…” When the bravado drained from his face, all that was left was shame. “Not talking really well right now. I’m sorry.”
“You must be tired—you’re never without something to say.” She smiled.
He shook his head. “Not for that. I’m sorry that I can’t fall asleep holding you. I’m sorry I can’t wake up in the middle of the night and pull you closer just to make sure the dream is real. And I’m sorry I can’t…be what you deserve.”
She blinked away the tears that filled her eyes, but one escaped, sneaking down her cheek. She wiped it away roughly. “It’s never been about what we deserve, Mitch. It’s about what we need, what we want, and what we’ll do to have it. I need
you, I want you.” And I’ll do whatever it takes to have you…safe. So I can wake up in the middle of the night and have at you whenever I feel like it. Someday.
He smiled and tugged her into a kiss. A long and feel-it-down-to-your-toes kiss.
“I think I could get used to the new you. She’s…”
“Naughty?”
“Are you kidding? I spent four days in bed with the old you. And she was naughty. Nah, the new you is…” It seemed as if he couldn’t focus, his gaze moving from her eyes to her lips, then down her body. “Perfect. You are perfect.”
After they’d dragged mattresses into the room—one for outside the cage and one inside—only the bars separated them. His hand still held hers long after his eyes had closed and he’d succumbed to sleep. She watched his chest rise and fall peacefully. Knowing she would give up everything to have it continue.
Perfect? No, she wasn’t perfect. Not even close. But it warmed her to know that’s how he saw her. Especially because he’d soon realize how wrong he was. All she could hope for was that it would be worth it. And that someday…he might be able to forgive her.
§ § §
After Eden took a short rest, everything and nothing was clearer. The boarded-up windows were the perfect symbol of their situation and their future. No light in or out, no way in or out. But there was a door. And she knew exactly where it led. She knew what she had to do.
Silently apologizing, knowing how angry he would be when he woke up, she gently unwrapped his hand from hers. With a small grunt, he turned over, hopefully having an amazing dream. Maybe he was dreaming of what could be. Eden was determined to give it to him. Despite what he said, she knew he wanted to live. And if he was stupid enough not to? Well… she’d make him realize all he had to live for.
She climbed off the futon, slipped her dress over her head, and went in search of the cell phone Fields had given her. It was her only way to communicate with The Clinic, with Fields. She tiptoed past the room where Landon slept and went downstairs. After grabbing the phone off the side table, she snuck outside.
Jekyll, an Urban Fantasy Page 22