Wilde Storm

by S. E. Babin

  “Honey, sometimes things are much more complicated than they look on the outside.”

  “Oh my God.” I pulled my mother in for a hug. “You’re letting him go, aren’t you?”

  I pretended not to hear the tears in her voice as she whispered, “He let me go years ago. He just hasn’t realized it yet.”

  A few hours later, a very confused Masters was unhooked from all his machines. He was sitting up, marveling at how all his cuts and scrapes had magically disappeared. I sat beside him, trying to drudge up the courage to tell him what I’d done.

  “Thank you.” He spoke with a raspy, tired voice

  I looked at him. His face was grim, but his eyes were sympathetic.

  “I’m not an idiot,” Masters said.

  I sighed. “I didn’t say you were.”

  “I knew right away Watson was in it for blood. Even when I tried to explain.”

  “I’m sorry that happened. I plan to speak with him.”

  “There’s no need. If I were in his place, I might have done the same.”

  “You know you’re immortal now, right? Or will be very soon.”

  “Figured as much.” He stretched out one arm and touched the skin there. “I had a bruise here minutes ago.” He pointed behind him. “And an old knife wound that ached almost every day. Both are gone. Twenty twenty vision, no aches, no pains, nothing but a weird burning sensation in my veins.”

  “It will get worse,” I said and winced. I was bad at comforting people.

  “Fully expect it to.”

  We fell into a companionable silence for a little while until he shifted and grabbed my hand. “You could have let me go, you know.”

  “No. I couldn’t have.”

  “It would have been easier than what you did.”

  “Maybe. But I’ve never been one to do the easy thing.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” he grumbled. “What are we going to do about my little girl?”

  I squeezed his fingers. “Things are a little different now that you have the serum.”

  “Figured as much.”

  I’d thought about it over the last few hours. “I’d still like to try to perfect a healing serum. But, if it doesn’t work, my mother left me with enough of the immortality serum to help her.”

  “I can deal with that. I’d much rather my daughter not have to choose right now. She’s a child. Maybe later, we can talk about giving her immortality to stick around with her old man even if she’s cured?”

  I nodded. “I’d be happy to.”

  “Good then.” He squeezed my fingers once more and let them go. “Now, get the hell out of here and go talk to Watson. Tell him no hard feelings.”

  I stared at him. “He almost killed you and there are no hard feelings?”

  He chuckled. “Maybe next time I’ll warn him in enough time not to force him into a decision. He would have said no, you know. We would never have gotten out of there.”

  From my mother’s opinion of Irene, I wasn’t sure about that, but I still wasn’t so sure she was someone I would trust my life to. At minimum, she was a sociopath…just like dear old dad.

  “Probably,” I said as I stood.

  As I walked out of the room, I turned back to wave, but Masters had already fallen into a deep sleep.

  I agreed. Immortality was exhausting.

  I made my way back to Watson’s quarters, feeling like every time I’d come in here lately something bad had happened. I knocked politely, but when I didn’t receive a response, I pushed the door open and let myself in.

  I found Watson on his couch, disheveled and still unshowered, staring blankly at the television screen. I sat down beside him and took the remote control out of his hand. I clicked off the bad reality show he had on and sat there quietly. I’d talk in a few minutes. I pulled down the soft blue blanket he had on the back of his couch and draped it across both of our legs.

  Watson had made a terrible decision based on zero information and a hundred percent emotion. It scrambled a lot of things for me. Granted, an action like that tipped well over the boundaries of friendship and all the people who’d been in that room when it happened knew it. But now was a terrible time to start talking about my feelings.

  I waited for a little while and eventually pulled Watson down beside me. I curled into his chest and waited for him to relax. It took a while. A long while, but eventually, his arms went around me and he pulled me closer. He buried his nose in my hair and breathed deeply.

  I still hadn’t said a word. Sometimes being a friend was knowing when to stay silent.

  I was starving and I had to pee. Like one of those after-the-movie, super-sized Coke kind of pees. But there was a warm and very male body lying next to me and he’d had a very tough few days, so I didn’t want to move.

  The steady rhythm of his breathing ruffled through my hair and his arms held me tightly. He’d been asleep for three hours and showed no signs of waking up.

  I was tough.

  I could do this.

  But it was hard.

  I decided to flip the television back on so it would distract me from my bladder.

  I kept the sound on low and flipped until I found a channel with a handsome cook showing me how to make a true southern chicken pot pie.

  Half an hour later, I knew all the ins and outs of how to make a pie crust, but I still had to pee. I gave up and tried to gently wiggle out of his arms. Watson stirred, but instead of letting me go, his arms tightened around me.

  He needed to shower, but I wasn’t going to give the guy too hard of a time about it.

  Finally managing to extricate myself, I placed his arms down beside him and tiptoed to his restroom. What felt like an eternity later, I washed my hands and stepped quietly out. He was sitting up on the couch, bleary eyed, but amused.

  “I thought Niagara Falls was happening in there.”

  I could feel the heat pricking my cheeks. “Everybody pees,” I retorted.

  “Not like Penelope.”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “Shut up, dude.”

  He patted the seat cushion beside him and I plopped down.

  “Thank you.”

  Everyone kept on thanking me today for things that weren’t necessary to thank someone for. They seriously needed better friends. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Does he live?”

  I froze and lost my breath. I’d forgotten he didn’t know.

  “Penelope?”

  “Mmm. Yes. He lives.”

  Watson lifted one imperious eyebrow and I cringed. “Pray tell what that means.”

  “He was going to die.”

  Watson paled. “I-I had a feeling.”

  “I spoke to my mother. We took the action we felt was necessary.”

  He stared at me, wordless in shock. A myriad of emotions ran across his face—disbelief, anger, and then strangely enough, relief. He put both hands up to his face and buried his head. “Sherlock is going to murder you,” he mumbled through his fingers.

  “So I hear.”

  He ran his hands through his hair, his eyes wide and a little feral as I assumed his mind worked through the complications of it all. “What did Constance say?”

  “You mean that freaky female voice that came from nowhere?”

  A smile quirked the side of his mouth. “She’s quite a gal.”

  “Constance believes the results will not be catastrophic.”

  Watson burst into laughter. “That doesn’t mean Constance believed it was the right thing to do.”

  I glared at him. “Who the hell is Constance anyway?”

  “Something for later. Now, tell me the exact words she said.”

  I tried to remember. “She said there will be consequences.”

  “Hmm. Did she say anything else?”

  “Before that, she asked if we could wait. She said I would figure out an important puzzle.”

  “And it couldn’t wait?” His expression told me he already knew the an
swer to that.

  “Negative. He was on life support when we returned.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Jesus didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Well, quite right. But I’m sure if he exists you’re going to have some explaining to do when you’re standing in front of him.”

  I assumed both Sherlock and Watson were rabid atheists, but this statement made me wonder. I shrugged. “He has a daughter.”

  Watson relaxed back into the couch and threaded his fingers behind his head. “Lots of children lose parents.”

  “Her mother is gone, too.”

  “Oh.”

  So, Masters hadn’t told him that. Watson knew she had Batten’s, but no other details.

  “I must go apologize.” He started to rise, but I held on to his arm.

  “He doesn’t want you to apologize.”

  He stiffened. “You talked to him?” His voice was thick.

  “Briefly. He’s tired.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “Only that he probably would have done the same thing.”

  He let out a long, slow breath.

  “And that maybe next time he’ll shout a warning right before he acts.”

  Watson choked out a laugh. “God, I’ve made such a mess of things.”

  “You haven’t.”

  He turned pleading eyes to me. “I have. Sherlock will be furious at you over this. Immortals are only supposed to be created under certain circumstances. And Masters…I still would like to apologize.”

  I let him go this time. Masters may be awake and I thought maybe they should work it out themselves. There were no grudges there, so hopefully a bunch of manly grunts and secret handshakes would get this back to normal.

  He left me on the couch and I leaned back with a sore, exhausted groan. My father was god only knew where and my mother wasn’t all that concerned. Normally I would have gone to the ends of the earth to find him, but strangely, I wasn’t all that concerned either. I tried not to reconcile it to the fact that Irene Adler ended up the love of his life because that one hurt. Shouldn’t that be my mother?

  I snorted in amusement at myself. Because no one ever had a baby with someone without being madly in love with each other. I contented myself with the fact that they had loved each other. Once. Maybe still a little bit. But my mother was a different kind of woman than Irene Adler. And I was perfectly okay with that.

  I needed food, a shower, and about a week of sleep—not necessarily in that order. I’d catch up with Aaron in the morning so we could get to work on the healing serum.

  15

  I woke up the next morning rested and healed. One of the perks to scientific experimentation, I told myself. I hauled myself out of bed and trudged like a zombie to the bathroom. I turned the shower as hot as I could stand it, peeled off my contacts and dirty clothing, and stepped inside.

  Twenty minutes later, I’d contributed to the world’s water shortage problem, but I was clean and smelled normal again.

  I dried off, got dressed, and managed my wet hair into a bun on top of my head. Then I went to find some grub before I found Aaron.

  But it turned out he found me before I had to track him down. I had a mouth stuffed full of biscuits and sausage gravy when he sat down in front of me. He was trying not to grin. I could tell.

  I took my time chewing my food up. Then I took a long, slow sip of coffee and finally deigned to speak to him. “I was going to come looking for you later.”

  He slapped a hand over his chest. “Be still my beating heart. A fair maiden searching for I?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I need your help in the lab.”

  His mouth twisted into a grimace. “Oh, I thought maybe we could hang out. Go see a movie. Maybe get our hands tangled in some shared popcorn.”

  I sighed. “No.”

  “You wound me.” But as amusing as I seemed to be to him, he turned the conversation to serious matters. “I need to ask you about my sister. She’s no longer a danger to anyone here. We both know she’s no match for Irene. Can we let her go?”

  I picked up my mug of coffee and eyed him over it, wondering if he was serious. From the earnest look in his eye, it seemed he was. “Were you not present for the whole villain dialogue Irene spilled about your sister?”

  His eyes sparked in annoyance. “I was there.”

  “She’s safer here. Gwynne sold Irene a defective serum. Eventually, the press is going to find out where it came from.”

  “Only if we don’t get it back.”

  My mouth dropped open. I was just about to get to that when he’d taken the words right out of my mouth. His serum was the key to figuring out this whole puzzle. And shutting down the press. It was bad enough there were people who died. If we got it back, they could no longer experiment on people, thus no more dead bodies.

  We would have to be extremely careful with it, but I thought both of us putting our heads together could figure out a way around it.

  I couldn’t help the slightly wild grin that slid over my face. He was just as messed up as I was. “So, we’re going back in?”

  He answered with a similarly loony grin. “If it’s our first date, we should make it a good one.”

  “Not a date, dude.” The grin didn’t disappear.

  “Don’t care. Finish your heart attack and let’s roll.”

  I shoved the rest of my breakfast down and walked out of the cafeteria with Aaron next to me.

  “It’s the perfect time to go back in. She’s gone.”

  “We think she’s gone,” I said.

  “Trust me. She’s gone. She has Sherlock. We killed off half of her security team and left her in a genuinely bad mood. It’s now or never.”

  “You always seem to think things are going to be super easy and then people almost die.”

  “In my defense, you and your brethren are mighty hard to kill.”

  My amusement sobered. “Masters isn’t hard to kill.”

  “Wasn’t,” Aaron said. “He is now.”

  “We almost lost him.”

  “Again, Penelope Wilde. Again, you focus on the wrong thing. He’s here. He’s awake. He’s as cheerful as he ever was, which is to say not all that much.” He slugged me lightly on the arm. “Try to focus on the positive.”

  “You’re right, I guess.”

  He stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Say it again.”

  I snorted and shoved him out of the way. “Are we doing this?”

  “We are. Go do something presentable with that hair and meet me outside the compound.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I was armed and standing in the drive of the compound. I’d taken some time to change into something comfortable to run in just in case we needed to. And since it was us, we almost always needed to. Aaron wore a pair of jogging pants, a t-shirt that stretched wide across his muscled chest, and black running shoes.

  “No subterfuge this time. We’re walking right through the front door.”

  “That sounds insane,” I said.

  “And the best option. They won’t be expecting us.”

  I wasn’t so sure of that. I plugged in the location, made sure it was on the proper date, because technically it was the past, and gripped Aaron’s hand. We disappeared together.

  It still looked the same from the outside. How was that even possible?

  Aaron hadn’t let go of my hand. “Let’s go.”

  It was only moments after Irene disappeared with my father, even though I knew almost twenty-four hours had passed. We pushed open the doors and walked into a silent hallway. There was no one at the registration desk. No women or men in black suits wearing grim expressions. We walked quietly through to the elevators.

  “Is it weird no one is here?”

  Aaron shook his head. “People in this business are only loyal as long as they’re getting a paycheck. When they see the big guy fall, they abandon ship.”

  “But she didn’t really fall.”

&n
bsp; “She fled.” Aaron pressed the button for the second floor. “It’s the same thing.”

  I pondered this as we stepped in and the doors shut behind us. “So…you think the whole place is empty?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. There are probably some things left that haven’t been stolen yet. She was bound to have some ambitious employees.”

  Huh. Because that’s what I was thinking about doing too. Stealing some stuff.

  Aaron grinned as he realized where my thoughts were taking me. “Focus on my serum first, then we can pretend we’re Vikings. Got it?”

  I grinned. “Of course.” I wouldn’t be stealing for the sake of stealing. I was curious about this woman. What made her tick. What kind of things Waterstone was involved in. Why was she so interested in my father? And what made her the person my mother went to when she needed help? I wanted her secrets, not her things. But I also wanted to see what was in her research labs. If anything was still there. I had a good feeling about it, though. Irene wasn’t a woman who dallied with the security of her secrets, which was why I felt Gwynne was much safer with us than on her own. If Irene didn’t kill her, I had no doubt she’d make Gwynne wish she had.

  The elevator doors slid open and Aaron and I walked out. Aaron carried a large handgun at his side. Mine was still tucked into my waistband, but I was ready to draw it at a moment’s notice.

  “Go through all the offices. Look for hidden paneling, anything like that. This is a woman of secrets. And we’re going to find them.”

  “On it.” I drew my weapon and carefully clicked the first door open. I peered around the corner and stepped in once I knew it was empty. Aaron took the rooms on the opposite side.

  Twenty minutes later, we came to the end of the hall empty handed. We headed back to the elevator and repeated the same process for the third, fourth, and fifth floors.

  We hit pay dirt on the sixth floor, although it took some combined brain power. At the end of this hallway was a large room with glass doors. They were locked and keyed in to someone’s biometrics. We both tried to kick the glass in, but it was too thick. I chewed my finger absentmindedly as I pondered over ways to get in. A diabolical, disgusting thought came to mind. We’d returned to the scene mere moments after Irene disappeared and left behind a large body count.