The Aberrants Box Set (Books 1-5)

by Sarah J. Stone

  “But what if it doesn’t work?”

  “Oh, it will. I am absolutely sure of that.”

  She needed to know, however, and she found herself pressing harder than she might normally. “But how can you know? It seems strange that you would leave such an important part of your plan to chance.”

  “I know what I’m doing, Jaelle!”

  She jerked back from his yell, the first time he had raised her voice to her in ages. He looked sheepish at the remark, and even the scientist in the room hesitated for a moment before returning to their tasks.

  “Apologies,” he said, straightening and she felt the closeness between them diminish a little.

  “It’s fine,” she said, offering a shaky grin. “The old survivalist attitude back at it again. I don’t mean to be pesky, but my brain won’t stop me.”

  Her taking the blame seemed to assuage some of his guilt, and he was back to smiling. “You’re right. I’ll try to remember that you’re trying to overcome your programming and we’ll leave it at that.”

  “Thanks.” This time, it was she who offered her arm. “Why don’t we get out of here? I’m sure it’ll take us a while to come to an agreement on a movie. I imagine they’ve got to have at least a few available here.”

  “Actually, there’s almost an entire library.”

  “Really, now? Geeze, it’s had to have been at least a year since I’ve sat down and just enjoyed a flick. I can’t wait.”

  “Good,” he answered, his voice a low rumble in his chest as they walked out. “Neither can I.”

  Chapter Eight: A Little Bit of Movie Magic

  They walked back toward the administrative building, Creed babbling on about his plans for the communications, and other things he was planning. Jaelle didn’t say much, just nodding and making sounds when appropriate. Her mind was full, heavy with the weight of what was to come, and contemplating how to work Creed’s newest revelation into her plans.

  However, this time when they entered, they didn’t turn to the left toward the room where they had eaten their meals. Instead, they headed right, and down a narrow flight of stairs that Jaelle had never been down before.

  They ended up in a basement-like area, although it wasn’t creepy by any means. It was well kept, lacking in both dust and spiderwebs, with walls lined with shelves.

  “What is this?” Jaelle asked, letting go of Creed to step forward and examine the cases. She saw there were some filled with books, some with binders, some with—blast from the past—actual VHS tapes and then some of DVDs. No Blu-ray, of course. But she supposed that would be too much to ask for.

  She glanced over all the titles, and noticed that they were separated into alphabetical order. Surprisingly, the mini-library contained more just action flicks. While it had quite a few of those, it also included romantic comedies, bio-pics, TV show boxsets, and more. There was at least one thing from pretty much every genre.

  However, she noticed that none of them were recent. Looking through, it seemed the newest title was from two years ago. Still, certainly nothing to sneeze at.

  Jaelle stood back after several minutes, rubbing her chin.

  “Well?” Creed asked, eager to get to the next chunk of their time together.

  But Jaelle, obviously, was not. “There’re too many,” she murmured. “Can you choose?”

  Thankfully, he laughed. “It’s like asking a woman what she wants to eat.”

  Normally, she would have bristled at that example, but she just smiled as sincerely as she could.

  Of course, she wouldn’t say anything, but it took Creed at least five minutes to settle on a single film. So much for supposed feminine indecisiveness.

  In the end, it was some sort of overwrought, run of the mill revenge flick, but Jaelle didn’t verbalize her disdain. No, she was far too smart for that. Instead, she nodded and offered her arm once more.

  Creed, apparently, had still not run out of things to talk about. He was now onto a new military system he was planning to implement, one that had a mix of compulsory and volunteer soldiers. He was so enthusiastic about it, so full of vision, it was almost a shame that it probably would never happen.

  They headed back up the stairs, yet they still did not turn left. Creed took her down the final hall.

  At the end of that corridor, they reached another set of double doors with complex locks. Of course, the prisoners stationed there opened them right up for them. Jaelle took careful notice of their statures and scents, trying to spot any weaknesses before she might actually need them.

  But the interaction lasted only a few seconds before both doors were closing behind them.

  Jaelle wasn’t sure what she had expected, no doubt more prison architecture or bland administrative space. But she saw she was in the middle of what looked very similar to a hotel lobby.

  Sure, there was no desk or receptionist, but the floors was a beautiful tile, potted trees and other plants were carefully arranged in the corners of the room, and several hallways led out from the middle of each wall.

  Looking down the closest one, Jaelle realized there were only two doors, one on each side. Perhaps hotel lobby wasn’t accurate, and it was more like the interior of a fancy apartment.

  “Welcome to the upper staff living quarters,” Creed said with a melodramatic bow.

  “Wait, employees live here?” she asked, looking the space over.

  “Some, yes. Mostly just the warden and a few other vital higher-level folks. Keeping them off campus was apparently too risky. Not that I’m complaining. I have to say, the warden certainly had some great accommodations. Accommodations that I would love to show you, if you’re ready to settle in and watch that movie?”

  Was she ready? Of course not. But she couldn’t very well say that. Not if she wanted to keep her head. Both literally and figuratively.

  “By all means, don’t keep a lady waiting.” Jaelle didn’t know how she managed to keep the uncertainly out of her voice or ketones, but his expression only grew more excited as he led her down the furthermost hall in the top, left-hand corner of the room.

  They reached the door and she was surprised to see that it was a regular lock-and-key entrance. No card reader, no scanners. Just an everyday, run of the mill door.

  Creed produced a standard key from his pocket and without a lick of trouble, the door swung open.

  Jaelle stepped forward, mouth dropping again. It was only half an act. She was genuinely impressed with the apartment in front of her.

  First was the living room, with a plush, deep blue carpet. Jaelle stepped in, able to feel how soft it was even through the soles of the modest heels Creed had given her. She stood to the side, allowing her fellow Aberrant in after her. He immediately bent to take of his shoes, and Jaelle followed suit.

  Goodness that carpet was nice. Was this how the other half lived? Sure, it wasn’t as nice as clean hardwood, but Jaelle could definitely see the appeal. Once her heels were off, she finally looked around to the rest of the place.

  The living room was painted a lovely and entirely practical scheme of crème and gold stripes. Somehow, it managed to be somewhat understated, if only because of the ornate furniture filling the place.

  Thankfully, it wasn’t the type of fancy catalogue furniture that looked like it would be too uncomfortable to actually use. No, it was all thick, plush and upholstered with luscious-looking fabric.

  There was a royal blue couch that looked like it could fit at least four people comfortably, even with their legs tucked up under them. There was a matching loveseat, with a long, mahogany coffee table stretching between them. There were end tables on either side of the thick chairs, with elaborate lamps on top of them.

  “Wow,” Jaelle breathed.

  “I know, right?” Creed said. “I told you the warden had great tastes. Come on, let’s look at the kitchen. You’re gonna love it.”

  Jaelle allowed him to lead her through an open doorway. He flicked on a switch, although that was entirely
unnecessary considering we were both Shifters, and once more she was taken aback by the glamour of it all.

  While it wasn’t the largest room she had ever been, it was immaculate. There was a tall refrigerator with double doors, shined to a high chrome polish containing one of those fancy water and ice dispensers with multiple settings. Jaelle had always secretly wanted an icebox that fancy, but it had never fit into her budget or living situation.

  The oven, microwave, and dishwasher were all similar high-tech and beautiful. If she didn’t know better, Jaelle might have thought they were on some sort of department store showroom floor. It was too bad she couldn’t stay here for a while, just collapse the building around her and remain buried for a few days.

  Oh, well. Perhaps when this was all over, she could find somewhere similar…if she made it that far, of course.

  “There are even snacks, too,” Creed continued. It was almost uncanny how excited he was to show her the facilities he had stolen from his latest murder victim, but she guessed that he had never had a place to show to a girl.

  Her stomach lurched at the thought. Creed was anticipating to check off several life-milestones, but instead one or both of them would be dead before the night was over.

  Perhaps it would be better if she stopped thinking about it and just did her best to keep him happy. Like the execution town, she felt it was her job to give him a proper send off. Unless he killed her, of course. Then she supposed it would be the world’s cruelest case of blue balls.

  Creed busied himself with pulling out veggie straws, trail mix and a bottle of wine. He smiled sheepishly at Jaelle and she found herself vacillating between her utter hate for him and pity. It was true, he had never been given a fair shake on things, but neither had she, and she hadn’t turned into a homicidal murder.

  But then again, she hadn’t had the madness set in. If their positions were reversed, and she was the one who fell to the genetic disorder within Aberrants, who was to say she wouldn’t be an insane murderer with a vengeance fetish?

  “Unfortunately, the warden and his wife seemed to be health nuts, so these aren’t exactly the best junk food in the world, but beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.”

  What was she doing? This wasn’t the time to pontificate on whether Creed deserved mercy or not. In a perfect world, she could get him the help he needed with a whole fleet of therapists and the proper psychotic medicines. But it wasn’t a perfect world, and if she didn’t end him before he could enact his plan, then a whole lot of innocent people were going to die.

  The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few, she supposed. But despite all the rage she held toward him, despite how much he disgusted her, Jaelle knew his death was going to weigh heavily on her for the rest of her life.

  Assuming she had a rest of her life, of course. She knew she kept repeating that idea, but she was afraid of jinxing herself. Not that jinxing was a real thing… she hoped.

  “That’s okay,” she said, grabbing two of the bags and heading back toward the living room. Her eyes shuttled between the couch and the loveseat, before she chose the bigger of the two, sitting the snacks between her and where she assumed Creed would sit.

  He followed soon after, bringing the rest of the food, the wine and a couple of beer bottles. It seemed that he had already learned her alcoholic tastes. She didn’t know if that was more a commentary on her, or him, but she didn’t question it.

  He didn’t say anything about the food between them and instead busied himself with putting the DVD in the player just under the massive TV.

  “How big is that screen?” Jaelle asked.

  “About as big as my ego,” Creed shot back, nearly shocking Jaelle into choking on the veggie fries she had shoved into her mouth.

  “Huh,” she said, not sure how to respond to that without inciting him. “Didn’t know that was physically possible.”

  “You’d think it wasn’t, but apparently technology has come a long way since you and I have gone on the run.”

  “Uncanny.”

  Despite his assertation about the relentless march of invention, he figured out how to turn on the television and DVD player, place the disk in and get everything all started without swearing even once. That was more than Jaelle would have been able to manage. If it were her, she probably shorted out the entire generator, caused a small fire and dropped no less than five ‘f-bombs.’

  Sending her a smile, he walked back to the couch, smaller remote in hand. He flopped down, nearly knocking over several of the snacks, which Jaelle managed to catch before any of them dumped onto the ground.

  “Whoops. Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, steadying the bags. “Let’s just start the movie.”

  “Sure.” He held the remote up, pressed a button, and the next thing she knew, the menu screen for the DVD came up. Briefly, Jaelle was reminded of her old dates with David, and how they would borrow a movie from the library only to relentlessly make fun of it while eating all sorts of fatty snacks.

  The bit of nostalgia helped steel her, and she took a calming breath. Whatever was going to happen would happen, she just needed to make sure she didn’t falter.

  “Hey, could you turn it up?” she asked as the menu crossfaded into the actual film.

  “You sure?” Creed asked, raising an eyebrow.

  She nodded. “All this time out the cell has returned most of my senses to normal. I’ve only got another hour or so before I return to Shifter level. Besides, I like my movies loud, like the theater.”

  “You know, I’ve actually never been to a movie theater.”

  “Really?” Jaelle asked with wide eyes. “Even I managed to snag a couple visits.” He just shrugged, so she reached over and patted his shoulder. It still felt so bizarre to be casual with him, but she was growing more and more used to it with each occurrence. “After this all ends, we should go sometime.”

  A strange expression crossed his face, one Jaelle couldn’t quite decipher. It looked like something between surprise, embarrassment, and melancholy. “Yeah. That’d be nice.”

  He turned back to the TV and increased the volume as she had asked. Once he was done, Jaelle shook her head and pointed toward the ceiling. He gave her a quizzical look, but complied until finally it was just a hair below deafening. At least by Shifter levels. For her, it was just loud enough to need to shout in order to be heard over the gunfire, explosions and overly macho dialogue.

  She reached for a beer, opening it with one hand. Deftly, she passed her palm over the open top, depositing the lynch pin of her plan, then took a long swig.

  Swallowing, she handed the open bottle to Creed. “Want some?” she asked.

  Again, he gave her an uncertain look, as if he wasn’t sure it was normal to share drinks or not, but took it in the end. She watched intently out of the corner of her eye as he drank it much more slowly than she had.

  Good. That was one less thing she had to worry about.

  She opened the next one while he was still on their first, and drained it through the first arc of the movie. Then, she promptly opened the wine, pulling the same maneuver that she had with the first. This time, she poured it into the glasses that Creed had set on the coffee table and only took slow sips.

  Creed, however, wasn’t rationing his intake at all. Jaelle kept a close watch as he worked his way through the entire bottle, his cheeks growing rosy and his laughs becoming louder as the movie progressed.

  It was coming closer. The final part of her plan. Her stomach twisted, and her palms began to sweat, but she did her best to just keep shoving the snacks into her mouth. The more protein and carbs she digested, the faster her system could flush out the wolfsbane.

  All too soon, the film was nearing its final climax. One where there was sure to be lots of explosions, gunfire and other loud, action noises.

  “I’m gonna go get some more beer,” she announced to Creed.

  “What was that?” he asked, looking at her with mildly bloo
dshot eyes. Oh, God, was he already tipsy? She didn’t know if that made the whole thing better or worse.

  “I’m gonna go get some more beer,” she repeated, but louder.

  “Good! I’m thirsty. This is a really good movie, ya know?” He gave her a wink that was both sloppy and pathetic. “You were right about the volume. I think I’m getting used to it.”

  “I’m glad,” was all she replied before hustling to the kitchen.

  As soon as she was in, she moved as fast as she could. First to the knife drawer, where she slid a small swiss-army into her cleavage, before setting a longer one onto the counter. Then, to the fridge, where she pulled out the last of the beer bottles. Once more, she opened them with a deft twist of her palms, but this time, she didn’t have to be careful as she unloaded her final tiny ration of powdered wolfsbane into his drink.

  It hadn’t been easy sneaking that in, but she had known from the start she would need it. She would never survive a one on one fight with Creed after her previous stint in the freezing cell. She hadn’t had enough time to fully recover. If she was going to be weakened by prolonged wolfsbane exposure, then so would he.

  She placed her thumb over the top and shook the drink around so the powder could dissolve. Then she slid the longer knife into the top of her thigh high stockings and marched back into the living room like nothing was wrong.

  Chapter Nine: The Final Showdown

  Jaelle handed Creed his beer then flopped back down in her seat, careful not to knock aside the snacks. She didn’t know what came over her, but before she knew it, her mouth was opening, and words were coming out.

  “You don’t have to do it, ya know.” Dammit! Perhaps she was a little tipsy, too. It wasn’t like she did a lot of drinking while dosed on wolfsbane. She should have been more cautious!

  “Do what?”

  “Kill all the Clan Leaders and Elders. Even if you’re against any sort of diplomacy at all, we don’t have to launch right into an all-out war. Especially if we call all of the Aberrants in hiding here. We could fortify ourselves, make it clear that we won’t be a faction that they can just shut down.”