I didn’t say anything to that. I wasn’t even sure if he really said those things to me, or if I dreamt about it since he told me that Meghan pulled Wheeler from the rubble.
It must be a nightmare. It can’t be true.
But then again, I lied to Peter about remembering. I do remember. I remember getting the team ready, knowing that Meghan would be busy getting the code words spoken by Severin for her plan to work. Torres would be with her right from the start. They would pick up Valerie Winters and move to Austin Pavlovich’s position and secure it until we met up with them. I didn’t tell Meghan about the detour I had to make to keep a promise.
We had agreed on letting all the beasts out who had lost themselves in the transformation to create chaos and with that a distraction from what we were doing. What I didn’t tell Meghan was that some of the beasts weren’t beyond saving. But I didn’t want to make the mission any riskier for her. She would have wanted to take those I had worked with along with everyone else.
But I had made a promise to Price, and I was going to keep my word. She had been the one I could talk to about everything. It wasn’t planned. It just happened.
And Sondra had shown great progress in shifting, even though she couldn’t hold the human form. If I had enough time, I would have been able to bring her back entirely. Not only her but the others, too. But we didn’t have time. Every additional day Meghan stayed within those walls, the risk of her being exposed as a beast became higher. She had convinced me that it was too risky to take the anti-virus while being in the compound because it would have a massive effect on her and uncover Valerie Winter’s work because we couldn’t hide what would happen to Meghan.
Now I know that she didn’t want to take it because she was pregnant. If Peter really had told me that. But it made sense. All her actions made even more sense with that missing puzzle piece put into place. That she was tired all of the time, that she was eating too much, even that she insisted on us not sleeping together… it was not about making White believe that she had a crush on him because having sex with me was her priority when it came to him. No, because she didn’t want me to notice that she was pregnant.
Meghan is pregnant. And I abandoned her.
I wanted her to be able to leave it all behind and take the anti-virus. It would only have worked with me being dead, but now…
Why didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t she tell me?
Did she know that I was relieved about her losing the one she was put in a coma for to keep it alive? Didn’t she tell me because of that? Did she think that I wouldn’t have agreed on trying to escape? Did she think I wouldn’t allow her to be an active part of her plan?
It doesn’t really matter. She is out there, pregnant, without me. I don’t know about Pavlovich. Will he stay with her? Wasn’t he not only part of that organization Valerie worked for but also related to her? What if he takes here there and she won’t be able to stop him? What about Wheeler? Four?
I remember the expression on his face when he realized what I was doing. I can still hear what he shouted at me, how he came at me, punched me in the gut and face to get past me and towards the door which lock I had destroyed. I still remember everything from the moment that all the explosives went off. I saw Peter yanking Valerie away and my team gathering around Torres and me. How they threw us to the ground and covered us. How Daniel called out for Meghan, while I whispered her name, ready for death to embrace me. And how I thought that the darkness that came was just that.
Day 15
“I heard you were having nightmares,” Peter entered my room on his wheelchair and woke me up. “Good.”
My casts had been removed this morning, and I already had some exercises done to regenerate the muscle tissue I had lost from lying so long, but my body still needs a lot of sleep to continue healing.
I don’t have a mirror, but I still feel like I have been buried under a building, which is the truth. Beast or not, I probably would have died if it hadn’t been for the ones that sacrificed themselves for me even though I decided for them to die.
“You will spend a few more days here in this room and get physiotherapy,” Peter explained, “and after that, you’ll be joining the others.”
“The others,” I repeated dumbfoundedly.
I believed that Peter visited me because Torres and I were the only ones left because that was what he told me yesterday, but I was wrong. He visited me because it eased his own suffering seeing me tormented.
“Yes,” he nodded, smiling. “Thanks to your selfless act we found a fast-track to getting everyone back into their human form like that.” He flipped his finger.
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Your little detour?” Peter asked as if I had lost all intelligence. “You went to nineteen’s cage, reached through the bars and snapped her neck before you went off and played the martyr. You know that martyrdom only works if you are the only one that dies? Whatever.” He shook his head. “We now know that breaking a beast’s neck will only kill it temporarily if it’s done correctly. Dying like that will make it shift into human form, as all energy is concentrated on healing the fracture in the neck, to save and revive the body. Isn’t that amazing?”
I blinked, trying to wrap my head around what he was telling me. I can’t even write it down; it sounds that crazy, that bloodcurdling.
“Can you imagine?” Peter laughed, slapping one hand onto his upper thigh. “You guys are immortal!”
I tried to swallow against a huge lump in my mouth, but I couldn’t. Immortal.
“Well, immortal but not indestructible, unfortunately,” Peter shrugged his shoulders. “And not all of you are immortal, apparently. So, you helped us to separate the wheat from the chaff with your little stunt. I wish I could find out if Meghan and Four are also immortal ones. But I have the feeling they are. What a side effect!”
I looked at Peter, and he must have seen something in my expression that made him realize that I thought he lost it completely. Because, suddenly, he was dead serious.
“Watching all of you heal has given us an opportunity to make even more findings of your changed body works and it looks like the virus lives in symbiosis with its host,” Peter explained, and I tried to understand. “Shortly put. The virus my brother engineered redesigns its host – the human body – to what we ordered it to do, but it doesn’t die after that, it makes sure that it can survive within the human body and protects it, which is why you can’t die. It won’t allow it. Now imagine if we could take this virus and tell it not to change a human into a beast, but only protect the human body. We could cure death. And we learned all that thanks to you.” Suddenly his expression darkened. “Unfortunately, too late for Valerie.”
I wanted to tell him that I was sorry about her, but I wasn’t. She knew too much about the whole project, and she would have sold us out to that other organization in a heartbeat. I couldn’t care less about her reasons.
“Now, you can understand that we need Meghan,” he said, moving his wheelchair closer to my bed and paused, just staring at me.
Did he know that she was a beast? I had never talked to him about it, but Valerie probably did.
“I know,” Peter whispered as if he was sharing a secret. “I see the worry in your eyes, and yes, I know. I know she’s one of us because that’s the only reason the baby survives inside of her. But no one else knows. I don’t want to risk anyone stepping out of line. But I promise you,” he placed his hand on my wrist, making me flinch, and he grins in response. “I will make sure that Meg and the baby will be unharmed. I will find her, capture her, and take good care of her. But she will never be yours again. Maybe, when you behave and follow my orders to the letter, I will allow you to meet your child. How about that?”
With these last words spoken loudly, he straightened up again: “Does that sound like a deal?”
I couldn’t answer to that; I was too tense and too angry, furious. Too many things raced through my head, things h
e probably thought about doing, things that were written on his face and in his eyes.
Peter was becoming his brother, and maybe even worse than that, and yes, it’s my fault. My decision killed Valerie and crippled him. I knew the latter was just temporary. He would work night and day to get the scientists to create something that would heal his back.
“I’m not going to apologize,” I told Peter when he turned his wheelchair, and he looked back at me.
“I know you won’t,” he answered. “But you’ll regret it, with every second I give to you. You’re living on borrowed time and that time is running out. You’ll see. I just wanted a few chats with you before that. And when I don’t need you anymore, Lieutenant, I will make your eternal life an eternal hell.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Day 16
I don’t want to write in my diary every day, but I’ve been told doctor’s orders. A nurse is sitting here so that I write something, anything, onto these pages. She’s not reading what I write, but she checks if I really write and not just fake it.
I don’t know what all of this is for. To prove I have a functioning brain? That I am sane and not possessed by my beast?
Speaking of that, it’s silent and quiet. I know it’s still there, but it doesn’t stir, doesn’t have any urges, it just lies there, sleeping. I wonder if they gave me something to lock it away. If they did, I hope the consequences can be… catastrophic.
What am I supposed to write in here?
I know what I did and would I do it again? Under the same circumstances? Definitely. But what would I have done if I had known that Meghan is pregnant? I honestly don’t know.
I’m going to be a father, and when my child is lucky, it will never meet me, because that means Meghan will never be caught. And if I can trust her judgment regarding Four, he obeys her, so my child will have a father of some sorts.
I guess this is justice. This is the right punishment for what I did to them. Do still be a prisoner and a guinea pig for all eternity, know that somewhere out there my child will live and not know me, maybe even think Wheeler is its father. Would Meghan do that?
I wish I knew how she took my letter. I wish I knew if she can forgive me. Maybe she believes that I would have made a different decision if I had known. I’m relieved, she didn’t tell me. I don’t know what decision I would have made knowing that she is pregnant. I honestly don’t know. But my brain doesn’t seem to work as it did. Being a beast changed me. Killing so many people with my bare hands changed me. I’m not even sure if I am still the man she fell in love with.
Four… Wheeler was an outstanding soldier when he was human. I don’t know what turning into a beast made him because I never met him, but from what Meghan told me about him, it changed him completely. But then he always knew how to adapt to circumstances; maybe that’s why he acted as he did.
Me thinking of him as Meghan’s protector is something I’ll happily live with. A year ago, I would have probably tasked him with that job. But now, not knowing how much of his behavior is an act, I am not so sure.
I know Peter only told me about this to torment me, and it’s working.
Day 17
Making good progress with physiotherapy. No visit from Peter, yesterday and today No peaceful sleep either. I don’t know why he didn’t come today; maybe he still will, but I am quite relieved, because who knows what else he didn’t tell me?
I can stand comfortably and walk around. Understandably, I’m out of shape, but that changes quickly. Maybe – so the guy said – I will get out of this hospital room sooner than expected and I welcome that idea. I need to see the others, no matter how they will react.
Immortality. I still can’t believe Peter, which is why I must see them. I must see Price with my own eyes.
Day 18
He came in when I was just about to write. I honestly can’t believe that they are really forcing me to write this diary. It doesn’t have a purpose. I remember what I did. I know what I took from this organization and what I took from Peter. I listened to him when he opened up to me as we walked from one cage to another. I remember what he told me about his relationship to his brother and to Valerie. I haven’t forgotten how reconnecting with her helped him and changed him. She healed parts of his abused soul just as Meghan healed me. And I took that from him.
“I’ve been told you’re making very good progress,” he said as he entered my room and I put the diary aside just as the watchful nurse vacated her chair, moved it out of his way and left.
“Yes,” I simply answered.
“You’ll be reunited with the others in three days,” he told me – so no changes there. “We need to make sure that everything healed perfectly, so you must stay put a little while longer. After all, we gave you some drugs that might have some impact on how your body and the virus works.”
“Drugs?” I repeated, once again dumbfounded.
“Oh, Jay,” Peter shook his head. “Did you forget that you are a subject for our experiments, just because I don’t call you ‘Ten’? I can do that for you, Ten.”
I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists, feeling my beast stir for the first time since I woke up. At least this situation had something good. It made me feel normal, although the urge to reach out and rip Peter’s throat out was a little over the top, but then again, they might kill me for killing him, if there wasn’t the tiny problem that – according to Peter – I was immortal. Immortal but destructible, which means that fire, lava, decapitation completely removing my head from my neck”. But after my experience with these people, they would simply try and find out which way was the best to repair me. And I was tired of that. Especially because killing Peter would only give me a brief satisfaction.
“Call me what you want, Mr. Severin,” I gave back and let out a controlled breath.
“I prefer if you continue calling me ‘Peter’,” he said and this time he seemed sincere. “After all we’ve been through, we should be on first-name-basis, don’t you think?”
I didn’t answer that because I honestly couldn’t say. We had been somewhat friends, then enemies, allies after that and now foes, again. It was giving me a headache, or maybe the drugs were.
“I guess, if you call me Jay, I can call you Peter,” was my answer after he waited for it patiently.
“Great,” he smacked me on my upper thigh and I couldn’t tell where these gestures were coming from.
I couldn’t help but think that fate finally had broken Peter Severin, as everyone he ever cared for either betrayed him or is now dead. There were only two left and that was Meghan and me. So, in a twisted way, I understood why he wanted to get his hands on her, and that without his employer interfering with him. That’s why he didn’t tell anyone about her change. But it wasn’t a sign of good will. Peter made that clear. I just didn’t know what he wanted to do with her and the child.
I could only imagine and I didn’t like what my mind came up with.
“So, I am going to put you back in charge,” Peter said, bringing my attention back to him. “After all, you still are their Lieutenant. And everything is going to continue as it should. You keep on exercising and prepare yourself for assignments. We are putting everyone on active duty in about a month, maybe less.”
“You think that’s a wise idea?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Don’t worry, Jay,” Peter grinned at me, in a most unsettling way. “You’ll be surprised how well everyone is performing. It’s almost as if my brother has been the core problem the entire time. They shouldn’t put a scientist in charge. Now that he’s removed and I am assigned to you, everything works perfectly well. You’ll see.”
After that Peter just moved his wheelchair around and left me to my confusion. How odd to speak of his half-brother’s gruesome death as being ‘removed’. But it is his cheerfulness that worries me most.
I can’t trust him, with anything.
And I can’t believe that there are no problems either.
“Oh, I’ll be gone for a few days, board meeting,” Peter stopped in the middle of the door, to tell me that, acting as if we were best friends or at least as if the last month hadn’t happened, “try to remember some more, like, where everyone was supposed to go when you fled from the compound. That would help a lot,” and then he left.
I can’t imagine that Peter has worked through his loss already, it’s not just the death of his half-brother whom he finally turned his back on – he knew what would happen to him – it was Valerie.
Honestly, I don’t know how much they were involved with each other, if it had been something romantic, or not, and I think even if it wasn’t romantic on her side, Peter had gotten his hopes up and now she was gone.
Most of his act, now, reminded me of his half-brother. Peter acted as if he owned the place and that can’t be possible. They must know that he was helping us, or did that information get lost? Did they even know that Valerie helped us? Or did they believe that we took them hostage and that’s why he can roll around in his wheelchair like he owns the place? Peter can act as friendly or hostile as he wants, I am not going to put anything onto paper that might jeopardize Meghan’s safety, or our child’s safety.
I know when Valerie was gone for a few days and I only got to see Meghan once during that time, ‘the board’ had summoned her and now the same happened to Peter. It was this ‘board’ which was really in charge of everything, the head of this organization. And that he, too, would be gone for a few days meant that they were meeting off-site.
I wonder what I can do with that information.
I haven’t seen anything from this compound so far, I can’t tell if it’s just the same type of facility or something else. If it’s the same, getting out of here will be the same as from the last compound, but now I don’t have Peter on my side, who might be the one with the key words. And I don’t have Meghan, but, if what Peter claims is true and he's not exaggerating then I might have fully functioning and trained soldiers with beast abilities at my disposal.
The BeAst Of Me (The Beast And Me Book 5) Page 9