by Marie Harte
Until they reached the suburb of Red Oak.
“Hold on,” Alex cautioned, not sure he was seeing right. There, in a park under dim lights, he swore he saw a mutant in the shadows.
“What?”
“A mutant.”
Eli whistled. “No shit?” They pulled up closer, and Eli parked.
They sat, watching, but Alex had lost sight of the creature. “I know what I saw. Let’s check it out.”
“Fine. But make sure you’re loaded.”
Alex doublechecked his Circ2000P, the same gun Lowell had been carrying in Burma. A pistol calibrated with Circ-piercing rounds. The things would even take down a mutant, those Circs who reacted extremely poorly to the serum. Bent and broken and furious, the creatures wanted nothing more than blood and sex. They rejoiced in violence. Alex knew that left unchecked in a civilian neighborhood, they’d do a lot of damage. A glance around at a swing set and slide reinforced the urgency to find and eliminate this threat.
“Come on.” He left the car, Eli cursing beside him.
They moved on swift feet, following the pull of like to like.
“It’s like a hum, but it’s not,” Eli whispered, and Alex understood. Though he didn’t sense the mutant as clearly as Eli seemed to, he felt its presence.
The wooded park gave it plenty of places to hide, but Alex and Eli approached anyway, ready and needing to shut it down.
They found it near the bodies of a man and woman. Sadly, the creature had stumbled upon a young couple. The male had his heart ripped out, his body shredded. But the female…
Alex had to look away and regain his composure. The nicest thing that could be said was that she’d died, no longer in pain. The state of her undress, bite marks, and mauling clearly showed the mutant had intended to mate.
“Hungry. Tired.” It croaked its words. The thing had a forked tongue and red eyes, it’s body curved into a hideous arch, twisted and deformed. It had a tail, and it’s monstrous genitalia dragged on the ground when it moved.
“Come with us. We’ll let you rest.” Alex motioned for it to come closer, pity in his heart.
None of them had asked to be made, and these poor bastards had gotten the worst of the serum, turning them from man into something far from human.
It clicked its teeth, chattering and giggling to itself.
Eli tensed.
The thing stopped a few feet from Alex, then turned to face Eli.
It cocked its head and seemed to brighten with pleasure. “Mate?”
Eli blanched. “No fuckin’ way. I’m sorry, guy, but you need to go.”
Before Alex could caution Eli, Eli unloaded six round into the creature’s head.
The first three bounced off its skull, something that had never happened before with a mutant or rogue. But the next ones found purchase in the mutant’s eye sockets and nose.
Blood spurted, a thick mess of blackish-red fluid running down its face. It shrieked in pain, and Alex let off several rounds, striking the monster where he could do the most damage and slow it down—in its joints. He needed it to feel pain, to distract it from going after Eli.
While he shot at it, Eli raced around it with a machete made of hybridized steel, his gun now tucked into his jeans.
The mutant roared at Alex, who shot again. But it ducked Eli’s attempt at decapitation and ran.
“Shit.” Eli ran after it.
Alex started to follow when he sensed something else in the woods. He felt more than saw the danger and heeded his beast’s instinct to follow after Eli instead of confronting what remained in the woods.
He raced after Eli and found him engaged in a battle with the mutant before the mutant once again escaped and ran away.
Alex managed to tackle Eli when the Circ would have continued to follow the injured mutant. “No, stop. We need to go. Now.”
Eli paused, stared at Alex for a moment, then followed.
They hurried back, taking a different route than the one they’d used to trail the mutant. And they still ran into trouble.
Alex and Eli stopped, seeing a familiar Circ kneeling by the corpses the mutant had left behind.
When he stood, he saw Alex and smiled.
As tall as Alex, with light-brown, shaggy hair and eyes so light they looked more white than pale gray, Sheer looked delighted to see them.
“Oh hell. Is that who I think it is?” Eli murmured.
“Paul Sheer,” Alex said, rage building at seeing one of his sister’s murderers. Along with Myers and Yates, Sheer had tortured his sister before giving her to Myers and Yates to play with. In the end, his sister had used Myers’s knife to take her own life before the rogues could hurt her any more. Alex knew, because he’d seen the event when he’d touched Myers’s knife months ago—his sister’s intentional last message buried in memory.
“Hey Palmer. We miss you at work.” Sheer grinned, and his fangs looked jagged. That was new. “When are you coming back? Oh, hey, did you see a mutant around here? I’m supposed to bring him in before he fucks someone to death.” He glanced back at the girl on the ground and laughed. “Oops. Too late.”
Alex refused to let the bastard trigger his temper. “Where are you working now? The Portland facility closed.” Alex took a step in Sheer’s direction, the urge to kill the fucker overwhelming. He kept seeing Katie in his mind’s eye, knowing she’d been severely abused by this man and the others.
“Oh, we’re around. I bet the boss would love to catch up with you. Caldane too.” Sheer gave him a leering onceover. “We lost Katie too soon. How about you make up for her loss, Palmer?”
Hearing his sister’s name on Sheer’s lips was too much. Alex would have launched himself at the monster, but Eli tackled him to the ground.
A good thing, because the wave of flame that licked over them missed them by inches.
“Shit. He’s a pyro, Alex.” Eli yanked Alex to his feet. “Come on. We’ll come back for him.” He shot in Sheer’s direction, but his bullets hit a wall of fire protecting Sheer from danger.
Who in their right mind would let a mutant out? And worse, who would let Sheer out to bring the thing back in? That was like the insane leading the psychotic.
Sheer laughed and continued to shoot flames their way. In the distance, sirens sounded.
Alex pulled hard on Eli’s arm. “We can’t leave him to the police. He’ll kill them.”
“Damn it.” Eli swore some more. Then he turned to face Sheer again. In a low voice, he said, “Spread out. We’ll flank him. Don’t get burned.”
Alex nodded.
But to his surprised, Sheer had vanished.
Annoyed, Alex retraced Sheer’s steps. He leaned down to touch the body of the girl, right over the spot Sheer had touched. A trace of shared DNA between them, where Sheer had left traces of his saliva on the woman’s bloody stomach.
And hit the motherlode.
Chapter Five
KENNEDY COULDN’T WAIT any longer. They’d finally let Charlie out of her room—her cell—and she looked horrible. Wan, too thin, and scared. Just like the rest of the Level 4 women gathered for mealtime.
To her cousin, she mentally sent, Charlie, come on. We have to go.
She tugged at her arm, but Charlie refused to budge. She whispered, “I can’t. Go without me. I’ll get you caught.”
Kennedy sent back, No, we go together.
“I can’t, Kennedy.” Tears spilled down Charlie’s cheeks. The two of them couldn’t look more different. Though their mothers had been sisters, Aunt Alice had married a half-Japanese man, and Charlie had the best of both of them in looks. Petite with black hair, slightly tilted gray-green eyes, and an athletic build, she had a generosity of spirit so like her mother. Charlie would do anything for the people she loved, and she and Kennedy were as close as sisters.
I’m not leaving without you, Kennedy insisted.
A mutant had gotten loose in the building and escaped, leading to several more who seemed to be missing. While secur
ity ran amuck trying to locate the absent mutants, Kennedy, Charlie, and the other four women left in the Level 4 program sat in the dining hall, watched over by armed Circs.
Charlie leaned closer. “I’ve foreseen it. You have to leave now. Alone. You’ll find him, and then he’ll find me.”
“Who—”
Charlie cut her off. “If I leave with you now, we’ll both die.” She paused. “Remember what I told you. Don’t deviate from the route I mapped out for you. Find Alex. He’s the one, Kennedy. But be careful. He’s dangerous too.”
“Alex. Right.” Kennedy knew she had to take this chance, if only to come back and rescue her cousin and the others. She wouldn’t get a better opportunity than now.
“You’ll come back for me. I know it.” Charlie seemed to be reminding herself more than telling Kennedy. “We can do this.”
Charlie glanced at another of their women, and Kennedy waited. An explosion blew up the nearby microwave, courtesy of the Level 4 telekinetic with anger issues. Then Kennedy focused one aspect of her newly developing telepathy to send strong thoughts into the heads of the guards, creating migraine-like headaches.
With both men writhing on the ground in pain, she was free to run along the route Charlie had told her to take. Though her cousin had short bouts of precognition and couldn’t see more than Kennedy’s immediate future, Charlie sometimes had premonitions of far future events. If she said only Kennedy could get away now, then Kennedy believed her.
While the armed guards in the hallway tried to focus past the chaos around them—alarms going off, mutants shrieking as they grew closer, fights breaking out—Kennedy darted to the bathroom. “I’m going to throw up,” she said to the male closest to her.
He watched her go into a lavatory, then fired at someone down the hall. Nivia, the telekinetic, followed her inside. So far so good.
“You can’t escape. It’s too risky.” A foreign exchange graduate student from Spain, poor Nivia had answered the wrong ad for psychic research and found herself kidnapped by Smith.
“What?” Kennedy searched for a way to access the vent that would lead away from the center of the building.
“I said you can’t go. I’ve changed my mind. If you leave, we’ll all suffer.”
And poor Nivia had suffered enough. That animal Sheer had toyed with her, and Nivia hadn’t been the same since.
Kennedy gave the girl a hug. “The only reason I’m leaving now is Charlie told me it’s time. I can get help for all of us, but I need to go right now.”
Nivia bit her lower lip in indecision.
“I swear, I’d never leave you all if this wasn’t the only way.” She stared into Nivia’s eyes, willing her to believe the truth. “And if you don’t believe that, then know I’d never leave Charlie behind. She’s my cousin.”
Nivia’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know that.”
“No one does. Look, can you give me a boost up? Once I get out, I’m going to send back help. Charlie and I have a plan. Trust me. Stay strong.”
Using her mind, Nivia lifted Kennedy up to the vent with ease, though Kennedy saw the strain on her face. She managed to get the vent cover off, then moved inside, having little room to wiggle. But she did her best and continued to travel, repeating to herself the instructions Charlie had given her yesterday.
It felt never-ending. She turned right, then left, went straight, and all the while prayed she’d reach freedom. The alarm sounded loud in the air duct, and she hurried, breathing a sigh of relief once the duct grew wider.
Finally, she came to the end and saw the outside so close. She shoved the outer vent away, then looked out and saw she was one story up. But as Charlie had predicted, a food truck sat underneath her.
She heard the engine start. With no way around it, she’d have to go out headfirst. But the drop couldn’t be more than ten feet. As if thinking about possible damage, her beast came to the fore. Before Kennedy knew it, she’d somersaulted onto the top of the van and laid flat without injury.
The truck left the small compound behind, and the crisp December night didn’t bother her with the cold, as she might have expected.
The beast within comforted her, and she mentally promised the others that she’d return to free them and bring the authorities. If it was the last thing she ever did, she’d make sure Dr. Lang and his crazy scientists paid for all the lives they’d ruined. But first she had to find this Alex guy.
******
Charlie didn’t like lying to her cousin, but for Kennedy to be safe, she’d had to leave right now. Despite knowing what lay in wait for herself, she knew she’d done the right thing. Especially when Nivia returned, looking frail and upset. A clever front for a bitch without a conscience.
The guards spotted Nivia, and one of them guided the four other girls from the dining room. When Charlie went to follow, the remaining guard ordered her to stay.
“She’s gone,” Nivia informed him. To Charlie’s surprise, he didn’t seem upset at all. “She’ll bring him back, I’m sure. Her cousin,” she said, motioning to Charlie, “told her exactly who to go to for help.”
Damn. Charlie had missed that. Great. Now Smith and Lang would know she had ties to Kennedy if they hadn’t known already. She had tried to minimize the risk to her and her cousin by pretending none of the women meant much to her. Then no one would try to use their love for each other against them. But Kennedy had escaped—so far. So good news on that front, at least.
She didn’t know much about this Alex person, only that he had no love for Dr. Lang. And that he had as much reason as any of them to shut down the labs for good. He was dangerous, she sensed, but he could be trusted. The question remained, though, would he bring danger to Kennedy’s door, or would he save her from the fate Charlie had unfortunately foreseen?
Then one of the guards dragged her to Duane Smith, and her thoughts went instead to survival. After just a few minutes acting as Smith’s punching bag, she caught a psychic wave and rode it, seeing her bleak, impending future.
“Hate…you…” she managed before Dr. Lang showed up with that freakin’ needle. It hurt, so much. And it hurt so much more when they let Nivia show Dr. Lang how good she’d gotten at using her telekinesis to break things…like bones.
******
Alex guided Eli to the building he’d seen in Sheer’s memories. They’d waited a day to get a better layout, and he’d been curious to see how the authorities responded to monsters eating humans in a public park.
As expected, nothing made the news. Lang had sent in a cleanup crew. The dead bodies disappeared, as did the mutant threat.
But Alex knew nothing would be over until they put Lang and Smith away for good.
After another hour of waiting around in silence while Eli caught up on his sleep, Alex noticed a food truck leaving the gated parking lot. To his surprise, a woman lay flat on top of the vehicle as it drove away from the secured area.
“Eli, wake up.”
Eli opened his eyes, going from asleep to fully awake.
“Follow her,” Alex ordered, excitement filling him. He’d found Lang’s new lair, and if he was reading the situation correctly, the woman was on the way to escaping. The mission, according to Gideon, was to wait and see what happened around the place. But Alex had a feeling grabbing the woman would be paramount to a successful takedown. She’d know things that would help them nail Lang. And she’d possibly know more about the inside of the building than Carter had found online, which wasn’t much.
That way, Gideon, Carter, and Bailey could work out a plan to get inside that lab with minimum casualties.
While part of him wanted to storm inside, a bigger part wanted to know what the woman could tell him about Myers and Yates. About Sheer.
He still wanted to rage at Eli for not allowing him to kill the pyromaniac. But he was smart enough to know he had no immunity to fire, and Sheer loved nothing more than to burn things.
What Alex hadn’t gotten from Katie’s vision he’d lear
ned from Carter’s notes on Lang and his crew. They had detailed information on all the known scientists and Circs in Lang’s group. Myers and Yates were little more than hired muscle, but Alex had known that from working with them for months before leaving U-Ground behind.
They hated authority, thought women were good for nothing but sex, and had no respect for anything but themselves.
Sheer was a monster, almost as bad as Caldane, that psychopath.
It wasn’t bad enough that Lang experimented on the unwilling. He wanted to see how a demented mind would take to the serum, so he’d chosen Caldane and Sheer.
With any luck Lang would farm Caldane off to the island where he imprisoned his mutants and rogue experiments, taking him out of play.
But Sheer would stay here, working for Lang. As would Myers and Yates. Giving Alex the perfect opportunity to rid the world of real monsters—and give his sister the justice she deserved.
“What the hell is she doing up there, do you think?” Eli asked as they tailed the food truck.
“Um, escaping? What the hell do you think she’s doing? Joyriding?”
“Ass.” Eli paused. “Bet it would be fun to ride up there though. What a blast.”
“Just follow her, okay?”
They drove for miles, until the food truck pulled into a restaurant parking lot. They parked across the street and cut the lights, watching.
Alex half listened as Eli called in to Gideon. He couldn’t take his gaze from the woman as she gracefully jumped down from the truck and hurried into the shadows. Before he knew it, he’d gotten out of the SUV and followed her harried movements.
She didn’t stand very tall, but her wine-red hair stood out in the dark. From this distance a normal man would never be able to make out her eye color. But Alex saw her bright blue eyes, took note of her creamy skin and lack of freckles, saw the shapely build and heard her ragged breaths as she raced from danger.
She paused in the dark shadows of a large building, no doubt catching her breath. “Are you here?” she whispered.