by Rayna Vause
Lydecker’s eyes narrowed. “That, my dear boy, is a matter for debate, but enough chat. It’s time we got started.” Lydecker walked to the tool tray, studied the array of instruments. Oh God, oh God, get me out of here now! His eyes went wide and his heart tried to pound its way out of his chest as Lydecker selected a small, flexible plastic tool. For the most part it looked innocuous enough, except for the blade attached to the length of it. He’d never seen anything like it before, but he was not eager to find out how it worked.
“Aren’t you supposed to anesthetize me first?”
Lydecker held the device between his thumb and index finger and flexed it a few times. “It would be only fair that you share in the pain that my son experienced the night you killed him. The night you took him from me. Now let’s start with a skin sample and go from there, shall we?”
Chapter 12
AT ONE forty-five in the morning, Rogan marched into the security control room at Purity. Kier and Alex were on their way, and he needed to make some adjustments to the security cameras before they arrived. When he entered he found one man asleep in his chair and the other facedown in a book.
“Good evening, gentlemen.” Both men snapped to attention. The chair the sleeping man had occupied fell backward, clattering to the floor.
“Sir!” Both men shot him worried glances as though waiting for a dressing down.
“Night shift sucks, doesn’t it?” Rogan smiled. “Why don’t you go take a break. Get some coffee. I’ll keep an eye on the monitors for the next fifteen.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” The two men didn’t wait for Rogan to ask twice. They rushed from the room and down the hall. Rogan shut and locked the door behind them. He leaned against it and blew out a relieved breath. Then he pulled out his phone and dialed.
“Kier? It’s Rogan. You’re cleared to enter through the rear gate. At this hour, it’s ID card access only. As soon as I see you approach on the camera, I’ll raise the gate. I’ll meet you by the rear fire entrance, next to the large junction box.”
“Got it.”
“Once you’re in, move fast, and if you get caught, you’re on your own.”
“Understood.”
As the call ended Rogan did a quick sweep of the monitors to get a general idea of people’s positions throughout the building. Melissa Moran emerged from the stairwell onto the level that housed Dr. Lydecker’s lab. Even through the camera Rogan could see waves of fury rising off her like thermal waves off hot pavement. The look on her face was one of pure rage and hatred as she marched down the hall toward the lab.
“Oh shit.” Just as she disappeared into Lydecker’s lab, Kier’s car pulled up to the gate. Rogan coded him in and rushed from the room, heading for the designated meeting place. The faster he got them in, the faster they could all get out and away. Rogan wouldn’t breathe easy until all of them were safely out of this place.
DANNY LAY panting on the table as beads of sweat and tears rolled down his face into his hair. The pain had stopped for the interim while the sadistic bastard holding him hostage started his army of scientific machinery on their mission to gather information about what made him tick.
Please God, let Kier be okay and on his way. Danny looked toward the lab doors, praying that at any moment it would burst open. He wanted to see Kier or Alex standing there, but he’d settle for Rogan or anyone who could make the pain stop. He didn’t know if he could stand to have one more “sample” collected. If Lydecker came near him with a scalpel again, he might lose his mind.
“How are we doing so far, Daniel? Good?”
“I’m not good, you sadistic fuck.”
Lydecker’s tone went flat and cold. “I’ve warned you about language once already. You won’t like what happens if I have to do it again.”
Danny squeezed his eyes closed as his heart slammed against his rib cage. He huffed out a laugh. “You’re slicing bits and pieces off me to do your crazy little experiments on, but it’s my language that’s the biggest concern. Seriously?”
“Come now, it hasn’t been bad, and we’re just getting started.”
Danny tossed a wide-eyed look at Lydecker. His eyes went even wider when Lydecker selected a syringe containing a pale yellow liquid off the instrument tray and approached the table.
Danny went still.
Lydecker pressed on the plunger of the syringe until a few drops of the liquid emerged from the tip of the needle. “This is the latest version of my serum. I never got a chance to test its effectiveness. No, you deprived me and my son of that opportunity. But at least before he left this world he gave me the gift of you. So, now you’ll get to experience the benefits of my hard work.”
Lydecker grabbed his arm and located a vein. He pinned Danny’s arm to the table as he inserted the needle and began to inject.
“Oh fuck!” Danny cried out as the serum burned its way up his arm, the pain so great it stole his breath. He clenched his teeth as waves of searing agony rolled through him.
“With a little drug, the solution should start reversing what was begun with my son’s bite.”
Danny screamed; then his muscles started twitching and jerking. All thought slid from his head as he did his best to ride out the misery.
“Well, this isn’t good.” Lydecker stood over him, studying him like a bug under a microscope. He pulled out his notebook and began writing in it.
When the spasms subsided, Danny lay there sucking in great gulps of air, his body trembling, the taste of blood from where he’d bitten his tongue filling his mouth. Lydecker put down his notebook and picked up another syringe. “Just one more quick sample. Hold still now.”
Fucker. He couldn’t have lifted his arm if his life depended on it.
At this point Danny didn’t even wince when the needle slid into his arm. Please. Please.
When the door opened, a jolt of excitement shot through him, just to die like water poured on an ember. A woman stood in the doorway. She wore a black turtleneck, tactical pants, and a frown. She’d pulled her hair back in a high ponytail and all but shot lasers out of her eyes at Lydecker. Fury radiated from every inch of her body.
“Good evening, Melissa. Come to see what progress I’ve made with my research? The combination of Daniel’s blood and Jared’s generated some fascinating results. I’m fairly certain that I am closer than I’ve ever been to a cure.”
He turned back to his instrument table and picked up more blood vials. Oh God. This man is going to drain me dry. Danny didn’t miss the irony of the situation.
Melissa stepped into the room and shoved the door closed behind her. “I don’t give a shit about your useless experiments that have been nothing but a waste of this organization’s time and resources. I’ve had enough.”
Lydecker rounded to face Melissa. “What on earth has gotten into you? My work is vital to fulfilling Purity’s mission.”
She spat out a laugh. “You don’t even know what Purity’s mission is anymore. This organization isn’t about curing the sick. We’re about protecting the world from a menace. We’re about wiping the impure from the face of the earth. Not giving them a pill and hoping it works. There is only one way to completely kill a cancer, and that’s to cut it out.” Her voice rose as she spoke so that by the end, she all but shouted. Disgust dripped from every word.
“You have lost your mind and a clear understanding of our mission. Our goal has always been to heal those afflicted with this condition. No one could possibly want to live their life that way. I brought you into this organization because I thought you and I had a similar vision for the future, but clearly I was wrong. But if that’s what you truly believe, then you don’t belong here, and I’ll have to ensure that you are removed from any position of power within the organization immediately.”
Danny tried to flatten himself on the table and become as small as possible. All they were missing was the soundtrack from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. These two were about to have a showdown at high noon, and D
anny didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. Sure enough, Melissa reached behind her back and retrieved a small-caliber gun with an attached silencer.
Fuck! Not good. Danny held his breath and went as still as possible, trying not draw Melissa’s attention. She advanced on Lydecker, who backed away, moving deeper into the lab until she’d trapped him between a wall and a lab table.
“Melissa, let’s calm down. We can talk this out. I think you can still play a vital role in Purity, but it should be a different role than the one you’re currently fulfilling, that’s all. There’s no need to resort to anger and violence.”
“We’re going to have to agree to disagree, Doctor.” She raised the gun and pulled the trigger, firing twice. The doctor didn’t utter another word. He collapsed to the floor in a spreading pool of blood. Then she turned and her cold, flat eyes landed on Danny. A small, evil smile spread across her lips.
Danny flattened himself against the table; he didn’t move, didn’t blink. A cold sweat erupted over his body.
“Mr. Reynolds, I’ve been looking for you. You were quite elusive for a while there, but thanks to that bastard Rogan, I tracked you down. Oh, he did his best to keep you away from me, and he’ll have to pay for his betrayal, and yet here we are.” She swaggered her way toward him, tapping the gun against her palm.
Oh fuck. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to see Kier again. Hold him. Build a life with him.
“You have been nothing but a problem for me. And now we’re going to fix that.”
“Come on, you really don’t want to do this.”
She stared at him a moment, then turned away. Danny furrowed his brow. He’d been preparing to be shot any second, not for her to walk away from him. She crossed the room heading for a glass-fronted cabinet that held bottles of assorted chemicals. After tugging open the doors, she grabbed bottles at random and started pouring the contents around the lab, ringing his table with liquid and drenching Lydecker’s body.
“I’ve done nothing to you. Why are you doing this?”
“It may not have been intentional, but you’ve caused me more problems than you know. At first, you did me a favor. You killed Jared and with his death, Lydecker’s quest for a cure should have ended. But it didn’t and here we are.”
“What did I ever do to you? I didn’t ask for any of this to happen to me. I’m just trying to live my life just like anyone else.”
“You’ve been infected—not your fault, which is unfortunate, but surely you understand why I can’t let you live. It’s really the best thing for you. Death is a far better option than living life as one of these vile creatures. Plus, Lydecker and all aspects of his research need to go. That includes you. His death will be attributed to a tragic accident. I will step into his shoes and lead this organization in a new direction. The true direction. The world must be made to understand the danger vampires pose to us. They are unnatural predators, and they need to be put down so that they can never destroy another family.”
Melissa walked from lab table to lab table, turning knobs until gas hissed out of each spigot.
Danny’s mind churned, searching for any way to keep her from burning this room down around him. “I get it, I do. My brother was attacked by a vampire, and he’s gone through hell trying to recover.”
“Then you get it. You get why there is no place in our world for beasts who take pleasure in the pain and fear and death of humans.”
“I don’t understand. What’s so bad about curing vampires? Doesn’t that give you exactly what you want?”
Melissa whirled, eyes narrowed. “You have no idea what I want. Lydecker never could understand that once tainted, always tainted. These monsters, they stole my family. Bastards turned my husband into one of them, and they locked me in the room with him to be his first feed after his change. I was already weak from being their human buffet before they stuck me in that room to be drained by my own husband. They left me tied to a chair. I broke the chair to free myself. While the man that I’d loved, who had loved me for seven years lay there becoming a monster, I shoved a broken chair leg through his heart.”
Danny almost felt sorry for her. He pitied her for what she’d endured, an event that so clearly fractured her mental health. But he couldn’t quite dig up any sympathy for someone who wanted to turn him into a charred husk.
“It was better. He wouldn’t have wanted to live that way. No sane person would.” Her voice quavered. She strolled to Lydecker’s desk and snatched up his notebook. She walked to Lydecker’s lifeless body, pulled a lighter from her pocket, and with the flick of her thumb, set the pages ablaze. Then she dropped the burning notebook onto Lydecker’s chest. Flames erupted with a loud whump.
“Goodbye, Reynolds. It’s been interesting.” She departed the room, leaving Danny screaming for help and fighting his bindings with everything he had in him.
ROGAN HUSTLED through the corridors, slipping into the stairwell and jogging down the two flights of stairs that would lead him to the rear emergency exit. He stood for a moment listening for the sound of feet on concrete and found himself alone. He pushed the door open and let Kier and Alex into the building. They slipped in and pulled the door closed behind them carefully so it would latch without a sound.
In hushed tones, Rogan gave instructions. “Okay, Alex, the door to the lab where Aiden is being held is one flight down. Take a left once you exit the stairway, another left at the end of that corridor. The door to the lab is in that hall. You can’t miss it—it’s the first door on the right once you make that second turn. It’s a low-traffic floor, so you shouldn’t encounter anyone. I couldn’t get the code from Melissa, so I hope you have a way to get in.”
Alex rolled her shoulders. “Please. I won’t need a code to get through the door.”
“Stay safe.” Kier laid a hand on her shoulder. Alex nodded, then without a sound, she disappeared down the stairs.
Rogan turned his attention to Kier. “Follow me. You’d wind up lost in the building trying to find Lydecker’s lab.”
“Cameras?” Kier asked.
“Already taken care of. I put the cameras in the main surveillance room on a video loop. Rerouted the live streams to my phone.” He pulled out his phone and tapped on an app that pulled up the security camera feeds, in particular the feed that focused on the exterior of Lydecker’s lab. All clear.
Kier leaned in to look over his shoulder. “Impressive.”
“Thanks. It helps to have a little brother who knows way too much about electronics.” He smirked, then nodded at the door. “Let’s go. I haven’t seen anyone in that hall for a while, but I haven’t had my eye on the monitor the whole time. We need to be careful and quiet.”
“What’s that?” Kier gestured at something on the screen.
Rogan zoomed the image and watched a tendril of smoke creep out from under the door. “Fuck, we need to move.” He took off up the stairs with Kier on his heels. He swiped to enter onto the top floor. The door released with a soft click.
They rushed through the door and moved as fast as they could along the twisting network of halls that lead to Lydecker’s lab.
“I’m surprised you haven’t been locked out of the system.”
Rogan glanced back at Kier. “I never expected to not get caught. But I make it a goal to always have, at least, a plan B. Plus I made a master key a while ago. Never leave home without it.” Rogan shot Kier a smile.
Keir rolled his eyes.
“Melissa will realize I have one eventually, but by then it won’t matter anymore. After tonight, I won’t need it.”
When they arrived outside of the lab, thicker plumes of smoke escaped the room along with an acrid chemical odor. Danny’s shouts for help sounded from within.
“I’m coming for you, Danny. Hang on, love,” Kier yelled as he lunged for the door.
“Kier! Oh, thank you. I can’t get out. I’m still tied down in here.”
Rogan placed his hand on the door and assessed the temperatur
e. “It’s not hot. Okay, let’s move. I don’t think we should breathe the air in there for too long.”
Easing the door open, they pushed their way into a lab rapidly filling with smoke and flame.
“Get Danny. I’m going to see if I can put out these flames.”
With a nod, Kier rushed to Danny and freed the man from his restraints. “I’ve got you, love. We’re going to get you out here.” Kier’s voice stayed calm despite the chaos surrounding them.
Danny groaned as Kier lifted him from the table. “Rogan, be careful.” Danny croaked out the words. “She turned on the gas and doused the floor with chemicals.”
Rogan lifted his hand in acknowledgment as he moved to grab a fire extinguisher off the wall. He blasted at the flames as he tried to get to all the open gas valves, coughing as the smoke and chemical vapors burned his nose and throat. He turned off as many of the valves as he could, but the flames continued to rage on. That’s when he noticed Lydecker lying among the flames. “Shit.”
“Rogan, let’s go. He’s dead. There’s nothing more we can do for him,” Kier called to him as he hefted Danny into his arms.
Rogan stared down at the man, a complex mix of emotions welling up inside. Lydecker’s death meant that a powerful force of bigotry had fallen. But he couldn’t help but pity the father whose grief had driven him to extremes.
Glass exploded and Rogan flinched, raising his arms to cover his face. “Time to get out of here.” He turned toward Kier and Danny and together they rushed toward the door.