Razor's Edge

by Shannon K. Butcher

  In that moment, seeing him facing a demon for her, her heart broke open and wept, because she knew without a doubt that she loved him. She also knew that she would never get the chance to show him that love, because the probability of both of them making it out of this alive was low.

  She couldn’t let him do it. She couldn’t let him sacrifice himself for her. If it hadn’t been for her, he’d never have been in this situation. He’d be safe and sound, at home with his family, where he belonged. And his family couldn’t stand to lose someone else again so soon. They’d already lost so much.

  Roxanne caught Bower’s eye. “If you send him away, I’ll cooperate.”

  “Roxanne, no!” shouted Tanner.

  Bower’s bushy brows went up. “Is that so? You know, that’s tempting, but I think lover boy here will have something to say about your generous offer.”

  “Go, Tanner. Before you can’t.”

  His blue eyes blazed with defiance, and he snarled at Bower. “I’m leaving here with her. There’s a whole team of people backing me up. If you think they’re going to sit by while you toy with us, you’re fucked in the head.”

  “Watch your tone with me, boy. Do you really think I didn’t know about your little mercenary company? Do I look stupid to you? They’ll never find us. I stripped you of everything that could lead them here. And even if by some miracle they do find this place, they won’t get here in time, so just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.” He nodded to one of the men behind Tanner.

  The man pulled a stun gun at the same time Tanner started moving. His body spun around as he confronted the threat, but it was too late. The gun went off. The leads stuck and current sizzled along the wires, letting out a crackling sound that made the hair on the back of her neck rise. Tanner toppled to the ground, groaning as his body seized up.

  Roxanne tried to lunge from her seat before she realized she was held in place, unable to help him. “Stop it!” she shouted, knowing her screams would do no good.

  The second man, the one without the stun gun, came up behind Tanner and landed a hard kick to the back of his head. Tanner stopped twitching and lay terribly still.

  Roxanne bit back a sob of anguish. She frantically searched for a sign that he was okay but saw none. Tears blurred her vision, making it impossible for her to tell if he was still breathing.

  Bower stalked forward, his face grim. “Did you kill him?”

  One of the men leaned down and checked his pulse. “No, sir.”

  “Good. We’ll add him to the show for the investors. Leave him there and go upstairs. Staite should be ready by now, and we don’t want to be anywhere near that man once he’s triggered.”

  She didn’t know what he meant by that. None of this made any sense, but she couldn’t think clearly enough to figure it out. The drugs they’d given her were playing havoc with her body, making her head spin. All she knew was that they were leaving, and she had to find a way to get to Tanner and get him out of here before she lost the man she loved.

  Jake had no idea where he was, but he wasn’t alone. The small room was dark except for the brilliant blue glare of a video screen. He couldn’t remember how he got here, which was happening to him a lot recently. At least he recognized Bower’s face, which was smug enough to tell Jake he was in trouble. He wished he could remember why.

  The blank screen was too close. He blinked at the light, trying to force his eyes to adjust. His head felt like it weighed fifty pounds, and it ached as though someone had taken a hammer to it. “Where am I?”

  Bower patted his cheek in mock affection. “Glad you’re back among us, Staite. We missed you.”

  Confusion swayed inside his head as he struggled to figure out what was going on.

  Back among them? Had he been gone?

  In the time it took for his heart to beat once, his escape came rushing back in fragments. Jordyn’s help. His bat-out-of-hell drive that took him miles out of his way, just so he could be sure he wasn’t followed. Rox’s meeting him at that dingy little diner that had made her so happy when she was a kid.

  Rox.

  “Where is she?” demanded Jake, fear settling in through his pores. He tried to stand, only to find he was cuffed to a chair, his hands bound behind him and his ankles locked in place. The chains jingled, mocking him as he struggled against them.

  “Who?” asked Bower, grinning.

  “You know who. Don’t fucking play dumb with me.”

  Bower’s face tightened in fury. “Watch your mouth, boy. You’re nothing more than a damn lab rat right now, so don’t go getting all uppity with me. I have permission to put you down if things don’t go well.”

  Bower wasn’t making any sense—or Jake was still too foggy to find any. The one thing he knew for sure was that he was being held against his will, and it was his duty to escape. He’d done it once. He could do it again.

  His brain churned for a means of freeing himself, but nothing presented itself. The chair was metal. He might be able to smash it apart, but that would take time. Bower was armed and would shoot him before he’d have the chance. He tested his bonds, making his wrists burn as the skin split against the metal cuffs. “Where is Rox?”

  “Safe. For now.”

  “If you’ve hurt her, I’ll—”

  “What? What will you do? Your ass is mine now, which means you’ll do exactly what I say when I say it. Including putting a bullet in the pretty little blonde’s head. We’ll see how much attitude you have then.”

  Jake reeled in shock for a moment. Bower was serious. He actually thought Jake would shoot Rox. “The only one I’m going to shoot is you,” he snarled.

  Bower let out a bark of laughter. “The doc will call in any second, and once she does, you’ll be too brain-dead to watch me gloat at your stupidity. Your mind will be hers.” He leaned closer until he was only inches from Jake’s face. His voice was quiet but full of smug satisfaction. “But I want you to see what you’ll become. I want you to know what’s waiting for you on the other side of the doc’s little brain scrub.”

  He turned toward one of the SABERs—a man Jake recognized from the underground facility. “Jenson?”

  “Sir?” The man stepped forward and saluted, which turned Jake’s stomach.

  “Do you like pain?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you want to shoot yourself?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, I want you to. Shoot yourself.”

  Jenson pulled his weapon. “Where, sir?”

  Bower looked at Jake. “What do you think? Hand? Foot? Nothing lethal. We need him.”

  “Fuck off,” said Jake, trying to cover his growing fear.

  Jenson didn’t even look worried. He simply stood there, calmly waiting for orders, seemingly willing to put a bullet wherever Bower told him.

  Bower shrugged as if his decision didn’t matter. “Your foot.”

  Without hesitation, Jenson aimed and fired a round into the middle of his shoe. His cry of pain was instantaneous, and he went down. The gun fell to the floor, and he clutched at his wound.

  “See?” said Bower. “That’s you in a few minutes. You won’t want to put a bullet in the sweet blonde, but you will. Dr. Stynger is going to reach in and give that brain of yours a good twist, and once she does, you’ll do whatever we say.”

  “You’re a fucking liar.”

  Bower gave Jake a smug smirk. “She’s already started the process. Why the hell do you think you didn’t go straight to the cops when you escaped?”

  Jake stilled and some of his rage fell away, leaving a greasy smear of anxiety behind. He had meant to call the cops. He’d meant to tell Rox to use her connections and call in the feds, too. He’d tried to tell her, but the words wouldn’t come out. And then he’d forgotten all about it, as if the thought had never even entered his mind.

  Bower grinned. “I see you’re starting to get it.”

  Jenson groaned in pain.

  Bower waved a hand at the second
SABER. “Take him out to the van and patch him up, then come back here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The two men left, Jenson hobbling on one foot and leaving behind a trail of blood.

  Bower grabbed the back of Jake’s chair and slid him across the floor toward a window. He twisted open the cracked vertical blinds, giving him a view below.

  The room he was in was up high, hovering over some kind of factory. This small room must have been some kind of supervisor’s office, positioned so he could oversee his workforce. In the open area below sat Roxanne, bound to a chair. She was bleeding, and he could see her struggles to escape even thirty feet overhead. As if sensing his presence, she turned and looked up at him.

  Shock widened her eyes and made her go pale. Her mouth formed his name, but he couldn’t hear her.

  Jake moved to go to her, but he was trapped in place. “Rox! I’m coming.”

  Bower laughed. “And when you do, she’s going to die.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Jake snarled.

  He couldn’t let Bower get to him. He had to stay calm and focused. Rox needed him. So did the man lying unmoving on the floor near her feet. It was her coworker, Tanner. From here, he looked dead.

  Jake couldn’t look away. “Did you kill him?”

  “Maybe. But if not, you’ll finish the job.”

  “There is nothing you can do that would make me hurt an innocent.” He lurched against his bonds. Pain streaked from his wrists up his arms. Blood dripped from his fingertips. He could feel the metal cuffs grating against his wrist bones, but he didn’t care.

  There was an electronic beep behind him; then Dr. Stynger’s voice filled the small room. “General, the investors are ready. It’s time.”

  Bower closed the blinds, blocking out the sight of Rox’s tearstained face. “Don’t worry,” he said as he maneuvered Jake’s chair around so he could see the screen. “You’ll see her again soon enough.”

  Dr. Stynger’s face filled the screen, her red lips searing into his skull. She backed away, and behind her, he could see the forms of several men. They stood in deep shadows, but Jake could just make out the square shoulders and clean lines of the suits they wore.

  “Who are they?” asked Jake. “Do they know you’ve been holding people against their will? Torturing them?”

  Bower put a hand on Jake’s shoulder and leaned close to his ear. “That’s what they pay us for, son. Now, just sit nice and quiet, and this will all be over before you know it.”

  Dr. Stynger sat in a chair and smoothed her skirt over her bony legs. “Tell me, Jake, when was the last time you climbed a crooked oak tree?”

  The words stung his brain like a thousand wasps, buzzing and filling his head with razor-sharp wings. When the noise stopped, emotion fell away, along with his thoughts of Rox and his buddies being held prisoner. His mind felt calm. Clean. Ready to be filled. He stared at the woman in front of him, watching her mouth in the hope that she might say something.

  He loved her voice. He ached for her to fill his mind with it—to give him purpose.

  “That’s good.” She smiled, and a hot glow of satisfaction suffused him, making him whole. She turned her head to speak to the men behind her. “The trigger phrase is unique to each subject, and until I tell him differently, my voice is the only one that will activate him. Of course, that control can be transferred to another, but I’m the only one who can do so.”

  She turned back around, and Jake held his breath, waiting to hear her speak again.

  “There are people who are trying to hurt me. You don’t want that, do you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Good. They’re there, where you are. They must be stopped.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You hate them, don’t you?”

  Hatred welled up inside him, seething with the need to be set free. He was going to find the assholes who’d threatened the woman, and he would stop them. Anger rang through his voice until it shook. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “The general is going to give you a gun. He’s going to show you these people. You are then going to kill them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Anticipation tingled down his arms and legs until the need to move was a driving force. He needed to feel that weapon in his hand, to feel it buck as it fired round after round into the enemy.

  She turned away again, speaking to the men behind her. “As you can see, the subject is easily controlled. There’s no concern for who his targets are, and no thought. He’s a weapon eager to be used as you see fit.”

  Jake didn’t know who she was talking about, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting free so he could do his job.

  “Release him, General.”

  Bower unlocked the cuffs. Jake stretched his hands to work the feeling back into them and wiped his bloody fingers on his pants. He didn’t want to risk the gun slipping inside his grip—not when Dr. Stynger’s life was at stake.

  Jake held his hand out for the weapon. The butt of the gun filled his palm, and another hot rush of satisfaction shuddered through him.

  He looked at the screen again, hoping for another few words from her mouth. Her bright red lips curled in a smile. “Welcome to the team, Jake.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “Tanner! Wake up!”

  The panic in Roxanne’s voice rang inside Tanner’s head. A spike of adrenaline made his body start moving before his eyes were even open. He staggered to his feet, searching for the threat.

  His head throbbed, and the room seemed too bright. His eyes burned, and tears flooded his vision. The room tilted, and it wasn’t until he was falling that he realized how dizzy he was. His knee bashed into the concrete floor as he landed.

  “Tanner? Look at me.”

  He lifted his head slowly, following the sound of her voice. The room was still spinning, but she was there, spinning right along with it.

  She was still bound to the chair, so he crawled across the floor to her side.

  She let out a relieved sob. “Thank God. I thought you might be dead. He kicked you so hard.”

  “I’ll be fine.” As soon as the damn spinning stopped. He closed his eyes. They weren’t doing him much good, anyway.

  His fingers found the duct tape binding her arms. He ripped it, working through several layers that had held her tight. One arm was free, and his fingers bumped hers as she worked to speed up the process on the other arm.

  Her voice was quiet, but fervent. “I think Jake is here. They said something about triggering him. Do you think that means they’re going to shoot him?”

  Tanner’s dizziness eased, and he opened his eyes to see if he could handle the reduced spin. “No. It sounds like they think he’ll be the weapon.”

  “He’d never hurt us.”

  “We’re not going to stick around long enough to find out. We need to get backup here. Fast. Where’s your phone?”

  She patted her pants with her free hand. “It’s gone.”

  “I don’t suppose you’re wearing any of those fancy ID tags, are you?”

  “They’re on my keys.”

  Which, from the defeated look on her face, she didn’t have. “That’s okay. We’ll manage.”

  The tape finally gave way on her left arm, and she bent over to work on her ankles. “Can you get that? I’m going to find a weapon.”

  She nodded, and Tanner eased to his feet, holding on to the chair for balance. His dizziness was getting better, but not nearly fast enough for his liking.

  He wobbled to the nearest workbench and started searching for a cast-off wrench or hammer—anything he could use as a weapon.

  The place was clean. Only dust, cobwebs, and rust remained. He couldn’t even find a single screw or pencil left behind.

  Footsteps sounded from overhead. A second later, he saw a set of vertical blinds open in a window high above. Bower stood there, a video camera in hand. He nodded to Tanner, giving him a mocking salute.

  He
raced back to Roxanne’s side and started helping her free her legs. “Someone’s coming.”

  Before they got her second ankle free, Jake descended the metal staircase. His face was blank. He was bleeding from his wrists but was seemingly unconcerned by it. In one bloody hand he held a gun.

  “Jake!” cried Roxanne. “You’re safe.”

  Jake didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. He was cold. Silent. Like he was dead inside.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  Jake’s finger moved to the trigger. A man trained with weapons did that only when he was ready to fire.

  A sinking dread pooled in Tanner’s stomach as he realized what was about to happen. Whatever they’d done to Jake had changed him. He wasn’t Roxanne’s friend anymore—not even close.

  Tanner didn’t waste time warning Roxanne. He simply looped an arm around her waist and picked her up. The chair dangled from her leg, bumping against his calves as he ran to the nearest workbench. He shoved it sideways and dropped Roxanne behind it while he slid into place next to her.

  The gun fired, and a round went through the metal table a few inches from Roxanne’s shoulder.

  “Jake!” she screamed. “What are you doing? It’s me!” Two more rounds ripped through the metal, each one getting closer to hitting her.

  “I don’t think that’s Jake.”

  They couldn’t stay here. The flimsy concealment of the workbench was only a fleeting measure. A few more steps and Jake would be able to lean over and fire that weapon right into their skulls.

  “Get free,” he ordered her. “I’m going to distract him.” He knew she’d argue, so he didn’t wait around to hear it. Instead, he exploded out from behind the bench and charged Jake.

  The weapon barked. Pain bloomed against his ribs, stealing his mind for a split second. It registered that he’d been hit, but there was no fear. Only screaming anger and a determination to stop Jake before he could put a bullet in Roxanne. He ignored the pain and crouched, gathering speed, closing the last few feet before Jake had time to get off another round.