Twisted World Series Box Set | Books 1-3 & Novella

by Mary, Kate L.

  “I can’t stand the thought of Baby being in there,” Helen said.

  “Then we’ll get her out.” Dragon tightened his hold on her. “We’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “How?” she asked, knowing that the idea of getting anyone out of the CDC would be impossible, but praying that Dragon would find a way.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but there must be a way. You’ll have to go back. You’ll have to keep your eyes and ears open and look for any weaknesses. There must be someone else who can help. Not everyone in that building is without conscious. Someone will slip.”

  Helen nodded. Even though she wasn’t sure it was possible, she knew she wouldn’t be able to go on with life and never look back. If it took a hundred years and she had to sacrifice her very soul, Helen would get Baby out of there.

  Jane Helton

  No one had seen Helen in days.

  After talking to Angus, Jane had gone about her business at the CDC like nothing was different, making mental notes in the process about who she might be able to trust or how they might be able to get Angus and his daughter out. Helen was number one on her list, but she’d been MIA since the child was taken from her, and Jane didn’t have the first clue where to look for the woman.

  So she waited and planned. At night she went to the observation wing where she would alternate between getting the child before she went to Angus, and going to see him alone. Sex turned into lovemaking, it was the only way she could possibly describe what they were doing, and she knew that Angus felt it too even though he hadn’t said the words out loud. He never tried to resist and more often than not initiated the act, dragging it out during the night like he couldn’t stand the thought of her leaving. Afterward, as they held each other, he would talk to her about his family. His brother and Vivian, and the other people he had come to Atlanta with, and she would fill him in on what they had been doing.

  It was in those moments that she hated herself the most. The times when his voice would nearly break with the pain of all the years he had lost, or she would feel a tear drop onto her head. He put on a brave face, but he was hurting more than she had even imagined. More than most people would be able to endure.

  Two weeks after the child was taken from her, Helen finally reappeared at the CDC. She came in hesitantly, as if she were afraid that she had lost her job during her absence, but Jane had prepared for this moment. She’d already spoken to Star about Helen, had told him that it was natural for the woman to react this way. That she’d raised the girl for seven years and had bonded with her, and if she hadn’t behaved like this it would have raised a red flag about who she was. Star had a son of his own and understood how paternal instincts could make things fuzzy, so he’d agreed that the woman deserved a second chance if and when she returned.

  The second Helen set foot in the CDC, Jane was contacted. She met the nurse at the door, working hard to keep her cold, emotionless exterior intact despite the excitement buzzing through her at finally being able to move forward.

  “Helen,” she’d said, motioning toward the hall that led to her office. “You and I need to have a talk.”

  Helen had nodded and followed Jane silently, her eyes down like she was afraid she was on the way to a firing squad. Not yet, although Jane had no doubt that Star would rustle one up if he ever got wind of what she was planning.

  Once they were safely in her office and the door was shut, Jane felt more at ease. Star had dozens of offices and homes all over the city bugged, but she knew she was safe. He trusted her more than he trusted anyone else, and she knew that if he had been keeping tabs on her, he would know by now that her relationship with Angus had crossed a line years ago. The fact that he had done nothing told her she was in the clear.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been into work,” Helen said when Jane had taken a seat behind her desk.

  The doctor said nothing. Helen wasn’t in trouble, at least not with her, but she was curious about where the woman had been. She’d spent every night inside the CDC since being brought here by Star and hadn’t been out of the building in years, so she had no friends, nowhere to sleep, and no one to go to. But even Star hadn’t been able to locate her in the city, and he had eyes everywhere.

  “I needed some time.”

  “I understand,” Jane said, keeping her tone neutral.

  Helen looked up and narrowed her eyes, obviously noticing a change in the woman in front of her. “Do I still have a position here?”

  “That depends,” she lied.

  “On?”

  “On what you’ve been doing for the last two weeks.”

  “I told you. I needed time.”

  “But where were you? Helen, you and I both know what’s going on inside these walls, so let’s not beat around the bush. Star is concerned that you’re a security risk, so we need to know exactly where you’ve been.”

  Helen took a deep breath. “Here and there. Sleeping with men so I had a place to crash. Drinking to forget.”

  “And drugs?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll need to get you tested.”

  Helen nodded.

  “That’s it? Nothing else you want to tell me?”

  “No.” She looked down. “I met a man. I’m going to live with him from now on. I’ll still work my job during the day, but go to his place at night. I can’t stand being here. Not anymore.”

  She wasn’t lying, but she wasn’t telling the whole truth either. As far as Jane was concerned, though, it only confirmed that she could trust this woman.

  Jane studied Helen for nearly a minute before saying, “I don’t believe you, but I hope you can believe me when I tell you that I need your help. I want to get Angus and Test Subject 06 out of here.”

  Helen’s head shot up. “What?”

  “I want to save them.”

  The other woman looked around like she was afraid it was a trap. “I don’t understand.”

  “She’s my daughter and I can’t watch her get tortured like this. I tried to ignore it, but I can’t. And I can’t ignore the fact that I’m in love with Angus James any longer. I am, and I’ll do whatever it takes, even sacrifice myself, to save him. But I need help.”

  “No.” Helen jumped to her feet and shook her head. “This is nuts.”

  Her eyes were wild when she stepped away from Jane’s desk. She kept looking around, a terrified expression in her eyes. She thought it was a joke or a trap, and Jane couldn’t blame her. They’d known each other for over nine years now, and she had been nothing but cold to Helen. Why would this woman trust her now? She wouldn’t. Jane had to prove it to her.

  “It’s not a joke,” she said, allowing the cold, emotionless expression to return to her face. “More like a test. Star and I wanted to make sure you’re trustworthy still.”

  Helen relaxed slightly. “And?”

  “The jury is still out. In the meantime, I want you to stay in your apartment. I’ll come get you when we’ve made our decision.”

  Helen opened her mouth as if to argue, but shut it quickly and nodded. “Okay.”

  It was two o’clock in the morning when Jane arrived at Helen’s, and even though the woman was asleep, rousing her only took a moment. It took much longer, however, to convince Helen to come with her.

  The woman was jumpy the whole way to the observation wing, but once the doors were open her attitude changed. It was obvious that Helen was still suspicious by the way she looked at Jane, but it was also clear that she was on a mission. Helen shot past her, hurrying down the hall to the only cell that was lit. The glow that flowed through the window was faint, but it gave off enough light to highlight the tears in her eyes when she stopped in front of it. She pressed her palms flat against the glass and then her cheek, and then she closed her eyes as she cried.

  “Let me open the door,” Jane said when she’d stopped at Helen’s side.

  The woman’s eyes flew open and she stepped back. “No,” she said, but the hope shimmering in her ey
es gave her away.

  “It will be okay,” Jane replied.

  She typed in the code and the door popped open. Helen didn’t make a move to enter, so Jane went first. The other woman followed when she crossed the room, stayed at her side as she scooped the child up, who only roused a little, and then turned and headed for the door.

  “No,” Helen said again, terror ringing in her voice.

  “It will be okay,” Jane repeated.

  She continued down the hall with Helen right on her heels the entire time. The girl in her arms was small for her age, but heavy in her sleepless state, and Jane couldn’t wait to hand her off.

  Helen’s eyes were wide when Jane stopped outside Angus’s cell. She typed in the code and pushed the door open to find her child’s father waiting, his arms already open. When she eased the girl into his embrace, he pulled her tightly against him.

  “What’s going on?” Helen asked, following Jane into the room.

  “I told you.” She stood up on the tips of her toes so she could kiss Angus on the cheek, hoping the intimacy would make Helen believe her. “I want to save them.”

  Helen burst into tears.

  Jane

  She had a plan, but the more she thought about it and the more she tried to work out the details in her head, the less certain she became that she would be able to get Angus and the child out at the same time. It would draw a lot of suspicion. Star might look too closely.

  “Save her, then,” Angus whispered in Jane’s ear after she’d confessed her fears to him. “You gotta save her.”

  Jane closed her eyes and inhaled slowly. His chest hair tickled her nose, but it was a good feeling. Everything about him felt good. His warmth, his strength, his heart beating against her cheek, his willingness to stay locked away if it meant their daughter could be free. Angus was the only good thing in her life, and leaving him here to rot would be wrong.

  “There has to be a way,” she said, her eyes still closed.

  His arms tightened around her. “If there is, you’ll figure it out. If there ain’t, you know what you gotta do.”

  She did, but thinking about it hurt. She hated to admit it even to herself, but the idea of leaving Angus here even to save their daughter was almost too much to bear. It shouldn’t be that way, Jane knew, but it was. She hadn’t been lying when she’d said she wasn’t maternal, and even now after she’d accepted the fact that she couldn’t stand the thought of allowing their daughter to be tortured, she would still want to save Angus if she had to choose between the two of them. She couldn’t imagine her future without him, couldn’t imagine leaving him here when she knew she could get him out.

  It would be unforgivable, though, and she knew it. Angus loved that little girl more than anything, more than Jane and more than himself. Logically, she knew that was how it should be, but she couldn’t force her heart to make room for the child when Angus had already taken up so much of it.

  “I’ll figure out a way,” she said as she snuggled closer to him, knowing that finding a way might mean waiting months, possibly years to get them out.

  Her plan was a simple one. So simple that it would be suspicious to anyone who looked too closely at her, but Jane knew no one was watching. She was still doing her job, still allowing the innocent men and women they brought in to be experimented on and tortured. Still helping Star and the other scientists manipulate the virus in hopes of finding the answer that had been eluding them. Still monitoring both Angus and the child even though it pained her every time. She had to if she wanted to keep up appearances, and she had to keep up appearances if she wanted to get them out.

  Plus, her plan centered on being an integral part of the team. After her reconciliation with Angus, Jane returned to her duties in the observation wing with Helen at her side. She was once again drawing blood, observing the changes the virus brought to their test subjects, and overseeing the experiments personally. She needed to be hands on so that when the time came, no one would be suspicious of her presence in the cells.

  Helen, like Jane, was working on the plan. She was making contacts among the guards, using her feminine wiles to figure out who they might be able to trust. That was the trickiest part. They needed at least one guard on their side if they were going to pull the whole thing off, and they knew that most of them would be too scared to even think about crossing Star.

  Helen got lucky only six months after returning to the CDC. She’d started inviting the guards out to Dragon’s, getting them drunk in hopes that the booze would loosen their tongues. That’s how she discovered that one guard, Austin, had a bone to pick with Star. The man, who was only in his early thirties, had at one time had a wife and twin baby girls. They were three months old when the virus broke out, and he watched first his daughters and then his wife suffer horrible deaths only to come back. He’d had to fight the woman he’d loved off before smashing her head in, and then he’d had to stab his little babies, so young and innocent, through the heads.

  He still had nightmares about it, he’d said. Still woke up crying even after all these years. He’d gone to work in the CDC because he wanted to be in on the creation of the vaccine, and with no medical training, being muscle for Star was the only thing he could do.

  Helen told Jane all about the conversation, about how the man had wept in the middle of Dragon’s bar, screaming about what he’d do if he ever got his hands on the person responsible. The women had agreed that this man would be the perfect ally, and it had only taken one promise from Dr. Helton to get him to agree to help. The promise that he would get a front row seat to Star’s death.

  Once they had their man, Jane had to bide her time and wait, praying that an opportunity would present itself and she would be able to smuggle both the man she loved and their daughter out of the CDC.

  Three years passed before the opportunity finally presented itself, and when it finally did Jane was a mess. That morning, she did her best to appear as cool and collected as she usually was, but it wasn’t easy, especially since she hadn’t been able to see Angus for the last several nights and he had no idea what was going on. Things had been too busy and she had known that going to him would have been too risky, but she was dying to tell him. Dying to let him know that soon he would be free.

  They’d had a breakthrough. Four days earlier Star had called her into the lab and announced that he thought he’d finally done it, that he was sure he’d found the answer he’d been looking for and that they would soon have the virus they’d been trying to create.

  He had been giddy in a way she’d never seen him before, and so had she, only her reason went much deeper than his. This was the moment she had been waiting for if she wanted to get both the child and Angus out alive. She’d needed something big to happen. A change in the virus that was so huge it wouldn’t look suspicious if both their test subjects died from it. This was her moment.

  For the past three days, the team had worked day and night. They’d barely slept, barely eaten. They were living on coffee and power naps, but they were almost ready, and so was Jane.

  The syringes in her pocket felt like they weighed a hundred pounds as she followed Star down the hall. He was grinning like a fool, but so was she, and together they looked like two mad scientists as they stepped through the door and into the observation wing.

  The team was in place and they watched from the other side of the glass as guards entered Angus’s room and restrained him. Jane held her breath and followed Star into her lover’s cell. Angus’s face was red from exertion, his eyes wide and bloodshot. His gaze met hers and she prayed that he would receive the silent message she was trying to send to him. That he’d understand this was the moment they’d been waiting for.

  Angus winced when the needle was inserted into a vein on his neck. Star pushed the plunger and the virus entered Angus’s bloodstream. Jane had to work hard at maintaining her composure when he gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

  When the syringe was empty, Star steppe
d back and stared down at Angus. “Let him up, but watch him.”

  The guards did as they were told, releasing him but not leaving his side.

  Angus grunted as he dragged himself to his feet, his eyes still closed and an expression of pain on his face.

  “How do you feel?” Star asked.

  “Fuckin’ great.” Angus rubbed the spot where the needle had pricked his skin, then ran his hand down his shoulder to his arm. He clenched his hand into a fist and then released it a second later, wincing like every movement hurt.

  “Tell me,” Star hissed.

  Angus finally opened his eyes, but he didn’t look at Star. He looked right at Jane. “Feels like it’s burnin’ its way through me. Like my blood’s on fire.” He swallowed as if finding words difficult. “You gonna inject her with this shit too? You gonna torture her like that?”

  “Of course,” Star scoffed. “You’re both immune, but your blood’s reaction to the virus is totally different than hers. We need to know how she handles it.”

  Angus puckered his lips, his gray eyes focused on Jane. “Don’t. She could die.”

  “She won’t die,” she said, hoping he would read between the lines and know that their daughter not only wouldn’t die, but that tomorrow they would both wake up free.

  “Test Subject 06 has proven to be very resilient. She’ll be fine.” Star turned his back to Angus and headed for the door.

  Jane took the opportunity to give him a nod before following Star into the hall. She hoped Angus understood what was coming, hoped he didn’t think that she’d abandoned him.

  The child was ten now, but still small and weak, and even though she fought, only one guard was needed to restrain her. The girl looked up at Jane, her gray eyes full of silent accusations as the guard held her down and Star repeated the process of injecting her with the virus. When it burned its way through her veins, she cried and asked why, making it almost impossible for Jane to maintain her expression of indifference. When Star asked the girl how she was feeling, she cried even harder and Jane felt her heart crack. She almost lost it at that point, but somehow, against all odds, she managed to hold it together as she followed Star out of the cell.