Axl stopped at his side, but he had to force himself to look through the window. When he did, he had to grip the wall to stop himself from falling.
It was her. Nine years had aged her, but it hadn’t changed her enough that he didn’t recognize his own child. She seemed to be asleep, strapped down to a table and practically naked, covered only by the wide strips of nylon that held her down. Scars lined the inside of her arms and tubes ran from her body to machines as if they were the only things keeping her alive. It was like something out of a futuristic sci-fi movie from the past. Had she been like this for all these years? Was this how they kept her all the time?
Axl tore his gaze away from Margot so he could look at Jackson. “She’s been here this whole time? Nine years?”
“She has.” He let out a deep sigh. “I know it seems like a long time, but nine years is really nothing. I mean, your brother was here for twenty before he finally died, so when you think about it that way, Margot still has a lifetime of pain to endure.”
The words were like a bullet piercing Axl’s heart. He reached for his gun, but the guard was too fast and before he could get his hand on it his body was slammed against the glass. He let out a scream of frustration, fighting to get free, but the man at his back had the advantage and he couldn’t move.
“Did I mention that you’re immune?” Jackson’s face was so close to his that Axl could feel his hot breath. “Thank you for making this so easy for me.”
The prick of a needle against his neck made Axl jerk, but he had nowhere to go. His face was pressed up against the glass when the drug entered his system. It was cold, chilling his veins as it moved through him. He watched his daughter as it took affect; saw it when her eyes opened. His eyes began to shut, but he fought to keep them open. Fought to keep Margot in front of him. Fought to hold onto consciousness. When his eyes closed next, he knew he’d lost.
The next time he opened his eyes the world was hazy, but not enough to hide the fact that he was still in the CDC. He tried to move but soon realized that he was tied down. Tubes ran from his arms to IV bags, dripping fluid and who knew what else into his body. His head throbbed, but even worse was the throbbing in his chest when he thought about what Vivian and Megan were going through.
And Margot.
God, how could this have happened to them? In his half-conscious state, Axl tried to think back over everything that had happened in his life, wondering what he had done that was so horrible that he deserved to be punished like this. He couldn’t think of much, though. He and Angus had robbed a few convenience stores back when the virus first broke out, in a stolen SUV using stolen gas, but that couldn’t be bad enough to warrant this. And after that he’d done everything he could to help others. He’d been the best husband he could be, a devoted dad. He’d worked his ass off to help this settlement thrive even though he hadn’t trusted the man in charge. All that good and yet he’d ended up here.
He closed his eyes when the room spun, suddenly nauseous but unsure if it was because he was trapped here or if it was a side effect of whatever drugs they’d given him.
He woke for the second time when a nurse came into his room check on him. She was a thin woman with short hair and skin that looked weathered by the sun, but her touch was gentle when she set a hand on his arm.
“Take it easy. I’m going to check your vitals and then we can see about letting you up.” Her voice was gravelly when she spoke, but kind, and the expression in her brown eyes swam with sympathy.
Axl stayed silent while she checked him over, and when she had loosened his restraints and helped him sit up he whispered a quiet thanks.
“Don’t stand up yet,” she said, “I don’t want you to fall.”
Her eyes moved to the door at her back where two guards stood, armed and ready. For what Axl wasn’t sure. He barely had enough energy to keep his eyes open let alone resist, and he was pretty certain at that moment that this waif of a woman could have taken him in a fight.
As if seeing the question in his eyes, the woman said, “They’re just a precaution. The man who used to be in this room had a feisty side.”
She held his gaze and Axl couldn’t help thinking that she was trying to tell him something. He suddenly remembered the moments that had passed just before he was injected with that drug. Jackson had said that Angus had been in the CDC for twenty years, and now this woman was saying that the previous occupant of this room had been feisty. Could his brother have spent the last twenty years in this very room?
Axl looked around, taking in the tight space and sparse furnishings. On the other side of the room were stacks of books, all of them so worn that it looked as if they’d been read hundreds of times, and a few other items. A deck of cards, a couple pencils.
“That right?” Axl said, turning his gaze back to the woman. Once again he felt like she was trying to convey something to him with her eyes.
“It is.” She removed his IV and cleaned the site with an alcohol pad as she glanced back toward the guards one more time. In a voice so low Axl barely heard her she said, “Your brother is alive. We got him out and we’ll get you out too. Hang in there. Whatever you do, just hold on.”
Then she gathered her supplies and stepped back, not giving him another look before leaving him to wonder if she’d really said all those things or if he had been hallucinating.
After she left, Axl got to his feet. She had been right to warn him not to get up too fast. His legs were unsteady and when he took his first step the room tilted. He was wearing nothing but a hospital gown, but when he searched the room for clothes he turned up nothing.
The drug he’d been given hadn’t worn off completely yet, so Axl went to the couch on the other side of the room and sat down. It was stiff with barely any give. Uncomfortable and cheap. Had Angus sat here? Had this couch been the most comfort he’d received over the last twenty years?
Axl’s gaze moved over the bookshelf, stopping on a book of crossword puzzles whose pages were folded at the corners and worn from use. On instinct he picked it up and leafed through it. The first several puzzles had been finished, some of them with words scribbled out and new letters written outside the boxes. The further he got into the book, though, the more empty boxes he found.
He almost put it down after passing a few puzzles that had been left completely blank, but instead continued turning the pages, and before long more writing showed up. Only the words written in these boxes weren’t answers to the puzzles. They were names and places, locations he recognized. Axl. Vivian. Emily. Hadley. Jon. Rambo. Megan. San Francisco. Vegas. Colorado. Every single word Axl saw was familiar, and every time he read one the pain inside him increased.
He turned the page and saw more of the same: names of the people he loved filling box after box. He turned another page and the pattern repeated itself, and then another and another, each page seemingly more of the same until he reached one that made him freeze. It was different, but the same. The words written in the boxes didn’t match the clues, but they made no sense. Father. Baby. Daughter. Jane.
Where had these come from?
Axl turned the page and the words were repeated. Page after page held the same words, but still no clue as to what they meant. Why had Angus chosen to write these words? What had happened to him inside this room that made these words pop up?
The feeling of being watched made Axl’s back stiffen. He slipped the book back onto the shelf before turning to face the window, knowing who would be there before he’d even set eyes on the man.
Jackson Star stood on the other side of the glass, watching him.
Axl stood, and then rubbed his hand down his face when the grogginess increased. The expression on Jackson’s face was impossible to read, but he knew that whatever was going through the man’s head couldn’t be good.
He wanted to strangle Jackson, to watch him die slowly and painfully, but he also wanted to talk to him. To know that he was the only one who had been taken and that his family was sti
ll safe and secure.
Axl didn’t know for sure, but he assumed there was some kind of intercom system here so they could communicate, so he pointed to the door, hoping the other man would get the point.
Jackson didn’t even hesitate to move to the door, and a second later his voice crackled through the air. “Yes.”
“Tell me they’re alright,” Axl managed to get out.
“Your family?” Jackson asked, not showing even the tiniest hint of emotion.
It was a game and Axl knew it, but one he couldn’t afford to play. “Yeah,” he said, letting out a sigh. “I gotta know.”
Jackson’s lips curled into the same twisted smile he’d had on his face the day he brought Axl here. “Don’t worry, I’m taking good care of Meg.”
Axl swore, but he doubted Jackson heard it because the little prick had already stepped away from the window.
Heat flared inside him and he slammed his hand against the window, screaming. “I’ll kill you! I’m gonna cut your fuckin’ throat!”
Jackson was laughing when he turned his back on Axl.
He banged on the glass three more times even though he knew it was useless. When he dragged himself back to the couch his legs felt weak and his fist throbbed. Even worse, he knew he’d worn himself out for nothing. Jackson wasn’t shaken by anything, and hurling threats at him—even if he had been able to hear them—had been a waste of energy.
Axl sank back on the couch and pulled the crossword book back out, thumbing through it again in hopes of finding something that would tell him what his brother had endured over the last twenty years.
The nurse returned the next day and drew blood, and even though Axl was dying to ask her questions about Angus, he knew it wasn’t safe. The guards at her back stayed too close and were paying him too much attention. He couldn’t risk putting his brother at risk.
She left without saying a word to him, but the look in her eyes told him he hadn’t been hallucinating the day before.
Only a short time later the asshole showed up again. He stood outside Axl’s cell and just stared at him, grinning that same evil smile. Axl knew the other man was trying to unnerve him, so he held on to his composure as best as he could even though what he really wanted to do was spit on the glass.
After a moment Jackson reached for the intercom, and a second later the sound of screaming filled Axl’s cell. It was a cry of agony, of torture, and no matter how much he wanted to hang on to his indifference he couldn’t stop from reacting.
“I ain’t scared of you,” he spit out, wanting Jackson to know that he wouldn’t give in no matter what the asshole put him through.
“I don’t believe you.” The asshole’s smile grew. “Maybe you don’t care what happens to you, but I know you care what happens to everyone else. We have plans for everyone you love. Joshua is already gone, I think you missed that part while you were unconscious, and your wife is on the brink of losing her mind.”
Axl’s heart tore in half and he found it impossible to keep the pain he felt inside from seeping out.
A look of triumph flashed across Jackson’s face. “Parvarti and Al have dangerous jobs, as you well know, and the rest of your family are easy targets. Lila, a flick of my wrist and I can end her. Charlie, well, I think I’ll keep her around. Just for fun.” Jackson’s grin grew. “Then there’s Meg. Sweet, innocent Meg. I think you have a good idea what’s in store for her. In fact, I think you’ve always known.”
Axl stepped closer to the window, his chest almost touching the glass. “Don’t you touch her.”
Jackson’s sneer was so sick and twisted that no matter what he did, Axl couldn’t hold in his rage. Heat spread through him and before he knew what he was doing he was once again beating his fists against the window. He screamed obscenities at Jackson, who only laughed at the outburst, making Axl even angrier. He couldn’t rein it in, couldn’t do anything but pound on the glass and yell even after Jackson had walked away.
He learned after only two days that life in the CDC was a strict routine.
Lights came on at the same time each day and shortly after that breakfast was served. He took a shower every morning, which was warm and should have been refreshing had the stall not been so cramped that he felt like he was going to be crushed alive. When he’d dried himself off he looked around one more time, hoping someone had slipped clothes into his room while he slept. There was nothing, though, and he once again put the hospital gown on, careful that it was tied in the back.
Was this the only thing Angus had had to wear day after day, night after night for the past twenty years?
The tests started during late morning. Blood pressure, temperature, reflexes being tested. It was always the same. Sometimes they drew blood, but not always. Jackson Star walked by several times a day, apparently just so he could gawk at him.
When that was done, Axl would once again flip through the crossword book in hopes of discovering some kind of pattern, but nothing ever popped up. He found another book whose spine was so worn that it was starting to fall apart and looked through that too. It was a murder mystery.
Had Angus read this book? How many times? Ten? Fifty? A hundred?
Two other meals were brought to him, each at the same time and each consisting of just enough food to keep him alive, and only a few hours after dinner, like clockwork, all the lights in the hall were turned out and it was time for bed.
On his fourth night he lay awake in his dark cell, thinking about his wife and daughters and brother and everyone else he had left behind. He had no doubt that Jackson planned to do them all in very soon, but he had to hope that the nurse would follow through with her promise before it got too bad. He decided that if he saw her again and they had a moment of privacy, he would ask her to warn his family.
He fell into a fitful sleep that was peppered with images of Jackson Star standing over his loved ones, smiling as he sliced chunks of skin from their bodies.
Axl woke with a start when the lights flicked on. It was a harsh way to wake up and one he doubted he’d get used to any time soon.
Had this been Angus’s wake up call for the past twenty years?
He made himself get out of bed, dragging himself across the room to the couch. Still thinking about Angus and this room and the past twenty years.
His thoughts returned to the present when movement in the hallway caught his eye. He looked up to find a man struggling against three guards, trying to get away. He was a big guy, and young, probably only a couple years older than Megan. He looked as if he’d been taken by surprise because he wasn’t wearing a shirt and when Axl looked closer he saw that the guy’s feet were bare too. Tattoos covered his arms and back, dark black lines that crisscrossed one another, circling his biceps as they moved up and curled around his shoulders and continuing down to his waist.
Somehow, despite the fact that his hands were tied behind his back, he managed to break free, but he’d only taken two steps when one of the guards tackled him from behind. The prisoner slammed against the window of Axl’s cell, his face pressed against the glass. Axl sat frozen in place, watching from his position on the couch. The guy’s eyes were ice blue and they were so focused on him that he felt like he couldn’t move.
The man was jerked back a second later, but when his mouth moved, Axl found himself standing. The room was soundproof but he could have sworn that the guy yelled his name. Axl didn’t recognize him, though, and he felt certain he’d never seen him before in his life. So who was he? How did he know Axl?
He moved closer to the window as the guards shoved the guy in the cell across from him. A few seconds passed with Axl holding his breath. The guards retreated, shutting the door behind them, and a second later the man was on his feet and at the window. His icy blue eyes stared at Axl as if he’d seen a ghost. Somehow, Axl knew what the questions in his eyes meant and he found himself nodding. A look that was a mixture of relief and horror crossed the other man’s face.
He and Axl stared a
t each other for a while, but it wasn’t long before he grew tired of standing and returned to the couch. Whatever was going on, Axl had no doubt that Jackson was the one behind it. He also felt certain that the sadistic man wouldn’t leave them in suspense for long.
He was right, and before an hour had passed, Jackson showed up. When he appeared, the man in the other cell jumped to his feet, and the expression on his face mirrored how Axl felt. He stayed where he was, though, working to get his emotions under control so he didn’t lose it the way he had before.
Jackson stopped outside Axl’s cell and stared at him with a sick smile on his face that made all the others look innocent in comparison. He pushed the button on the intercom, breaking the barrier of silence separating them, but he didn’t speak. He just stood there, staring at Axl with an evil grin on his face. Goading him. Daring him to beg.
Axl didn’t want to give in, but the more seconds that ticked by, the more difficult he found it to remain silent. “Where are they?” he finally asked, hating himself for giving in. “Tell me.”
“On their way here.” Jackson’s smile grew. “Guards are at your apartment as we speak, and you’ll be reunited with your family soon.”
Jackson paused and turned to face the other cell, and Axl was shocked by the cold look in the other man’s eyes. Then the prick pushed the button on his cell as well.
But why? Who was this man and how was he connected to them? Axl had no idea, but he could tell by the threatening expression in his eyes that if they could somehow get free, this man would be an ally.
“As I was saying,” Jackson continued, “Meg and the rest of your family are on the way.”
The man in the other cell let out a growl and Axl studied him once again, but he couldn’t focus on him enough to figure out what was going on, not with the threat in Jackson’s words hanging over him.
“Don’t hurt her,” he said, his voice coming out hopeless.
“There’s no reason for you to be concerned,” Jackson replied. “I don’t intend to keep you in suspense. You’ll be able to witness the entire thing. Right here.” He stepped closer to Axl while shooting the other man a look. “You’ll be able to watch as I take her. I’ll let you hear her cries. Your family, her mother, will all be right there—” He motioned to the hall behind him. “—watching. I know how close your family is, and I wouldn’t want any of you to miss the show.”
Twisted World Series Box Set | Books 1-3 & Novella Page 70
