The Phoenix Project

by Jacquelyn Frank

  Blood he could not provide because he was just as starved for it as she was. His heart had yet to find a regular beat, though he had felt it fit and stutter, especially when he had become stimulated by touching her.

  He left her to the act of dressing and hopped up onto the table himself. As he washed away his blood he examined his healing body. He found the entrance wound from memory and saw it was almost invisible already. The exit wound low in his gut was a little more noticeable, but it wouldn’t be for very long, he was certain.

  Growing impatient with details, Nick finished washing up and dried himself in quick passes before getting dressed in the scrubs. He quickly moved to examine the exits as discreetly as he could. Nothing was locked. Why would it be? Everyone was supposed to be dead. But if this morgue was anything like the morgues he had seen, it had a door leading directly outside for easier body disposal.

  To freedom.

  He saw it instantly, the view of green vegetation through the small window visible even from where he was. He walked over to it almost as if in a daze.

  “Amara,” he said softly as he pressed a palm to the door and looked outside in wonder. It had been an entire month since he’d been beyond the cold walls of this place. A month since he’d been outside. When he saw a parking lot and a roadway, his heart finally began to beat in hard, steady thumps. He saw cars. Cars he knew how to break into and start. He held out a hand to her without taking his eyes off of the outdoors, trying to judge which car would be best for them and provide the least risk of getting caught.

  “Nick.”

  He could hear the protest in her use of his name and it drew his full attention. “What’s wrong, honey?” he asked a little impatiently. “We need to get going before someone comes in here.”

  “Nick, we can’t leave them. They’ll kill them. The children, too. If they find we’ve escaped, they’ll burn this place to the ground and they’ll run. Turned or unturned, human or Morphate, they will find a way to permanently destroy them all.”

  Nick felt his heart sink with the realization that she was right. He desperately looked back toward freedom. “I can get us help in a matter of hours. All I need is a phone.”

  “And you don’t think they won’t have planned for a cleanup in less than a couple of hours? Nick, we’re probably sitting on a radical bomb as we speak. Something that will blow our atoms into such tiny bits they will never be able to heal.”

  “And what’s to say they aren’t already planning to do just that?” he snapped at her, running an agitated hand through his damp hair. “You saw what a cluster-fuck that was for them! We don’t know what happened, Amara. They could all be gone, this place already written off! If we don’t go, there’s no hope for any of us. We have to get help.”

  “We can’t abandon our pack!”

  “They aren’t a fucking pack!” he exploded, even though everything inside him hissed in contention. “They are people who need help!”

  Amara’s hands balled into fists at her sides, her bronze eyes flashing with fury. “You are a liar! If they aren’t a pack then I am not your mate!”

  “Mara,” he warned icily.

  “You can’t pick and choose what you are going to believe and what instincts you are going to follow! Don’t stand there and tell me your whole psyche isn’t screeching to go back and lead them to safety.” She stuffed a clenched fist against her belly. “It’s writhing in my guts like a virus I can’t choose to ignore, Nick. We did things that made us responsible for leading those people. If we leave without them and Paulson destroys them, we’ll have hundreds of deaths on our hands.”

  “Thousands,” he corrected her softly. “Look.”

  He nodded out of the little window. She bit her lip but obeyed him and came up to look. What he saw froze his soul, and he knew she felt the same. Identical buildings. Six others besides their own. One, he knew, housed all of the children. The others, he imagined, held any number of experiments just like theirs.

  “Even if we go back to our pack, baby,” he said gently against her ear, “nothing we do from inside here will ever free them from inside their prisons.”

  “But—”

  Nick held a finger to her lips suddenly and ducked away from the glass as two employees entered the lot, chose their vehicles, and left down the long roadway.

  “God…I think I just had a very cold-blooded idea,” he said grimly. “All we need is a few hours, right? A few hours where they won’t know we’re gone?”

  “Long enough to get a phone and for you to do your…cop things.” She waved a hand at him in summary, making him laugh softly.

  “Okay. What if we fill those body bags with bodies? All we have to do is hope the autopsy isn’t until tomorrow. It’s late. Shift is changing, looks like.”

  “We’re going to kill two people?” she asked, shivering.

  “Not my first plan, no,” he said with a head shake. “But you need blood and so do I. We drink deep enough and they’ll be out a good long time. If they die in the interim…well, two lives for thousands—I can live with that if it’s two pricks from the workforce here.”

  “That doesn’t sound very coplike, Agent Gregory,” she scolded quietly. But she was looking out of the window and judging distances and shadows for herself. “The black Honda Envy?”

  “I was thinking the gray Mitsubishi Heron. Gray has a way of being unnoticeable. Besides, it’s out of sight lines from almost everywhere but the south.” Nick reached for the door but she grabbed his arm.

  “Wait.”

  She hurried away and he impatiently watched a few others go to their cars. He didn’t want it to get too busy out there. They’d get caught.

  Amara returned and he realized she had a knife in her hand. A scalpel actually. He was wondering why she felt she had to arm herself when she suddenly stabbed herself in the arm with the thing.

  “Shit! What the hell are you doing?!”

  She was bending over a sink, her blood pooling thick and slow, the precious drops doing everything they could to remain in her body. She stuck a finger inside of herself and there was a clang in the bottom of the sink.

  The implants.

  “They don’t work on us anymore,” he reminded her fiercely.

  “Maybe. There’s a perimeter device. One of these four implants triggers it. It’s incendiary. Raul said anyone who tries to escape gets ashed. I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to test my new genes that far.”

  “Right. Give me that thing.”

  Chapter 12

  “Nick!”

  Jamie Mulloy almost fell flat on his back in his tipped-back chair when Nick Gregory suddenly appeared in his office doorway. The bastard had gone missing months ago, and suddenly he strolls in looking like…

  Nick was a big, fit man. Pretty impressive overall. He was handsome as a devil with his black hair and ocean-green eyes and had the track record with women to confirm it. In fact, he had one in tow right that very second. A blonde. But while Jamie was certain it was Nick Gregory standing before him, this was a very different-looking version of him. Gone was the easy, almost blasé humor around his eyes. Now there was more of the predatory Nick, the one Jamie saw on the coldest, darkest assignments he’d managed him on. Usually the ones where little kids were at stake. Nick always took on the brutal stuff involving victimized kids.

  Overall, there was something dangerous and harsh about Nick that hadn’t been so readily apparent before. He also looked like he’d been through hell a few times.

  Now the cute little blonde he was holding hands with like a teenager with a crush…she was something else. She had mouthwatering curves and held herself in that sex-kitten way some women just seemed to be born with. However, her reddish-brown eyes held that same lethal glint he could see in Nick’s.

  “Nick, where the fuck have you been?”

  “Long story. Glad to tell you if you get the team together ASAP. I should have called this in but…” Nick hesitated and ran a hand through hi
s hair in agitation. His blonde drew up against his side, comforting and supporting him with the warm press of her body and the soothing stroke of her fingers over his Land Corps tattoo. “Where’s Kincaid?”

  Jamie startled and Nick instantly caught the reaction. Was he out of his mind, or had Nick just sniffed at him? Weird.

  “Nick, Kin went looking for you. We haven’t heard from him in two weeks.”

  Jamie had never seen Nick settle so still and quiet before. Nick wasn’t the still type. He was an agitator. He had to move or pace the more upset he got.

  Still was fucking scary on Nick Gregory.

  “Team. Conference room. Now.”

  Nick bit out each word in command. Jamie knew it wasn’t the time to get touchy about who was ordering whom. Something bad had happened to Nick, and apparently time was wasting.

  Jamie picked up the phone.

  Chapter 13

  Amara did not envy Nick’s position in the least.

  He was sitting at the head of the conference room table, his hands gripping tightly to the arms of his chair with the tension that had been locked into his big body ever since he’d heard that a man named Kincaid was missing. His partner? she wondered. He’d implied he worked rogue. A close friend? It disturbed Amara that she didn’t know. She frowned, wondering why it should matter so much to her. He was upset and that was enough; it was all she needed to know…wasn’t it?

  Nick had also just told all of his closest friends and coworkers that he had been turned into a genetically mutated being, by a mad scientist, and that there was a secret compound full of others just like him.

  Silence reigned, and Amara tried to will Nick’s eyes to hers. She wanted to be there for him, but he wouldn’t allow it. He was sitting stark and alone, as if she could do nothing for him. As if no one could. All of his fire and determination had evaporated when he’d heard about Kincaid. Now he was on autopilot.

  It made his story unconvincing.

  So Amara wasn’t surprised when one of the men busted out laughing.

  “Oh, man. Nicky! You’ve told some hot shit in your time, but that has to take the cake. Why can’t you just admit that you ran off with your little chickie here and fucked like bunnies for a month and lost track of time?” His laughter spread around the table in masculine chuckles. Amara wondered why there were no women there, and then shrugged it off as unimportant at the moment. Male, female, or otherwise, they needed to make these men act quickly, and that meant convincing them fast. Since Nick seemed to be paralyzed in his own mind at the moment, that meant she had to do something.

  Amara used every new reflex she had to grab the sidearm Nick’s manager had holstered onto his hip, and even as the whole table was reacting in surprise, she disengaged the safety and shot herself through her palm.

  “Amara!”

  Nick exploded out of his chair.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Jamie exclaimed.

  “Shit!” the laughing man cried, no longer laughing. Amara slammed the gun down on the tabletop and held out her dripping, bloody hand even as Nick rounded the table and went to grab hold of her. She warned him off with a look and a primitive sound, which he responded to just as savagely—his way of telling her she wasn’t to boss him around.

  “Jeez, Mara,” Nick complained, “you could have just flashed some fang.”

  “I don’t know how to do it on command like you do,” she said with a shrug.

  “I’m getting a medic,” Jamie said urgently.

  “No! Wait. Watch,” she commanded them all, her tone brooking no argument. The room was full of tough, lethal men who didn’t take orders from much of anybody, but at her bidding they all sat back in their seats and watched her bleed.

  Clearly, Nick couldn’t bear to see her injured. Certainly not after seeing her shot to death before his very eyes. He could also help her show what she was trying to show a little faster. He touched her shoulder and slowly, with the tenderest of caresses, he ran his fingers down her arm and cupped her injured hand into his. He brought her palm to his lips and, his eyes fixed only onto hers, he slowly lapped at the raw, ugly gunshot wound. Someone at the table made a sound of revulsion, but they both ignored that. Nick turned her hand and licked the exit wound closed, sealing it with a sweetly romantic kiss. Then he turned to his gaping peers and showed them her rapidly healing hand.

  “No friggin’ way.”

  “It’s a trick!”

  “You think I carry dummy bullets in my sidearm, Agent?” Jamie snapped irritably. He pointed to the carpeting where the slug had punctured it. “See?”

  “You’re a fucking ghoul,” the no-longer-laughing man spat as he surged out of his seat and drew his sidearm.

  “Carl!”

  “Carl, no!”

  “Agent Jackson, put that weapon down,” Jamie barked.

  “Don’t you get it?” Carl hissed. “They’re vampires or something! They are unnatural…things! He lapped up her blood like it was flavored body oil, for fuck’s sake! Look at him. He’s got a goddamn erection. He got off on it!”

  Amara glanced down Nick’s body. The surgical scrubs left no mystery to the state of Nick’s arousal. She met his wry gaze and smiled.

  “Men,” she sighed with an amused roll of her eyes. “Were you thinking of flashing that for proof?”

  Nick’s boss choked on a laugh; so did a couple of other men. Carl Jackson, however, grew furious and thumbed off the safety of his weapon.

  Ten seconds later, the handgun lay next to Jamie’s on the tabletop and Amara was giving Carl a fanged grin as she held the burly man a foot off the floor by his throat with a single clawed hand.

  “There are easily over two thousand people in that compound,” she informed on a deceptive little purr. “They might be human, and they might be Morphate. Whoever or whatever they are, none of them asked to be illegally kidnapped and turned into guinea pigs. Your job is to uphold the law and protect the citizens of this country. Nowhere in our constitution does it say ‘these rights apply to everyone except Morphates.’”

  “That’s because there weren’t freaks when it was signed!” Carl gurgled.

  “Babe, let go,” Nick said calmly from behind her, that always gentle touch stroking softly into the small of her back. She frowned, frustrated by the time this was taking, but she let Carl drop like a stone. Amara crossed her arms defensively under her breasts and faced the stares of the other agents.

  “I’ve grown up in gangland, been sold by my mother for her daily fix, and nearly starved to death waiting for a spot in the workhouse to open up for me. Never, in all of that human existence, did I ever ask a cop for anything because I always thought cops wouldn’t give a shit about the likes of me,” Amara said quietly, slowly meeting the eyes of every man in the room, including Carl’s hostile glare. “Don’t you dare prove me right.”

  Amara urgently needed to leave the room. If she had to listen to them waste time debating whether her fellow captives deserved saving, she would completely lose her cool. Since that wouldn’t help any of them, she left them to Nick and hurried into the corridor.

  She hadn’t even realized they’d drawn a crowd of others, the gunshot and shouting having attracted everyone in hearing range. At some point the conference room doors had been opened and any possibility of secreting this situation with a sweep under the rug had been completely dissolved. Good, she thought angrily.

  Amara didn’t even care how everyone jerked back away from her and made a wide path for her to pass through. She was used to being treated like one of the many untouchables of their society. Still…

  As horrible as their captivity had been, it had been incredibly equalizing. She’d never formed friendships with intelligent, normal women like Mina, Rachael, and Devona before. Not with anyone, really. They’d always been a cut above someone like her, or just incomprehensible. It wasn’t until she’d had nothing to do all day but talk with them that she’d slowed down to realize station in life didn’t make all that much differ
ence in how damn difficult things could be. Without them, she’d never have been able to appreciate the trust, companionship, and loyalty of friendship. If it hadn’t been for that pathway being built first, the encounter between her and Nick could have turned into something dreadfully different. Amara repressed a shudder when she realized she actually had to be grateful to Paulson for that. For Nick.

  What of Nick? When this was all over and they were free, what would happen to them? Could this damage to their genetics be reversed? Would Nick eagerly seek a cure and a way out of this forced bond between them?

  Amara found herself running, rushing until she was bursting out into the cool, open air outside. She found a cut of the building to hide herself behind and slowly sank down against the rough, scraping brick until her knees were under her chin, her arms squeezing around her shins as she hugged her thighs against her chest. She closed her eyes tight.

  They were freaks and monsters. Everyone would know. Most, she knew, would react just like Carl had. People had no tolerance for differences, especially horrifying ones like blood drinking, fangs, and claws. The immortality part would scare the living piss out of some, and attract all the wrong kinds of others. This was a society that, instead of solving the violence of gangs, had simply walled them all up and hoped they’d all kill one another eventually as they fought over what little territory there was. They hadn’t cared that not everyone they’d walled up with them had anything to do with gangs. They’d written it off and waited for it to get better.

  Just how were they going to respond to thousands of immortal killers, most of whom had been sucked out of the lost populaces of the Dark Cities or the impoverished areas that surrounded it? How should they respond? She’d been in captivity with some of these maniacs for months. The idea of a rapist or serial killer who couldn’t be stopped or killed, set free to run loose in the world was sickening. And would the general public be able to see the difference between a Morphate like that and ones like her and Nick?