The Society Series Box Set 2

by Mason Sabre

  "That's the CCTV file," Kirsty said. "They monitor each room and drop the files here. Well, this is the backup. Most files are kept by Dr Miller."

  “Dr Miller? I know that name.”

  “You should. He oversees most of the procreation projects. He didn’t work on yours, but there are other areas where they’re researching. He had some pretty great ideas. Clever man.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion.” If he knew even a fraction of what Amelia had gone through, then he had no credibility at all as far as Stephen was concerned. He didn’t care how clever he was. Creating children so they could suffer …

  Stephen opened one file. It was just a small movie file, dark and grainy, but then the shot came into focus. It was taken from the angle over the counters that were aimed right at the cages, although they didn’t point directly inside.

  “Oh, God … is that?”

  “Kids in cages?” Stephen said to Kirsty. “Yeah. Every single one of them.”

  She held her breath as she leant in over him and maybe she didn’t realise she was doing it, but she held onto Stephen for support. “I can’t—” She shook her head. “How could someone do that?”

  “My guess is they’ve been doing it a long time.” He flicked that video to another and then another. They were all the kids in that room. He stopped on one where a man in a white coat had a child sitting on the metal table. The child’s arm was in what looked like a vice from a mechanics, but there were levers. He held one.

  "Oh, God, no …" Kirsty gripped Stephen harder. Even he wanted to look away, but he couldn't move as the doctor on the screen brought the lever down and broke the child's arm. The image was silent, but the child screamed, and they didn't need sound to be able to hear what was being done. The child tried to move, and other hands came onto the scene to hold the child in place as they did the same to the other one. Then they gave the child some injection before lifting it off the table and stuffing it back into its cage. It was only a moment later when they got the next child and did exactly the same. "I can't watch." She backed away and put herself at the door. "It's so awful."

  “Not looking doesn’t make it go away. You didn’t know anything about this?” He closed down the file, flicked back a couple of boxes.

  Tears shone through her eyes. “No. I … they’re monsters.”

  “Wait,” Xander said, pushing past Kirsty. “The file at the bottom said, Zero. Click it.”

  Stephen hovered over it, and then he shook his head. “You don’t want to see that.”

  “I do.”

  Xander grabbed for the mouse, but Stephen pushed him away. "Whatever you see in there is done now. You can't change it. Don't give yourself those images." He pressed his hand down over Xander's. One click and he'd have it open, and he paused as if he might actually do it. "We're going to get him out of there, okay?"

  Xander’s hand twitched under Stephen’s, but then he nodded. “Okay.” He took his hand away.

  “Will your keycard get us into that area?” Stephen asked Kirsty and pointed at the screen.

  “Maybe, but I don’t have any idea where that is. It might not even be in that building.”

  “It is. It’s not far from Lee’s office. In the same block. I’ve seen it, but all the doors have locks on them.”

  "If it is on the same floor as Lee's office, then I should have access, but I can't go in there. I—"

  “You’re not going to.” Stephen rose from the seat. He could have clicked more of the video files, but where would that have got him? Angrier?

  “I can’t give you my card. I’ll lose my job.”

  “There won’t be a job for you to lose this time next week. If I have my way, there won’t be a building.” He paused a moment, then looked to Xander. “You’re good with computers. Right?”

  “I’m okay with them.”

  “Could you lump some of that footage into one file? Make it into one small movie? You know the way Norton had it on his thing we saw.”

  “I could try. If Kirsty has the basic operating system features. Why?”

  Stephen offered him the seat. “I have an idea.”

  Chapter 48

  “You know, there’s still silver in your bloodstream, right?” Eden asked Stephen. They were in the kitchen of the house. They’d come back after Xander had shown he could do exactly what Stephen needed with Kirsty’s computer. Eden had him wired up to her machine, except this time, he didn’t feel like he was about to fall out of the world and die. He was conscious.

  “It shouldn’t be as much now, though.” Back to full capacity and having shifted, his body would heal and naturally expel the silver like it would any germ that invaded it. He was happy for Eden to take his blood. She’d already taken some and frozen it for Helena to use while they were separated. If he didn’t need it, he’d have told Eden to take the whole lot. He’d have died if it meant his children got to live.

  “Can you still feel the silver? It hurts, right? With you being a shifter.”

  He shrugged. "Maybe. A little I guess." It was under his skin mostly, and he'd got used to it. As long as he didn't focus on how it felt, he could ignore it most of the time.

  “I clean up your blood and give it to Helena. It makes her stronger, like you. Without turning her furry.”

  “Furry?” He arched a brow.

  Ignoring him, she added, “So, I was thinking.”

  “I’d not advise that.”

  Glaring at him, she slapped at his arm. “Shut up. If your blood goes to Helena and it gives her some of your abilities, healing, strength and so on … what if I give you hers? Like, she can withstand silver, right? She can do some things you can’t because she’s Human and you’re Other. But half-breeds. They—”

  “Have the best of both worlds …”

  “Exactly.”

  Phoenix was a half-breed. He was the child Cade had found in the woods a few years back—a Human boy who'd been bitten by a wolf and then left to die or fend for himself. He had no aversion to silver, and he had no pounding of the lunar cycles against his head every time the full moon rose. He got the benefits of both sides of his being, and because of that, he was also stronger, but … "I'm not taking blood from Helena."

  “Then some other Human. I’m sure you don’t care about any of them bleeding out for you.”

  “Damn right.”

  It was dark outside, and Stephen settled himself onto the stool and let Eden do whatever it was she did as he flicked through the pages of her already very pawed book. Helena was asleep with Aiden in the other room, and so much as he didn’t want to leave her alone, it was the first real sleep she had got in a while. He just didn’t like the idea of her being so close to the main door of the house and him being stuck in the kitchen, but her soft snores were music to his ears and reassurances to his tiger.

  Helena had been asleep way before Aiden. He’d listened as Aiden had chattered on and then asked if she was sleeping. Stephen had smiled when Helena gave a murmured reply in response.

  “Nigel’s replied,” Xander said, coming into the kitchen. He’d been at the house, messing with the files. Kirsty had let him use an old laptop she’d had. It was old, but it was better than the archaic thing back at the other house. “He says they’ve got the house settled. It has water and heating, but there’s no electric yet. Mostly they use gas. He said Helena should be safe there. The place is high, too high for anyone to be able to sneak to it.”

  “Leopards,” Stephen said. Mel and Nigel were snow leopards, which meant they thrived best in the mountains and in the natural place of their animals. So often, nature, the earth, it fed the very creatures who roamed it.

  “It’s a day’s drive,” Xander said, carrying on. “He said if we can get to Flacon Bridge, he’ll meet her there and lead the way. She’d never find it alone.”

  “Flacon Bridge?” The names were all odd to Stephen. He’d been in Exile two years, but he’d not been able to explore. That would change. Everything would change when he
was done with it.

  “Helena should know where it is,” Eden said.

  Helena had lived in Exile for so long, she probably knew most places. Probably knew them better than he ever would.

  “I looped together that footage like you asked. There’s just short of two minutes.” He put a plastic USB on the counter next to Stephen. “I never want to see that shit again.”

  The bag was full to the marker with his blood. Eden pressed a gloved finger against the needle in his arm and pulled it out. “I’m done here, for now.”

  “Thanks.” Stephen wiped at the droplet of blood and then tossed the soft cotton onto the table into the pile of rubbish Eden had. He pocketed the USB stick, then paused, angled his head and sniffed. “Someone is here.” He put a hand up to stop both Eden and Xander. “Fae. Wait here.”

  He had the front door open before Kirsty even got up the steps to the house.

  “God, your hearing is good.”

  “Tiger.” He eyed the unfamiliar man with her. His senses told him, fae. His mind told him, the husband.

  “This is Jody,” Kirsty said as if she’d read what he was thinking. “My husband.”

  “You told them where we lived?” Stephen said as Xander joined him at the door. “Do you know how—”

  “Kirsty’s known where we live since the beginning,” said Xander. “Who do you think helped Eden and I put all the wards into the ground?”

  Taking a step back, Kirsty put herself next to her husband, maybe not a conscious decision on her part, but Stephen picked it up. “Sorry I … I didn’t mean anything. I …”

  “I’m not happy about my wife’s involvement in all of this,” Jody said, cutting in and getting right to the point. “We’ve two young boys, a house, a future …”

  A flicker of anger sparked in Stephen’s veins. “Yeah?” When would people learn? “You’ve got whatever the Humans allow you to have, and whatever they can take away just because they feel like it. Your wife doesn’t have to be involved in all of this. Go home. Go back to your pretty little lives.” Stephen shook his head and turned away from them. He didn’t have the time for them right then. He didn’t even care. Others like them, like Jody, they deserved what was coming to them. Their blind faith in the Humans. It was laughable.

  “Stephen …” He’d not heard Helena get up and out of bed, but he chalked that up to being at the front door and not listening to her. The lounge door was ajar, and she leant against the frame. Aiden was probably still asleep. Just the sight of Helena made him stop, though. She’d probably manage to do that to him for the rest of their lives.

  "Helena?" Kirsty was at the front door. Xander had stepped back to let her through. "Oh wow. Look at you." She pushed past them all to get to Helena, and then she wrapped her arms around her, and Helena held her right back. “I can’t believe how big you’ve got.” She ran her hand across her belly.

  "I'm ready to bust, and I have weeks left yet," Helena said, her attention stolen from Stephen for a brief moment.

  “The blood worked?” Kirsty asked, but her question was at Eden. “It kept them alive?”

  “Looks like it.” Eden had come out with them, but she was closer to the door to the kitchen now. “I did what you said. So far so good.”

  "It's amazing." Kirsty put both hands on either side of the baby bump and gave a little gasp when one of them kicked. "Those babies are thriving."

  Stephen was grateful for that, and for Kirsty, but it didn’t mean he was going to drop his guard and let her in for tea. He knew more than anyone, the way someone could get close and then screw you over. God knows, his father had left him hanging enough times in the name of Society Law.

  “I know you didn’t come here to see how we are,” Stephen said when the women stopped gushing over the baby bump. “What—”

  “We came to get Kirsty’s keycard back,” Jody said. “She said you have it.”

  The fae might have spoken with strong words and a demanding tone, but his body betrayed him. The scent of fear grew stronger by the second. “I need it,” Stephen said, challenging him almost with it.

  Jody folded his arms over his chest. "To do what? Be the hero?" His gaze never left Stephen. Scared as he might be, he was a man, a husband. "I don't want my wife involved in all of that. We have a life. It might not mean much to you, and you might think we're idiots for it, but we're happy, our children are happy."

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah?”

  Stephen mirrored Jody’s stance and folded his arms. “Do you think the children Norton has are happy? Do you think they’re content?”

  Jody squared his shoulders, making himself bigger, the way a cat would do with all its fur sticking up. But with the fae it was different. The tremors of their power went through whatever they were. For Jody, it was the earth, and Stephen felt it under his feet. "They aren't my concern. Maybe that sounds harsh. I don't know. But we can't care for every single child in the world. We can't—"

  “We can try.” Stephen stepped toward Jody then. There was no time for these arguments and discussions. Every moment they wasted on something that wasn’t productive, was another moment those kids suffered alone. “You’re afraid,” Stephen said, making a show of sniffing the air. “I can smell it on you. Are you going to let fear keep you prisoner? Keep your kids prisoner?”

  “Of course, I’m afraid. Your face is all over the news, so is hers.” He pointed to Helena. “They have prices on your heads. If we get seen here, talking to you, we’re as good as dead.”

  "There's a price on my head?" Stephen laughed. He didn't know why or what for, but for some reason, he found it funny. He pictured Lee pinning up wanted posters on lampposts and calling for guns at dawn or some shit like that. "Fear is not a good enough reason to give up. New things are coming, whether you want it to or not. It isn't about living anymore. Not existing the way the Humans want. No. Now it is about surviving. Not just me, or you, or those children, but us, Others. Take the keycard back. It isn’t going to stop me. Nothing you could do will stop me.”

  “I could call Norton.”

  Stephen was fast. His reactions feline and he knocked the air from Jody as he slammed him back against the wall, fists in his shirt, face right in front of his. “Are you threatening me? Was that a threat?”

  The stench of fear rose ten notches in a second, and it made Stephen want to let go. He wasn't for scaring people. He wasn't for the intimidation tricks with those weaker than him, but to make that threat, even to joke about it. He didn't care who Jody was and what he had done for them. He would end him if it were the only way to keep Helena safe.

  “Stephen.” Helena was at his side, Eden behind and Kirsty hovering, trying not to tip him over. “Stephen, stop.”

  Kirsty frowned. “Stephen? I thought your name was Nick.”

  “Stephen Davies,” Eden said from next to her.

  Jody looked into his eyes, and he let his hand settle from where he had grabbed Stephen to stop him. "You're Stephen Davies?"

  Stephen didn’t grace it with an answer. If Eden’s word wasn’t enough, then the man was more of a fool than he first thought, but it was Kirsty who came around. “You’re really Stephen Davies? As in the Stephen Davies?”

  “I think everyone knows who he is except me,” Helena said. She still had her hand on Stephen’s shoulder, trying to calm him and pull him back. Not that she had the strength to, but he’d never hurt her, and she knew that.

  Jody put his hands up in surrender. “If you have the key, what is your plan?”

  Stephen didn’t let Jody down, but he did relax his hold on him. “To change the world. To save those kids, mine, yours, every child to come. The Humans will bow, or they will die. You pick your side.”

  “And if you fail?”

  Stephen scoffed. “I won’t.”

  Chapter 49

  Jody stood in the kitchen with his hand braced against the counter and the other at his chest, as he stared down at the laptop screen. If he turned any gre
ener, he’d have blended in with the grass outside. He was either on the verge of throwing up, passing out, or both. The fact he was about to do either of those reactions to the clips Xander had put together was enough for Stephen. If he could get people to see this, get them to truly understand what went on in Norton’s facility, it would be enough. Jody’s reaction showed Stephen that they were effective in delivering the message he wanted to get out there.

  “I don’t even know what to say.”

  Stephen shrugged. “There’s nothing you can say. You can either help or stand back and let me do what I need.”

  “If this was Jenson or Alex …”

  Kirsty ran a hand along her husband’s arm. Yes. That was the reaction Stephen wanted to elicit from people. It was one thing to tell a person what was going on somewhere and let their minds do what it wanted with the information, but it was another to show them outright the full horror of everything going on in there.

  "When you left yesterday, I looked around the files a little," Kirsty said. "Not much. I didn't want to alarm anyone, but that boy, the one whose arm they broke. I couldn't get him out of my head. I mean why? Why would anyone do that? So, I looked at the files, and they have these two things, the Human project, and then part of that is the Mengele Project. I think it works as an umbrella system. But I found that boy's files, and he's shifter I think. It had him listed as a fox. Seven times they’ve broken his arms. Seven times. I just …” Her eyes flushed, the whites of them went pink with the images in her head. She ran a finger under her eye. “They were testing healing times. The other boy, he was just a low-level witch. They were extracting the properties from the fox’s blood and giving it to the witch and then testing if they could speed up recovery.”

  “And did they?”

  “What?”

  Stephen nodded to the laptop. “Did they achieve what they wanted with them?”