by Helen Scott
He looks back at me, and I see his mask fall into place. But unfortunately for him, I know what that damn mask means too. That he’s hiding his emotions. Which means he has emotions.
“Meat bags or not, the Prez wants to see them.”
“Phoenix--” I begin.
“Let’s unload them,” he says, cutting me off.
I study him as he runs his hand through his light brown hair. He’s so damn proud of that hair of his, left a little long on top and far too stylish-looking to fit in here. I’d tried to get him to shave his head military style like mine. I’d told him he was wasting his time, but my brother’s as stubborn as I am. Unfortunately.
He gives me a weird look. “You okay?”
I realize I’ve been staring too long and grunt, turning to unload the first cage, the one with the dead guy crammed in with a few others.
“That one looks…”
“Yeah, he died on the drive.”
“Too bad,” he says, his voice soft.
I try not to look at the dead man as we unload the cage. This is exactly what I was worried about. Phoenix is all too good at shooting assholes and slitting throats. But when it comes to dead victims, he has a tendency to take their deaths personally.
Maybe it runs in our genetics.
“You know…”
“I know.”
Damn twin-brain. Of course he knows what I’m worried about.
Striker and Crash take the cage we’ve placed on the ground without a word and carry it into the largest building on our grounds, the one with cells in the basement, where our leader is impatiently waiting.
We reach for the next cage, the one with the big guy and a couple of flesh bags.
“You seen anything about this?”
Phoenix frowns. “No…not exactly.”
“It have anything to do with your weird dreams lately?”
His frown deepens and those eyes of his reveal too much. “How do you know I’ve been having nightmares?”
Because he has been up all hours of the night, drinking coffee like it sustains him, and snapping in a way that’s more like me than him. Plus, there’s the whole jerking when people touch him thing…that always tells me he’s being tortured in his sleep.
If not in his waking hours.
But if he doesn’t want to talk about it right now, I won’t push him. Pushing him only makes it take longer to find out what’s going on with him. Stubborn ass.
We have to work a little harder to get the giant down from the back. And Crash smirks at us when he and Striker grab the next cage. “Getting out of shape?”
“No, fucking your mom keeps me fit as hell.”
He chuckles, and they head inside.
We climb back up into the truck and spot the blonde goddess. My brother and I both freeze for a long minute when her brows scrunch up in her sleep and she looks pained for a long moment, before her expression returns to normal once more.
“What do you think they were doing with her?”
I shake my head. “It can’t have been anything good.”
We move to stand over her, and I hate the way my gaze seems to cling to her face. My stomach turns and I picture her dead. I hate that the image bothers me. She’s a stranger. A meat bag who will probably be dead by morning.
Damn my weakness for beautiful women.
We’re both gentler with her cage when we carry it out of the van and set it down. Striker and Crash join us at the cage, and we all look down at her together.
“Think she’ll live?” Phoenix asks.
Striker’s face remains impassive. “We should hope she doesn’t. Whatever they did to her there, I doubt she’ll want to remember.”
They carry her inside, and we walk slowly behind them. I hate that I kind of agree with Striker. Even if it’s a shame to have such a young, beautiful woman die, we all know what it’s like to live with the ghosts of our past. And sometimes, death really is easier.
3
Dani
The first thing that makes its way to my conscious brain is the need to roll on to my side and vomit. My stomach heaves and expels the small amount of bile that has accumulated on to the floor. After which, it clenches painfully with hunger. When’s the last time I ate?
Fan-fucking-tastic.
As I move, I find that I’m not in my regular cell. The floor in here is tiled, which is definitely nicer than what those assholes usually stick me with. Most of the time it’s concrete and sometimes it’s even dirt that makes up my floor. Part of me hopes that this is just a dream, that they aren't trying to get my hopes up again about having a better living situation just to crush me under their boots once more.
I might act tough in front of them, but I’m honestly not sure how much more I can take. Hell, I’m not even sure how long I've been here anymore. When I first signed up, I expected it to be a quick thing, maybe a month at the most, but when it became clear I wasn't getting out? Well, I'd tried counting the days and let's just say that it’s better for my mental health if I don't know.
Finally, I decide I need to figure out where I am, not that it’s super important. I blink my eyes open and blearily take in the room. I’m in a basement somewhere. I can tell because of the windows; they are tiny little rectangles of glorious light. I haven't seen the outside in far too long, and from where I sit in my cage, I can see trees and even a robin and another small bird.
Panic sets in as I realize this is completely out of the norm for the cabal, my nickname for these assholes since I have no idea who they actually are. I haven't seen the outside since I entered into the program, and I certainly haven't been in the same room as any of the other participants, like I am now. They might be passed out, but I can easily make out their forms lying in other cages around the room. It’s like some kind of mini jail. Part of me wants to think it’s cute, but it’s still jail and I’m still locked in a cage.
My body aches as I try to move. I’m not sure what this last experiment was, but this is the roughest wake up I've had since the morning after my twenty-first birthday. My heart hurts at the memory, and I push it away. That’s the last thing I need to think about right now. Right now all I want is to enjoy the beauty I can see, even if it is only through a window that’s twelve inches tall.
I should have known my good luck wouldn't last.
"You're awake?" A man's voice sounds to my left, and I turn my head to find a door I hadn't even noticed.
The man who stands in the entryway is nothing like any of the employees I've seen from the cabal. His long blonde hair has a beachy wave to it that most girls I know would kill for, and I bet he doesn't use any product either. Asshole.
A beard covers the lower half of his face and extends past his chin by a couple inches. It isn't scraggly though, so maybe I’m wrong on the product front. As I look at the rest of him, I know I’d been right the first time; there isn't a chance in hell that a man like this uses product. He's just been blessed by the hair gods.
Tattoos cover every inch of exposed skin on his arms all the way down to his fingertips, and some even run up the sides of his neck. His band t-shirt is covered by a motorcycle club vest. I feel like there is a special name for them, cut or something like that, but I’m not sure and I realize as he walks up to me that it doesn’t really matter, not when I can look at his beautiful eyes. His black jeans cling to his legs, and make him look mouthwateringly dangerous. He's lean but muscular, as though he'd been that scrawny kid growing up and still struggles as an adult to gain any weight.
A necklace glints in the low light as he squats down in front of my cage. I scoot back, pressing myself against the wall. He might look hot as hell, but some of nature's most beautiful creatures are poisonous. Who's to say he’s any different?
"Are you okay?" he asks, his voice a harsh rumble in his chest.
I stare mutely at him, not knowing what to say. Am I okay? Do I fucking look okay? I’m in a god damned cage wearing a medical gown with nothing underneath.
"Can you talk? Understand me?" he asks.
I feel my head nod. I can talk, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to, not until I know what the hell is going on.
"Okay, you're scared. I get it. I'm Crash. We found you in a...medical facility. Do you remember being there?" His gray eyes search mine as he speaks, and I can't help but feel slightly relieved that at least he's not one of them, one of the scientists, or their experiments.
I nod. The way he's watching me, I can't really help but do anything else. Maybe if my throat wasn't so dry I'd be more open to talking, but as it is I’m keeping my mouth shut.
"That's good, that's good," he replies, seeming to fall into his thoughts for a moment.
He makes no move to open the door to the cage or to help me at all, which can only mean that he works for someone who wants to keep the cabal's experiments, a thought that makes me shudder. I'd never counted on becoming their property or that they could and would sell me to someone else.
My eyes are drawn to the other prisoners once again, who are all male, and when Crash sees where I am looking, he says, "Sorry if you knew any of them. We lost one the first day you were here." I nod slowly. Lost? He means they died, but why? The experiments are supposed to do the opposite. When I still don't respond verbally, he says, "I'll have to let my president know you're awake. He's got some questions for you."
"Water?" I gasp the word out, my voice scratchy and dry to my own ears.
"I'll see what I can do," Crash replies before he gets up and leaves. A chain hangs from his back pocket to his front belt loop and a red rag, covered in what looks like grease, hangs out of the other back pocket, obscuring what I’m sure would be a very nice ass given the rest of the man. He’s certainly different from Dr. Mengele. That man was never seen without his lab coat and fancy shoes. Why do I remember his shoes, of all things? My mind flashes with the memory of what I think was a spinal tap, where all I could do was watch his feet.
I push the memory away. I need to figure out what’s going on here and now. I can dwell on the past later.
After he’s gone, I look more closely at the other experiments. They are, fortunately, in a different cage from me, which means I have at least some protection. It comes in handy when one of them wakes up a while later and lunges for me. White frothy saliva dribbles from his gaping mouth as he tries to squish his head between the bars of the cage to get to me.
My heart hammers in my chest and I move as far away from him as possible while he stretches his arms as far into my cage as he can, grasping at nothing while trying to reach me. A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead and down my spine as it feels like death is closing in on me once more.
I don't know how long he struggles, how long I sat frozen, waiting for something to give way and him to burst through and devour me like a fucking zombie or something.
"What the fuck?" A man's voice sounds behind me again, but it’s not Crash's. This one is harsher, colder.
I crane my neck to look at him while keeping the nightmare in my peripheral vision. He quickly covers the ground between the door and my cage, with Crash and another man on his heels. As he approaches the cage, he looks at me and says, "Cover your ears."
I do as he asks since he's pulled a gun from a holster he has on his hip. The bang echoes loudly enough that my ears, my whole head, still rings from it as the other prisoner's brains explode out of the back of his head. His body slumps against the bars, his hand still outstretched toward me like I was his last hope. Thinking like that is just going to get me in more trouble though, so I force my eyes from where they are glued to the remains of the man's skull so I am looking at the new man, the one with the gun, the one that clearly isn't averse to taking life.
At least I know where I stand with him. And that’s closer to death than ever before.
I feel like at this point death and I should be besties. While I still haven't seen a grim reaper, I have been up close and personal with death itself a few too many times.
The man with the gun looks at me, his eyes cold and his face blank, as though he is trying to make himself as closed-off and scary-looking as possible. "I'm the President of the Immortal Hunters MC, motorcycle club. You can call me Prez or President. We need to know what you know about that facility. What happened to you there, how you ended up there, anything and everything you can tell us. No detail is too small. Once you do that, you can have access to food and clothing. For now, Crash has insisted on bringing you water."
The President motions with his hand and Crash walks up to the side of the cage and offers me a water bottle. I grab it from him like a child snatching candy and yank the top off before guzzling it down. At least, I guzzle as much as I can until Crash reaches through the bars and pulls it away from me.
"You'll puke if you drink too fast." It’s all he says as those strange blue-gray eyes study me.
"You've had your water. Now tell us, how did you end up as a guest of the Necron Order?" the President demands.
I watch him for a moment as I debate what to tell him. His black leather vest is decorated on the front with different patches and symbols. One says President, one is just the number one with a percent symbol next to it, and another says IHFFIH, whatever the hell that means. Beyond that, it’s all a mystery. It’s like looking at a sign in a foreign language. I know there’s meaning there, but I don't have the faintest idea what it is.
"Come on, little one. I need you to start talking or you're going to end up like your friend over there." The President jerks his head to the slumped body on the floor.
He’s willing to kill me, execute me, if I don’t answer his questions. Wonderful. Just fucking wonderful. I reach for the bottle of water, earning a glare from the President and what looks like a warning glance from Crash. I take a couple of sips before handing it back to Crash through the bars. His rough-hewn fingers graze my own as it takes it.
Finally, I turn to the President and say, "Volunteer."
His gaze turns even more deadly as he watches me. "Why in heaven's name would you volunteer for something like that?"
"None of your business." My voice scratches my throat as I try to speak.
Crash hands me the water bottle and I take another sip while the President says, "It is my damn business, or you'll never leave this cage alive." A snarl curls his lips and I know I’m not winning myself any favors by keeping quiet, but it is private and humiliating and I don't want these men who look about as rough as they come to know.
"I needed to get away. They offered a few people I knew an all-expenses-paid trip so long as they agreed to some medical testing. I volunteered," I reply, skirting around the truth as much as possible without lying.
4
Phoenix
I love to cook. Something about it just soothes an ache deep inside of me. When I was a kid, cooking was the only way my brother and I ate. Otherwise, it was my mom’s favorite recipe…vodka with a splash of rum. As an adult, it’s the way I show the other guys I care about them.
Which is a little pathetic, but I’d learned a long time ago that this group isn’t about hugs and expressing our feelings. It’s about knifing some bastard in the back before he can kill someone in your crew. It’s about tossing down a plate of food on the table with a grunt and then watching as every man descended on the food, looking happy for a little while.
So after I’d spent a full day marinating kobe beef steaks and grilling them to perfection, along with corn on the cob with parmesan and mouthwatering mashed potatoes, I set everything on the table with a grin. This is going to be an epic feast, one we all deserve.
Which is exactly when Crash enters the rec room and grunts that the Prez wanted my help with one of the prisoners. My brother, Crash, and Striker all rush the table, practically salivating. I stare at them, then down at my perfect medium rare steak with longing.
“Hurry up,” my twin says with a grin. “Or else your steak might just get eaten.”
“You touch my steak and you might find a f
ork in your leg.”
“Worth it,” he mumbles as he begins cutting into his steak.
Casting all of them a dirty look, I head for the room with the prisoners. The hall’s quiet, the only sound my footsteps echoing as I move across the old, worn floorboards. Some days it feels a little empty in the giant building, but other times I’m glad the Prez doesn’t exactly like every member wandering around the more secure areas of our compound.
Opening the door, I step into the room, and my gaze moves from the president to the blonde prisoner, who’s currently staring back at him, her face guarded. Prez moves closer, the bear of a man towering over me. His neck’s red, the veins sticking out, and his eye is doing that strange twitching thing that I dread.
Damn it. He’s already pissed.
“She won’t tell me more than that she volunteered to be a test subject for those animals. Can you talk to her?”
I know what he really means. Can I try to see whatever she’s not telling us?
“Yes, sir.”
I move toward her. Something inside of me tenses when I see her draw back from me. I glance down at myself. Of all the guys, I’m probably the least intimidating. Every living being has an energy within them. Some people are more sensitive to the energy. Some people don’t notice it at all. Part of my ability is sensing energy, and I know that the men have a tendency to radiate a brutal kind of strength, an anger, a tension.
But I don’t. Sensing energy has taught me to hide my own better. Sometimes it unsettles people when they look at me and can’t draw anything from me, but it’s better than if they can feel the chaos that beats within my heart.
So why does she fear me? Because I’m a massive man? Because she’s been hurt so much? Or is she a supernatural creature that can see beyond my defenses?
Kneeling down, I lock eyes with her and the air rips from my chest. The energy that radiates from her as our eyes lock is like nothing I’ve felt in my life. It’s like being caught in a storm. A storm that’s too incredible to look away from, but at the same time that smells of danger and death.
