“What do you think?” Cade snapped. “You ratted out Drake, most likely made up all sorts of shit that got us all in trouble…”
“I didn’t make up anything,” Ramirez interrupted. “I only told Admiral Borowitz the truth: The Project’s Frankenstein had been lying and hiding shit from them.”
“And why would you do that?” Cade hissed. “Do you have any idea what we’ve been through because of you?”
Ramirez sighed and I heard movement, like he was stepping outside to join Cade on the walkway in front of his door. “Look, I don’t know what happened. I thought it would get your buddy recalled, sent back to the factory or something, but you wouldn’t have gotten involved in these attacks against your own brothers if it weren’t something bad.”
“Bad?” Cade scoffed. “Ramirez, they ordered Saige’s murder. And they tried to force Drake to do it.”
Ramirez got quiet, and I was afraid we’d never find out if he was even sorry he’d led to the hell Saige and Cade had been through. I expected to hear him say that it served me right for trying to be normal, or he’d just go back inside and slam the door in Cade’s face. But when he finally spoke again, he surprised me. “Dude, I had no idea they’d try to kill her. I can’t even imagine why they’d do something like that. I mean… if I’d known…”
It was Cade’s turn to sigh. We’d come for retribution, but even I found myself no longer wanting to hurt this man, even though he’d started this nightmare for us all. But maybe the Project would have found out anyway. Maybe I was the one who’d started it by lying about my relationship with Saige in the first place.
“I know y’all never got used to having him around,” Cade said. “But he’s my friend. And you did know that.”
“I also know that having to babysit him was driving you crazy,” Ramirez retorted.
“Yeah, but not for the reasons you think. It wasn’t Drake. What bothered me so much was not being able to do a damn thing for him to get him out of their control. And now I can. I wish I could do it without having to hurt any of you, but you know they’ll order you to come after us.”
“Oh, God, Drake, don’t ask me what you’re about to ask me,” Ramirez groaned.
“I have to. Enough of us have died already. At some point, we have to defend each other rather than a corporation that never should have been given the green light to create and control people.”
“If it were a corporation giving us those orders, I could easily say yes. But what you’re asking is insubordination.”
“They caught up to us in Somalia,” Cade told him. “Parker wiped his memory so he could try to start over. I don’t care anymore who’s giving the orders because that’s the kind of man and company they’re trying to protect.”
“I won’t tell anyone you were here, but Cade, we can’t just pretend like he didn’t kill people. Like he didn’t kill some of us.”
“We were defending ourselves,” Cade shot back. “And from the second I agreed to help his girlfriend, they were after me, too. Do you really think they didn’t have orders to shoot me as well? Or that Drake killed all those people alone?”
“I don’t know!” Ramirez exclaimed. “None of us know what to believe anymore!”
“None of us?” Cade repeated. “Does that include the Admiral?”
“Yeah, I think so. But, c’mon, he follows orders, too. We were all willing to accept your friend going off the deep end but not you.”
“None of us went crazy, asshole,” Cade muttered. “You signed her execution order by ratting him out. And there was no way in hell I was going to let an innocent woman die.”
“And what about our friends?” Ramirez shot back. “You didn’t have a problem with them dying.”
“I had a problem with them shooting at us!” Cade yelled. “Have you been listening?”
“I know!” he yelled back. “But what am I supposed to do? I don’t know why this doctor has so much influence in Washington, but all the fuck-ups in the world haven’t brought him down. You really think one former SEAL, a cyborg, and his girlfriend are going to do it?”
“Wait,” Cade interrupted. “What do you mean all the fuck-ups in the world haven’t brought him down yet?”
Ramirez sighed again and lowered his voice. “I know you aren’t here alone. You gonna tell them to come around the corner?”
“Depends,” Cade answered. “You gonna try to hurt him?”
“Cade,” Ramirez groaned. “I’m more worried about Frankenstein hurting me.”
“I’ve told you to stop calling him that,” Cade warned.
“I don’t mind,” I said, stepping around the corner of the building. I took in Ramirez’s features for the first time—his dark hair and tanned skin, a green and black tattoo snaking up his left arm. He squinted at me then his charcoal eyes quickly flickered to Saige before he focused on Cade again.
“I’ve only heard stories,” Ramirez finally said. “Mostly from Ethan. After all this shit started with you and the Project. We all had a hard time accepting you acted on your own, and it was pretty obvious the Project was trying to save face… like their experiment hadn’t malfunctioned or something.”
“He didn’t malfunction,” Cade corrected, but Ramirez waved a hand at him.
“Did you know Parker’s a Major General?” Ramirez asked.
“Um… I know he’s a major asshole and a general pain in the ass,” Cade answered.
Ramirez snorted and lifted a shoulder. “Why is the Army protecting him? Why is the DOD? And if he’s Army and his son is Army, how did your friend over there end up assigned to the Navy?”
“Mutt, if you know…”
“I don’t,” Ramirez interrupted. “We’ve just been wondering. That’s all.”
“Could just be the financial investment,” I argued. “The latest line of stealth bombers are expected to cost over twenty billion dollars in development alone, and that’s before the first plane is even built. Nobody wants to admit they’ve wasted so much money on a project that can never work.”
“But you did work,” Ramirez pointed out. “Ethan claims Parker has been in trouble before, but he didn’t know why. And come on. It’s the Department of Defense. They waste money on stupid shit all the time. Whatever’s really been going on at the Project is a lot more complicated than just money.”
“Great,” Cade mumbled. He kicked at the walkway in front of Ramirez’s apartment and a rock skidded across the concrete. He bent down to pick up a different rock, either to throw it in his frustration or to distract him from the anger that we might be fighting a greater enemy than one scientist who refused to acknowledge his failures, when the sharp, familiar sound of a bullet discharging sent us diving to the ground.
I pulled Saige’s body beneath mine as I reached for my sidearm, trying to locate the hidden sniper while ascertaining if Cade was still alive. He’d dropped to the sidewalk and kept his own sidearm pointed in the direction the bullet had come from, but that bullet hadn’t been meant for us.
Ramirez lay dead in his own doorway.
“Oh, my God,” Saige whispered. “They want to frame us for his murder.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“We’re not surrendering this time, asshole,” Cade yelled. “So you might as well kill us, too.”
My arms tightened around Saige, but he was right: There was no surrender. Not anymore.
I couldn’t even breathe as tense seconds passed, waiting for bullets to rip through me, to tear apart my friend, for someone to demand we surrender anyway. We were met with silence.
I slowly loosened my grip on Saige and sat up, keeping my eyes on the building where the shot that killed Ramirez had come from. As soon as Cade saw me moving, he sat up, too. I reached down and pulled Saige to her feet.
“What the hell did Mutt ever do to you?” Cade tried one last time.
I expected him to receive the same silence as an answer, but movement from inside one of the apartments opposite Ramirez’s answered instead. T
he door opened and there, standing in the frame, was Chris Parker.
“Not a damn thing,” he said. And that bastard still had the nerve to smile at me. “Still don’t remember me?”
“No,” I answered.
“It was a lie,” Saige groaned. “He’s still in your head. He’s still here.”
I just nodded. I’d always known I could never be free from him.
“Chris,” Cade tried, “what was the point of this? Why break us out of that hangar? Why tell us you could turn off the program?”
“Oh, I did turn it off,” he replied. “My father can’t track you. And when I broke you out of there, you all agreed to go public. Now that you’ve changed your mind, now that Drake won’t expose himself as the problem he really is, I don’t have any other choice than to force the DOD’s hand the only way I can. They overlooked your rampage once, Drake. They won’t do it again.”
Chris shook his head at me and spit out, “My father’s problem has always been that he’s grown too attached to you, Drake. He can’t be objective. He never could be. He knew what he had to do fifteen years ago, but…”
“Fifteen years,” I repeated. My palms began to sweat and I instinctively backed away from the man so casually threatening to rupture my world yet again.
“So what now?” Cade asked. “You going to kill us or what?”
“No,” Chris answered. “I can’t. Not yet.” He tilted his head at me and said, “I never liked you, Drake. You know that?”
I wanted to ask him how the hell I could have known, but I just shook my head instead.
“Go ahead and leave,” he taunted. “I won’t be far behind. As soon as the DOD realizes what a threat you truly are, I’ll be there.”
“And your father?” I asked.
“What about him?” Chris snapped. “The old bastard’s finished. The Project is dead. You’re the last loose end, Drake. And the more retribution you seek,” he paused to nod toward the body behind us, “the faster we’ll sweep this whole damn disaster out the door. You were his biggest mistake. And you were mine, too.”
Sunlight reflected off of something—or someone—hiding beneath the window of the apartment where Chris had been waiting to ambush us. We were trapped. We’d been led into his game, and we’d fallen for it. And the only man who might be able to help us now was the one man we’d been trying to escape since the beginning.
I wrapped my fingers around Saige’s hand and pulled her toward our car. “This is your plan then?” I asked him. “To reveal me as the monster you think I am?”
Chris smiled at me again and lifted a hand as if telling me I was no longer worth the trouble of speaking.
So I smiled back at him and called out, “All right then, Parker. But you’ll have to catch me first.”
Genesis Resurgent, coming Summer 2017
Also by S.M. Schmitz
Receive a free copy of my post-apocalyptic novella, The Scavengers, when you sign up for my mailing list, which will keep you up to date on new releases and great deals from multi-author promotions.
For more information, please visit my website at smschmitz.com.
The Resurrected trilogy, a science-fiction romance
Awakened from death. Herself but no longer alone in her own body. Two lives merged into one.
A mistake. An aberration. A miracle.
And a company that wants her dead for existing.
When Dietrich’s fiancée, Lottie, is killed in a car accident, he descends into his own personal Hell until he runs into her in a café two years later. Claiming she isn’t really Lottie but only possesses some of her memories, the young woman offers him an unbelievable story then disappears.
Using his position as a CIA agent to track her down, Dietrich quickly discovers Lottie remembers far more about her past life than she’d originally let on. But his attempt to learn more about the planet she comes from or the woman she is now is disrupted by a group of men from the company that transports people from their home planet to Earth when they find out about her resurrection and attempt to murder her.
Because for Lottie, something went wrong, and her existence threatens their entire business on Earth. And Dietrich’s ultimate second chance with the only woman he’s ever loved will be threatened as well.
The Chosen, a Resurrected Series novel
They promised her happily ever after. Instead, they gave her Hell. Now, she's getting revenge.
When Bella agreed to travel to Earth to start a new life with the man she loved, she’d been promised two things: healing dead human bodies so they could live on this planet always worked, and they could have the happily ever after forbidden to them at home.
But soon after arriving on her new planet, she discovers both of those promises were lies. And the consequences for trusting the wrong people are deadly.
After six years of hiding from the company that helped her cross over, she is approached by a beautiful but mysterious stranger who offers her a different kind of promise: the chance for revenge. And Bella’s journey to end her own nightmare and to seek justice for the man she’d once loved is finally able to begin.
The Immortals series, a fantasy & mythology series (also available in The Complete Immortals Series Box Set)
When demons refuse to play by the rules, all Hell will break loose.
Colin and Anna are sent to Baton Rouge by the Angel with only one directive: keep their past a secret, including their relationship. Believing their new mission would be short-lived, Colin agrees, but as the months pass and the demons they’ve grown accustomed to fighting defy every rule of war between Heaven and Hell, it seems more and more likely that the city has nothing to do with the unusual behavior of these demons and everything to do with this couple.
Connected by a gift from the Angel, Colin and Anna have long shared a bond she promised was unbreakable, but when Anna disappears from him, Colin will discover that the demons he’d agreed to fight on behalf of Heaven are far from the most terrifying creatures to walk the Earth.
The Unbreakable Sword Series, a fantasy & mythology series
As a powerful demigod, Selena has been running from the gods who control the government agency, the New Pantheon, for the past three years, but now, they’ve caught up to her.
When they trap Selena in an alleyway in New Orleans, she is ready to admit defeat. But an unfamiliar demigod rescues her, and the more she learns about Cameron, the more she discovers their common bonds may be the key to unraveling her own mysterious history.
In the first book of The Unbreakable Sword series, Selena and Cameron must not only evade the New Pantheon, which is ruthlessly hunting the remaining gods and their descendants, but an angry Aztec god that wants Selena’s power to himself. And they will discover in the impending final battle of the gods, no one can be trusted.
The Cambria Code trilogy, science-fiction
When a mysterious spaceship appears above Cambria, Zoe remains skeptical that it’s anything but an elaborate hoax. By the time the first spaceship is joined by two others, Zoe reluctantly admits that Earth has been invaded, even though it’s a pretty lame invasion: the aliens look remarkably human and keep to themselves. From what reporters are able to learn about them, they seem incredibly arrogant and boring anyway.
After meeting Peyton, one of Earth’s newest residents, Zoe feels an immediate attraction to him although she is reluctant to become involved with someone who isn’t even human. But she soon discovers that these aliens are far more dangerous than they’ve led everyone to believe, and the secrets they are hiding may signal the destruction of her entire planet.
The Golden Eagle, a romantic suspense
After a vicious second civil war in the U.S., the states that seceded are occupied, and the people there live by different rules.
Jon is the highest-ranking officer in an elite Task Force whose purpose is shrouded in mystery. Ava is just trying to survive the occupation after two years of brutal war. After meeting unexpectedly, they discover they
are both willing to risk everything for the chance to love one another. But what those risks entail may be far greater than anything either could have imagined.
Dreamwalkers, a paranormal psychological suspense
My father used to tell me our pasts shaped our presents and our presents shaped our futures and that we could never really get rid of our pasts. The deeds of our fathers and grandfathers and their fathers before them lived on forever, and we would have to live with the choices they made as well as our own so he would warn me to choose wisely. But I never understood my father. Not until my thirtieth birthday. And then everything changed.
After losing his father to suicide, Gavyn Cooper becomes convinced that his dad’s odd ramblings were nothing more than the product of mental illness. But on his thirtieth birthday, Gavyn begins having vivid dreams that transport him into the world of Caleb Ellis, a young man who lived on a sugar plantation in 1835, and he is forced to question not only his own experiences but his father’s as well. Now, Gavyn will have to make a choice between following in his father’s footsteps or writing his own future.
Genesis Revealed (The Genesis Project Book 2) Page 13
