Given: Project Xol

by Amabel Daniels

  I returned to the door and jimmied the handle. It didn’t give. I debated pounding on the panel and pretending to be Tami. Jolene could open the door, I could hide behind it as it swung in, and then I could pull her into the space and squeeze out past her, locking her in with Tami and Elena.

  No, not really. It wouldn’t work. For one, she was faster and stronger than me. And—

  Radio static came on the walkie-talkie. “Code four.”

  Code four? I frowned and peered at the device. My heart pumped faster, panic setting in. Code? A code of any kind in a medical environment had to mean something horrible.

  “Code four. Lockdown now,” the masculine voice said.

  “Lockdown?” I mumbled to myself. “Yeah, that’ll fucking help!” I was already locked in a room with a woman undergoing some extreme Xol metamorphosis and a certifiable killer. I didn’t need to be trapped in this place even more.

  Alarms began to wail and I cringed. Crap. This was bad. This was worst than the baddest bad. I tuned out the wee-wah looping over and over and ignored the bright red light flickering above the door. The door that began to open.

  I stepped back as the door pushed into the room an inch.

  “Dr. Shaw?” Jolene asked, her high heel clacking once as she set one foot inside. Up higher, the end of metal cylinder poked in, a gun barrel. Another move forward, as though she felt the need to enter with a weapon leading the way, and I saw that it wasn’t a handgun with bullets, but a device to administer a dart.

  Blue!

  “Lockdown’s commenced and—”

  I slammed forward and shoved the door shut on her arm and foot. Surprise was all I’d had in the impromptu move, but it worked. The tranq gun dropped to the floor but she shoved against the wood, forcing me back. I began to fall, but I rolled into the drop, dodging to the side, and snatched the tranq gun.

  My hands shook, but I didn’t choke this time. I pulled the trigger, aiming at her arm against the door. With this close of a range, I really didn’t have a chance of missing.

  She screamed, the sound fading to a crooked mewl as she dropped.

  Panting and stunned that it had actually worked, I pushed to stand. The gun still had two more darts in a strange-looking adapter.

  Stepping over Jolene in the doorway, I glanced back at Elena still asleep on the floor. Then I checked Tami. Still out as well.

  But she won’t stay down. I almost shot another dart into her to buy myself more time, but I couldn’t. Who knew what would hold me back from getting to Rosa? I might need to sedate whoever stood between me and my real mother.

  I kept the tranq gun in front of me and exited into the hallway. Workers—nurses and lab techs, by the way of their clothes—went from room to room along the hall, a more frantic bustle of activity than there had been before this lockdown had been declared. At the very end of the hallway, an elevator waited with its doors wide open.

  I squinted at the shape of a man on the ground. One, no, two people were on the ground. The man who was lying on the floor had his leg out far enough to stop the opened elevator doors from shutting. On top of him—

  “Luke!”

  He turned at my voice. I ran to him, desperate to be with him and make sure this wasn’t a cruel hallucination. Closer and closer, I ran, near enough to watch as Michael sat up and punched Luke off of him.

  I skidded to a stop, my shoes rubbing the soles onto the smooth surface of the floor. Wind-milling my arms, I retreated in a scramble for cover.

  Luke dropped to the floor as Michael stood, cracking his neck.

  Dammit! He began to leave the elevator, his stare locked on mine.

  I refused to turn my back to him, watching as he scowled at me, and dashed back into the room.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. I eyed the room. It was just as I’d left it, only now I was a thousand times more scared and out of options. Michael was coming for me. I had two tranq darts but I was a lousy shot. If I aimed at him from too far away, I’d miss. It seemed my shooting precision was beginner’s luck—only successfully hitting Michael in the library in Texas. If I waited for him to get closer, he’d be in the ideal range to shoot something at me.

  My hands trembled as I paced in the exam room, careful not to step in the blood.

  I didn’t have time. Michael was coming for me, likely stomping his way down the thirty-some yards to me.

  Close the door. I backed up to it but didn’t shut it. If I dragged Jolene in here and shut it, I’d be locked again. And Michael would be out there to access Rosa—wherever she’d been taken.

  Shoot him. I shook my head, knowing it was a fat chance of success.

  I looked at Elena, still on the floor.

  Tami. I checked to make sure she was still out.

  Tami.

  If Michael was coming, he’d need to see the tables had turned.

  I ran to the drawers beneath the counters and removed an IV needle. My fingers shook as I ripped the package off. It wasn’t as big as a syringe, and close enough, anyone could see it was an empty bluff. From a distance, though, it had to resemble a shot.

  Without thinking about the gore of it, I lowered to Tami on the floor. I held my breath as I slid my hands under her shoulders. There was no way I could stomach looking at her blood, and as I eased my forearms past her armpits, I gagged. Warm stickiness coated me as I hauled her up by the armpits. Hugging her to me, I dragged her out of the room.

  Seemed I was late to my high-noon duel in the hallway.

  Michael stood there, a real gun at the ready, hanging in his hand at his hip. At his feet lay Luke. He rolled over, groaning but not getting up or even opening his eyes.

  Seeing the man I loved so wounded again, I fought the urge to lash out.

  This was enough. And I swore, to Hendrick, to Elena, to Rosa—I would end this.

  “What happened to her?” Michael demanded, raising the gun to me.

  I smirked. “Oh. Like you’d really kill me? I know what you want and it doesn’t involve me being dead.”

  His eyes were steely and icy as he stared me down. “We control life and death here.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I can shoot you and give you the Last Time and still take what rightfully belongs to Tami.”

  I shook my head, sick of hearing how these people thought they owned me. That they could hold power over anyone they pleased.

  “The Last Time?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. “You mean this?” I shifted Tami’s deadweight in my arm and jabbed the IV insert to her neck, threatening to pierce her skin with what I hoped he’d believe was a syringe of their latest development.

  “Don’t.” Michael held his hand up, keeping the gun steady at me. “It’s too much for her.”

  “But we had such an interesting chat. She’s all about having the power.”

  “It will overwhelm her. She can’t have more of the cure.”

  I shrugged.

  In my next breath, I regretted my idea. All one hundred percent of my rash scheme.

  Michael redirected his gun to Luke. “I’ll kill him.”

  Life and death. They truly did play with both. If Michael shot Luke, I knew he wouldn’t want the agony of being forced back to the living, the pain of going insane at the too-rapid transformation into a Xol. Not that anyone working here would want Luke to survive.

  I bit my lip and forced my knees not to buckle.

  I spiraled fast into heartache at the threat of losing Luke, my Luke, the strong yet gentle love that I’d never find in anyone else again. I shook my head and fumbled to keep Tami upright.

  He couldn’t.

  He can’t.

  Luke is supposed to stay with me. I chose him. I chose us.

  “You don’t want to do this, Cassidy.” Michael shook his head. “You can’t. She’s your mother. You can’t hurt your mother.”

  A hand pushed into my shoulder blade and I gasped at the touch, at the shock that someone had crept up behind me. So stunned, I fell forward with Tami.

 
“The hell with that.” Rosa snarled at Michael. “I’m her mother.”

  She didn’t give him a chance to argue semantics. Over my shoulder, she fired a blue tranq dart straight at Michael’s chest.

  Chapter Eleven

  Luke

  I clamped my teeth together at the sharp stab in my leg.

  It had to be right there. In the same damn side I’d been shot before, in the same damn area of the bullet wound I was still recovering from.

  As soon as I heard Rosa’s voice, I’d snapped to. It had to have been a dream. Michael had really knocked me into another galaxy.

  I could have sworn I’d heard Cassidy calling my name. I saw her. Or maybe my desperation to be with her again was messing with my mind.

  Rosa…I’d heard her clearly though. She was mad—no, pissed off.

  And now I was shot in the damn leg again. Lying on my side, I curled into a ball and pressed my hand to the wound. I opened my eyes, squinting against the brightness of red. On, off. On, off. It flashed like an angry finger shaking at me, scolding me for something bad.

  There wasn’t a light in the elevator though.

  As the grogginess faded, a persistent wail broke through the haze.

  Michael had called for a lockdown. Then, I’d thought I’d heard Cassidy.

  “Luke!”

  There it was again, her sweet voice cutting through the cry of the alarm. What in the hell was going on? I opened my eyes wider, blinking hard. I wasn’t in the elevator anymore. In the middle of the hallway, nurses scrambled away from me, the few remaining workers who nearby stayed back from me and Michael. He lay next to me, unmoving in a massive heap of lethal killing power.

  “Luke!”

  No. I definitely heard her. Hadn’t I?

  Cassidy?

  I craned my neck to find her. Her face was clear, if bloody, and there was no sign she was injured. Her mouth gaped at me, like she couldn’t believe she was seeing me. Such pure love and relief in those bright blue eyes. Panting, she rolled an unconscious woman off her lap, got to her feet, and ran.

  Shit. It was her!

  Her footsteps pattered on the floor, tiny vibrations I felt with my cheek pressed to the cold surface. “Luke!”

  Every step she took closer to me spiked me with elation.

  She was alive.

  Right here.

  This gorgeous woman I couldn’t live without.

  She was alive and coming back to me.

  “Luke?” Rosa asked.

  Before my girl could crash into me, I caught a glimpse of my neighbor standing just behind where Cassidy had been sitting with that lifeless woman. Rosa remained where she was as she watched my reunion with Cassidy, pressing one hand to her stomach, the other clutching the same kind of tranq gun I’d used on Michael in Mexico.

  Cassidy dove to her knees to cradle me to her. One deep breath of her, and I was home. Her hands and arms trembled as she held me to her, squeezing tight. Already, my pain ebbed and my fears faded. In her arms, I’d always be at peace. I struggled to trust this perfect moment. Wanting to be with her and knowing she was okay had consumed me since the moment she ran away from the fight in Xochimilco.

  She’s alive. Right here. I was so swarmed with love and relief, I was stupefied to move past that mantra.

  She’s alive and right here with me.

  “Goddammit, Cassie,” I said into her neck, trapping her down to me with one arm. I couldn’t sit up yet. Not until I compressed my wound. Keeping her close wasn’t enough, and I clung to her. “I was so scared.”

  She huffed, the sassy sound ruined with a sob. “You, scared?”

  Her feistiness soothed me, promising me she was still the same. Still the Cassidy I loved with every miserable bit of my soul.

  I pressed my lips to her warm skin, her neck, her chin, anywhere I could nestle close enough in our awkward hold.

  Another slight hiss sounded and we parted to look back.

  Rosa was still there, the tranq gun aimed at the woman on the floor. A small blue dart was embedded in her neck. “They won’t stay down for long.”

  Cassidy gingerly released me but didn’t let go. Instead, she moved both to help me sit up and inspect my leg. “He shot you.”

  I winced at the pain lancing through my leg at the adjustment. Grin and bear it. This wasn’t enough to keep me down and defenseless, dammit. I kept the leg positioned straight out and gripped my thigh above the wound site.

  At the cautious urgency to her voice, I knew I’d have to truly rejoice “rescuing” Cassidy later. We were still locked in the Xol facility. Workers—nurses, and lab helpers—milled in the hallway not far from us. I hadn’t come this far to find Cassidy only to not get us the hell away from here. We were nowhere near in the clear yet.

  “Get away from him,” Rosa called firmly over the din of the alarm. “There’s no telling when he’ll get up after the sedative.”

  I tried to roll onto my hands and knees, Cassidy’s small, warm body holding me up at my side. “I’d say you bought us maybe ten minutes, tops.” If I’d shot Michael with the same thing Rosa just had, I knew he’d fallen down but escaped in that short of a reprieve.

  Jonah joined Rosa in the hallway, limping in his step. In his arms, he held several devices. “Well, I found more,” he told the elderly woman.

  Rosa nodded at him and took another tranq gun from my brother.

  He’d slipped out of the elevator. I couldn’t believe I’d lost track of that detail. Michael had been so close to ending my life, and as I’d neared passing out, I’d grown even more confused at Cassidy calling me.

  He jogged lopsidedly to me and Cassidy. First, he gave us both a tranq gun, leaving the last one for himself. Then he ducked under my arm to help us hobble away.

  Every step seemed to drain the life from me, and as we moved, I scoped the hallway. We were in a medical facility. There had to be some gauze and bandages somewhere in one of these rooms.

  “Sorry I left you,” he said between pants. “If I was going to be the last one standing, I had to take that chance to find her for you,” he said.

  That he’d escaped didn’t faze me. He was an able-bodied man. He hadn’t stuck around to save me in the elevator—not because he didn’t have my back, but because he’d likely known he had to finish finding Cassidy for me. I squeezed his shoulder as he helped drag me toward Rosa. He’d get all my gratitude later.

  “Jonah?” Cassidy asked.

  “Oh.” Jonah snorted a laugh. “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Where is he hit?” Rosa asked without looking at us as we grouped with her.

  “In the leg.” Her question was clinical, not something she’d wanted to know in some form of a bedside manner. She had yet to cease surveying the hallway, as though she was calculating the dangers and strategizing a way out. The fact I couldn’t walk on my own was telling enough.

  We needed to leave this place before the top leaders of Project Xol woke up. They weren’t easy to kill, not with our means and levels of basic human strength. Being stuck in here—with me slowing everyone down even more—wasn’t an ideal situation.

  Jonah released me, letting me lean on my good leg, holding Cassidy. She stood strong beneath my added weight, her small fingers clutching the shirt at my side.

  “I’ll handle it.” I gripped my tranq gun tighter, reminding myself I might be slower but I wasn’t down yet. “Good to see you,” I quipped.

  She deadpanned at me. “Yes, but not like this.”

  “Are you okay?” Cassidy asked Rosa.

  “Until it’s me on the floor instead of them, I’ll make do.”

  “But the poison…” Cassie said.

  Rosa shook her head. “It’s no longer in me. I’m not…one hundred percent, but I’m okay. Once the alarms started, he”—she pointed in the direction where Jonah had gone—“came into my room and removed the IV. As soon as the line was severed, it was easier to breathe. He said he was looking for you and—” She flapped her arm out to the s
ide. “We found you, all right.”

  My brother hadn’t gone far, just into the nearest room. He returned almost immediately with white coils in his hand. Cassidy sighed at the sight of him. “You hold him up. I’ll…”

  If it was possible, I loved her even more. She was willing to battle her phobia of blood for my sake.

  “I can’t hold him up as well as you can,” she confessed.

  Guilt knifed me, that I was causing her trouble or pain.

  “Quickly,” Rosa warned. “Others will come soon.”

  And we only had maybe a dozen shots of the only thing that could temporarily stop the mutants everywhere in this building.

  Not even a beat later, as though Rosa’s prediction summoned it, someone did approach us. “This floor is under lockdown—” a guard said as he ran up to us. His uniform labeled him as a security guard, but he lacked the unnatural muscular build of Xols.

  I didn’t hesitate. Cassidy lowered to the ground and began wrapping gauze around my thigh. Before I could wonder if this security guard was human or not, I raised the handgun still—somehow—tucked into my waistband at the small of my back and fired once at him.

  He cried out, dropping down on the leg I hadn’t shot in the knee.

  Cassidy wrenched the gauze tighter and I winced.

  “Is there any way to take these fuckers out?” Jonah asked as a trio of men came running from the other end of the hall. Tall, beefed-up, and scowling at us without any welcome, I anticipated these were Xol mutants. We’d lucked out with the first one showing up being human, but now we were seriously screwed.

  “What’s going on?” a woman screamed from one of the patient rooms.

  Jolene? I narrowed my eyes at the blonde.

  “What happened to Dr. Shaw?” she cried out hysterically.

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Not you again,” Cassidy groaned. Finished with my leg, now securely tied maybe too tight—I wasn’t going to nitpick her first-aid skills—she stood.

  Jolene charged toward the woman with the bloodstained lab coat. “Dr. Shaw!”

  Shaw?

  “Just shut up,” Cassidy snapped as she shot Jolene with the tranq gun. She missed, and Jonah fired one next, sticking a dart in her chest. She howled and then crumpled.