by Angel Payne
While the assertion warmed her with joy, it was still a lot to take in. Zoe paced to the patio slider and opened it. Twilight was already beginning, bringing with it the colors in the sky that matched Shay’s gaze the most. How many times had she stood here in the last four months right at this time, to raise a hand and reach for the breathtaking mix of amber and gold and copper?
But it was impossible to touch the sky. Bringing Shay back had always been an equal impossibility…until now.
All she had to do was watch him “breed” with another woman.
“Okay, Caspar.”
She heard the agent turn in his seat. “Okay? You… You mean you’ll do it?”
“Sí. But only on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“If Buffy comes out of this with an accidental black eye, you all look the other way.”
* * *
Buffy was going to get her black eye sooner rather than later.
As the woman giggled again at one of Homer Adler’s lame jokes, Zoe gripped her clipboard tighter and readjusted her glasses with another girl growl. Oh yes, the woman was an Amazon—to the point that she wondered if Adler, Stock, and Newport had really found her in the middle of the Brazilian rain forest.
At least they were finally walking down the dingy gray hall in the warehouse now, making their way to Shay’s room. It had taken almost three hours to get here. After four security checkpoints, they’d taken an hour for lunch and then another hour for her and Buffy to fill out so much paperwork, she wondered if she was actually helping draft a Congressional bill. If that was the case, then she’d just done so as Helena Troy—a cover name even two hours of pleading to Caspar hadn’t changed. The agent assured her that nobody in Adler’s offices would blink at the name after they looked at her disguise, a point Zoe had to agree with now. After a prosthetic nose, inch-thick glasses, and an outfit they literally bought for five bucks in a Salvation Army rejects bin, she looked like a cross between Emily Litella and the scarier side of Joan Crawford.
Just the look she wanted for seeing the man of her soul after four months.
Finally, Homer called the medical team to confirm Shay was “ready to shoot.” He and Buffy had enjoyed a really good guffaw at that one. Zoe survived the moment by imagining her fist in the bimbo’s left eye socket.
Just a few more steps, girlfriend.
She focused on the joyful certainty of it. Timing it to her steps helped as well. Her heart certainly wasn’t going to cooperate with the effort. If it were capable of bursting out of her chest, it would’ve done so—then torn down the hall, escaped up the stairs they planned on using for Shay’s escape, and run around the block five times.
Buffy let out an especially loud titter. “Oh, my God!” she cried at Homer. The final word lasted at least ten seconds, making Zoe wonder if the Buff-ster was secretly a mutant too. On the strength of that bray, she guessed a touch of donkey mixed with a bit of goat.
Wishful thinking.
“So what did the monkey say?” Buffy grabbed Homer’s arm like the fate of nations rested on the joke’s punchline.
“How about, ‘My name is Buffy. Please punch me in both eyes, Miss Helena Troy’?”
Caspar’s answering snicker resounded through her head. It took a moment to identify the sound, since they’d had to embed her comm piece into one of her teeth like a filling. She told Caspar it made him sound like God. Right now, it was more like God eating a cracker.
“Breathe,” came the agent’s quiet reinforcement. “You’re doing well.”
“Which means I can hit her in both eyes?”
“Zoe.” God was back to his no-bullshit self.
“If she does conceive Shay’s kid, somebody better hope the angels pick from the right box when it comes to locking in the brains.”
“You need to chill, goddamnit. Focus on the plan. You know if we get the right opportunity, this will all go down before Buffy ever does.”
“That’s encouraging. Thanks.”
Caspar didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure she’d hear him over the thunder of her heart anyway. They’d arrived. If Homer’s all-stop didn’t inform her of that fact, the retinal scan next to the door certainly did. Buffy bounced a little on her bright-pink strappy sandals, which perfectly matched her skimpy mini dress. Fleetingly, Zoe wondered if she’d just come off a shift with some businessman at the Bellagio. And wrestled back her hundredth desire to punch the woman.
Buffy didn’t help her cause by leaning over and whispering in a just-us-girls tone, “Isn’t this exciting? We’re making scientific history!”
Zoe forced a smile past her careening senses and churning stomach. Thank God she hadn’t eaten much for lunch.
Homer swung the door in.
Don’t lose it. Don’t lose it. Don’t lose it.
She commanded her feet to move. And her eyes to lift. And her hands to stay where they were, instead of going for the throats of the two men who already waited in the room for them with proud grins on their faces—next to the bed containing the nearly naked, completely unconscious form of the man she loved.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.
Caspar had tried to prepare her, but all he’d rattled off were the facts. The next-to-catatonic stillness. The shallow breaths. The skin that nearly matched his sheets for color. Well, his sheet. There was only one, draped across the middle of his body, though the cover accomplished very little at actually hiding the body part there. Even the cotton candy in Buffy’s brain didn’t miss it. Her stunned sigh was obvious in the room’s tense air.
Tense? That only began to describe this chamber. Zoe peered around, certain she couldn’t be the only one aware of it. The aura of despair. The stench of hopelessness. The palpability of brokenness.
She thought back to Tait’s vow at the Vdara, to put a dagger into Cameron Stock’s neck. She’d wondered how the man could talk of the act with such glee in his eyes…but wasn’t so confused anymore. A blade in her hand, driven into Adler’s carotid, suddenly became a very nice fantasy.
The bastard guided Buffy across the room. “Miss Buffy Walsh, I’d like you to meet the men who’ve made this research possible—Mr. Cameron Stock and General Kirk Newport. Gentlemen, I am pleased to present Miss Walsh, who has enthusiastically accepted our offer to be the program’s first surrogate.”
Buffy curtsied and giggled. “Well, what’s not to accept about fifty thousand dollars?”
Stock took Buffy’s hand and leaned over it. “A pleasure, Miss Walsh.”
Newport only nodded like the corrupt asshole he was. “You’re doing your country a great service, my dear. A great service.”
“Oh. Gosh.” Buffy brushed down the front of her dress. “Ask not all the stuff your country does for you but how you can give back…right?”
“Sure.” Stock smiled indulgently. “That’s…uh…just fine, Buffy. Just fine.”
“Miss Troy?”
Homer’s prompting was sharp, as if it weren’t the first time he’d issued it.
“Huh?” she stammered.
“Zoe.” Caspar’s voice was a boom in her head. “Snap out of it!”
“I’m…I’m sorry,” she spluttered. “I was…uhhh…assessing the…uhhh…”
Dear God, what was Shay? Not their damn “test subject.” Rats in labs were treated better than this. The bed was nothing but a wide plastic mattress on a dark oak frame, and he was tethered to it by chains connected to metal shackles, his arms raised over his head and his legs stretched out toward the corners. He sure as hell wasn’t their patient, either. The fresh stitches and incision points proved that, as well as the pallor of his skin and the pronounced loss of his muscle tone. She couldn’t bear wondering about the last time he’d seen the sun or been allowed to even take a walk up the hall…
If she called him their stud horse, that came a little closer, though thoroughbreds weren’t shot up with so many sedatives that their arms rivaled a junkie’s for needle tracks. Circus animal seemed
too kind as well.
Today, he’d become nothing more than their whore.
And she swore that every breath she took and move she made in this room would be with one purpose in mind.
To free him from their filthy clutches.
“Yes, yes,” the general declared, seeming relieved that “Ms. Troy” returned the atmosphere to a businesslike tone. “Excellent thinking, Ms. Troy. Feel free to check everything out and…mmm…carry on, as they say. The men will be keeping the leather warm in the waiting room.”
Zoe forced a cordial nod to the man. Hypocritical cabrón. He liked the idea of reaping the financial benefits from selling Shay’s sperm but not the mess required for it. It was frightening to contemplate the man and his ego ever leading men into real battle.
Stock followed in Newport’s steps, leaving Homer behind with Zoe and Buffy, as well as the nurse who monitored Shay’s vitals in masked silence. Zoe eyed him expectantly, but Buffy sidled up to him with a seductive sashay, pulling suggestively at both his elbows. “Homie,” she said in a whine to rival a four-year-old, “can’t you stay?”
Zoe pretended to scribble data on her clipboard. Between fighting the need to throw herself around Shay this second and the craving to knock Buffy out before she got anywhere near the bed, keeping her composure was a big enough win on its own. She didn’t need to go for the bonus round with “Homie’s” continued presence.
“I’m flattered, darling,” Homer crooned, “I truly am, but it’s not a good idea.”
Thank God.
“But why?”
Maybe that client Buffikins had left behind had been into daddy-daughter play.
“I’m not Shay’s favorite person in the building. It’s probably best for everyone concerned if I wait with the other men. Besides, I think Newport brought a bottle of his good brandy.”
“Mmmm. I love brandy.” She pouted at him. “Save some for me?”
“Uh-uh-uh.” He gave her nose a chiding tap. “None for you…Mommy.”
Her dagger. The man’s neck. It swirled into a better dream by the minute.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Buffy turned and beamed a bright grin at Zoe. “So…whaddup, H?” She wiggled her shoulders rap-girl style, but the last thing Zoe wanted was some lame white girl humor. More awkwardly now, Buffy murmured, “You’re supposed to give me the all-systems-go, right? I mean, Homie told me that they’re going to make him a little more…lively.” She glanced toward Shay. “I mean, the chains are fine. I can be a kink bunny as much as the next girl. But I’m not into necrophilia, you know?”
“Sure.” She pushed it out by sheer force of will. With her remaining strength, she pushed down the ocean of nausea in her stomach.
Dios. She really wasn’t any smarter than Buffy, was she? Just like the moment she’d first entered the room, she thought she was ready for this moment. Had drilled over the op plan a thousand times with Caspar, thinking that would anesthetize her to everything when it really went down—but like her students at the university, she’d gone through the motions as a lame simulation of the truth.
And now, with timing that sucked ass, Shay let out a long and painful moan.
“Hmmm.” Buffy’s eyes sparkled like she smelled fresh cookies. “Now that sounds promising.”
“Sure.” She was getting pretty good at this lying-through-her-teeth shit. Swallowing back another surge of bile, she followed Buffy to the bed.
Shay jerked weakly at his wrist chains, grimacing when they didn’t give. He rolled his head from side to side on the pillow. As sweat broke out on his neck, Zoe had to clench the back of a chair to keep from grabbing a washcloth off his tray and soothing him. Homer had been specific in his instructions to “Helena.” After the men departed the room, Buffy was the only person in the room who touched Shay.
It was a good thing that Buffy at least knew her way around a man.
Or maybe not such a good thing.
Part of Zoe’s heart exhaled with relief when the woman automatically reached for the washcloth. The other part railed with the wrath of Hera at watching Buffy stroke Shay with it, slowly and carefully, murmuring words of comfort to him as she did.
Both sides froze into silence when he dipped his head toward her hand, his lips parting on a wordless entreaty for more.
“That’s it,” Buffy whispered. “That’s good. You’re okay, tiger.”
Zoe whirled, pretending to write on her notepad again. Her scream of anguish began in the pit of her gut, roared its way up her throat, and was barely kept in by her clenching teeth. Nobody in the room heard it.
But Caspar, embedded in her filling, sure did. “Zoe,” he barked over the comm, “you need to keep it together, girl.”
“We’ll handle it.” The new voice on the comm delivered a double punch. First, it was another female, albeit with a rasp coming in somewhere between Courtney Love and Kirstie Alley. Second, and most weirdly, Zoe heard her words in stereo. “Won’t we, darlings?”
Zoe breathed to school her features while she slammed her gaze over to the masked nurse in the corner. One of the eyes above that mask, glistening with dark amber wickedness, winked at her.
Tait.
For once, she was grateful as hell for the man’s intrepid side.
“Everything’s just fine.” Buffy said it, thinking the “nurse” had spoken to her. She rewet the washcloth and started wiping down Shay’s chest. “We’re going to take this in easy steps, baby.”
“Slower is better, I’d say.” Tait flashed a stare that was filled with apology but told her he had the bigger picture in mind.
Even though Zoe didn’t know how much bigger she could stand it.
Before Buffy even tugged the sheet away, she knew what the woman would find. Shay’s erection was a mouthwatering sight even at half-strength. As the woman hummed her approval and began to circle the firm bulb at the head of his cock, she screamed at Tait with her eyes. How far do we let this go?
It wasn’t a fair question. She already knew the answer anyway. They couldn’t unshackle Shay and expect him to stumble anywhere now, let alone walk.
“On the other hand, I don’t know if our boy is on board with that thinking,” Buffy commented. “Whoa, tiger. You really want to roar, don’t you?”
“Mmmm. Fuck…yeah.”
Dios. No.
As the words tumbled out of Shay’s mouth, Zoe’s heart really did beg her for a bungee jump out of her chest. She couldn’t do this anymore. No matter what kind of platitudes her mind threw at her, that he had no idea what he was saying—that he barely knew where he was let alone to whom he spoke—they were meaningless against the pain of watching him struggle anew against his bonds, battling to reach for Buffy…as his sex lurched higher beneath her fingers.
“That’s it,” the woman murmured, letting her hand slide over his whole stalk. “You’re doing great. God, you’re magnificent.”
“Mang—mal—magificant,” Shay babbled back. “No. Not me. You. Bew-ba-ful. You.”
Zoe glared at Tait. I can’t do this.
“Hmmm,” he murmured, seeming to direct every word at Buffy. “Just a few more minutes, I think.”
Buffy shot back a questioning stare. “Are you sure? I mean, look at him.”
“No.” Shay’s voice was clearer this time. The lunges of his head against the pillow were sharper and stronger. His eyes started to twitch. “Just wanna look at you—”
“That’s it.” Zoe slammed the clipboard into the chair.
“Zoe.”
She already had her gaze locked with Tait’s. His eyes detonated with elated astonishment—the same stuff coursing through every inch of her soul.
“Zoe.” It erupted from Shay in damn near a shout this time. “Don’t…go. Need…you. Zoe. Zoe.”
Buffy stretched out beside him, continuing to work her hand over him. “Sure, baby. Call me Zoe, if that’s what you want. I’m going to take such good care of you and your cock…”
The words we
re just as soothing as everything else the woman had said, but Shay reacted like she’d just told him she was a succubus. “No. Not right. This… This isn’t right.”
“Of course it is, baby. It’s so good. So right.”
“Wh-Where’s Zoe?”
Zoe pinged her stare around the whole room. Tait joined her, clearly on board with the same task. There was a good chance, despite her presence there as Helena, that Newport, Stock, and Homer were also observing the party from the next room. But where would such a camera be?
Once Tait stood close enough to her, he relayed, “Yo, Cary Grant.” It was their pet name for Caspar. “I-Man’s rising from the fog a lot faster than I expected. Little B and I are hunting for the room cam now.”
“Little B?” Zoe queried. “But…”
“You’re the new Little B now,” he explained. “Come on, it’s just a matter of time—if we can get all our asses out of here in one complete piece.”
“Save the wedding invitations for later,” Caspar yelled, “and find the damn camera.”
“Check. Hey, Double-O, you still with us?”
“Wouldn’t miss this fun for the world,” Rhett answered.
“You still want to try your hand at jamming these doors?” Tait charged.
“Is Scarlett Johansson the key to world peace?”
“God help me,” Caspar mumbled.
“Every lock in that building should be tighter than a virgin in five…four…three…”
Rhett’s countdown was drowned by the sound of cracking wood. Zoe joined Tait in whipping their sights back around in time to see Shay break both his wrist shackles free from the top of the bed. Coming along for the ride was the mounting plate for the restraints—and the monitoring camera embedded into it. Both were ruined.
“Uhhh…found the cam,” Tait announced. “And disabled it too.”
“Where the hell is Zoe?” Shay roared.
Buffy, who had to be either the bravest or most clueless woman she’d ever met, continued her seduction with a sultry game face. “Sssshhh, baby. It’s going to be okay, I promise.” Estimation option number three—maybe she really was that desperate for fifty thousand dollars. Undoubtedly, her payout depended on producing a healthy baby. But was it worth getting swung at with a splintered headboard and a couple of heavy chains?
