Edge of Betrayal

by Shannon K. Butcher

  She curled up and covered her head with her hands. “I’m sorry. Don’t hurt me.”

  He let out a noise of disgust. “Just change. We don’t have all night.”

  She turned her back and took off her jeans.

  “Panties, too. Everything goes.”

  Lovely.

  She gritted her teeth and did the job as fast as she could. He bundled up her old clothes and tossed them out the back door. Then he picked up some kind of electronic gadget and started sweeping it over her in a slow grid.

  She tried to cover her nudity, but he kept pushing her hands aside as he waved the gadget over her. “What are you doing?”

  “Checking for bugs.”

  She still had one on her, but Riley had told her that they wouldn’t activate it until they had to. It was hidden beneath a patch of fake skin under her arm—barely visible even to her.

  As the gadget got close to the bug, she had to consciously try not to hold her breath and give her nerves away. There was nothing she could do about the shaking of her limbs or the chill in her fingers and toes, but he didn’t seem to attribute that to anything other than her crappy situation.

  The gadget passed without beeping or flashing, and it was all she could do not to let out a long sigh of relief.

  When the man was satisfied that she was clean of bugs, he handed her an ugly set of oversized sweats. They were stiff and itchy, but she would have willingly put on a dress made of live snakes if it meant not being naked with these men.

  As soon as she was covered, he pounded on the front wall near the driver’s head. The van started up again. The shackles went back on her wrists. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Doctor wants to see you.”

  She played stupid. “What doctor? I’m not sick.”

  The man she’d shot grinned. “He’s going to cut you up, honey. He’s going to saw open your skull just to see what makes you tick. Hope you enjoyed your day, ’cause it’s your last.”

  “Shut up,” ordered Chin Scar.

  The man shut up but didn’t stop looking at her with glee in his eyes.

  What if it was her last day? What if Riley and his friends didn’t find her in time?

  At least she’d gotten to spend some time with a man worthy of her love, unlike all those asshole bastards who had marched in and out of her life.

  She’d never get to see him again. Never kiss him again. But she’d had the chance to see what a real man was like up close before the end. That was more than most women ever got.

  As those bleak thoughts crept in, she had to forcibly shove them away.

  Today was not her last day. She would see Riley again. He would kiss her again, and a hell of a lot more, too. Even if she had to seduce him every day until he gave in.

  Riley was going to be hers in every possible way.

  The image of a baby with her mouth and his eyes popped into her head. Need unlike anything she’d ever felt came close on its heels.

  That was what she wanted. A real life. A real home and family. A man who made her heart jump with joy whenever he walked in the room, and a child who would fill her with more love than she could stand.

  Sophie stared at the man on the floor of the van and smiled. “At least I got to spend my last day putting three bullets in your leg. How in the world are you going to live down getting shot by a woman? I bet your buddies help you remember me for a long, long time. Honey.”

  He started to sit up, moving like he was going to come after her, but Chin Scar stepped between them. “Stop it. Both of you. It’s a long drive, so just settle down and be quiet.”

  Sophie relented rather than risking her secret tracking device being found. She went quiet and closed her eyes, fantasizing about her, Riley, a private beach, and all the things they were going to do once she got him naked.

  * * *

  Mira checked her phone again, activating Sophie’s tracking device just long enough to get a single read on her location. Then she did the same for her father.

  They’d both stopped. In the same place, in eastern Texas, almost at the Louisiana border.

  “I think this is it,” she told Adam.

  He stopped the car about a mile away from where she wanted to be and opened his mic. “What does the satellite show?” he asked Payton.

  “The van just now pulled into the same barn where Sage’s car pulled in about two minutes ago.”

  “Do you see the lab?”

  “Negative. Only trees and a small farm.”

  Adam shifted in his seat. His hands curled around the steering wheel until his knuckles paled. “Something isn’t right. Why aren’t they moving?”

  Mira pinged the trackers again, and both the one on Sophie and the one inside her father’s leg were still active and stationary. “They’re still in there.”

  “I’m going in for a closer look,” said Riley.

  “No,” said Payton. “Stay back. There’s nowhere for them to go.”

  “Too late,” said Gage, who was stationed with Riley. “He’s gone.”

  “This is definitely wrong,” said Adam again. “They’ve been still for too long with no good reason. I wish we had audio.”

  “I’ve got a parabolic mic in back. We could try that.” She leaned over the backseat and opened the black case. The compact mic took only a second to set up, but all she heard was the wind whistling through bare branches and pines.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Maybe we’re just out of range.”

  Payton’s voice came over comms. “I just switched to thermals, and there’s definitely something wrong.”

  “What?” asked Adam.

  “There are warm bodies inside the barn, but none of them are moving. In fact, they’re cooling down. Fast.”

  “Cooling down?” asked Mira. And then it hit her. “They’re dead.”

  “Moving in,” whispered Riley.

  Adam was out of the car before she could stop him. He sprinted across the dark ground, so fast he disappeared into the shadows coating the landscape.

  “Looks like it’s a party,” said Mira as she slid over into the driver’s seat and adjusted it so she could reach the pedals. “I’m on the move.”

  She reached the barn in time to see Adam and Riley disappear inside, weapons in hand. A thick layer of anxiety coated her skin, making it clammy. As soon as she got out of the car, the cold wind hit her hard, stealing her breath.

  She turned on her flashlight, holding it in the hand not filled with her gun. So far, there had been no screams or sounds of combat from inside the barn. That gave her the courage she needed to slip in through the rotting door and do what she could to help her friends.

  The first thing her flashlight beam touched was a grotesquely overinflated blowup doll—the kind men used when they couldn’t get a real woman. Her arms and legs were stiff, and her plastic skin was heavily wrinkled in places.

  “He filled them with hot water,” said Adam. “Sage knew we were watching him.”

  “That’s not all,” said Riley from across the barn.

  Mira went to where he stood, passing several more blowup dolls as she went. Inside the car her father had been in was an array of surgical instruments on a metal tray. They were all covered in blood, and in the middle of them was a tiny tracking device she knew was rated for surgical implantation.

  “It’s the tracker we put in my father. He found it and took it out.”

  Adam picked up a patch of fake latex skin with another tracker attached. “They found Sophie’s, too.”

  Riley let out a strangled cry of frustration and anger that made the hair on the back of her neck lift in warning. She stepped away from him. Adam shifted his body so that he was between her and Riley. Apparently, Adam had felt the same scary vibe she had.

  “How the hell did t
hey get away?” Riley snarled.

  “I don’t know,” said Mira. “There’s no one here. We had satellite support the whole time. It saw the blow-up dolls, so the images must be real.”

  “They are,” said Payton over comms. “I can see the heat signatures of the three of you moving around.”

  Mira looked around, searching for some way of escape. There were no separate rooms where they could hide. “Is there a false wall or something?”

  Riley opened the back of the van.

  Adam crouched and looked beneath the car. “There’s something under here. Some kind of cellar door.”

  Riley bent to look. “Cellar door? Sophie said something about going through one of those when she was taken to the labs as a kid.”

  “Help me move the car.”

  The keys were missing, but Mira dragged the warm, person-shaped water balloon from behind the wheel and found the key slot, which allowed her to put the vehicle in neutral. The men shoved the car out of the way, revealing a pair of rusted doors set in the dirt floor.

  Riley pulled on them while Adam readied his weapon.

  “They’re locked,” said Riley. “Barred from the inside.”

  Adam nodded. “We’re going to need a welding torch. Or some explosives.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Sophie had been in enough bad situations to know one when she saw it.

  Two burly men dragged her down the long, filthy corridor. The walls were a mix of rock and dirt, with supports bracing the tunnel every few feet. It smelled like mildew. Dim electric lights glowed over her head, giving the space just enough light to let her see how dangerous this place really was.

  She didn’t know what it was for, or where it led, but one good sneeze and the ceiling might come caving in on them.

  She tried really hard not to sneeze in the midst of all the mold spores that were doubtlessly floating around.

  Dr. Sage limped ahead of her, leaving a drop of blood every few steps. She only hoped that even though the bad guys had found her tracking device, Riley and the others would follow the tunnel and find her before it was too late.

  The ground beneath her feet sloped up. Water dripped from the electrical conduit overhead. The temperature changed, growing colder as they went up.

  She prayed it meant they were nearing the surface and some fresh air. If she had to die tonight, she really didn’t want it to be down here.

  One of the men escorting them opened a heavy steel door to her left. There had been a few others along the never-ending path, but they all looked too old and rusted to move on their hinges. This one was in a bit better repair, as if someone had made sure it still functioned.

  Steps led up. Sage had a hard time using his injured leg, but she didn’t feel a second of pity for him.

  “If you want to fall and crack your skull open, that works for me,” she said.

  The fist around her left arm tightened painfully.

  Sage glowered at her over his shoulder. “I’ll let that pass since I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  “I’ve never once willingly done anything for you.”

  “Your will is irrelevant. That tracking device they so cleverly tried to hide on you? If not for that, I never would have suspected that I might also have a similar object under my skin. I should have thought of that, but I’ve been a bit . . . distracted over the past few weeks. All the torture and whatnot.”

  “Whatever they did to you, it wasn’t enough.”

  He stopped on the top step and turned. His head cocked to the side as he studied her. “I remember you now,” he said. “You were the screamer.”

  She clamped her lips shut around the bubble of fear that tried to escape.

  She had screamed at his hands. A lot. The memories of those times seemed to shove their way to the top of her brain, forcing her to remember.

  Sage grinned. “Don’t worry. I only need you alive for one little thing. You won’t have to scream for long.”

  * * *

  Mira’s phone rang while Riley and Adam were working on opening the metal doors. Gage had brought in enough plastic explosives and det cord to take the building down, but they were worried about what it might do to anyone on the other side of the door.

  Namely, Sophie.

  She didn’t recognize the number, so she stepped outside, away from the noise, to answer it.

  A cold wind whipped around her head and froze her fingers. “Hello?”

  “By now you know I’m not in the barn,” said her father.

  Suddenly, the temperature outside seemed balmy when compared to the ice freezing over her insides.

  “Where are you?” she managed to ask through chattering teeth.

  “You’ll see soon enough. First, I want you to head south, back out toward the main road, and wait for your ride.”

  “You think I’m going to just hop in the car with one of your goons? You’re fucking crazy.”

  “You won’t find me any other way. And I know how much you want to find me.”

  “We’re nearly through the door,” she lied. “We’ll be on your trail in less than thirty seconds.”

  “Let me save you the trouble. The tunnel beneath the barn leads to a little clearing where I had a helicopter waiting. Your friend and I are getting on it now. You can join us, or you can let her die.”

  “You won’t hurt her. You want her for your experiments too much.”

  “Is that what you really believe?” he asked, using a paternal tone that made her stomach heave dangerously. “Are you saying you don’t remember the lessons I taught you? You don’t remember just how far I’ll go to make sure my daughter obeys?”

  Memories swirled in her head, choking her. He’d hurt so many kids to get her to cooperate. She knew that. But the tone in his voice, the sound of his words buzzing in her head, made old memories resurface—ones she thought long gone.

  She’d tried so hard to forget them—the kids who hadn’t lived through her father’s attempts to teach her some lesson or other.

  “You won’t kill her,” she said, but this time her voice was weak and trembling with uncertainty.

  “I will. Just like I killed the others when you were too stubborn to do what you knew I wanted. Just like I killed your mother. The only thing that matters to me now is the work. You were my greatest creation. It’s time you accept that and come home.”

  She could barely push out a whisper. “Home?”

  “You belong with me. My work on you is almost done. Just a little more and you’ll be perfect—just like I always dreamed.”

  Realization dawned, and with it came a blinding wave of emotion. Disgust, anger, fear. Betrayal.

  “This is about me, isn’t it? This was always about me.”

  “No. It’s about me. My work. My dreams. You’ve always been too selfish to see that. From the moment you were born I knew you would be my greatest achievement.”

  Something inside of her—some small, hopeful part that had always wanted a real, loving father—died, screaming in pain. There was no more hope. No more possibility for redemption.

  “I won’t let you win,” she said. “I won’t give you what you want.”

  “You will.” The wrenching sound of a scream of pain flooded the phone. It was Sophie’s voice, pitched in agony. “Or your friend will suffer before I kill her.”

  Mira had been here before. Too many times to count. Her father knew she would give in. She couldn’t stand the sound of another person’s pain, couldn’t stand the sight of another person’s blood.

  He knew that. It was how he defeated her, how he gained her cooperation. It always had been.

  “Please, don’t hurt Sophie anymore.” Mira started walking south. “I’m coming.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Something wasn’t right. Adam could feel it in
his bones.

  He double-checked the explosive charge Gage was setting. That seemed perfect. There were no words of warning from Payton, who served as their eyes in the sky. Riley was helping Gage get the shaped charge set to blow. Mira had taken a call and slipped outside, safely away from the blast radius.

  That had been ten minutes ago. She should have been back by now.

  Heart thudding with dread, Adam raced outside to search for Mira.

  She was gone.

  He dialed her cell. A familiar ring and blinking light came from a pile of leaves a few yards away.

  His stomach bottomed out, and his ribs took a beating as the queasy adrenaline of fear hit his system.

  He activated his mic. “Anyone have eyes on Mira?”

  “Negative,” said Riley and Gage in unison.

  Payton’s voice held a hint of panic that mirrored Adam’s own. “Nothing on the satellite, but we’re at the extreme edge of its window now. I can only see half of the area.”

  “Redirect it. I think she’s been taken.”

  Riley said, “Hold on. I’m checking the location of her dog tags right now.” He came out of the barn, phone in hand, making a beeline for Adam. He brushed past him by a few feet, then bent over.

  When he stood up, the silver, barcoded tags she always had on her were dangling from his fingers. So was her gun.

  “It’s not good news,” said Payton in his ear. “I backed up the image and got a split-second glimpse of someone getting into a car at the road leading into the property.”

  Adam had to struggle to pull in his next breath. Panic—something he’d rarely allowed himself to feel—shoved its way in, shaking his voice. “Where did it go?”

  “There’s no way to be sure. The satellite’s range didn’t reach that far.”

  Adam closed his eyes and allowed himself one deep breath. He had to focus. Think. He couldn’t let his emotions run rampant.

  But this was Mira, not just any woman. This was the woman he loved.

  Shocked by the realization, he turned it over in his mind, studying it for just a moment before he boxed it away for another time. Strangely, the feeling and all its associated thoughts wouldn’t be hidden. Like so many other things about Mira, his love for her was too powerful to contain.