by Lanie Jordan
Tasha cleared her throat and I glanced up in time to see her eyes narrow at Chris. “Why don’t you ever get me food?”
He grinned. “Because you’re too picky and change your mind half a dozen times in under two minutes.”
“Huh.” After a second, she nodded. “There’s some truth in that.”
Linc came back a few minutes later with two trays of food: bacon, sausage, and gravy and biscuits. Without hesitating, I plopped a piece of my bacon on his tray.
Chris frowned at Tasha. “Why don’t you give me your food?”
“Because I don’t like sharing,” she said, taking a bite of her biscuit as Linc and I both laughed.
Linc shot them both a smug look. “It’s a delivery fee.”
“Yeah, right.” I snorted. “You’ll steal it, anyway. I’m just being practical and saving time.”
He grinned. “That works, too. I’m easy.”
Since we still had at least twenty minutes before we were supposed to be outside, we chatted quietly—mostly quietly, anyway—and finished eating. Linc usually dumped the trays when we finished, but Chris took them before Linc could. As he carried them away, I heard him mutter something about Linc trying to make him look bad. Tasha laughed. I glanced at Linc. He’d heard Chris and was poorly fighting another smug grin.
My stomach started to gnaw on itself, despite the fact I’d just fed it a decent meal. I didn’t know why I was nervous about going out front. I mean, it couldn’t be bad news, right? And if it was, it couldn’t be—I hoped—directed solely at me since the message had included all the P3s.
Then again…it was Greene. It could be anything.
The nervousness only increased when, as soon as we stepped outside, I spotted Greene standing in front of three of the CGE’s signature black vans. Peter, Adam, and the other hunters who’d helped train with us in Combat were there, too.
Greene smiled but didn’t say anything until the last of the P3s arrived. “I’m sure you’re all anxious to know why I’ve called you here to meet your instructor,” he finally said, indicating Mr. Connor standing beside him. No one responded verbally, but a few people nodded. “Mr. Connor—along with some of our senior agents—will be taking you to another CGE facility for training today. This facility houses some of the demons we’ve captured for research. Reading your texts, testing, running basic scenarios—those are all great things, but you need to see them up close and study them.”
“Field trip!” someone shouted.
Someone else said, “Cool!”
Greene’s lip tilted up in a small grin. “Yes, I suppose some of you will think it is ‘cool’,” he began, his tone easy. “However, your training will be in a controlled environment. Mr. Connor, the agents, and the scientists you’ll be paired with will supervise everything, from what you say to what you do. Anyone who disregards their command will, I assure you, dislike the consequences. If you’re asked to leave or it’s reported back to me that you weren’t on your absolute best behavior, that person or persons will likely be suspended.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chris’s eyes widen and he gulped. Beside him, Tasha took his hand and patted it, then whispered something in his ear. He gave her a soft smile.
“You will be monitored,” Greene was saying, “as you are in your classes. I, personally, will be reviewing those recordings, so think before you act. Don’t believe you’ll get away with bad behavior even if no one seems to be watching you. I will.” His smile may have been easy, just like his words, but the glint in his eyes challenged anyone to argue or test him. “This is an important part of your training. Take it seriously. Respect those around you and your surroundings.” He glanced at Mr. Connor.
Mr. Connor stood in his usual hands-behind-his-back pose. “I want you lot to see demons up close. Fighting agents is one thing, but it’s different from fighting a demon. I can show you where to hit one, either on a CM or from a picture, but you need to see them. You need to watch them move, see how they operate. You need to see them in person. Pay attention, because what you learn will be on your exams.”
Director Greene looked at the Prospects. “Once a week, you’ll be going on a different day with a different instructor to the demon facility. Your instructor will tell you what he—or she—wants from you. This is, in a way, a field trip, but it’s also part of your training. Don’t forget that.”
I bit back a laugh as someone muttered something about Greene making even the coolest thing sound bad. Greene was definitely good at that.
As the agents ushered students into the vans, Greene pulled me and Linc aside. “This should be especially important for you, Miss Hall,” Greene said.
I frowned up at him. “I don’t understand.”
“You’ll be meeting with the scientist I mentioned before, Dr. Cherry. She would like another Prospect there, so I’d like Mr. Stone to join you for your appointments, assuming neither of you have any objections, that is.” He raised an eyebrow at Linc in question.
“Not a problem.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Though I’m not sure why she’ll need me.”
“I believe she’s hoping to use you to set a baseline. You two have become very…close,” he said, smiling, “since Miss Hall’s arrival at the CGE, so I believe you two make the perfect team.”
My eyebrows scrunched together. There’d been something in the way Greene said we’d become close, almost like he knew we were a couple and was glad about it. It didn’t surprise me that he knew—it was Greene, he knew everything—because Linc and I weren’t exactly subtle. But it was disconcerting, and just plain weird, to think he approved or actually liked it.
“Once you arrive, I believe Dr. Cherry intends to separate you from the other Prospects and work with you alone. I’m afraid she’ll have to explain exactly what she needs and wants from you.” He smiled and bowed his head slightly. “Good luck, Miss Hall, Mr. Stone.”
Adam, hanging out the back of a van, whistled at us. ”You two about ready?”
We nodded and quickly jumped in behind him. Tasha, Chris, and two other prospects were seated already. Adam closed the doors, took his seat, and then we were headed off the property.
Ten minutes into the trip, the windows darkened to the point we couldn’t see out them at all. Everyone had been really loud until then, but when the windows did their auto-tint thing, the silence in the bus became eerie. Out of sheer boredom, I guestimated the time spent on each road and memorized the turns. It didn’t help much, but I figured we were somewhere near the ocean, because it seemed like we went over a bridge.
When the van stopped an hour later, we all jumped out. All the Prospects blinked against the brightness of the sun or tried to shield their eyes.
The facility was huge. If I had to guess, I’d say it was at least five times as wide as the North and South Towers combined. But unlike the CGE towers, the facility was a long, white single-story building. I turned a slow circle and spotted a tall, solid brick wall that surrounded the property. It had cameras spaced every ten feet apart. There were spotlights on both sides of the fence. On the outside, a forest thick with trees. It was like a fortress.
Two things I didn’t see: signs or anything resembling an address.
I peered at Adam. “Doesn’t this place have a name?”
“Not one you need to know, no.”
“Guessing it’s more secret than the CGE?”
Adam nodded. “Yeah. The CGE keeps a few demons on hand in the South Tower, but this is one of the main research facilities for the area. Outsiders aren’t allowed here for any reason.”
Linc walked up behind me and bumped my shoulder. “What happens if people show up?”
“They don’t. It’s not exactly the easiest place to find.” Adam shrugged. “It’s happened, of course, but as far as anyone knows, it’s a rehab center.”
“Which is kind of true,” I said.
“Exactly. It’s easier to lie if you shroud it in as much truth as possible.”
&nbs
p; I grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I bet you will.” Adam shook his head and laughed, then he motioned us forward. “Come on.”
Me and the others followed Adam and Mr. Connor to the front of the building. Mr. Connor used an ID card (similar to the ones we used to get in our rooms) and a card reader. There was a beep, then a small panel above it opened with a small blue light in the middle. Mr. Connor lowered his head until he was eye-level with the light, and then it swept out in a beam of blue as it scanned his eye.
“Authorization approved,” a mechanical voice said. A split second later, the double-doors slid apart.
Once inside, I stepped forward enough to look around. On the immediate right, a large room with clear windows. Dozens of monitors lined the walls, showing outside the building and, from what I could see, some of the rooms. There were half a dozen security guards stationed in front of different monitors, and near the door, a man and a woman in white lab coats stood talking to each other.
The layout was a complete one-eighty from the CGE buildings. Unlike the North Tower with its maze of hallways, multiple staircases and elevators, this building only had one corridor, with rooms on either side, that seemed to go on forever.
The security room door opened. Two guards and the people in lab coats stepped out. The guards walked up to Adam and Peter and shook hands. Adam and Peter handed over their weapons and were each given a tranq gun. (I only knew they were tranq guns because they had blue clips instead of black clips with real ammo.)
The man wearing the lab coat walked over to the main group of P3s. Briskly, the woman came over to Linc and I. Her hair was dark red, styled in a short mohawk on the top of her head, and her eyes were a dark blue. “You must be Jade Hall,” she said, smiling at me. She looked at Linc. “And you must be Lincoln Stone.” At my blank stare, she laughed. “Director Greene sent over everyone’s files to be looked over and your files included your pictures.” She smiled again, this time at Linc. “I hear you prefer to go by Linc?”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
The smile stayed in place. “You two will be working with me today. I’m Dr. Cherry. My colleague, Dr. Bates, will be working with your classmates.”
“Nice to meet you,” Linc and I both said.
“And you. If you’ll give me just a moment, please.”
Linc and I exchanged looks. “Sure,” I said.
She walked a few feet away and said something to her colleague, who waved and started down the hall with the other P3s. Eric glanced over his shoulder and glared, then Tasha and Chris did the same thing, only their glares (I hoped) were meant for Eric and not me. Tasha gave us a sad little wave bye.
“We’re going this way, so if you two will follow me,” Dr. Cherry said, leading us in the opposite direction as everyone else. “I’m one of the lead scientists who’s studying your DNA, Jade, which is another reason I’m familiar with who you are. I’ve been looking over your tests results from Adria Jones—Doc?—and Dr. Hamilton. I’ve taken over the research on your DNA.”
“Good,” I said, and then I winced. “That sounded rude, but I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t like Dr. Hamilton.” I cringed this time, thinking back on Greene’s words about being on our best behavior. “What I mean is—”
While Linc tried—and failed—to hide his chuckle, Dr. Cherry laughed. “It’s fine. I’m aware of your distaste for Dr. Hamilton.”
I made a face. “Is that in my file, too?”
Another laugh. “Not exactly. I tend to...need to know everything about what—or who, as the case may be—I’m researching. In other words, I’m very nosy. I apologize.”
Amused now, I said, “It’s fine.”
She stopped walking and turned to face me. Her head tilted to the side. “To be perfectly honest, I’ve worked with Dr. Hamilton before, so I admit I’m not at all surprised by your reaction to him, neither can I say that I blame you for it. He is a great doctor, even if his social skills tend to be on the low side. I am, however, selfishly glad that I’ve been given the opportunity to work with you.”
“Thanks. I think.”
With a nod, she started walking again. She chatted easily about this or that, and though I tried paying attention to her words, my focus wandered and I found myself glancing at rooms as we passed them. Most were closed off so I couldn’t see inside, but some, like the security room, had windows, though they appeared empty.
We continued down the hallway for another few minutes before Dr. Cherry finally stopped outside a room. This one had windows, but I didn’t see any demons roaming around inside. “This is where we’ll work,” she said, using her ID on the card reader, then doing the whole eye-scan thing like Mr. Connor had done.
“Lots of security,” I mumbled.
“It is, yes. But we can never be too safe when we’re dealing with demons or research. What we do here is very important and we can’t afford escapes or break-ins.”
“Have there been any of either?” I asked, curious.
“I don’t believe so. But, I’ve been here only three years, so there very well may have been issues before I joined. That’s not exactly something that’s brought up very often, as I’m sure you can imagine. Still, better safe than sorry, right?”
I nodded as the door opened and she gestured us inside. The room was longer than it was wide, though it was probably fifteen or twenty feet across. It was sectioned off with some kind of plastic or glass, so it was actually three rooms in one. The room we walked into was the smallest and bare. To the left, a slightly bigger room with a desk and folding chairs. On our right, the largest section. The floor-to-ceiling partition separating it from the main room had quarter-sized holes spread evenly apart. There wasn’t an entrance to that room, but it had four doors on that side of the partition.
Turning back in a slow circle, I wiped my hands across my jeans. They were sweaty again. This is what I’d asked for, wasn’t it? A way to figure out which demons I needed to avoid so I could still go on hunts. Why did it make me so nervous? I didn’t have a good answer (or a bad one), so I ignored the sick feeling in my stomach and faced Dr. Cherry. “What are we going to be doing?”
“A few basic tests for now that will actually require very little on your part. This will likely be quite boring for you both, I’m afraid. What I plan to do is have a few different species of demon brought in, gauge their reaction to Linc here first, and then their reaction to you. Director Greene explained what we’re hoping to accomplish, didn’t he?”
“Not really. He mentioned you wanted Linc, so I’m guessing you’re going to try to see which demons hate me for being human, and which hate me for being, well, me.”
The doctor laughed. “Bluntly put, but yes, that’s exactly what we’ll be doing. This will, we hope, help you when it comes time for you to actually hunt, and help us as well.”
“How does it help you?” Linc asked, looking from me then to the doctor.
“She’s having issues we never anticipated, issues that, honestly, shouldn’t even be present. Since they are—due to the vampire bite we assume—we have to find a way to work around it. For her and future hunters, as well. Certain demon species reacting positively to her is a good thing—for her, the demons, the researchers. But…”
“Them reacting negatively is bad,” Linc finished for her.
“Yes, exactly. A vampire immunity is a great thing. If we can reproduce those results, it’d be even better. But we need to do it safely. Having a kind of immunity toward them would be excellent, and it’s something I hoping to figure out, but not if the cost is having other demons react so negatively. In essence, we need to make more of you, only without the bad side-effects.”
She smiled and laughed, so I tried to do the same, even though that sick feeling in my stomach turned into a pit of nausea. Why did they want more of me? Beside the vampire-immunity thing—which was admittedly good since it kept me alive—what else could they want to duplicate? Sure, I was stronger a
nd faster than the other Prospects, but the agents, the ones who’d had the treatments, were still stronger and faster than me, weren’t they?
“If you’re ready, I’m going to have the first demon brought in. Jade and I will be in that room,” she said, pointing to the room on the left, the office-like one with the desk and chairs. “All I need you to do, Linc, is stand in front of the partition, about five feet away. Just let the demon get your scent.”
“Stand there and look pretty, Flyboy.”
He flashed me a quick grin. “I can do that.”
Dr. Cherry chuckled and led me away. “I take it you two are involved?” she whispered.
“Oh. Er…”
“It’s fine.” She opened the door to the room and I followed her inside. She looked down at me and winked. “It doesn’t take a scientist to figure it out. It’s very telling, the way you two look at each other.”
I tried not to blush, which, naturally, only made me blush even more. “Oh. Well.” I scratched my head. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re together.” Saying the words felt...weird, because I’d never said them out loud before. But it felt good, too.
Dr. Cherry smiled again, then sat down in one of the folding chairs. I sat in one of the others and continued to rub my palms over my jeans.
Picking up a tablet from the desk, she set it on her lap and turned it on. On the wall, she pressed a button on an intercom system. “You ready, Linc?”
Linc looked over his shoulder and nodded. “Ready.”
“Okay.” She typed something on the tablet. Her finger hovered over a button that said Release. “Ready, Jade?”
“He’s safe, right?” All that would be standing between Linc and a demon was a partition—a partition that didn’t seem that thick.
“He’ll be perfectly safe. The glass is made of a special material—it’s nearly indestructible.”
I let out a breath. “Okay.”
She pressed the button. A second later, the far left door in the other room opened. For a minute, nothing happened, but then I saw movement. When the demon came out, I frowned. “Is that a Sharphynx? Maybe you should’ve told him to cover his ears.”
