by Tate James
“What? No... I....” Her trembling subsided , but she was still foggy. I needed to push a little more. Hopefully she wouldn’t kill me later.
“Maybe this is what you deserve. If you’re too weak to even get yourself out of your own memory trap, then you’re too weak to be a part of our team. I told Cal that you were a waste of time from day one, and it looks like I was right.”
I used a deliberate sneer of disgust in my tone and prayed it came out believable. “All you do is put other people in danger trying to save you from your own idiocy. I bet right now the guys are planning some sort of jailbreak for you, and they’re likely to get hurt, just like me, all because Princess Christina is too fucking weak to get herself out.”
She stilled completely, then her eyes snapped open. She focused on me, glaring daggers. The intense rush of relief at seeing her usual fire almost made me stagger, and I leaned against the cell door to stay on my feet.
Come on baby girl, time to kick some ass.
42
The fog cleared from my head, the memories growing fainter as reality grew sharper and all I could hear was Austin’s dickish voice yapping on and on about how weak I was.
The fucking asshole. How dare he call me weak? He had no idea the shit I have lived through. Ugh, I had seriously had enough of putting up with his attitude. The second I got out of this cell, I was punching him straight in the smug, chiseled face.
“I’m seriously going to kick your fucking ass, Austin,” I hissed at him, narrowing my eyes.
“I’d be more worried if you weren’t handcuffed to a bed right now, Princess.” Despite his sneer, I could swear there was a playful smile ghosting across his lips. He had a point though.
“Any bright ideas on how to sort this mess out?” he asked, and I could have screamed at the sarcasm.
“Actually, Captain Cynical, I do.” The handcuffs holding me were strong, made of steel most likely. The one on my left wrist was just a tiny bit looser than the rest, so I knew it was my best option. I sucked in a deep breath, then using the edge of the bed frame for leverage, I dislocated my thumb and slid my hand out of the bracelet in a move I had practiced countless times since leaving foster care. Once clear, I gritted my teeth and pushed it back into place, the pain relief instant.
“Holy shit,” dickhead muttered in what might have been admiration. Still, I ignored him and considered the other shackles. They were too tight for the same trick to work, and I didn’t have my lock picks.
“Do you have anything—” I started to ask but stopped when a thin steel pin landed on the floor near my free hand. “Perfect. Thanks.” I frowned, unused to Austin being so accommodating, but he just shrugged. I used the pin to release my limbs, and once free, I rubbed the blood back into them. I stretched out my tense muscles then checked out the lock on the door.
“I already tried,” Austin admitted. “Couldn’t fit my hand through the mesh.”
It was my turn to smirk as I easily slipped my smaller hand through the mesh, reaching around and picking the lock on the cell door using his steel pin. The door clanged open. Triumphant, I glanced at Austin.
“All right, so you’re not completely useless,” he reluctantly admitted. “Are you going to get me out of here too? Or just stand there admiring me?”
“You want to try that again? Seems to me like you need me. Poor, weak, little me. Now, would you like to ask me nicely?” Probably wasn’t the time for this, but he owed me for all the crap he’d thrown at me.
His jaw clenched, and his lip twitched in a snarl but he grit out, “Please, Christina, will you get me the fuck out of here?”
“Pretty please with rainbow unicorns on top?” I prompted.
This time I swore I could actually hear his teeth crack as he responded. “Pretty please with rainbow unicorns on top, you fucking nutcase,” he muttered the last under his breath, and I let it slide before unlocking his cell door for him. I expected some sort of thanks for freeing him, but instead he whipped off his T-shirt, showing me a whole lot more ink. Holy crap, was it actually physically possible to have that many abs? I thought there had to be a legal limit or something, but it looked like I was wrong because damn... He coughed awkwardly and thrust his shirt out to me. Why the hell did I want his shirt…? Oh, I was naked.
Completely naked. Fucking Simon.
Crap. I dragged the fabric over my head and turned my face back towards my cell, allowing myself some privacy. From the corner of my eye, I spotted my boots. Thankfully they had been excluded from Simon’s cutting exercise. I took a minute to tug them on, trying to shake the lingering feeling of Simon’s hands. An instant rush of calm washed over me with the scent of honey and oatmeal and a touch of man sweat. What the actual fuck was going on? Was I smelling Austin’s shirt right now? I must have been more messed up from that trip down memory lane than I thought.
Trying not to think too hard about my possible brain damage, I remained grateful Austin was so tall because his shirt hung like a dress on me, mercifully covering my bare ass. There wasn’t much I could do about the heat staining my cheeks, and right now, it didn’t matter. We needed to get out of there. Ready, I led the way down the hallway in the direction I’d been escorted in from. Austin, for once, refrained from making smart remarks as he followed me closely up the narrow staircase and along the short passageway at the top until we reached a locked door, and we both groaned in frustration. It was an electronic lock, meaning we couldn’t just pick it. The only way we were getting out was with a swipe card.
Austin quickly jogged back down to the cells and checked the other direction, but it was a dead end. We needed to wait until someone came down here in order to make our escape.
“We shouldn’t need to wait long,” Austin said, his gaze on the door. “That skinny prick sounded all too excited to get back with that whip, so I doubt he’ll be gone much longer.”
I didn’t respond. The last thing I wanted to do was think about Simon or the whip right now.
We positioned ourselves on either side of the door and waited.
43
As annoying as it was to admit, Austin was right. We only waited a few minutes before I spotted a uniformed guard sauntering down the hallway on the other side of the door, his cap pulled low on his face. I signaled to my unlikely companion, and he gave me a tight nod of acknowledgement. The guard looked bored, which hopefully would play well into his lack of awareness until it was too late.
At the door, he scanned his swipe card, and the door lock whirred then beeped green before sliding smoothly open. He stepped through, and Austin launched a swift fist to his head. Pulling his punch right at the last second, his knuckles glanced off the side of the guard’s face instead.
“Shit, sorry bro.” He winced as Caleb, dressed as a guard, clutched his face. Despite the situation, I laughed. It was ridiculously good to see Caleb again. He grabbed me into a huge hug, lifting me off the ground.
“Kitty Kat!” he exclaimed, twirling me around and burying his face in my neck. “Holy crap, you had us so worried! If you ever pull a stunt like this again, I’ll-”
“You’ll what?” Austin interrupted, as though amused at fun-loving Caleb’s attempt to threaten me.
“I don’t know yet,” he murmured in response, pulling back to stare into my eyes. “But you won’t like it.” I ducked my gaze. I already hated what had happened here. I didn’t need the threat.
“If you’re done with this Hallmark moment,” Austin commented dryly, “you might want to put Christina down. I have seen quite enough of her naked ass for one day.”
Caleb frowned and slid his hands down my back until he reached naked skin where Austin’s shirt had risen up, then he froze, a murderous look transforming his face.
“Kit... why are you naked under Austin’s T-shirt...?” His voice was deathly quiet, and tension thrummed through his arms where they were still wrapped around me.
“Uhhhhh...” I stalled, not really ready to recount the whole ordeal yet.
/> “Why don’t we get the fuck out of the funhouse and save the story time, bro?” Austin’s save surprised me, but I’d take it.
Caleb took another long, scary look at me, his face like thunder, but he didn’t push the subject. Instead, he gently set me on my feet and tugged my borrowed T-shirt back down.
“Right.” He nodded, turning back to his twin. “We should get out of here. River called in backup, but we have no way of knowing how soon they will be here and I’d rather not wait around. It looks like they already showed you a bit of love, brother?” He indicated the myriad of bruises decorating Austin’s exposed skin. Austin just grunted in response, leading the way back down the hall.
We barely made it past the first corner when the heavy thump of security boots echoed down the hall ahead of us. Caleb ushered us all into a supply closet to avoid confrontation. It was a tight squeeze, and I was trapped between the twins in the dark, my front pressed against Caleb with Austin at my back. We waited in silence, listening to the sound of boots clomp closer, and then as they faded again, Caleb chuckled quietly in my ear.
“You make such attractive sandwich meat.”
Austin growled a warning, and an entirely inappropriate flush rushed through me at Caleb’s dirty insinuation. Thankfully the hall sounded clear of guards, so we cracked the door and checked.
“Clear,” I whispered and hurried out of the suddenly tense closet.
I was in such a rush to get out of the fucked-up place, I didn’t check the next corner before plowing around it and right into the first group of guards that had handcuffed me earlier.
A pathetic squeak of fright escaped. Shit, they recognized me.
“Well, well, well. We were just discussing paying you a little visit, and here you are, like magic.” One of them, with a piggish upturned nose, leered.
“Excuse us for a second, sweet thing, while we take care of your friends here. Then we can take care of you.” This from a second guard, and I shuddered in revulsion.
Strangely enough, they completely ignored me in their rush to tackle Caleb and Austin.
I was all too happy to stand back and watch the twins efficiently dispatch the idiotic guards. As I admired their flowing, elegant technique, a sharp pain smacked into my side, followed by the loud crack of a whip.
The world seemed to move in slow motion as I grasped my burning side and pulled my hand away to find it slick with blood. Well, that was a first; I couldn’t remember ever having been shot before.
“What the…” I spun around a little unsteadily to find a woman not much older than myself advancing down the hall with a gun trained on me. She fired again, but this time I had my wits about me and dodged using my superior speed. The act pulled my existing injury painfully.
It was already trying to heal closed—with the bullet in there—as I lunged for my attacker. I slapped the weapon from her hand, then thrust a fist at her head. Yet she moved almost as fast as me, and my fist met thin air. Off-balance, I stumbled. She regained her footing and lashed out, slicing four deep gashes in my other side with… claws?
Using the wall for leverage, I shoved away to create some distance. Her hands were indeed morphing back and forth between normal human fingers and crazy, vicious looking half-animal claws. Another product of the insane experiments here? Other than the unnatural situation happening with her hands, she looked normal.
I didn’t know what was happening to her or why she was here, but she’d attacked me and I had a fight on my hands. My side was healing, but I was hurting. She easily had my strength, if not more, and her speed was nothing to scoff at either. She was the toughest opponent I’d ever faced.
I managed to land a lucky hit to her face, breaking her nose. The distraction gave me time to get away from the wall and more room to maneuver.
My assailant growled like an enraged animal and charged me, striking wildly. Her nose wasn’t healing though, and blood continued to spray from the injury. Maybe Simon hadn’t been lying.
Thankfully, rage made her sloppy, and I avoided the flurry of her blows. Using the same move I’d trained so hard with Cole, I flipped her off her feet and onto her stomach. Without hesitation, I was on her, snaking an arm around her neck and applying just enough pressure to render her unconscious without killing her. I wasn’t a natural born killer.
Once her body went limp, I relaxed my hold but remained still for a moment, feeling every damaged inch of my body. I’d lost a lot of blood, but I was barely able to catch my breath before two sets of strong hands hauled me up and began frantically checking me over.
“I’m fine.” I groaned as one of the twins pressed just a little too hard on what must be a fractured rib. “Just give me a few minutes to heal. It seems to be working a whole lot faster these days.” As I said it, the bullet from my side slid free from my flesh, as though of its own accord, and clinked lightly against the hard floor.
Flashes of concern washed over Caleb’s chiseled face and, surprisingly enough, Austin’s as well. Yet when he caught me looking, he went stony. Why the hell did I care what the dickhead thought?
“Let’s get out of here before anything else goes wrong.” He scowled. “Christina seems to be a magnet for disaster.”
I snorted. “Well that is just...” Actually pretty accurate; I did seem to attract disasters. “...rude.” I finished lamely, and he gave me a smug look. Bastard.
I flipped him my middle finger, showing my maturity, but like them, I was eager as hell to get out of here.
44
We made it to the front entrance without running into anyone else, thankfully. Caleb kept scouting ahead, but his body language relaxed visibly when we hit the front.
“Looks like the cavalry is arriving.” He shoved the door wider for us to see several armored trucks pulling up to the gates.
We dashed across the open space to the gates as teams of heavily armed agents piled from the trucks and took out the gates. They rushed past us toward the building. When one group paused to possibly detain us, Caleb flashed an Omega Group ID badge to a helmeted man, and he waved us through to where Wesley’s van had just pulled up.
“Thank fuck for that!” Caleb exclaimed. “I was not looking forward to trooping back down to the rest stop again.”
The other guys piled out of the van, and Cole snatched me up into a tight hug, pressing on my still injured side, and I cried out sharply in pain. He released me so fast I staggered and nearly landed on my ass.
His sharp, dangerous eyes raked over me, taking in the tears, gashes in Austin’s T-shirt, and the blood now running down my thighs. He went to lift the shirt to check my wounds, but as soon as his hand slid underneath, he had to have noticed I was naked. When he went still, his frigid eyes turned murderous.
“Later,” I promised him and shook my head firmly. I was not reliving my nightmare out here.
His mouth tightened, and he considered me for a moment before barking at Wesley, “Wes! Do you have spare clothes in the van?”
“Uh, yeah? I think so?” he responded, digging around in the back of the van and then popping out with a zip-up hoody and sweatpants, which he tossed over to us. Cole caught them without taking his eyes off me, then held the pants out for me to step into, which I did gratefully, pushing them over my boots. Once I had them on and had tightened up the drawstring, Cole handed the hoody to River to hold up and shield me from other eyes before he carefully peeled Austin’s ruined T-shirt off me and tossed it aside. I shivered in the cold air and crossed my arms across my naked chest, but allowed him to inspect my bloodied torso. Caleb wordlessly handed him a bottle of water, which Cole used to wash some of the blood from my skin, exposing the almost healed gunshot wound and the still fresh gashes from that crazy bitch’s mutated claw-hands.
“Why aren’t these healing?” Cole asked gruffly, contradicting the soft caress of his fingers around the gaping cuts.
I shrugged, already noticing the rest of my bruises were virtually gone. “No idea, but some chick did it with
her claws.” They all stared at me like I’d taken one too many knocks to the head, and I made an exasperated noise.
“I’m serious. The woman that shot me—somehow, and I don’t know how, she transformed her hands into, like, mutated werewolf claws. It was the weirdest shit. So, maybe it has something to do with whatever gave her that ability?” I shivered again, and River took the hint to wrap Wesley’s hoody around me. Turning me to face him, he zipped it closed, then pulled me close for a hug, careful of my injured side.
“We will be discussing your insubordination when we get home, Kitten,” he murmured in my ear, then held my gaze long enough for me to see all the hurt and worry in his eyes.
I’d meant well, but I’d fucked up coming here. So I nodded and whispered, “Yes, sir.”
Our emotionally charged moment was broken by the loud whirring of a helicopter taking off from the roof of the laboratories, and we all craned our necks as if we could see who was inside.
It wasn’t long until Austin stalked back over to us from where he had been speaking with one of the black armored men who looked to be in charge of things.
“It was the bitch and that skinny dick,” he snarled, but I’d already known it would have been. “Plus a couple of her scientists and test subjects. Seems they had the heli camouflaged somehow so the recon team hadn’t picked up on it until it was too late. The rest of her staff have been detained, and the patients will be getting medical assistance shortly.”
I shuddered at the mention of Dupree’s patients and at how close I had come to being one of them.
“We need to get Kit seen to,” River announced. “If those gashes aren’t healing, then they need stitches.”
Austin looked surprise, but he’d missed our earlier discussion.
“I’m pretty sure they are healing. Just really, really slowly.” I fingered the edges of the wounds through the fabric of Wesley’s hoody, but the skin itched and pulled as it knit together. “Let’s just get out of here so I can shower.” I was desperate to wash the feeling of Simon’s hands off me.
