by Cindy Skaggs
Janet added water to the coffee maker while Fowler added the grounds. Voices stayed level as Janet continued. “I appreciate you trying to shield me, but I never wanted that. Big Jake never tried, which is how I ended up with you. The fact is, you’re my son. You signed up to let the government poison your system. I was involved the moment they hurt you.”
Lauren bumped into Debi on the way out of the kitchen. “I’d love to see Janet lose her temper.”
“The guys are all a little terrified of her. She’d be magnificent.”
Lauren squeezed Debi’s elbow and whispered as they walked. “You okay doing a briefing?”
“I may throw up.”
“I think that’s normal public speaking, not panic attack stuff.”
“It’s firing squad stuff.”
“They’re not going to shoot the messenger.”
“I’m not just the messenger.” Debi didn’t have time to explain as the men went out of the way to draw her up front and center. Like a firing squad. Should she sit or stand? Stand, she decided, and wished desperately for her boots and that extra four inches. Her heart pounded.
Janet leaned against the door to the kitchen, waiting on the coffee with Fowler at her side.
Debi twisted her fingers together. She wanted to ease into it, but her brain focused on the bad stuff first. “You guys know I have panic attacks.”
“Not exactly a secret,” Ryder responded. She’d had a major attack the day Echo shot her.
Debi took a deep breath. Talking to this group was like walking into an AA meeting and sharing your story for the first time.
“You’ll do fine, honey.” Janet’s warm smile brightened the room, but did nothing to ease the nerves.
“That’s the thing. The attacks aren’t solely relegated to moments like this. The attacks started when I was a kid. No one ever explained why. Mom couldn’t afford much in the way of doctors, so we accepted them as normal, but they got so severe I had to quit sports and academic clubs. The older I got, the more I needed to understand what was happening to me. Inside me. I studied fear, the rational and irrational kind, but understanding why didn’t stop the attacks.” She popped her knuckles and the crackles were the only sound except the coffee brewer in the other room. “After a good run at the university for my undergrad, I took a research position in the university lab. Trust me, if I wasn’t a good chemist, my father never would have hired me.”
Why did she feel the need to justify her position? Her intelligence? Because she needed them to understand what motivated her to go down this dark road. “The lab became my second home. I worked sixty or more hours a week studying any and every chemical combination that would unlock the fear that paralyzed me, that made my father hate me.”
“Dr. McMahon shamed you for it,” Lauren piped in from her seat on the sofa next to Ryder. “We all saw it. It’s like he knew your triggers and when things didn’t go his way, he’d push you into an attack to take the pressure off.”
Debi stepped back, flattened by Lauren’s words. “I never realized…” But the more she thought about it, the more she saw the truth. “I thought if I could stop the attacks...” Tears filled her eyes as she reached out for Rose’s gaze. “Without the attacks, maybe he would…” Love her. “Be proud of me, so when I hit on a promising compound that did wonders in animal testing, I used myself as a guinea pig.”
Lauren’s eyes brimmed with sympathy. “That’s why you broke protocol.” Lauren had never asked, which made her the best friend on the planet.
“The compound worked like magic. The first week, I felt…” Fearless. “Amazing. I did a presentation at the staff meeting without a single hiccup.”
“Which is probably how Barry figured it out,” Lauren said.
“He went to my father that day. Turned me in for failure to follow protocol. For a breach in ethics. You name it, he added it to the complaint. My father kicked me out immediately. There was no hearing in front of the ethics committee. They didn’t have physical proof. I was just out. My biological promised to destroy the formal complaint if I walked away. Gave me the bar—the place Lauren and I used to party as undergrads—as a token if I never spoke to him again.” Being paid to avoid her own father hurt worse than losing her job.
Some wounds festered and others scarred. Barry had done both. The damage to her career was a scar, and she’d be damned if she’d slow down because an asshole used her, but the wound to her confidence festered like a pus-filled limb that needed an amputation.
The bruised walls of her chest tightened like a band under her ribs, but once the words started she couldn’t stop them. They spilled out in a fast stream of nonsense. “The letdown was severe. Not emotionally, but going from a position of emotional strength to having panic attacks again, sometimes two or three a day. The rebound effect lasted for weeks. I might have locked myself on the ranch and never come out, but Lauren hounded me to get my life back on track.”
She’d never be able to repay Lauren for all she had done. It’s why she had made sure Lauren had a safe place to land when Ryder took a walk. “The day we searched Lauren’s office, I ran into Barry. He made tenure.” Lousy SOB. “He brought in a big research grant, and that’s like winning the academic lottery. I have no proof, but I bet—”
“He sold your idea to the Army,” Ryder finished.
The men all stared at her like she was a three-headed goat at the county fair. Rose wouldn’t meet her gaze. Camy gave her a big thumbs up with a perky smile. Janet came in, passed coffee around, getting the men moving, getting their eyes off Debi.
“What do you know for sure?” Ryder finally asked.
The rest came easier. Was less personal. “Echo’s blood tested positive for amphetamines, which means he was actively dosing since the detection window in blood is twelve hours. He could be on a time-released dose, which means a daily pill. The water bottle Echo used to dose Ryder had high doses of amphetamines and steroids, which you knew. It also contained elements similar to DV1028, the compound I developed.”
Rose sat up and broke his silence. “So you knew? All along, you were the answer we were looking for?”
She was the evil scientist they were looking for. The quack they had threatened to destroy. Debi clasped her hands together, squeezing tightly to hold back the shakes. “I suspected.”
Red crawled up his neck and burned in his cheeks. “You knew and you still…”
Slept with him. Fell in love with him.
Camy smacked him in the bicep.
Debi brought her entwined fingers to her chin as if praying for him to understand. “I wanted to be wrong.”
Rose shook his head, disgust in every move. “I’m going for a run.” Without another word, another glance, he disappeared.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Confession might be good for the soul, but it was a stab to the heart. A giant flaming blade dead center, and Debi didn’t have time to repair the damage. They were nowhere near finished. “I took the syringe used to dose Rose from the scene and gave it to Allyson to test. Using more sophisticated equipment than I have access to, she’s going to reverse engineer it so we can compare. Once I hear from her, we’ll know for sure.”
“You gave our only physical evidence to someone who works in the same lab that created the little green pills?” Craft stood, his arms swinging like he wanted to deck someone and needed a target.
“You don’t like Allyson, do you?”
“I don’t like any of this. I don’t like that you started the ball rolling—and don’t get all defensive—I know you had your reasons. Doesn’t make it any more palatable. You’ve been at the center of this from the beginning. Those men trying to break into the ranch weren’t after Lauren or Ryder. They were after you. The prick who took a shot from the bluff wasn’t after Rose, he was after you.”
Heat washed her skin. She hadn’t thought of that. Once again, she’d been the target, and had been completely unaware. She hadn’t known to be afraid. “When I left
the lab, my research was trashed. I assumed it died. I didn’t know otherwise until I ran into Barry at the university.”
“That’s another thing.” Craft was wound up. Jittery and moving with slight tics and twitches. “I don’t like that the drug came out of a civilian lab in a university. That takes this beyond a government conspiracy. Aren’t you doctors supposed to take an oath? Do no harm?”
“I’m not a doctor.” But she had wanted to be a PhD.
“That little experiment of yours was playing God.”
“Hold on.” Camy jumped up and took a position at Debi’s side. The little pixie stood in front of Debi like a mama bear guarding her cubs. Fierce. “This sounds a lot like blame, and I didn’t hear anything that makes Debi responsible. She didn’t actively engage with the scientists who did. So what’s her sin? Echo followed me to the bar, so does that make me complicit? For that matter, they followed Lauren to trap Ryder.”
Ryder stirred on the couch, looking uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, but Camy wasn’t done.
“You get to be as paranoid as you want in the privacy of your own mind. That’s one of the side effects or so I understand, but have a little respect for the person giving you answers.”
Janet came up, handed Debi a cup of coffee for her frigid fingers. She winked as she flanked the other side. “My house, my rules. You gentlemen can’t keep a civil tongue, there’s the door.”
Fowler raised his eyebrows, but didn’t do a thing to contradict his mother.
Ryder squeezed Lauren’s thigh. “We know more now than we did two weeks ago. Every piece of information helps us get to the bottom of the problem. Plus we have a chemist on board who can help decipher this faster than we could on our own. Sounds to me like the research didn’t take a turn for the worst until after you left the program.” He nodded at Debi. “You have more?”
“I do.” But she was weary to her bones.
Fowler took a long sip of black coffee. “Makes sense why they moved us to Fort Bliss. The lab is local, which means the doctors poking and prodding us are in El Paso, or were when the trials started.”
“Which lends more evidence to the idea that Captain Johnson was on campus,” Ryder added.
“There’s more good news in all this,” Lauren said.
“What’s that, baby?”
“Easier to break into a research lab at the university than some military think tank.” Lauren’s feet swung gleefully against the bottom of the sofa.
“I like the way you think.” Craft blessed her with a wink and a smile before turning to Debi. “Sorry. Let my mouth get ahead of my brain.”
Debi linked her good arm through Janet’s. “Do it again and my posse will take you out.”
Fowler chuckled. “You have no idea. Janet’s a better shot than me, and I’ve seen her take down a man three times her size in hand-to-hand.”
“Girl, will you train me?” Debi asked, only half joking. If she’d learned nothing else, it was the need for survival skills.
“Girl.” Janet squeezed her arm tight. “I was waiting for you to ask.”
Not a single man complained, but there was some uncomfortable shifting in the seats.
Janet pulled a wing chair around for Debi, and then directed the men to rearrange the furniture until they had an informal circle. Harder for the firing squad to hit her that way. In the less stressful environment, Debi finished her briefing.
“From here on out, it’s a lot of supposition based on what I know of the initial compound and what we found in Ryder’s dose.”
Rose came back and listened from the kitchen door. Didn’t look like he’d gone running after all, but he had changed into workout gear. Not a single light softened his dark gaze, so Debi turned her attention to those in the circle. For now, he was outside.
“Without seeing your medical files I can’t say for sure, but best guess is that steroids were a part of the regular dosage for the reasons we discussed before. Higher aggression, more risk taking, increased strength and performance.”
“I disagree,” Fowler said. “Steroids were not, are not part of our strength.”
“We should start a pool, you know, like offices do for football scores.” Camy grinned up at Fowler who stood behind her chair. “Points given for drugs you are or are not given. Another set for side effects.”
“Put me down for five bucks on no steroid usage,” Fowler insisted. “I’m good for it.”
Camy grabbed the notebook Rose had left behind and started taking notes.
“You boys haven’t seen yourselves side by side,” Janet said. “Put me down for steroid use in the regular cocktail.”
“I’ll put five on no.” Lauren squeezed her husband’s hand. “No change in Ryder from regular dosage to after. I think if he were enhanced, you’d see a decline in physical condition afterwards.”
“You make a good point, my friend,” Debi said. “But I’m still betting on steroids. Put me down for five.”
The men all voted no on steroids, except Rose who stood on the sidelines. Their bets might be more wish than fact, but you had to give the team credit for hope after what the Army had done.
“I’ll get online and enter everything into an online pool,” Camy said. “Make it more official.”
Fowler was shaking his head before she finished talking. “Wait—”
“With codes so no one knows what we’re betting on.” Camy cast a sideways glance to her brother. “I may or may not have run a sports betting pool on campus.”
Stills reached across and gave her a fist bump. “You have layers.”
“You have no idea, and won’t as long as my brother is in the area.”
“Can we get back to work?” Rose complained.
“Point of clarification.” Debi faced Ryder with her question. “Did your pills or delivery method change when you were stateside versus overseas?”
He leaned back, crossed a leg over his knee to give him time to catch the gaze of the men. They nodded, with the exception of Rose. Finally, Ryder met Debi’s gaze with a direct stare. “They did. The first four weeks or so, they delivered the dosage intramuscularly. Daily injections. Some days, we’d wig the fuck out—pardon me, ma’am,” he said to Janet.
“I know the word. Have been known to use it as an adjective,” she offered. “And the name is Janet.”
“Yes...” Ryder caught himself short. “I hear you.”
Debi cleared her throat. “That first four weeks, they were adjusting your dosage based on height, weight, metabolism. When they switched to pills—”
“Week five,” Craft offered.
“Were the pills universal or individual?”
“Individual,” Ryder answered. “Is that important?”
“Could be. Camy, hand me the notebook.”
“I can take notes.”
Debi nodded to Camy. It wasn’t like anyone else could read her writing anyway, and apparently note taking was a Rose family trait. “When you guys wigged out, as you put it, I think they were testing the amphetamines to get the dosages right.” She concentrated on the circle. Rose was still outside. “Amphetamine usage isn’t unprecedented. They used it with pilots during the Gulf War.”
Lauren tucked herself under Ryder’s arm. “I vote no on amphetamines.”
Camy made the notation in the notebook.
“Is that wishful thinking?” Debi asked.
“I just...” Lauren’s eyes watered. “Do you know the side effects?”
Ok. Lauren needed a little hope, and despite all the joking, this was serious shit. The more serious the consequences, the more they joked. “Anxiety, insomnia, involuntary tics or twitches.” She’d witnessed all of that and more in the members of Team Fear. “Usage can lead to kidney or liver problems. Heart attacks, especially in someone with undocumented heart abnormalities.” Debi didn’t want to go on, but they deserved to know. “Stills, you mentioned someone on one of the other teams having a heart attack at thirty-one. That could well
be the amphetamines, at least in what Echo is trying to dose you with. In an overdose situation, you would have a rapid pulse, panic attacks, hallucinations, increased aggression, and extreme paranoia.”
“That nails every side effect I had when they dosed me, but not during normal missions.”
Fowler finished his coffee. “I bet no on amphetamines in our regular dosage. The shit Echo is dosing with, yes, but not us.”
Camy scribbled as the men all voted against amphetamines in their regular dosages.
Debi wished she could agree. “Amphetamines are a stimulant. Benefits are increased focus, energy, and mental awareness. High energy. Less need for sleep. Exactly what the Army would want in fearless soldiers.”
Rose took an aborted step forward, but remained silent.
If he could warn her about the realities of Echo chasing them, she could warn the rest of them about the drugs that had been used against them. “Did they give you a different set of pills when you were deployed?”
Ryder nodded.
To Debi, that sealed the deal. “You’d feel a rush, not unlike going into battle.”
“Fuck.” Craft glanced at Janet, but didn’t apologize for his words. “Change mine to yes on amphetamines.”
“Ditto,” Stills said.
“There’s more. Here’s the one that concerns me.” Debi glanced around at the team. The group had grown beyond Team Fear to include the people in this room, part of something bigger than they were alone. And they all deserved better than being hunted and exterminated by Team Echo. “Psychosis is a long-term side effect, and no, I’m not worried about Team Fear, but here’s the thing.” She stared at Lauren, because she didn’t know how to tell these men who had already risked so much. “Amphetamines are a hazard for anyone with psychotic symptoms such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or any other brain disorder associated with psychotic illnesses.”
“Fuck me.” Ryder dropped his head back to stare at the ceiling. “You’re saying if someone started out crazy—”
“Mentally ill,” Janet insisted.
