The others are patrolling the woods in pairs – Helen and Nathan, and Duncan and Marcus. Much as I objected to the Ishmaelian/AbGen double agent getting involved, I was over-ruled. And since my friends are putting their lives on the line, the least I can do is go along with their wishes. An extra body gives everyone a better chance, and Duncan isn’t wrong about him being handy in a fight. Just so long as he’s fighting for the right side. Joe’s out in the woods too, putting his military experience to use with a half-dozen tripwires. I wanted Scott to go with him and watch his back, but Joe refused the offer: he said another person would just slow him down, and that we needed a guard in here. As if my being a walking, talking weapon isn’t good enough to handle whatever Pearce throws at us. I try not to take offence, because you haven’t got to be a mind-reader to know he has an ulterior motive for leaving Scott behind. He’s thinking that someone’s got to cover me while I get as many people out as possible. I’m trying not to think about it at all.
I paid Alistair a little visit before the Ishmaelians moved out, and convinced him to loan us a couple of weapons from the armoury. The plan is still to run at the first sign of trouble, but I feel a bit better knowing that the others have a way to defend themselves if it comes to it. He also gave us a couple of radios that look like they should have been retired with dial up internet, but at least we all have a way of staying in contact. Even better, he managed to rig up some earpieces, so we can speak to each other without worrying about the noise giving away anyone’s position. Everyone’s been briefed to give three long bursts of static if they see anything in the woods that shouldn’t be there – and then to get the hell out. No waiting around to find everyone else, and sure as shit no trying to fight it out. Whether or not they’ll follow the plan is another thing entirely. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.
I get up and pace around the room. Scott’s eyes follow me from his seat. He’s much better at this waiting around than I am. On the other hand, I’ve been through this before, and it was bad enough the first time.
He glances at the clock on the far wall, then thumbs the transmit button on his radio.
“Radio check,” he says, holding the device to his lips. “Alpha?”
Two bursts of static answer him. I nod to myself. That’s Helen and Nate.
“Bravo?”
Another two squelches of static. Duncan and Marcus. Guess Marcus hasn’t sold us out. Yet.
“Charlie?”
Joe signs in with his two static bursts and then the room falls silent again. I gnaw at my fingernails; a bad habit I’d picked up when we were on the run from AbGen. The first time, I mean.
“I’m going to go see if they left us a kettle,” I announce when the silence starts to fray my nerves. Scott holds out a spare radio to me.
“Just in case.”
I nod and take it from him, cramming it into my back pocket. Could Pearce’s men breach our perimeter and make it into the base without any of us knowing? No prizes for answering that one. There are only five of us in the woods, plus a couple of trip wires. AbGen are professionals.
I hurry along the hallways, straining above the sounds of my own footsteps for anyone who shouldn’t be here. Only the echoes of my steps follow me, bouncing around the barren hallways in my wake. I’ve never seen it so empty. The Ishmaelians stripped the place back to bare bones in minutes, like a swarm of piranha. It doesn’t give me much hope of finding what I’m looking for.
Sure enough, when I make it to the kitchen the worktops have been swept clean. No coffee for us. Doesn’t matter. That’s not why I really left. I pull myself up and perch on the edge of one of the worktops.
I’ve never been good at being helpless. That’s why Pearce managed to break me – or bend me, as he’d put it. To his will. It wasn’t the beatings that turned me, or being isolated from everyone I knew, or him trying to convince me that no-one on the outside cared about me. All of that helped, sure, but the thing that really finished me wasn’t anything he said, or did. It was being helpless – having no choice but to let him do all those things. That’s what broke me.
Sitting around, helpless, while Iain is lying in that bed – it’s more than I can stomach. I glance around the kitchen and snort. For all the good I’m doing in here. I’m just hiding. Running away from my problems, like I have been my whole life. But there are some things not even I can run from. I’d got after Pearce but not even he can fix this. Toby is our last hope, and the only thing I’m good for is bringing him squash.
And watching his back. That’s where I should be. Ready to protect him, not sat alone in an empty kitchen feeling sorry for myself. I hop down from the worktop and head back into the corridor. I’m halfway along the first one when Joe’s voice explodes from my back pocket.
“HQ, HQ, come in please.”
I snatch up the radio and twist the volume control, quickening my step and then breaking into a jog. Something’s happening. I need to be back with Scott and Toby.
“Go ahead, Charlie,” Scott replies, his calm voice a complete contrast to my racing heart and thready breath.
“I’ve found tracks. Looks like a pair of agents laid up here for a while, probably before reporting our location to Pearce. There’s no sign of them now.”
“Copy that, Charlie. Proceed with caution and keep us appraised.”
I burst through the med wing door as Scott sets the radio down. He glances at my kettle-less hands but makes no comment. Across the room, Cullen’s checking Iain’s readouts. Guess the radio woke him. Hard to sleep through that kind of news.
“What does it mean?” I ask Scott.
“It means we were right. Pearce knows we’re here. It’s not a question of if he attacks, but when.”
Great. There’s a happy thought. I dump my radio on the table next to his and head through to the side room where our reclusive genius is still hard at work. He looks exhausted, but he’s scribbling away on an ever-growing pile of notes.
“Hey, Toby.”
He glances up and greets me with a half-smile, then carries on scribbling frantically. I wait for him to finish, not wanting to interrupt his chain of thought.
“How’s it going?”
“I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but–” he pulls a sheet from the pile of pages. “Here, look.”
I do, but the only words I recognise on the entire page are the ‘and’s and the ‘the’s. I shake my head.
“I don’t...”
“I’ve isolated the specific component of the plasma that’s causing Iain’s auto immune disorder.”
“Does this mean...” I barely dare to ask the question. “Can you cure him?”
“Not yet. But Anna, I’m close. Really close. I just need to find a way to isolate the allele and shut down the replication.”
“Toby, you’re amazing.”
I want to hug him, but I know how he feels about physical contact so I content myself with giving him a massive smile. He blushes fiercely.
“I should, uh, I should get back to work.”
“Of course,” I say. He’s not so great with attention either. “Do you need me to bring you anything?”
He’s been working for nineteen hours straight, and frankly I don’t know how he still going, but he is. He shakes his head.
“If you change your mind, you know where to find me. I’ll get out of your hair.”
I’m just turning to leave when a scream rips through the air. I freeze for a half second, then rush through the door back into Iain’s room. His back is arched right up off the bed and another drawn out scream bursts from his lungs. The machines are going wild and Scott leaps to his feet. Cullen rushes to the bedside before I can get there, takes one look at the machines and then injects something into the IV bag. After an agonising few seconds, Iain sinks back onto the bed, sweat dripping from every part of his body, and his chest rises and falls so quickly that he can’t possibly be getting any air into his lungs.
“What’s happening to him?�
�� My voice is thick with panic, layered over Iain’s frenzied panting, and the urgent bleeping of the machines he’s hooked up to.
“He had a seizure.” Cullen swings the stethoscope down from his neck and presses it to the left side of Iain’s chest, and then the right. He shakes his head, dumping the stethoscope aside. “His lungs aren’t inflating properly, but I don’t know why. I’m going to try easing the pressure.”
I step quickly out of his way and he yanks open a drawer. He turns back with a rubber tube and a scalpel in his hands, and pulls Iain’s blanket aside. I watch in horror as he slices the scalpel between Iain’s ribs, parting the flesh there, then forces the tube into the wound. There’s a loud gushing sound and Iain’s breathing starts to slow. Cullen stands there, frozen in place over him for a second, just watching, and then the machine’s bleeps come more steadily. Cullen exhales heavily and his lids slide shut for a second, then he nods.
“The pressure’s eased. He should be able to breathe more easily now.”
“I… I don’t understand.” I look from Cullen to Scott and back to Cullen again. “What happened? Why did that happen to him?”
Cullen pulls the bloodied latex gloves from his hands as he turns to me.
“His heart’s under a lot of pressure, and his body is trying to break itself down. As for why?” He shakes his head. “I wish I had answers for you. But nobody knows what we’re dealing with here. We’ve got no way of knowing what to expect.”
The machine’s bleeping gets faster again, a jagged green line bouncing across its display as the piercing sound fills the air. I spin back to Iain as he sucks in a huge breath, and then his eyes fly open and stare at the ceiling.
“Anna…”
I rush to his side, but before I can get there his entire body goes rigid, and the machine’s high-pitched bleeping turns into a long, drawn out wail. Scott’s arms wrap around me and drag me back as Cullen springs into action.
“His heart’s stopped. I’m going to shock him.”
He flicks a switch on the machine next to Iain’s bed, and snatches up the paddles.
“Clear.”
He glances around to make sure no-one’s touching Iain, but we’re standing back, frozen in horror. He presses the paddles to Iain’s chest and his back arches up from the bed, then sinks back. Still the machine wails.
“Again. Clear.”
He shocks Iain again, and again his back arches and sinks back to the bed. The wailing continues. I gasp a sob that burns the whole way up as the doctor shocks him again, then tosses the paddles aside and starts pumping his chest with his hands.
“Come on,” he grunts. “Come on, Iain!”
He pauses to blow two breaths of air into his lungs, then starts pumping his chest again.
“No,” I gasp. “Please, no…”
Scott holds me tight against him as I watch, helpless, while the doctor tries to restart his heart. He’s breathing heavily, in stark contrast to Iain’s unmoving chest. Sweat is pouring from his forehead as he counts the compressions out loud in between forcing air into Iain’s lungs.
He does cycle after cycle, until I lose count, while I tremble in Scott’s arms. Come on, Iain. He’s got to fight this. He’s got to. Please, Iain. Just fight!
Cullen stops pumping and presses his fingers to Iain’s wrist, glancing up at the clock for a long moment. Carefully, he places Iain’s arm back on the bed, then he shakes his head and steps back, his shoulders hunched in defeat. He turns to look at me and I catch a glimpse of the raw pain in his eyes. No.
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you doing? Don’t stop!”
I don’t miss the look he shares with Scott, the one that says he’s given up hope, the one that says he’s letting Iain go. Scott rubs his hand over my arm, still holding me close.
“Anna…”
“No! He’s not dead!”
I’m not letting him go. I won’t give up. I wrench myself free from Scott’s arms and race to Iain’s side, crossing my hands over his chest and pumping frantically. Scott grabs my shoulders and I try to shrug him off.
“Anna!”
Scott’s arms wrap around me in a bear hug and he pulls me backwards, away from Iain’s body.
“He’s gone. I’m sorry. He’s gone.”
I fight against his arms, desperate to get back to Iain, to keep giving him CPR, but Scott holds me tight. Iain can’t be dead. He just can’t. We just have to keep his heart pumping, we can’t give up on him. Not now. Toby is so close to finding a cure. So close. He can’t be gone, not now. Not like this. Grief erupts like a black hole in my chest, sucking bits of me in, seeping out through my veins. It burns its way up my throat and bursts from me as a sob. He’s gone. He’s really gone. I collapse back into Scott’s arms. He hugs me close as I weep into his chest, and somewhere behind us, Cullen switches off the machines.
Chapter Thirty-One
I make a couple of shifts before anyone can object, returning with a pair of shovels. The garden centre had plenty to spare. Kinda ironic, stealing for a cop, but I think he’d have understood. We take turns digging the hole out in the woods – at least, the guys do. I’m shaking too much to make any sort of impression on the damp earth. He deserves better than this. He deserves a decent funeral, back in his hometown, surrounded by family – parents, and siblings if he has them – and not for another forty years. Damn Pearce for taking his life, and then denying him even a proper burial. Damn him to hell. And I’ll be the one to send him there. My eyes are hard and dry as I watch Scott, Nathan and Joe dig. I have no more tears left to cry. Pearce has taken so much from me that I am beyond crying now. I will stop him taking anything else. I watch Scott taking his turn to excavate the dirt. Anyone else. The Savage snarls inside me for the first time in weeks, but I don’t bother to silence her. We’re in agreement. Pearce will pay for this.
“Radio check,” Joe mutters quietly into his radio. He has his earpiece in so I don’t hear the replies, but he answers with a “copy” so I assume Pearce hasn’t shown up to see the fruits of his labour. Shame.
Scott leans the shovel against a tree and wipes his hands on his jeans.
“Are you ready?” he asks me. I nod and push myself up off the damp ground. I’m not ready, not at all, but that isn’t really the point. I run my hand over my face, leaving a smear of dirt across my skin. I swear, Iain, I will find a way to make this right. And if he has family out there somewhere, I’ll find a way to let them know he’s at rest. That’s all I can promise him, but I will promise him that.
Nathan and Joe lower Iain into the fresh grave with as much reverence as they can, but however gently they do it, it doesn’t change the fact they’re tossing his still-warm body into a shallow grave in the woods. I swallow grimly and as I do my throat presses against Pearce’s collar. I clench my jaw and it’s all I can do not to tear at it with my bare hands. I want it off. I don’t want anything of his touching me, ever again. But now’s not the time. I breathe in the cool air, and step to the graveside. The four of them look at me expectantly but I don’t know what to say. What do you say to a guy who had a good life, a career, a whole damned future until you go and screw it up by shifting in front of him? How do you even begin to explain that you never meant for it to end this way, that somehow you thought you could have the best of both worlds, and keep him as a friend even though he so clearly was never meant to be a part of your world? How do you thank him for walking into the lion’s den armed with nothing but determination, not once, not twice, but again and again, just because you asked him to, just one time? What do you say to the man who died because of you?
“I’m sorry.”
The words escape my numb lips in a hoarse whisper as I look down at his pale face, framed by the dark Staffordshire soil. His eyes are closed, his blond hair flecked with mud, his normally red cheeks are dull and his lips pale and thin, with no trace of the smile they usually wore. The lips that kissed me once, the lips that told me he loved me, are unmoving, an
d the heart that accepted I didn’t feel the same way, unbeating. His whole life snuffed out by Pearce’s sick experiments. Pearce, who didn’t even know Iain existed until he helped me rescue Scott from his clutches. With your blood, the Savage reminds me. Let’s not forget that. Yes, with my blood. My blood killed him. I killed him.
I sink to my knees at the graveside. My eyes are still dry, but my soul is sobbing. Half my soul. The other half is possessed by the Savage, and Iain was one of the only people who cared enough to come looking for me when she was trying to take control, but she doesn’t care about him. She doesn’t know how. I care. I care so much it’s killing me, because God damn it, it should be me in that grave and we all know it.
“I’m so, so sorry.”
I have no idea how long I kneel there, keening silently, mourning the man who was a hundred times too good for me, but eventually Scott wraps his arm around my shoulders. I lean against him, taking comfort I don’t deserve from his warmth, and his strong, beating heart. I won’t let Iain’s death be for nothing. I won’t let Pearce take what little good is left in this world. I won’t let this defeat me.
I push myself up off the ground, scoop up a handful of loose soil, and scatter it on him. Scott and the others each do the same, muttering quiet words as they do. Scott takes me back into his arms, and nods at Nathan. The tough handler picks up the shovel and begins burying our friend. We watch in silence, and from the corner of my eye I see Joe step away and raise the radio to his lips.
Unleashed (TalentBorn Book 4) Page 22
