She shook her head. “Maybe if I’d had the twenty years of training that everyone else had…but no, I didn’t.” She finally looked at me. “Telepathy isn’t like it is in the movies, you know. I can’t strike a man dead with my brain. If some psycho is charging at me with a knife, I’d better hope a dog is nearby, or that I can mentally throw something at him that slows him down, like I did with our buddy Kevin over there. Telepaths are a lot of bark, but not much bite.”
“I can see what you mean. It’s a wonder you weren’t on a strike team instead. You’re incredibly valuable for recon.”
A non-sequitur popped into my brain: why are we in a helicopter?
Something terrible had happened, something that I was forgetting. Invisible steel cables tugged at me, pulling me back to the hospital. I needed to get back to the hospital. Now. I reached to unbuckle my seatbelt.
Ember glanced at me and squinted.
The mental fog deepened, yet the result was a light sensation spreading through my chest. Relaxation, almost. Soupy and warm, it spread through my veins as a great weight was lifted from my mind and heart. But, still, something was missing, the thing that would make the feeling happiness.
I leaned my head against the window. Of course. My wife wasn’t with me. That was the problem.
Where was she, anyway?
Ember and I were on a mission to stop Beau, but I had no idea where Jillian and the others were. Oh, well. She could handle herself, all trained and strong and stuff. It was part of what made her so incredibly attractive.
I smiled a little. “What were you saying, Em?”
Ember’s face darkened. “My abilities are the perfect mix of not powerful enough to be in public service, but obviously way too dangerous to have around the elders’ right-hand underlings. Who knows what I would’ve picked up?”
I shrugged. “State secrets, probably. Or at least camp secrets. They would’ve had you whacked at some point. That seems to be their MO.” I frowned, concern for Ember foremost in my thoughts. We were—
On a mission?
Were we on a mission?
Ugh, why couldn’t I remember? All I knew for sure was that Ember had been in danger a minute ago, and she was upset about it. And we were in a helicopter...and I couldn’t trust the pilot. I knew that much.
But it was enough. Protect Ember.
Ember leaned forward and held out her hands, which I took. I gave them a reassuring little squeeze. “You’re going to be okay, Em. I promise.”
She kissed my knuckles, her eyes shimmering. “Benjamin Trent.”
“Ember Harris,” I teased back.
She laughed quietly. “You are one of the most sincere, tender-hearted people I’ve ever met, did you know that? I’ve been in a lot of minds, so I want you to understand my full meaning when I say that yours is one of my favorites. You’ve been such a true friend to me these last few months. At first I was a little hesitant that my best friend was dating a reformed criminal, but now I can say that it’s been my sheer honor to serve with you.”
My heart swelled, though I was a bit confused. Why was she going all sentimental on me?
She smiled, but there was a bittersweet quality in the crinkles of her eyes. “Because I wanted to see you again. I wanted to see this Benjamin, the one who’s in love. The newlywed with the world ahead of him.”
Disquiet shivered to life. “What are you talking about? What do you—I don’t—”
She caressed my cheek. “Shhh. I can see it in your mind that you really do love me, and I’ll always cherish that love. But I understand why you did what you did a few minutes ago. There are bigger things at stake, and you had to make a tough choice. You had to be a jackass to get things done. I get it. Maybe, one day, you’ll extend the same courtesy to me when you think back to this moment.”
I pulled my hands away. Jackass? “What are you talking about?”
She leaned back and surveyed me, a new coolness settling on her features. “It’s nothing personal, Benjamin. I’m sorry. Like I said, I really just wanted to see my friend again. Not the monster.”
“Wh—”
“Jill’s dead, Benjamin.”
The fog lifted, releasing the tsunami of bloody memories. I collapsed, sobbing anew while Ember idly patted my shoulder.
Nothing.
I had nothing left.
Item Twenty-Five
Handwritten letter addressed to Edmund Howard, Jr., CEO of Howard Chemical Engineering, written on HCE letterhead, dated circa 1969.
Mr. Howard,
In the spirit of full disclosure I must tell you about a phone call I received last night from an anonymous gentleman shortly past midnight. He told me he knew about my financial situation following my mother’s illness, and he said he was prepared to offer a large sum in exchange for certain information regarding the formula I’ve been working on these last three years.
But the funny thing is—I don’t know how he would know, because I haven’t told anyone about the project, not even Sally. But this man knew that I’d just started the 100th version of the formula, that it was for the Super cure, everything.
I think we’ve got a spy. I’m going to fire my assistants this Friday. I’m sure you’ll understand.
My regards,
Dr. J. Macleod
25
I fell out of the helicopter onto the empty, snow-covered parking lot, banging my knee against an object hidden in the thick drifts. I rolled onto my back, shuddering from the unending assault of pain—in my knee, in my heart, in my head.
The dark expanse of the midnight sky stretched over Baltimore, more visible than usual without the light pollution that normally hid all but the brightest stars.
I couldn’t even look at the sky anymore without yet more pain. Jillian had loved stars…
Ember roughly pulled me to my feet. “Up. Now.” Before I could so much as yelp, she shoved me toward a low, tinted office window. “Break it.”
I pointed toward the security shack at the entry gates. “Those guys will—”
“I made them fall asleep. I also made them shut off the security system, so nobody is going to stop us. Shut up and break the window. Or do you not want to stop Beau?”
She’d said the magic words.
I waded through the snow and slammed my revolver against the glass. After a few bangs, a spiderweb of cracks appeared, then grew. Finally, the window began to shatter and fall away, creating a hole for Ember and me to hop through.
We’d broken into a bland corporate corner office that could’ve been for anything from HR to accounting. The lone desk, devoid of any personalization, bore just a single closed laptop and a half-empty coffee mug. The shampoo smell of the carpet couldn’t quite hide the omnipresent chemical-y smell that permeated the whole building—I remembered from last time. Everything smelled vaguely of bleach, metal, and cold.
Ember scowled. “Okay, the JM-104 is somewhere in this building, and it’s hidden. We’re looking for a stainless steel canister, about the size of a soda can. That’s all I picked up.”
There was a short silence.
“And…where’s my brother?” I asked, a strange feeling creeping up my neck.
She didn’t seem concerned about him, and that alone was odd to the point of being suspicious. Beau was the man who’d almost kidnapped and tortured her just over a week ago. The man who’d nearly murdered her best friend several times, and whose lackey had succeeded in doing so. The guy we were technically pursuing, lest he get the JM-104 first.
And now that I thought about it, the parking lot had been empty, with no hint of anyone else having landed there recently—or at all.
Ember rounded on me. “We beat him here, moron.”
I flinched. “I’m sorry, Em, but I can’t help but notice—”
She grabbed a fistful of my shirt and pulled me just inches from her face. “Buddy, the last thing your wife told you was that she loved you, remember? Then she fell asleep, believing you would take care of eve
rything and keep her safe.” She pushed me backwards into the wall. “And now she’s dead because you decided to wander off and think about the situation. Well, think about this: she’d probably be alive if you hadn’t done that.”
I was in the hallway before she could say any more, bending over and hyperventilating with my hands on my knees. Oh God, she was cruel. She was correct, but she was cruel. I did not like this new side of Ember.
Or was this the true Ember? I shivered.
She strode out of the office. “Start searching the offices. I’ll go downstairs into the storage rooms.” She shoved open a double door and walked off, her echoing footsteps quickly fading into nothing.
She hadn’t even turned around to face me.
Trembling, I turned the knob of the nearest door and opened it. A gush of cool, stale air greeted me, complete with the office-y smell of paper, cleaner, and toner. I hastily opened all the drawers and cabinets, but there was nothing.
I moved mechanically, searching office after office, all boring and fruitless. Some of them were stuffed with personnel files, others with various financial statements, but none had so much as an aerosol fragrance can, much less JM-104. There were no safes in corners, no promising box tucked in the back of a drawer.
I rounded a corner and paused.
A gold plaque on the lone door teased me. Eliza H. Bell-McCurtis, Chairman and CEO of Bell Enterprises, would almost certainly know all about JM-104. Dean had told me that the substance was so top secret that its location wasn’t even on paper.
Who better to hide the stuff than the most important person in the company?
I almost smiled as the pieces clicked together. Why would the Chairman and CEO of Bell Enterprises have her office at a regional lab? This wasn’t BE’s headquarters—I knew for a fact that Bell’s head offices were in Chicago. All supervillains knew that. Maybe this was the real headquarters of the company, the place where they kept their most coveted product.
I hastily jiggled the doorknob, breathing hard, but to no avail. I punched the door with growl of frustration.
“C’mon, Trent, think,” I muttered, reviewing my options. I backed up and surveyed the door and the surrounding area.
The office had a window that looked out over the hallway. Bingo.
A breath, a sprint—
I grabbed a metal chair from another office and dragged it down the hallway back to Eliza’s office. Without any further ado, I swung it with all my might at the glass.
I winced against the shower of glass shards and splinters that flew everywhere, but I didn’t stop banging the chair against the remaining glass until it was a safe passage for me. Tossing the chair aside, I climbed through the window, knocked away the battered plastic blinds I’d ruined, and began to thoroughly destroy Eliza Bell-McCurtis’s office.
Drawers were yanked open violently, their contents flipped through and then tossed aside. Desk cabinets were cleared in equal measure, then the filing cabinets. I even turned the trashcans upside down.
Then I began to push furniture aside—maybe there was a trap door? Filing cabinets crashed around me. The desk went over. The copying machine was shoved into a corner.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
It had to be here. It had to be. It wouldn’t be down in the records area, it would be in the heart of the lab, guarded by the most important person. She was probably the only person who knew.
My teeth began to chatter, and I put my hands behind my head, looking all around. Emotion welled in my eyes, and I squeezed them shut. I needed to find the JM-104 for Jillian. She was watching me from Heaven, urging me on. She’d died in Beau’s pursuit for it, and now I was making sure that he’d never find it.
She’d died because of the JM-104. In the end, at the closing of her incredible life, she’d been just one more victim of the camps and their Gordian knot of lies. Her life had been cut short in the most senseless and avoidable way, but I could give her death meaning.
A sob tried to crawl out of my chest. After several deep breaths, it retreated in defeat. I let out one last large breath, closed my eyes, then opened them and looked around. Maybe I’d missed something.
A small door in the corner, one that I hadn’t seen from the window, caught my eye. What was behind it? Who would put a door inside a private office?
Unless…
My fingers touched the cool metal knob. It was locked—and there was no window to break.
“Damn it! Damn it!”
All of my frustration exploded at once.
I hurled a paperweight at the door, then a stapler. A three-hole-punch. The wastepaper basket. A laptop. The chair. Every useless trinket bounced off the sturdy door, laughing at me.
I ran at the door and began banging it with my fists. “Open up! Open up, damn you! Open up!”
“Ben?”
I spun around, my revolver in my hand without thought.
Reuben was standing by the shattered window in his old uniform, but no mask. It made the disappointment on his face that much more obvious.
He slowly raised his hands. “Easy there. Let’s not make any hasty decisions.”
How the hell had he even known to come here?
I swallowed hard. “Are you here to drag me off to jail, Obsidian?”
He flinched. “What happened?”
I backed up until I was against the stupid locked door, but I didn’t lower my weapon. “What do you mean, what happened?”
“I mean, what happened in the last few days that turned you from a superhero into, well…a guy breaking into Bell’s CEO’s office with blood all over his face and a gun in his hand? Because there’s backsliding, and then there’s backsliding.”
I did not have time for this.
I motioned with the gun. “This doesn’t concern you. We’re here for the JM-104, and then we’ll go.”
“By ‘we,’ you mean you and Ember, right?”
“Stop trying to distract me! I said leave!”
He didn’t move. “Where’s Jillian? Does she know you’re here?”
We stared at each other for several seconds until I said, “How did you know to come here?”
He lowered his hands inch by inch. “I got a hysterical call from Reid a little while ago. He said you and Ember had been kidnapped, and they got another pilot to do some kind of fancy search to see where your helicopter was going. I’m, uh, starting to think that you’re weren’t kidnapped after all. Is Ember okay? Where is she?”
My hands begin to tremble, and once again I switched to a double-handed grip. “She’s fine. She’s in the basement. That’s all? That’s all he told you?”
“Was there anything else I need to know?”
My chest heaved again. “You really don’t know?” My voice cracked.
Concern flooded his eyes. “Something awful’s happened, hasn’t it? You look like Reid did when…”
“When what?” I shot back. “When he went haywire and—”
“When they took our baby brother away. And when Stephanie died,” Reuben said simply. “And Mom.”
Oh, holy God damn, tears were falling down my face. Not in front of him, please God, make them stop. Not in front of Reuben.
“Please leave,” I whispered. “Please. Just go.”
“Where’s Jillian? Why isn’t she here?”
There was a beat, and I saw the truth in his eyes: he already knew, or at least suspected.
“She’s dead,” I said, inhaling a shaky breath. “And if I don’t destroy the JM-104, it’ll be for nothing. Beau is on his way now, and I need…I need to…”
Reuben was speechless for several seconds. “Benjamin. I am so sorry.”
“Yeah, well, sorry can’t bring her back,” I spat. “But if I find this crap and destroy it, then maybe she can rest in peace. Now leave.”
“Ben.”
“What?” The word, pushed through gritted teeth, was barely understandable even to me.
“Would Jillian want to see you like this?”
>
I risked wiping my nose on my sleeve. “Shut up. Just shut up.” I squinted at him. “I swore that I’d be whoever and whatever it took to save her. I-I-I can’t save her anymore, but I can make it right. I can find the JM-104. Now go. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will. Not even you can get in my way.”
“I’m not leaving you now,” Reuben said quietly. “Put down the gun. We’ll get Ember, go back to the apartment, and figure out a better plan.”
“Leave!” I brandished the gun. “I’ll shoot you! I swear to God, I will! I’ve already killed tonight, and I’ll do it again!”
He didn’t even put his hands up. “No, you won’t. You won’t make Gabriela a widow, you won’t rob my child of a father, you won’t kill Jillian’s friend, and you won’t kill Reid’s brother. You’re going to put down the gun.” He held out his hand. “You need to put down the gun, Benjamin.”
I took a staggered step closer. “What are you going to do, make me? Fight me?”
He looked at me almost pityingly.
Oh, I hated him.
“You want that, don’t you?” His voice was soft, filled with the utmost kindness. “You want me to hurt you. Because you’ve been through so much. You’ve lost every good and gentle thing in the world and you’re desperate for someone to put you out of your misery.”
I snorted. “What would you know? You’re the team golden boy. I even saw that the last time we met here like this.”
Pain flitted across his face. “I wasn’t the team golden boy when the elders said I couldn’t see my wife anymore, on pain of death.”
My fingers were going numb.
Why is he talking so much? Make him stop talking. It’s a trick. He’s distracting you. Tears dripped off my chin. “You’ve called the feds already, haven’t you? That’s why you’re stalling.” My thumb, slippery with sweat, could not grasp the hammer of the revolver.
Mercury Page 27
