Blood Victory: A Burning Girl Thriller (The Burning Girl)

by Christopher Rice

  “So, he was trying to turn Charley against you so she’d act out and become too dangerous to let run around in the world.”

  “Yes, which, given our difficult history, isn’t the tallest order.”

  “But what does he get out of that?”

  “Well, for one, with Charley locked in a lab, we’re all spending a lot less money, and we’re not exposed to the security risks of her driving halfway across Texas on a whim while triggered. Honestly, I think he’s trying to reduce his investment in this now that he’s got paradron, and for some reason, he feels like we don’t need to make Charley happy anymore to get paradrenaline out of her blood. And that scares me.”

  “Philip, though. How does he get Philip to go along with him? Philip’s private security. He’s about people power. He’s going to be invested in science that increases human capabilities. He doesn’t give a shit about poison. I certainly can’t see him joining a thwart plan over it.”

  “I don’t know. Philip’s never liked me very much.”

  “This isn’t that.”

  “Isn’t what?”

  “It’s not personality driven, Cole. There’s something else here. It’s bigger.”

  Noah’s irritated, for sure, but it’s not the anger of earlier, and it doesn’t seem to be directed at Cole. He rises to his feet, crosses to the window, and stares through it, even though all he’s looking at is a lowered metal storm shudder on the other side of the glass. He’s seeing his own thoughts, and apparently, they’re as vast as the hidden view outside.

  “What?” Cole finally asks.

  “These men, they’re masters of the universe. If Stephen’s hoping to harvest weapons from all this, he’s got to be looking at the psychos I’ve got in my lab and thinking their brains could yield something pretty damn effective. I’ve spent the past year generating never-before-seen neural maps of the brain structures that lead to sadistic, remorseless violence. I’d like to use those to treat violent psychopaths, but a guy like Stephen, it makes sense he’d start asking how to mimic those neurological systems to create super soldiers who can kill in battle without hesitation or remorse. Instead, with weapons potential all over the place in our studies, he suddenly decides to screw with Charley’s ability to feed that pipeline.”

  “It’s the security risks,” Cole says, but he’s repeating himself and believing the explanation less and less each time. “He’s just worried she’ll do something out in the world that will draw attention to his involvement.”

  “I don’t believe that. There’s almost nothing you guys can’t cover up. That can’t be why. And for Philip there’s no why at all.”

  “Noah, if you’ve got a theory, then share it.”

  The challenge gets his attention. He turns, his expression focused.

  Shit, Cole thinks, he really does have a theory.

  “I think you don’t know what you gave them,” he says.

  “Meaning?”

  Noah turns from the window, sinks down onto the foot of the bed, studying Cole as if he’s not sure Cole will be able to handle the impact of what he’s about to say. “I think paradron is a lot more than just a poison. And when Stephen took a good look at it on his end, he realized that and for some reason decided he doesn’t need Charley at all. Or us.”

  “Just Philip?”

  “Maybe.”

  Cole wants to protest, but it’s just defiance. There’s an elegance to Noah’s theory that’s impossible to ignore.

  Memories of his own behavior are coming back to him with vicious force; he’s thinking of how heavily he sugarcoated paradron’s origin story when he related it to Noah just a few moments ago. They didn’t generate a poison; they ended up with one by mistake, and it came as a terrible defeat. They weren’t trying to turn cancer into a more effective poison; they were trying to cure it. Had their emotions blinded them? Had he and Kelley Chen been so stung by their sense of failure they’d offloaded the samples to Stephen too quickly and without enough analysis? If that was the case, then he was partly to blame.

  The last time he’d been blinded by emotion and ego, Luke Prescott had almost died. Now the same weakness could have endangered not just Charley but everything they’d built.

  “Cole?”

  He’s on his feet without remembering having stood. The concern in Noah’s voice behind him sounds unguarded, genuine. But in a strange mental twist, even though it only feels like something’s sitting on his chest, he turns his back to Noah as if he might be able to see the invisible source of whatever’s causing him pain, and for some reason that would be terribly embarrassing. He tells himself he’s still unexpectedly raw from their discussion of their own history. That’s why he’s a strange, unfamiliar blend of nauseated, dizzy, and breathless.

  Is he having a heart attack? Is this what one feels like?

  A sound comes from far away, a faint thud. He feels wood underneath his palms, realizes what he just heard were his own hands grabbing the windowsill to keep himself upright.

  “Cole?”

  Not just concern in Noah’s voice now. Outright alarm.

  Has he been poisoned? Is that it?

  He blinks, stares at the shuttered window before him. If it were a poison this sudden, it would be accelerating. But even amid the other symptoms, there remains a strange sense of being grounded. It’s as if some invader inside of him is trying to decide which body part to turn against him, and it’s tuning up everything as it prepares to make a choice—his head, his stomach, his chest. He’s dizzy, but his head isn’t throbbing. He can’t draw a deep breath, but he isn’t suffocating. There’s pain in his chest, but it’s not the thundering fire of a heart attack. He feels like he’s outside of his body, yet he knows exactly where he is.

  “Cole!”

  His knees go weak. The pressure against his stomach is Noah’s arm. The man’s righted him. Not just that, he’s holding Cole to keep him from crumpling to the floor.

  This isn’t me, he tells himself. I don’t have feelings like this.

  But on some deep intuitive level he can’t ignore, he knows what’s happening to him.

  He’s having a panic attack. Full on, like the kind you see in the commercials for the drugs he sells but refuses to take. Because Noah’s right. He missed something. And again, it was big. And it’s a reminder that he’s a fraud. A spoiled little fraud playing at being a master of the universe with daddy’s fortune, with his company.

  It’s an embrace now, what Noah’s giving him. Cole’s hands, which felt limp and lifeless a second before, are resting against Noah’s solid chest. Slowly, Noah cups one side of Cole’s face. Maybe he’s gazing into Cole’s eyes to see if he’s lost his mind. And maybe it’s calculated, manipulative tenderness, the way he’s gently cupping the side of Cole’s jaw in one hand. But Cole can’t bring himself to care. Not right now. Not when he’s this panicked. He needs his touch. Noah’s touch. Dylan’s touch. It doesn’t matter which one he is in this moment, because when they’re in each other’s arms, he’s both.

  “Cole?” It’s a whisper now, but still a question.

  “I can’t do this alone.”

  Noah doesn’t gloat, just strokes Cole’s cheek gently as he gazes into his eyes. Maybe that’s what gives Cole the courage to say what he has to say next, even though he’s never been more terrified by anything he’s had to say in his life.

  “I need you.”

  At first, neither one of them reacts to the pounding against the door.

  When it’s Noah who pulls away first, Cole realizes he’s still having trouble breathing, still feels like he’s moving through molasses. But relief is spreading through him, no doubt brought by just having said those last few words. By the time Noah opens the bedroom door to reveal Scott Durham on the other side, Cole’s walking toward his security director as if nothing’s amiss.

  “There’s a problem,” Scott says. Given he’s had no reaction to the fact that Noah opened the door, Cole knows it must be serious.

 
“Charley?”

  “Bailey,” Scott answers.

  28

  Highway 287

  “Babe?”

  Charlotte’s still seeing the road sign they passed a few minutes earlier.

  AMARILLO 60 MILES.

  At their current speed, they’ll be there in less than an hour.

  Then one of them will have to hop in the back of the truck and start working Mattingly again. Will it be her? Maybe. If Cole remote doses her.

  “Babe?” Luke says again.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  She knows exactly what he’s referring to, but she looks at him anyway. Sees he’s holding the stopwatch in the hand that’s not on the steering wheel.

  “No judgments if . . .”

  “If what?” she asks.

  “If you want to bail. I mean, it’s not bailing, but you know what I mean. We might have other options.”

  “Yeah, like we slow down, let them drop out of the sky and load Mattingly into some chopper, and a few weeks later Cole gives us a pat on the head, says it’s all been taken care of and I shouldn’t worry because his business partners got the best of him after all. But he never gives us Mother’s name, so we can’t be sure.”

  “Not to play devil’s advocate here, but last time Cole really did take care of it. Like hard-core took care of it.”

  “It’s not Cole I’m worried about it. It’s his billionaire buddies.”

  “I know, but maybe Cole can do a better job of protecting us from them if we fall back.”

  “Give in, you mean.”

  “I’m not for it. I just don’t want you to think I’m against it if it’s what you need.”

  “All that would require stopping, and if Cole’s under pressure to take Mattingly all the way back to Kansas to interrogate him, the other women might get tortured to death in the interim. If the best we can do is bring whoever he’s sent after us right to the doorstep of these assholes, then let’s do it.”

  Luke nods, watches the road. “I just don’t want you to feel like you can’t change your mind.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And I sat here for about an hour trying to find a way to say that that didn’t make it sound like I was trying to make you change your mind, but I couldn’t come up with one so I just said it.”

  “No judgments,” she says, hoping her repurposing of his phrase will lighten the mood.

  It does.

  For about ten seconds.

  But the closer they get to the end of the window, the more she realizes how confident she’s been that Cole will remote dose her. Only now is she starting to think about what the hours ahead will be like if he doesn’t.

  29

  Kansas Command

  The cavern from which Bailey Prescott travels cyberspace and protects their communications is so cramped with server towers and computers there’s barely anywhere for Cole, Noah, and Scott to stand.

  Bailey doesn’t look up from the screen in front of him as they enter.

  Sweat threads the sides of his face as he types and mouse-clicks like a speed freak. Thanks to all the heat coming off the surrounding equipment, the room’s air-conditioned to a constant winter chill. If Bailey’s sweating, that means whatever this is, it’s serious.

  “You rang?” Cole says.

  Holding up one hand, Bailey says, “This is how this needs to work. Nobody talks except to answer my direct questions. I am incredibly busy here.”

  Nobody says anything. Maybe because there wasn’t a direct question.

  “How many people know about the remote dosing system?” Bailey asks.

  “Everyone in this room and the members of The Consortium,” Cole answers.

  “Does anyone else have the log-in credentials?”

  “No, just you and me.”

  “OK. Well, someone’s trying to get them.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ask me questions; that’s not how this works.”

  Noah grips Cole’s shoulder. “Explain what this means, please. Computers aren’t my thing.”

  “No talking!” Bailey shouts.

  Noah repeats the exact same question in a whisper.

  “Whispering counts!”

  Cole steps out into the hallway. Noah and Scott follow.

  “The remote dosing system’s password protected,” Cole says. “Only Bailey and I know the password, and only I’m supposed to actually use it.”

  “Yes, thank you, I got that part,” Noah says.

  “Someone else is trying to hack the system to get it,” Scott says. “Do they want to lock us out?”

  “Or they want to dose her before we do,” Cole says.

  “That cannot happen.” Noah’s eyes blaze with anger, as if the idea of injecting another dose of Zypraxon into Charlotte’s blood was Cole’s idea. “In every animal test when we added a dose to a triggered subject’s bloodstream, their brains literally came out of their eyes. As in the actual definition of literally.”

  “That’s never happened in a human,” Cole says.

  “We’ve never tested it on one, and we sure as hell shouldn’t now.”

  “I’m not planning on it. Maybe a little quieter, please.”

  “I’ll quiet down as soon as you tell Bailey not to dose her preemptively to fend off this hack.”

  Cole throws the door open. “Bailey!”

  “No talk—”

  “Shut up! You work for me. Listen, do not dose her preemptively just to fend these people off.”

  Bailey’s eyes leave the screen. “Then we might not be able to dose her at all.”

  Shit, Cole thinks, he was about to do it. Good thinking, Noah.

  “That’s preferable to blowing up her brain.”

  “Her brain, what?” Bailey cries. “Oh my God!”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “Less than ten minutes.”

  “Hold them off until her trigger window closes, then wait thirty seconds and no longer and dose her.”

  “Her brain? What are you talking—”

  “Focus!”

  Noah and Scott are standing so close to the door Cole bumps into both of them when he emerges from the room. So, Bailey’s never seen the photos of animal test subjects, their eyeballs missing and their eye sockets run through with tentacles of mangled, glistening brain matter. If they get through this, he’ll have to give Bailey a better education in the potential perils of a double dose. Cole closes the door behind him.

  “How big is the suspect pool here?” Noah asks.

  “I can count on one hand the number of people who know about the system,” Cole answers. “But only one of them’s already in the network.”

  “Who?” Scott asks.

  “Julia. It was her condition for letting us use Bailey after what he did to her last year.”

  “You think she’s behind this?” Scott asks.

  “Not after the way she acted earlier, no.”

  They all fall silent as they mull the implications.

  “How long do we have?” Noah finally asks.

  “Less than ten minutes,” Scott answers.

  “And we’re counting on Bailey to hold them off,” Noah says. It sounds less like a question and more like a warning.

  “Yes,” Cole says.

  “But we don’t know exactly what we’re holding off. I mean, whoever this is, they could either be trying to make sure Charley can’t retrigger or they’re trying . . .”

  “To kill her. I’m calling Julia.”

  “You think it’s her?”

  “No, I think this whole thing’s in Bailey’s hands, and calling Julia’s the only thing I can think of to do right now and I should have done it before. Like months before.”

  A second later, the three of them are in the conference room.

  When Julia Crispin’s face fills in the screen, he sees familiar signs of worry around her nose and mouth.

  “I was expecting to hear from you so
oner,” she says.

  “This hasn’t been my favorite night.”

  “That makes two of us.” Her tone is strained but not accusatory. A positive sign.

  “Good. I could use a friend. We have a problem, Julia.”

  “We have many.”

  “This one’s urgent.”

  “And you’re only notifying me?” She sounds curious.

  “You’re in our network, as per our agreement.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Seen anybody else in there with you?”

  “My team hasn’t notified me of anything. Why?”

  “So it’s not you that’s trying to access the remote dosing system?”

  Julia’s brow furrows, and she actually leans toward her computer as if she didn’t hear most of what he just said. She’s got a great poker face, but she’s not an ace at manufacturing emotional displays. Cole’s pretty sure this one’s genuine.

  “I’ve given no such orders, no,” she answers.

  “Can you instruct your monitoring team to help Bailey fend this off, whatever it is?”

  “You think it’s Stephen and Philip, don’t you?”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but I need an answer. Time’s running out.”

  “Her trigger window . . .” Julia seems to put it all together in a flash. And she pales.

  “Julia?”

  Julia nods, reaches for her mobile, and begins texting frantically.

  “Done,” she says.

  “Thank you.”

  “I was wondering when you were going to reach out,” she says.

  “The hack’s only minutes old.”

  “I’m not talking about the hack,” she says. “I know what your father really did to those boys, Cole, and there wasn’t a lot of forgiveness to it. I’m assuming Charley does, too.”

  She doesn’t seem to care one whit she’s just spilled a dark family secret in front of Noah and Scott. In the end, Cole shouldn’t be all that surprised his father confessed a decade-old murder to his mistress. Their affair lasted for years. In the end, it was his father’s secret to share. The part that included murder, at least.

  “I should probably hop on the phone with my cyberteam,” Julia says. “My voice seems to scare them into action.”