Amplified (8 page)

“Where do you keep it?”
I asked.

“
Where do I keep the antidote, you mean?” He fiddled with a drawer and yanked out a ring strung with more keys I’ve ever seen. They jingled as he moved, and I winced at how loud they echoed across the counters and walls of the empty lab. I hoped no one heard us, it would ruin everything. I wished I didn’t have to do this alone, but if Rye, Elijah or Sarah knew what I was doing, everything would be over in a millisecond.

“
So, April,” Rick said, “what do you think you can do with this antidote?” He flipped through the key ring, letting them jingle like a tiny song tinkling in my ears. It occurred to me that he might be stalling, but I wasn’t going to assume it. I didn’t know this man standing before me. Heck, he’d known my mother, in our past life, when time was abundant and death but an afterthought. He could know things about me that I’d never told anyone but my mother. Would she have even known she’d be giving up such secrets without a second thought? Back then, when a conversation over a cup of coffee in the teacher’s lounge was as innocent as waking up for the day, she could have told him anything.

The thought was unsettling
, and I found myself twiddling my thumbs as I thought about it. What guarantee did I have that he would help me? I wondered how well he had known my mother before this all happened, before the world fell to pieces and he became a mad scientist. I almost laughed at the thought. It was sort of funny to think that Rick was a normal science teacher once upon a time.

“What’
s taking so long?” I asked. “Don’t you know where you keep it?” I stepped forward toward him, but he sensed me and backed away until his back hit the cabinets.

“
Don’t touch me!” His harsh whisper stunned me, leaving me to stare at him.

“
What the… are you insane? I’m not going to hurt you.” That’s when I heard it, one tiny step where the rubber of the sole of the shoe squeaked on the shiny tiles, and I knew he hadn’t directed the comment toward me. I flicked my eyes behind me and saw a sword swing into the air just in time for me to duck under it, swipe my leg back toward the intruder and hit their ankle full force as I dropped to the floor.

The sword
went flying across the tiles, but I didn’t wait to see where it went. I was already up on my feet, catapulting onto the stranger before he or she was able to get up. I straddled them, yanking out a knife from my hip holster. I dug my knees into their shoulders and upper arms while my feet pressed into the sensitive area of their inner thighs. They yelped, obviously in pain.

The attacker was
wearing all black, with dark jeans, a long-sleeve shirt and even a dark mask covering their face. From the feel of their body, it was a man, but he was small and I was able to hold him down even though he kept bucking his weight up at his hips to try to shake me off.

Grunting with the effort,
I managed to pull off the mask. I gasped. “Mercer?” He stopped bucking and dared to throw me a smirk. “What the fuck?”

“
Quite impressive, April. You’re as fascinating as Rick said you would be.”

I made the
mistake to look back toward Rick, who was holding that same fucking syringe. Mercer took that distraction to buck me off and encircle his arms around me, squeezing hard enough to make me drop my knife.

Shit!

“Don’t worry, April.” Rick wasn’t smiling, which was surprising, considering he was about to shoot me up with something. “It’s not the antidote. We set you up for capture, and you walked right into it. Thank you, April. You played your part so well, you made it all too easy.”

“
What the hell do you mean? What is that if it isn’t the antidote?” I struggled against Mercer, who now had me pinned to the floor, and his hot breath on my ear made me cringe. I swore to God if that was a hard on I could feel bulging down there, I was going to lose my mind. Or he was going to lose something.

It wasn
’t my imagination. The psycho was getting off on this.
Perfect.

“
Sorry, April. This might sting a little bit. It’s just something to make you for sleep just for a while.”

I managed to
pull away some, and Mercer struggled to keep me in one spot, tightening his grip with his arms encircling me like a straitjacket.

“
Rick… please… don’t do this! You have to help me! Don’t let him have me. Please….” I felt the pinprick stab in my arm, a tiny spark of pain. I always hated needles. The medicine worked fast, and the room began to sway while my struggling body went lax. Mercer led me down to the floor.

“
I’ve got the girl. Come quietly, everyone’s still asleep. Over.”

I could hear them speaking
to someone in the crackle of a radio. My body no longer responded, but I could still hear him, and I could still hear Rick shuffle around with keys as he probably went to remove the real antidote.
Damn you, Rick.
Why would he do this to me? Where was everyone? Rye was probably still sleeping, and the others, too. I was such a fool to do this alone. Now what would become of me?

“
Is she out?”

“
She might still hear us, but she’s pretty out of it. She won’t give us any trouble for a while.”

“
Good. We can have a lot of fun with this one.”

“
You’ll do no such thing.” This voice was cold with a hint of anger in it. Was it Christian? Was he actually there? Why didn’t anyone know they had gotten out of the quarantine? How could they all sleep through this? What was going on? “We have to leave the area and close it down like before so they’ll think she broke in on her own accord. Just keep to the sections with no cameras.” It
was
Christian. That traitorous bastard!

“
I’m still your second in command,” Mercer snapped back. “I’ll be in charge of her. Your blood bond will cloud up your thoughts and risk our mission.” Mercer’s snarl did nothing to faze Christian as he muttered a rebuttal that Mercer didn’t immediately oppose. I could feel his heart beating through his relentless grip on my arm. I wasn’t sure who was carrying the bulk of me, but Christian was making sure he wasn’t touching me. Now I knew just how much the bond was affecting him. I had always had more control over it than he.

“Mmmm….”

“Rick!” Mercer hissed. “She’s waking up, dammit! Hit her up with another dose now.” He shifted, still digging his fingers into my skin. Another sharp prick in my arm burned the muscle like liquid fire, but I couldn’t scream. I could do nothing but let the darkness overtake me.

“
I added some sedative this time. That should knock her out.” Rick’s dry tone told me he wasn’t happy with the situation at all. Well, that made three of us then.

Their voices faded as the medicine
flowed through my veins. I hoped that when I woke up, I would still be whole and untouched. Mercer scared me, but I had faith that my bond with Christian would keep that vulture away as I lay dead to the world.

Memory is Cruel

I heard birds chirping, but it wasn’t real. No, it was more like the flapping of their wings had brought me back to the beaches my parents would drag me to when I was small, before my brother had been born. Days spent digging into the fine grains of sand and dragging buckets of seawater to my piles of dirt to make it easier to sculpt it into a masterpiece were precious memories. I could feel the same powdery sand under my skin as I shifted and the scent of ocean permeated the air.

I had to be dreaming. This wasn
’t something from the present, and my mind shuddered as it fought to regain control of the dream, throwing darkness around me like an inky black smoke. But the fog was too rich, too thick to brush away, and I slipped back to the beach of my ten-year-old self.

The scenery turned crisp, bright
, and I focused on the shoreline before me. The sun burned at my scalp, prompting me to glance around for a hat or towel to throw over it and keep the rays off my skin. I had a tendency to burn easily.

“
April.” My mother’s voice echoed in my ears, far away, as though it was underwater or through a thick wall.

“Mom?”
I spun around and finally laid eyes on the woman who I considered to be one of the most amazing and beautiful women I’ve ever known.

“Here.”
She handed me a scarf, and I promptly wrapped it about my head and donned the sunglasses dangling from her delicate fingertips. Her nails were smooth, manicured to perfection, but with only a thin layer of clear coat to make them shine. Her hands were beautiful and strong.

“
Thanks, Mom.” I gestured toward the tumbling waves and prepared to barrage her with questions. “What are we doing here?”

She plopped down beside me and
let out a deep rushing breath. “Oh, my dear. Have you forgotten to enjoy things already? You have to look around sometimes, take in the beauty of the world. It can disappear without a moment’s notice. Look at the water. It’s strong, unshakeable. The sand, smoothed over from centuries of being tossed about. Notice how fine it is and it feels like heaven under your feet. Why is it so hard to see the simple things?”

I huffed and
turned back toward the water, watching as wave after wave pummeled the shore like a raging beast.

“
People die out there, Mom,” I said as I contemplated her words. I had always been too old for my age, or so she had said. An old soul trapped in a young body. It had prevented me from enjoying my childhood like any other ten-year-old, and it had stolen my innocence along with it, replacing it with the blatant knowledge of just how cruel and dark the world could really be. “Millions have died already. There’s no hope.”

I bit my lip
, and the taste of coppery blood hit my tongue.

“Darlin
g, I know it seems as if there’s nothing to care about anymore. It seems impossible with such a bleak horizon in sight. I know how you feel.” She sat quietly beside me, and I waited for her to continue. “Nothing I say can make you feel better. I know that more than anyone. Just promise me you’ll pause and look around now and then. Enjoy the burnt orange of the sunsets. Breathe in the crisp ocean air, savor the taste of wild strawberries and watermelons we find now and then treading through untouched greenhouses. You can’t forget these things. You mustn’t. Promise me.”

I peeked at her
sideways and scrunched up my eyes. She had hers closed and was letting the ocean breeze rush past her face and ruffle the long fuchsia scarf she’d wrapped around her unruly hair.

But
wait… she was dead, wasn’t she?

“Mom?”

“Hmmm?”

“Why did you leave me?”

She didn’t turn toward me but just stared off across the waves. I breathed in the faint smell of coconut lotion and waited for her response. When she didn’t move, I opened my mouth to speak again, but her image flickered.

What the…?

I scanned the beach and found it empty. My eyes swung back to my mother, but she too was gone.

No, no,
no….

I jumped to my feet and fe
lt the air turn frigid as I spun, searching for the birds, the few people who had occupied the beach just a few seconds ago.

“Mom?” I called
out.

Only silence answered
back to me.

“
Mom!
” I hollered and ran toward the shore, but there was no one.

No one but me.

I was still alone in the world, and everyone was dead. Everyone but me.

~~~~~

“What exactly are you saying?” Mercer’s voice came out snappy, as if the person speaking to him had irritated him for the last time and was in danger of being extinct.

“I mean…
the girl. Her blood isn’t compatible with any of the antidotes.”

“Rick shot her up with all of them?”

“No, sir. He used them all on the samples of her blood he took.”

“None of them are working?”

“No, sir.”

I hear
d a smack and then the thump of something heavy landing on the ground. “Get the hell out of my face and tell Rick he needs to hurry up. I’m sick of waiting for results from that pencil-necked twit.”

“Yes, sir.” The other person got
up and limped away. The scent of his sweat permeated the air, and a nervous charge hung in his wake like static.

“Maybe she
’s the final product of the virus. Lethal and all powerful. Immune to any antidote because she’s not really infected per se, but the result of a human body’s perfected defenses against it via adaptation.”

Christian.

I resisted the temptation to jump off the hard mattress I was lying on to slam my fists into his pretty face. His dark red hair haunted my memories, as did his two-colored eyes. Brown and Green. Two different hues that so perfectly represented his duality. I loved his eyes, though. They called to me in dreams and tormented me whenever I met them face to face. The sadness over his betrayal hurt down to the core, and I fought to keep my breathing rhythmic and slow as my heart felt like it would burst. How could he do this? I thought he had wanted to win my heart and be my mate. Even though I wouldn’t have given in to him so easily, if he’d been patient, with time… maybe we could’ve been something more.

What was I saying? I flicked my eyes open and tried to move, only to find
that my wrists and ankles were strapped to the metal frame of the bed. Great. Why hadn’t I noticed that before opening my eyes? I was a sitting duck.

“Hello
, princess.” Christian’s voice was warm and welcoming, making me hate him even more. A chair scraped along the cement floor, and I focused my blurry vision onto him as he leaned in toward me. “I was hoping you’d wake up soon.”

I close
d my eyes, tugging at the restraints to no avail. I’d been drained of blood, left weak. What had they done to me?

“Water,
” I managed to whisper, but I couldn’t do much more. It hurt to speak, to breathe. Only dizziness greeted me, even though I was lying down. So cold.

“One moment.” I hear
d him rustling about followed by the distinct sound of liquid pouring into a plastic cup and a crinkle of paper before he returned to my side. “Here, love. Sip from the straw.”

I blink
ed as I felt the plastic touch my cracked lips. I let it past my teeth and sucked in the fluid, my stomach clenching with waves of nausea as I paused to breathe past it before I could sip some more.

“Where am I?” I croak
ed. How long had I been out? It must’ve been a while because my throat felt like it had been dragged through sandpaper, and my lips had a layer of dead skin that cracked as I spoke. I licked them and tasted the taint of blood.

The memory of the ocean
came rushing back to me, and I tensed up, remembering my mother. Tears blurred my vision again as I gulped back a sob.

“Now, now. You
’ll be fine. I promise you.”

“Where am I?” I hiss
ed it this time and managed a nice frown as I focused back onto Christian through the tears that I fought to restrain. I had the urge to damage that pretty face of his like I’d stabbed up his stomach. One day, I promised myself, that would be on my to-do list, right at the very top.

“We
’re still in the same facility. We’ve quarantined off the area where Blaze’s group is. Don’t worry. They can’t get in here like we could get in there. They’ll never find the way in. They’re trapped there. There’s no way out from that quad. It was a way to trick them into closing themselves in. They fell for the false sense of security.”

“Bastard.” I close
d my eyes, feeling a bit better, but my head was still aching fiercely.

“April, let
’s not be so harsh. It’s for all our good that we did this.”

“Fuck you, Christian.”

A haughty laugh echoed from behind my head. I couldn’t see him, but I knew it was Mercer.

“My, my. She is a feisty one. Just like you said. You lucky bastard.”

“Go to hell, Mercer.”

His hot breath flared
across my cheek, and his face appeared right next to mine.

“Come on, Mercer, back up,
” Christian said, looking annoyed.

“Listen here,
precious.
I don’t care if he’s your mate or not. I’ll still kill you with the first wrong step you take. And for your information… we’re already in hell, if you haven’t noticed, bitch!”

“Back off,” Christian
said again. He put his hand on Mercer’s chest, throwing him a look of warning.

“Temper, temper,
” I said, laughing at how quickly they had begun to bicker. Maybe I could use that against them. I let my head rest against the flat pillow under my head. “I need to pee.”

“Pee yourself.”

I laughed again and shook my head. “What? Afraid this little drained human is going to beat you up? Aww….”

Mercer stomped
away, cursing under his breath. Feeling a tickle at my feet, I looked down to find Christian undoing the restraints.

“Sorry, he
’s sort of insensitive.”

“No kidding.”

“Come on. I’ll take you to the showers. There’s a toilet, towels and fresh clothes there. You stink, by the way.”

“You smell like a rose, too.”
I scrunched up my nose up and eyed him straight on. “How long was I out?”

“A full
seventy-two hours.”

“Geez…
.” I let my head drop back as he slid over to undo my wrist restraints. “Is that true? Can the others not get out?”

“Oh
, they can get out. It’ll take them forever to do it, but it’s possible. This place took years to complete. It was built before Vida was.”

He helped me sit up, and I rubbed my sore skin. The grime under my nails and my cracked skin made me frown.
“How do you know of all these secret projects?”

“I used to work for the government. It was my job to oversee the labs and chemicals being shipped into these places. There
’s dozens of fortresses, all across the country.”

“
You’re kidding, right? Do you think humans made it to them at all?”

He shifted on his feet, still bent at the bedside.
He stared hard at the cement floor. His long, dark red hair framed his features, making his eyes shine in the dark.

“I don
’t know. Probably. Quite a few made it to the ones here in Vegas, surprisingly.”

I stood up and wa
ited. He stretched up before me. His height was always impressive.

“
All right, then,” I said, looking up at him, “lead the way.”