Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) (21 page)

I entered Jill’s room and headed directly to the nightstand, finding the suture kit in the velvet-lined drawer where she said it would be. Without wasting any time, I snatched it from the drawer and bounded out of the room with the intention of handing it to Jill and then promptly leaving base before anyone noticed what I was doing. But as I made my way downstairs, I noticed a strange commotion, frantic, as though Brad had taken a turn for the worse. With each step I took, the commotion grew louder and louder, becoming a crescendo of utter madness by the time I reached the bottom of the staircase.

Amidst the ruckus, a moan broke through, though it didn’t sound like Brad. No, it was a moan from a familiar voice, obviously strained and in a great deal of pain. My heart beat frantically as though it were attempting to claw its way out of my chest, the identity of the source of those moans already known to it and the depths of my soul.

“It’s okay, Ian,” Jill said, worried. “She made it back with us and should be back down here in a minute.”

“And you designed all of this yourself? This is your program?” Kara asked Cameron as they sat in the simulation room.

“Yeah, I’ve been designing software and coming up with different programs for gaming since I was a teenager,” he said proudly.

“That’s incredible. You’re really something of a savant. No wonder Victor selected you to run the simulator.” Cameron winced at the mention of Victor. “What—what does this do?” she asked, quickly trying to change the subject, resting her hand on his arm.

“Oh, that,” he said, his mood perking back up. “It’s the avatar designer where I get to play mad scientist and come up with designs for the bad guys in each of my simulations.”

“Incredible.” Kara glanced up at Drew, who stared back at her, an eyebrow raised in perplexion.

“I know, right? Here,” he said as he stood up from his chair, “let me go back to my room to grab the discs that contain some of my original programs from way back in the day. If you like what I’ve done now, you’ll love seeing some of my older work.”

“Great,” Kara said, gritting her teeth together. She watched him leave the simulation room, putting her head in her hands. “Oh, God, I don’t know whether I can take any more of this.”

“Then why are you doing it?” Drew asked. “Hell, I was actually beginning to think you were enjoying yourself. I contemplated asking you whether pickin’s were really that slim on the outside that Cameron was now actually looking good to you.”

“Don’t make me throw this laptop at you, Drew. And, no, I’d much rather remain single, thank you.”

“Okay, well, why are you doing this then? Why are you spending all your time with him, feigning interest in his life, if you really have no interest in it at all?”

Kara looked over her shoulder to make sure Cameron hadn’t returned. Satisfied that she still had time, she got up and walked over to Drew. “Because,” she whispered, “a few of us believe that Victor may be up to something, that he’s hiding something that may be key in finding The Man in Black or maybe even a way we can stop Brooks, and I want to find that out. I want to know that I haven’t been devoting my life to a place that harbors lies and deceit, or, worse, the reason behind my sister’s death.”

Drew nodded. “So you’re getting close to Cameron because of his relationship to Victor and trying to find out what he knows.”

“I’m trying to get into his office, some way, somehow. And Cameron is the only person in this place besides Victor who can get in there, so—”

“So, you’re trying to win the little man over so he’ll trust you enough to let you in.”

“That’s my hope.”

“You could just sleep with him, you know. It would be a lot less painful and I’m sure it would be a far less lengthy process.” Drew laughed, stopping only momentarily to grab his arm after Kara punched him.

“I know where you live,” she said, making her way back over to Cameron’s laptop just as he appeared in the doorway.

“Hey, Kara,” Drew called out to her. “Count me in, too.”

Ian flinched from the touch of the wet cloth against the sutures in his arm. “Next time, we’re wearing our suits when we go out,” I said, applying the balm Jill had given me over his wound.

“Yes, Mom,” he said, a hint of a smile appearing across his face. I increased the pressure of my fingers against his arm in retaliation. “Okay, okay,” he said, grimacing. “Uncle, I’m crying uncle on this one. I’ll wear my suit next time.”

“You were lucky, Ian, the bullet only grazed your arm, and just your arm. If you had been shot almost anywhere else, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.” His lips curled upward into a smile. “What’s so amusing?” I asked, annoyed.

“You were worried about me. It’s cute.”

“I think you lost more blood than we thought,” I said, laughing. “Of course I was worried about you. It was all I could do not to claw my way out of here sooner. Actually, I had every intention of searching for you, but you beat me to it. Ian, I thought you were dead, that I’d lost you forever.”

“Now you know how I felt.” His fingers brushed my cheek, sending goose bumps down my arms. “After Brad was stabbed on the way to the store, I grabbed him and Britta and led them down an alleyway. I told them to wait until the commotion died down and to go back to the spot where we separated from the rest of you, that I would lead the soldiers away. And I did. I ran into the street just as they rounded the block. They opened fire on me right away, and I ran because if I’d taken the time to pull my gun from my holster, I probably wouldn’t have been as lucky as I was.” I leaned down next to him on the bed and rested my head on his pillow. “At first, I didn’t really realize what had happened to me. The adrenaline was pumping through my body so furiously that I didn’t feel the pain right away. It wasn’t until after I jumped inside an empty dumpster and waited for the soldiers to pass that the throbbing began. And then I saw the blood and knew I’d been hit. So I sat there with my gun drawn for what felt like the longest time, waiting. All the while, all I could think about was whether you were okay, whether your group had been ambushed, too.”

He stroked my hair, leaning in closer to me. “All I want is for all of this to be over,” he began again, “to live in a world where I don’t have to worry about whether you’ll make it home or whether we can walk to the store without fear of imprisonment. I want to raise a family of my own, to have a home in the country, and live in peace. That’s all I want, peace. It doesn’t even matter to me if I’m rich or poor, whether I live in a mansion or a one-bedroom shack, I just want to live again.”

I smiled, knowing exactly how he felt at that moment. “That’s all I ever wanted too. To be able to just exist without fear or worries about tomorrow.”

“Then let’s make it happen, you and me.” He leaned in and kissed me softly, groaning as he repositioned his arm around my waist.

“Hey, love birds, knock, knock,” Jill said, opening our door. “You know these things lock, right?”

“Yeah, and most normal people wait until given permission to enter a room before they just go ahead and open the door anyway,” Ian said, annoyed.

“What gave you the impression I was normal?”

“You got me there.”

“Whenever you two are done doing whatever you’re doing here, we’re having an impromptu barbeque on the roof, compliments of you, big man, and the stash you were able to haul back with you with your bum arm.”

My lips pursed as I eyed Ian, who looked as though he wanted to kill Jill at that very moment. “Thanks a lot, Jill. We’ll be up there momentarily.”

Jill chuckled as she shut the door, leaving us alone again. “Really?” I asked. “After being ambushed and shot, you honestly thought you still had an obligation to complete your mission?”

“Well, as it turned out, the dumpster in which I’d lain hidden was located in the back of the very market we were heading to. Roland, the owner, saw me jumping out of it, took pity on me, and doubled the meat he’d set aside for Brad to pick up. So, it wasn’t like I had to trek halfway across town to find it, though if anyone asks, that’s exactly what I’m going to tell them I did so they think I’m all heroic and stuff.”

“Ian, you don’t need to make up a story to be a hero, you already are one. You selflessly sacrificed your own safety for that of others without a second thought. You rescued Max and the others; you saved my life. You’ve thoroughly cemented that role, in my opinion.”

“Are you saying that I’m your hero?” he asked, the smirk returning to his face.

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “In so many different ways.”

Dr. Martin pushed the plunger of the needle, injecting the amber serum into Victor’s abdomen. Victor groaned, his muscles tensed and his back arched in pain as the substance made its way into his system. “This is only a temporary fix, you know,” he said, watching Victor’s body slowly begin to relax.

“At this point, Marty, all I want is something to keep me going until I’ve at least had a chance to dispatch Stevens and watch the life leave her eyes.”

“What do you have against that girl, anyway?” Dr. Martin dabbed the injection site, cleaning the small trickle of blood that fell from the entry point as he promptly secured a bandage over the wound.

“It’s a long story,” Victor said, closing his eyes. “One I’ve recounted in my head over and over again through the years and am growing steadily tired of thinking about.”

“You need to rest up for a couple of days to allow the serum to do its job. Over the course of the next forty-eight hours, you’ll begin to feel its effects. Your strength will increase; your agility will become heightened; your endurance will be ten times what it is now.”

“Good. I’m going to need all that for what I have planned, and then some.” Victor lay back in the hospital bed to allow the serum to move freely through his veins despite the searing pain it caused.

“We’re going to have to replace the metal in your legs soon, Victor,” Dr. Martin said, examining the rest of Victor’s body. “Like everything else in this world, nothing lasts forever.”

“Now, Marty, I pay you good money to ensure that it does. Besides, you’ve done a good job maintaining Stevens and Grant. They’ve not required any injections since their initial surgery. It appears as though the implant is doing its job, providing them with adequate doses of the serum every few months.”

“Yes, the serum I used on them was experimental, and the same thing I’ve been injecting into you ever since its success was substantiated. It’s interesting, though, I’ve been monitoring their bloodwork ever since their surgeries, and it even appears to be altering their DNA ever so slightly.”

“Altering their genes, like we hoped it would,” Victor mused. “Like you’ve been doing to me ever since we came up with the idea. It seems as though we’ve finally perfected it, then?”

“Not quite. Despite their enhanced strength, speed, muscle mass, and endurance, their organ systems—especially their hearts—are extremely susceptible to shutting down. Their bones—mostly their spinal columns—are becoming brittle. And the persistent flow of adrenaline brought on by their brain’s response to the serum is only exacerbating matters. Surely, had they any idea what we were actually going to do to them, they would never have agreed to it voluntarily.”

“Well, it’s a good thing they didn’t, then. Their bodies are ticking time bombs.”

“So is yours, Victor, don’t forget that.”

“I haven’t, my friend, I’ve just learned to defuse the situation over the years—at the expense of most of the organic tissue in my extremities and a steel rod in my vertebral column. I’m a survivor, Marty. Always have been, always will be. But those two, Stevens and Grant, they can be broken. Every opponent I’ve ever come up against has a breaking point, and I’m confident that I’ve found Stevens.’”

“Do you guys have these little shindigs often?” I asked Jill as I sat next to her, hamburger in hand.

“No, actually, this is a first,” she said, looking over the city spread out before us. “I think Marshall figured we could all use a break from reality for a while.” She took a bite out of her hamburger without taking her eyes away from the view. “For a second, if you allow your mind to suspend what it knows, everything out there seems almost normal, like we aren’t living in the hell Brooks created. Look around us. The sun is shining, it’s an absolutely gorgeous late spring day. If only there were cars on the streets and people instead of soldiers, everything would be perfect right now.” She sighed, picking at the bun of her hamburger and pulling out a pinch of bread at a time to pop in her mouth.

“That’s why I like coming to places like this,” I said, my eyes trailing upward to the cloudless sky. “High above the anarchy, you can almost pretend like nothing’s amiss down there.”

“I wonder what he’s so happy about,” Jill muttered. Following her gaze, I saw Max merrily slapping the backs of the other rebels, barbeque tongs in hand. “Seriously, the only time he ever has a shit-eating grin on his face like that is when he’s up to something.”

“Maybe he’s just enjoying the moment like the rest of us. Joy has a way of being contagious sometimes.”

“Speaking of contagious, he sure recovered from his “illness” quickly. If he was ever really sick at all.”

In the background, I saw Ian standing with a group of younger rebels and former soldiers. He held his camera in his hands, showing them its intricacies as he passed it to Drake, instructing him on how to take a picture with it. Another rebel handed Ian a baseball, perhaps the only possession he could bring with him. Ian inspected it, nodded appreciatively, and handed it back to the fair-haired man, who then motioned for him to walk back a few paces to engage in a game of catch. The two threw the baseball back and forth as though they were back home on the baseball diamond and not smack dab in the middle of hostility. But after a half dozen pitches, Ian motioned for him not to throw the ball back, noticeably guarding his left shoulder.