Rough Edges (27 page)

E
ven on the tiny surveillance screen affixed to her crossword puzzle book, Bella could still see that Randolph had figured out she wasn't what she seemed.

Interacting with him had been a risk. She knew that, but it had been the best option she could think of with the limited time she'd had.

She sat still, hoping his suspicion would fade if she looked innocent. Just a little old lady enjoying some fresh air. Nothing to see. Just keep moving with that tracker in tow, asshole.

But he didn't keep moving. He studied her for what seemed like an hour, but was probably only a few seconds. His posture shifted slightly as he put his hands in the pockets of his hoodie.

Randolph was reaching for a weapon.

Bella was torn between staying in character and grabbing her own gun. If she shot him, he'd never carry that tracker anywhere near Stynger. If he shot her, she wouldn't be able to follow his movements. The only hope she had of finding Gage and Lila's baby was to sit completely still and pretend she wasn't bursting with the need for action.

Two seconds later, she knew her decision had been made for her.

The dark shadow of a matte black gun appeared in Randolph's hand. She was just about to jump over the bench and behind the nearby decorative rock wall she'd scouted earlier when a flash of movement caught her eye.

Victor was racing toward her, down the hill leading to their location. He lifted a silenced weapon and fired it at Randolph.

She was so stunned to see Victor that she hesitated. If she moved now, he would be the only available target. As the only good guy currently armed, her best chance was to make sure Victor stayed standing.

Randolph turned his attention on Victor. Bella charged Randolph, going in low to barrel into his gut. He fired off a shot before she made contact. There wasn't time to see if it had hit before she tackled him.

He went flying back, landing on his ass a few feet away. She took control of his weapon arm, using every bit of strength she had in both hands just to keep him pinned.

It wasn't enough. Randolph was stronger than she remembered. He flung her off with as little effort as it would have taken to move a small child. She slammed into the ground like some kind of floppy cartoon character. Her head hit hard, making her world erupt into screaming pain.

A pitiful, agonizing sound ripped free of her against her will. Bright blobs of color swam through her field of vision, shimmering as they went.

He picked her up and pinned her to his front like a living shield. Bella tried to fight him, but she couldn't quite remember where she'd left her hands. Wherever they were, she couldn't feel them.

Victor lifted his weapon slightly, but his finger moved from the trigger. “Let her go, Randolph.”

“Yeah. I'll get right on that. Right after you drop the weapon and kick it my way.”

“I don't have to drop anything. There are cops down in the parking lot. All I have to do is wait right here for them to arrest all of us and sort it out. I'm pretty sure I'll be free in a couple of hours. How about you?”

Tension vibrated through Randolph's hold on her. She couldn't see any cops, but there were about three parking lots stacked on top of one another from what she could tell, and every one of them was a wild blur.

“You're lying,” Randolph said.

Victor shrugged. He was so damn handsome it made her heart lurch toward him. Even now, with a pissed-off ex-employee holding a gun to her head, she still couldn't get over just how much she loved him.

Love?

Now she knew she was concussed. She wasn't loving any man ever again. Doing so once had nearly killed her. “I'm not going to love you,” she shouted at Victor, just so he'd know where she stood. “I don't care how many assholes put guns to my head.”

Victor's voice was gentle, concerned. “Bella, you hit your head. You're bleeding. We need to get you to a hospital. Can you get free?”

Of course she could get free. All she had to do is figure out how to stand up without Randolph's help.

“Sorry I scrambled your girlfriend's brains,” Randolph said. “She's hot, but then the crazy ones usually are. Too bad she's also got a raging case of controlling bitch to go along with that hard body.”

That pissed her off. Her swing was awkward, but she managed to land a blow along the underside of his chin.

The barrel of the gun left her head for a split second—just long enough for him to slam the butt of it into her temple.

She felt herself slip away as unconsciousness took her. The last thing she saw was Victor's too-perfect face twisted by his horrified expression. After that, there was nothing.

*   *   *

Victor nearly lost it when Randolph knocked Bella out cold. She was already bleeding badly from where her head had been slammed into a rock earlier. He'd tossed her around like a rag doll, displaying the kind of inhuman strength Victor had seen only in other men altered by Stynger's research.

It wouldn't have taken much effort at all for Randolph to rip her apart, killing her with his bare hands.

The comms unit came to life in Victor's ear. “Cops heard the shot. They've called for backup and are moving in. Clear out.”

Victor debated his options. Bella had planted the tracker. Her stuff was still sitting on the park bench. It wouldn't take much to find the signal and trace where it led. But in order to do that, he was going to have to let Randolph go. With Bella.

Another option was to kill the man where he stood. But if he did that, no one would ever follow him again.

The last option was to stand here until the cops arrived. Everyone would be taken in and Randolph would likely never walk free again. If he did, it wouldn't be with a tracker in place.

Gage would stay missing, as would Lila's boy.

“Let Bella go and you can walk away,” Victor said.

Randolph laughed as he backed up. “The second I drop her, I'm a dead man.”

“Cops are headed this way. If you don't drop the gun, you're going to be taken down, anyway.”

He frowned, turning his head slightly as if he heard something. “I thought you were lying about the cops.”

“They can't see us from the other side of the hill, but they're not far. You've got a few seconds at most. Drop her and you might have time to get away.”

Randolph lifted her over his shoulder. She was pale and limp, blood dripping from her head, wetting the gray wig she wore.

Victor tried not to let the sight cloud his thinking, but it was impossible. The woman he loved was in the hands of an enraged man who was likely under the control of a lunatic scientist. Once Bella was out of his sight, there was no way he could protect her. For all he knew Randolph would let her bleed out or toss her out of his car as he sped down the highway.

“Let the woman go,” he warned.

“I like my chances better with her in tow. Tell the cops I said hi.” Randolph turned and sprinted for the strip of woods at the back of the park.

Victor lifted his weapon, but he had no clear shot. Bella's head was swaying across Randolph's spine with each step, making any shot too much of a risk.

Instead, he holstered his weapon and set out at a dead sprint after him. He'd gone no more than ten paces when an artificially amplified voice boomed across the park. “Stop and drop your weapon!”

The police had arrived, and if Victor didn't do as they ordered, he was risking being shot. If he ended up dead, he wasn't going to be able to go after Bella. The thought of letting her rot in some lab of Stynger's while they did God knew what to the woman Victor loved stopped him cold.

All he had to do was survive long enough to follow Randolph and save Bella. Nothing else mattered.

Victor put his hands in the air and waited for the police to come for him. “Payton, Randolph has Bella. She's unconscious. She planted a tracker on him. Her gear is probably in her bag on the park bench. You need to get it and follow them.”

“I'm sorry, but I'm currently being detained.”

“Get on the ground,” came the next authoritative command from the police.

Victor turned around to see what kind of odds he faced. There were four uniformed officers here, and every one of them had a gun trained on him. Their pistols weren't accurate at this range. Neither was his. He'd never even consider shooting one of them—these were good men doing their jobs—but that didn't mean he was going to stand around and take orders when Bella's life hung in the balance.

Someone had to be free to go on a rescue mission. If Payton couldn't do it, then Victor would.

“Can you give me a distraction?” Victor asked, moving his lips as little as possible.

“Are you sure?” Payton asked.

“She's hurt. Unconscious.”

A roar of fury erupted in Victor's ear as Payton went berserk. Two of the officers here became distracted with what was going on at the bottom of the hill.

Victor wasn't going to get better odds than these, so he sprinted for the trees, following the path that Randolph had taken.

Weapons discharged behind him, but he wasn't hit. He kept running, praying their aim wouldn't improve.

J
ordyn answered her mother's summons with fear twisting in her gut.

She'd been expecting her punishment, but knowing that it was here, and that she had no choice but to endure it was enough to make her shake and sweat.

She'd showered, put on comfortable clothes, and pulled her hair back in a braid so that she wouldn't get vomit in it when the drugs took effect. As sensitive as her stomach had been lately, there was no doubt in her mind that she'd get sick in the White Room.

Still, no matter what Mother did to Jordyn there, Gage was alive and well. Whatever suffering she had to go through to pay for that was worth the price.

At least she thought so now. Once the pain started, it would be a lot harder to remember that.

With shaking hands, she opened the door to the White Room. As its name implied, everything inside was glaringly bright. Sterile walls were broken up only by a window leading to a soundproof observation room. The floor was shiny white tile with a drain in the center to wash down the mess left behind. The ceiling was an array of lights so bright it hurt to look up at them. In the center of the space was a stainless table complete with straps to hold down whoever was unlucky enough to be restrained here.

Right now that table housed a small boy young enough to still be in diapers. He was sobbing, fighting against the restraints caging his little body. An IV fed into his arm. It was attached to a pump stocked with three different colored liquids.

Jordyn knew from experience that when injected, each one of them created a new definition of pain.

Behind the glass, in the soundproof room, stood Mother. A tech sat at the control panel, looking a little queasy himself. Jordyn had never spoken to the man, but she recognized him from all the times she'd been the one strapped to the table. She'd always thought that he seemed to enjoy his job. Until now.

Outrage slapped her hard, driving away the worst of her fear. What possible gain could Mother get from punishing a child like this? He was too little to have information she wanted. He was too young to remember whatever lesson she thought to teach him. All she was going to do was cause him pain.

“What is this?” Jordyn asked, her voice shaking more with anger than fear.

“You defied me,” Mother said. “I've tried over and over again to rid you of your rebellious streak, and yet you continue to do what you know will displease me. I thought a different sort of lesson was in order—one that would teach you that your actions have consequences for others, not just yourself.”

Jordyn's blood began to chill as the meaning became clear. “You would torture a child to teach me a lesson?”

“If that's what it takes, yes.”

“You could kill him.”

“I'm aware. But don't worry. He bears no scientific importance. He's just a normal child.”

“You think
that's
what worries me? Do you have no soul at all?”

Mother frowned in displeasure. “Souls are fantasies conjured up by religious zealots. I raised you to know better than to buy into such myths.”

“That answers my question. Of course the woman with no soul would think they didn't exist.”

“Don't you get lippy with me, girl. I can make this experience far worse for the child if that's what it takes to reestablish your respect.”

Jordyn began unhooking the little boy's IV. “There's not a damn thing you could ever do that would make me respect you. Torture me, torture my friends, torture innocent children . . . all it does is prove my point that you're not worthy of respect from anyone.”

“My scientific accomplishments are groundbreaking.”

“If you call manipulation and brute force groundbreaking, perhaps. Me? I tend to think of it more as excessive bullying.”

“How dare you? I bore you, raised you, taught you everything you know.”

“Not everything. Somewhere along the way I learned compassion—something you wouldn't recognize if you sat on it. Face it, Mother, I'm a better woman than you will ever be.”

“Weaker.”

“Kinder.”

“Less dedicated.”

“More caring.”

Mother's face darkened to an angry shade of red that nearly matched her lipstick. “Naive.”

Jordyn cradled the child and kept her voice calm in an effort to soothe him. “Sympathetic.”

“None of that will serve you well where we're going.”

“I hate to break this to you, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm an adult now. You can't force me to go with you like you could when I was a child.”

“You're
my
daughter. You'll go where I tell you.”

“You know what, Mother? There's something I've been meaning to say to you—something long overdue.” Jordyn pulled in a deep breath to steady her nerves and make sure she was clearly heard. “Fuck you, you heartless bitch.”

She didn't stop to think about what she'd done. She simply turned and walked out of the room with the toddler, ignoring Mother's screaming through the speakers behind her.

Such defiance was likely going to come back to haunt her, but for now it felt really good.

Now all she had to do was keep the little boy safe until she could find a way out.

Fortunately, she knew exactly where to take him.