Sloane (19 page)

Our drive back into town had been mostly silent. He
hadn’t said much, and he’d seemed sort of… sad, I guess. I figured
he was annoyed to not get to have sex with me anymore, which he’d
seemed to really like.

Actually, I’d been pretty convinced that he’d thought
it was just as soul destroying as I did. I remembered the way he’d
looked into my eyes when he was inside me, the kind of noises he’d
made, the things he’d whispered to me. He’d felt it too. I was sure
of it.

But…

Oh, whatever. He was a jackass. I knew that from the
moment I met him. What did I expect? That he’d gotten a taste of my
pussy, and it had completely reformed him? I used to think that
girls who thought that were idiots, but now I realized how easy it
was to fall into the trap. In the end, all he’d wanted from me was
to fuck me. And, like an idiot, I’d given him what he wanted.

Still, there were things about it that didn’t fit.
Like when we’d gotten back to town, and he’d caught me by the arm
and looked into my eyes and said, “Don’t go.”

Who said that to someone he didn’t even care
about?

But I was trying
not
to think about it.

I wasn’t doing the best of jobs, but I was at the
secret lab, ready to get inside, and I couldn’t think about Axel
anymore. Whatever had happened between us, it was a stupid fling,
and I’d get over it eventually.

I parked in the parking lot in front of the lab,
brazen as you please. If I wanted to look like I belonged there, I
had to act the part, and hiding my car wouldn’t have helped
anything.

Balancing the boxes, I marched my way up to the front
door.

One of the guards actually got the door for me. So,
it was working.

The doors opened onto a small foyer. It looked blank
and formal. The walls were white; the floor was gray tile. There
was no adornment on the walls, except for a sign on the wall
proclaiming this was The Costello Lab Secondary Facility. There was
a woman at a desk right in front of the door. She was on the phone.
She glanced up at me and then went back to her conversation.

I decided to act like I had the run of the place,
like I was pissed off and in a hurry. I went past her and pushed
through a set of swinging doors, my face a mask of annoyance.

I emerged into a hallway, just as stark as the foyer
had been. There were a few doors on each side of the hallway. I
kept walking as if I knew exactly where I was going, taking note of
the names on each of the doors. They looked to me like offices.

At the end of the hallway, there was an elevator.

I made a beeline for it, stepping inside as soon as I
got there. The doors swished closed, and I surveyed my options.
There were two other floors, both lower than this one. I pressed
the button for the lowest one.

Swipe card
, blinked a message above the
keypad. Damn it. There was a card swipe above it.

I punched the button for the other floor, even though
the bottom floor was probably the place where the others were being
kept. It only made sense, considering that they’d want to keep
random people from disturbing their secret research and
subjects.

The elevator started to move.

It went down one level, and the doors opened. I
stepped out into a large lab. It was equipped with all kinds of
instruments. There were tables covered in glass beakers, each
containing liquids of various colors. Several lab-coated
individuals strode to and fro, checking on the liquids, scribbling
on notepads.

But when I stepped out of the elevator, they all
looked up at me.

My heart sped up, but I refused to let it show.
Instead, I decided to look annoyed, as if not knowing what was
going on was really ruining my day.

They scrutinized me, suspicion all over their
faces.

“What are you doing down here?” said one.

LEIGH

I was strapped down to a table inside a white room.
They’d come and taken me out of the room where they kept Griffin
and Silas and me. Griffin had tried to stop them, and gotten shot
in the head for his trouble. I’d struggled, but they’d been too
strong for me. They’d dragged me along with them, taken me here,
and tied me down.

I was still struggling, but I was strapped down
tight, and I couldn’t make the straps budge.

The room I was in resembled a regular doctor’s
examination room with a table of instruments next to my head, and
an examining stool sitting at my feet. But the room wasn’t nearly
as welcoming as the kind of place you’d go if you had the flu.
There were no magazines to pass the time, no bright cushions or
posters on the wall urging you to quit smoking. The whole place was
cold and white and austere.

The men who’d strapped me in were standing just
inside the doorway, both watching me in case I got away, I
supposed.

The door opened. “You can leave,” said a female
voice.

I recognized the sound of her voice before I saw
her.

Jolene French.

She came into view as the guards ducked through the
doorway. She looked impeccably put together, as usual. She smiled
at me, and what struck me about her smile was how genuine it
seemed, even though I knew she wasn’t nearly as kind as she looked.
She was a monster.

I thrashed at the straps—well, I would have thrashed
if I could, but they held me too tight. All I succeeded in doing
was straining my muscles.

She cocked her head to one side. “You’re surprised to
see me.”

“You’re dead,” I said.

She laughed. “That’s so funny. That’s exactly what
Griffin said. I would have thought he’d told you about me.”

“He said he couldn’t remember anything from when he
got taken away.”

“Hmm…” French pulled a clipboard off a rack on the
wall and began scribbling. “Retrograde amnesia,” she murmured to
herself.

“What do you want with us, French?”

She ignored me. She put the clipboard back in its
rack and went over to the table of instruments. She selected a
syringe and a small container. Piercing the container with the
needle, she began to fill up the syringe.

“What are you doing to us? Why are we here? Why
aren’t you dead?”

She gave me a sympathetic look. “Oh, Leigh. I suppose
I should thank you. After all, you were the one who convinced
Griffin to free me. I’d never have made it out if it weren’t for
your kindness.”

I shut my eyes. God, what kind of an idiot was I? It
wasn’t for French’s sake that I’d asked Griffin to do that. I knew
the world would be a better place without her in it. It was for our
own sakes. I hadn’t wanted any more blood on Griffin’s hands or on
my own. There was already enough as it was. We weren’t killers.
French had tried to make us into killers, but we weren’t. That was
why I’d told him to let her go. To prove that to ourselves. But all
I’d done was make it possible for her to torment us again.

French touched my face, and my eyes snapped open.

She was peering down at me, the syringe in one hand,
pointing at the ceiling, a tiny bit of fluid squirting out. “I’m
really happy we’re getting the chance to work together now. I’ve
always thought you had so much potential.”

I struggled again. It was useless. “What’s in that?
What are you going to inject me with?”

She tapped her chin with one elegant finger. “You
know, now that we’re together, there are so many things I want to
say to you. You saved my life, and I wish that I could be grateful
enough to forgive everything that you’ve done to me. But I’m sorry,
Leigh, you’ve done too much. You’ve destroyed it all. First it was
your father. Frank Thorn. I had that man under my thumb. He did
whatever I wanted. And then you had to get into that reckless
accident, and he
had
to heal you. Then he helped Griffin
escape. And then I wasted valuable resources chasing after
all
of you. And then you came back to Op Wraith, and you
destroyed everything.” She pressed her lips together, her eyes
fierce. “Piece by piece, all of it gone. Everything that I built.
You have no idea how long it had taken me to get to where I was.
And you were the linchpin that made it all fall apart.” She glared
down at me. “Of course, if this really does cause retrograde
amnesia, you’re not going to remember any of this, are you?”

“What is it? What are you injecting me with?”

She set down the syringe and picked up an alcohol
swab. Tearing it open, she tugged it out. Then she began to swab my
arm. She was humming to herself.

“Tell me,” I said.

“You’re not going to remember,” she said. “What does
it matter?”

I gritted my teeth. I hated this woman. I wished like
hell I’d been strong enough to make sure she was dead last
time.

She picked the syringe back up. “I was overconfident,
really. That was my mistake. I’m a talented, gifted psychologist,
but I didn’t take proper precautions. I was so sure I could control
all of them. But I overextended myself. Luckily, James Armstrong
had been working on just the thing to fix it all. And soon, Leigh,
soon, with your help, I’ll be right back on top again.” She plunged
the needle into my arm.

I screamed. Not because it hurt very much, since it
was just a pinch, but because I was terrified of what she was doing
to me. Knox had been ruined. Griffin seemed okay so far, but what
if this first injection was just the beginning? What if she was
starting to ruin all of us?

“Shh,” she soothed. She stroked my hair. “Listen to
my voice, Leigh, and remember what I’m about to tell you. You
belong to me, and you will do what I say, when I say it. Because
you love me. You love me more than anything on earth, and you would
lay down your life if I said so.”

Everything was getting strange and blurry. The only
clear thing seemed to be her voice as it rang through my skull.

“You love me. You obey me. You are mine.”

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

“Delivery,” I said nonchalantly. I made a show of
checking the label on one of the boxes I was carrying. “Is,
uh…”

Damn it. I didn’t know the names of anyone who worked
here except French and Armstrong, and I didn’t think that I should
say either of their names. French might be going under another
name, or she might not be a valid employee. They might know that
Armstrong was dead, and that might make them react differently, and
I didn’t want to call attention to myself.

But it was too late.

I’d hesitated too long, and now they were all staring
at me, wondering what the heck was wrong with me. I had about two
seconds before they started to get suspicious.

“Sorry,” I said, my pulse starting to race. “I can’t
pronounce this.”

“Probably Wojewodzic,” said one of the lab
workers.

The others all nodded, going back to their previous
tasks.

“Uh, yeah, I think that’s it,” I said.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” he said. “You gotta
leave the deliveries upstairs at the main desk.”

“I need a signature,” I said.

“Well, she’s probably in her office, which is
upstairs. No deliveries on this level.”

I nodded. “Okay, sorry. Thanks for the help.”

“Not a problem.” He went back to what he’d been doing
before.

I turned back to the elevator. The doors were closed
tight against me. I knew I could get back in, but once inside, I’d
only be able to go back upstairs. I needed to get to the bottom
floor, and to do that, I was going to need a swipe card. Did any of
these guys have one? Could I get it from them without causing a
scene?

I hit the button to open the door and turned back
around. “Actually, could, um, one of you show me where I’m headed?
I got so lost getting down here.”

The elevator door opened, and out of the corner of my
eye, I could see that someone was inside.

I turned back around.

And gasped.

Leigh was standing there, right next to Jolene
French.

“Why did the elevator stop?” said French. She wasn’t
paying any attention to me.

But Leigh was staring me right in the eyes. She
didn’t acknowledge me at all.

The two of them were alone, so I made a
decision—split second, quick. I dropped the boxes and I yanked out
my gun. I stepped inside the elevator, hit the button to shut the
doors, and put the gun to French’s head. “Give me your swipe
card.”

The elevator doors swished closed.

French was startled, backing away from the gun.
“Sloane? I wondered what had happened to you. I never did see you
and Silas away from each other very often.”

“Swipe card,” I said.

She laughed. “You think I’m afraid of that gun?” She
reached around me and hit the button on the elevator to go up.

I elbowed her in the face and pressed the gun up to
her temple. “I will blow your head off, bitch.”

“Leigh,” said French, glancing askance at Leigh, who
was still staring blankly forward, not acknowledging anything.
“This is your target.”

Now Leigh moved her head. She narrowed her eyes,
focusing on me.

“Kill for me, will you?” French smiled.

Leigh gave one sharp nod.

“What?” I said. “Leigh, what’s going on?”

Leigh leaped onto me, knocking the gun out of my
hand.

French tittered in the background.

Leigh pressed me up against the elevator doors. She
wrapped her hands around my neck.

I choked. What the hell was wrong with Leigh?

The elevator dinged as we hit the top floor, and the
doors opened. We tumbled backwards into the hallway where I’d been
before.

Leigh lost her grip on my neck, but she fell on top
of me. She punched me in the face, hard.

“Leigh, snap out of it!” I shrieked. This was my best
friend. Why was she hurting me?