Sloane (5 page)

Griffin and Silas had gotten into an elevator.

I kept my scope on them until the doors snapped shut,
and then I raised my sights up twelve floors, which was where James
Armstrong’s office was. After a little bit of searching, I was able
to get a clear view of the elevator doors through the windows.

I watched as they came out of the elevator.

Still looking confident, the two turned and made
their way down the hallway. I watched them through the windows,
following them, peering through my scope.

Eventually, they stopped at a door. I was too far
away to read the name on it, even through the sights, but I knew
that it was Armstrong’s office. I was the one who’d told them where
it was.

They stopped and chatted with a secretary with short,
curly blond hair. I settled my crosshairs on her forehead. I wasn’t
going to shoot her, but I could if I needed to.

She didn’t look like she was going to let them
in.

I could see Silas leaning across her desk, using his
charm to get her to cooperate. I waited.

Finally, she got up from her desk and led the two of
them through the door.

The door shut.

I moved around, squinting as I looked through the
gun’s scope, trying to find the window to the office. There it was,
around the corner of the building.

Damn it.

The blinds were closed.

I couldn’t see anything.

I moved away from the gun and looked down at the
building. Now I
really
couldn’t see anything. I was too far
away.

We really should have worked this better. I’d brought
a Bluetooth earpiece that was basically invisible inside the
wearer’s ear. If one of them were wearing it, I could have been
listening in. But of course, there was no time for that, because no
one listened to me. I was always incidental.

Little Sloane, staying back with the sniper rifle.
Little Sloane, the girl that no one noticed in the bar.

I let out an exasperated breath.

And I waited.

Periodically, I looked though the sights on my
gun.

I couldn’t see anything. The door was closed. The
blinds were closed. The blond secretary was busy typing something
on her computer.

Minutes passed. I checked the time. Waited.

After ten minutes, I began to wonder what the heck
was going on in there.

After twenty, I started to get worried.

After thirty, I spotted several security guards
coming up the hallway. They didn’t acknowledge the secretary. They
simply went through the door.

Okay, this wasn’t good. What were security guards
doing in there? There weren’t a lot of them, and if Griffin and
Silas were at full strength, the guards wouldn’t be a problem. But
I didn’t know what had happened in that room.

My heart started to pound. My palms started to slide
against the slick surface of the gun.

One of the security guards came out. He said
something to the secretary, who stopped typing and got up from her
desk. She hurried down the hallway and disappeared into the
elevator.

Now there was no one in the hallway.

The security guard looked around, and then opened the
door wide.

The other guards came out, dragging with them a
lifeless form.

Oh my God. It was Griffin.

What the hell had happened?

I focused my crosshairs on one of the security
guards. I could take all of them out from here, shoot each one in
the head.

But then I’d have to get down off this roof and
across the street and up the elevator, and with people dead, the
entire building would be on red alert. I’d have to shoot my way
in.

Damn it.

I got up and sprinted across the roof.

I needed to get in there, and it wasn’t going to do
anyone any good if I was conspicuous.

LEIGH

I thought we were underground, because there were no
windows. I’d been stuck in this vast room for more than a day. It
was all concrete. Concrete floor, with a grate in the middle.
Concrete walls. Everything was painted a sort of sea foam green
color. I wasn’t sure if the color was supposed to be comforting,
but it wasn’t. The room was empty except for a few cot mattresses
that sat on the floor. They didn’t have any blankets. In the
corner, there were two toilet stalls and a sink. No shower.

I was alone in the room except for Knox, who was on
the other side of the room, his cheek pressed against the wall,
humming to himself. His eyes were closed.

At first, I’d been comforted by the sight of Knox,
but then I’d started talking to him, and all comfort had faded
away.

Something was wrong with Knox. He wasn’t himself. He
had big memory gaps, and they came and went. Sometimes, he
remembered me. Sometimes, I was pretty sure he thought he was a
little boy.

He spent most of his time huddled against one of the
green walls, whimpering to himself.

I didn’t know how long he’d been here.

I didn’t know how long it was going to take before I
started acting just like him.

Once, they’d come and taken Knox away. He’d been gone
for hours. When they threw him back into the room, he could hardly
stand. He’d staggered until he found the wall. Put his hands
against it. And then slid down to the floor in a heap.

Who were they?

I wasn’t sure. There were men in security uniforms,
men with guns. They wrangled Knox in and out of the room. They
didn’t talk to me. When I ran at one of them and jumped on his
back, scrabbling for his face, he’d thrown me down on the ground
and shot me in the head.

Of course, I healed.

But that told me something. These people—whoever they
were—knew about the serum. They knew that they could shoot me in
the head and I’d recover. If they knew about the serum, then it
stood to reason that was a factor in the reason they’d kidnapped
me. They knew who I was and they wanted to use me for something. I
was terrified.

I’d often thought that Griffin was paranoid when he
went on and on about how we had to keep the serum a secret. He was
afraid that if anyone knew, we’d be in trouble. He thought the
government might capture us and run tests on us, treat us like
guinea pigs. He worried that we’d be forced into the military.

But it seemed like he’d been worried about the wrong
people. It wasn’t the government who’d called me in my hotel room.
It was a drug corporation. They were the bad guys. I didn’t know
what they were going to do to me.

I heard footsteps.

They were coming back.

Were they coming to take me away this time? The way
they’d taken Knox?

What were they going to do to me?

The door opened. It was made of metal, but it was
painted the same green as everything else.

The guards came in, carrying two bodies.

I recognized Griffin immediately, and my heart leaped
into my throat.

They threw the bodies on the floor.

I started to move.

One of the men pointed his gun at me.

I stopped moving.

I waited until the guards had retreated, closing the
door behind them. And I scurried over to Griffin’s motionless form.
I checked the back of his neck, which was the only way that we
could be killed. Our spines had to be severed. But he was whole
there.

The other body was Silas, I realized. I went to him
and checked him too. He was okay as well.

Neither of them were breathing, however. They were
dark, which was what we called it when we got a wound serious
enough to kill a regular person. If that happened, we’d go into a
death-like state while our bodies healed.

I pulled Griffin’s head into my lap. I stroked the
top of his head, his cheek, his jaw. I started to cry. What the
hell was going on? Why was Griffin here? Why was I here?

It must have something to do with Op Wraith. There
was no other reason to bring us all here. And they knew about us.
They’d used their knowledge about me into manipulating me here.

When I’d gotten that call in my hotel, the person on
the other end had said that Griffin had instructed him to call.
He’d said it was an emergency, and that they were bringing around a
car.

I’d rushed down to meet the car. But once in the back
seat, the man waiting for me had pulled out a gun and shot me,
making me go dark. I’d woken up here.

I kissed Griffin’s forehead. I was still crying.

He twitched.

“Griffin?” I whispered. “Baby?”

His eyes fluttered open. He focused on me.
“Doll?”

I nodded. “Hi.”

He scrambled to sit up. “Are you okay? Are you
hurt?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m fine.”

“Oh God.” He wrapped his arms around me, pressing his
lips against mine.

I clung to him, and I started crying harder.

CHAPTER FOUR

I was breathless as I made my way up to the doors of
the Costello Lab building, but I was doing my best not to let it
show. I pushed open the door and hurried inside.

I made a beeline for the elevator.

I hit the button, and the doors opened right away. I
flung myself inside and punched the button for the floor where
Griffin and Silas were. If they were even there anymore. It had
taken me a good fifteen minutes to make it this far, and I didn’t
know what had happened in the interim.

The elevator began to move.

And then it stopped. But not on the floor I wanted.
On a different floor. Someone up here must have wanted the
elevator. Now it was stopping to let that person on.

I glared at the doors as they slid open.

There was a young man in a lab coat there. He stepped
into the elevator, looking me up and down.

I recognized him.

“Sally?” he said.

That was the name I’d gone by when I pretended to be
an intern here. I tried to smile. “Hi, Jeff.”

“Wow,” he said. “It’s been years.” He was grinning.
“How the hell are you?”

“Um, good.” I fidgeted.

He hit the floor he wanted and the doors closed
again. “It’s great to see you. What have you been up to?”

I looked around the elevator, wishing like hell he
wasn’t in here. “Oh, you know, school.”

“Right,” he said. “I forgot that you were just out of
high school when you interned here.”

I nodded, looking up at the floors as the elevator
dinged past them. How much longer would I have to carry on this
conversation?

“Well, as you can see, I never really left,” he said.
“I finished up my internship here, and they offered me a job, and
I’ve been here ever since.”

Why was he telling me this? “Great.” I was still
smiling, but I wasn’t sure if my smile looked genuine or not.

“So, what brings you here today?”

“Oh, just… nostalgia,” I said.

He chuckled. “Right. Well, you picked a hell of a day
to drop in.”

I furrowed my brow. “I did?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “We had a break in. Two guys came
in and threatened Armstrong with guns.”

I swallowed. “Really? But why?”

He shrugged. “Oh, who the hell knows. People are
nuts, right? Anyway, it was a big hullabaloo. You just missed it.
Security carted them off to the police station.”

“The police?”

Maybe he heard something in my voice, some bit of
panic that he interpreted as disbelief, because he lowered his
voice. “Well, that’s the story, anyway. But I think we both know
that they got taken off to Armstrong’s secret lab, right?”

“I thought that lab got destroyed,” I said.

“Oh, it did,” he said. “But you know Armstrong. That
wouldn’t stop him. He’s still up to his old tricks.”

The elevator dinged and the doors opened.

Jeff raised his eyebrows. “Well, this is me. It was
so good to see you, Sally. You know, maybe sometime we could get
together and hang out. Can I give you my number?”

I smiled. “Yeah, that would be great, Jeff.”

* * *

“Sally?” said Jeff’s voice through my phone. “Calling
me already, huh?”

“Well, I figured there was no time like the present,”
I said. “You busy right now?”

“I’m just getting off work,” he said.

“Did you park in the parking garage?”

“Well, yeah.”

“So, tell me where, and I’ll meet you at your car,” I
said.

He hesitated.

Come on, Jeff
, I thought at him.
Tell me
where you are.

“Okay,” he said. “Yeah, meet me at my car.”

I smiled. Good. That was exactly what I needed. I
waited as he told me where in the parking garage he was parked.

* * *

The parking garage was dank and dark. There were
lights on the walls that barely burned blue-tinged light into the
gloom. I leaned against the trunk of a Chevy Impala. From Jeff’s
description on the car, I knew it to be his. He wasn’t one of the
bigwigs in the company, so his parking space was buried deep down,
several levels below the surface. It was like a tomb down here, and
we were alone.

Nervously, I fingered the pistol at my back.

This wasn’t anything personal. I’d always liked Jeff.
I didn’t want to hurt him or upset him in any way. If the situation
were different, maybe I would even go out for a drink with him and
hang out.

He’d seemed sort of interested, after all.

Maybe he’d just been trying to be friendly. I wasn’t
sure. But he’d wanted to give me his number, and he’d seemed
receptive to hanging out. So maybe, in another life, Jeff and I
could have had a nice evening talking about the good old days. And
maybe something might have even come of it.

Jeff was kind of attractive, after all. He wasn’t
super gorgeous—some kind of golden god come to life. Nothing like
that. But he had a nice smile, and he had kind eyes.