Beyond These Walls (4 page)

A secretary dressed in far more expensive clothes than me smiled up from the reception desk. “May I help you?”

“Yes.” I paused. “I’m here to see my grandfather. Arthur Resden. He’s expecting me. I think.”

“Yes. Right away, Ms. Resden,” she said.

“My name’s Ada—”

But she wasn’t paying attention to me. Her fingers pressed a few buttons on the intercom, her smile firmly in place, eyes blank like a zombie from the late night mutant movies. For a second, I wondered if she was a cyborg sent from the future to destroy rainbow colored unicorns.

Moments later a man about my age with sandy blond hair appeared. “Ms. Adair?”

“Yes.” I smiled. “And you are?”

“Doug Preston. Mr. Resden’s personal assistant.” He held out his hand, and I shook it. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to your grandfather.”

“Thanks.” I closed my eyes and prepared for the worse. In my mind I pictured everything from granddad dying of a heart attack when he saw me to my facing an agent firing squad.

I swallowed hard, opened my eyes, and followed Doug down a long corridor lined with photographs of Resden patriarchs, each more stuffy than the last. The final photo depicted a man in his early sixties with a full head of salt and pepper colored hair and icy green eyes. Emily’s eyes. My eyes. A sign underneath the image read: Arthur Resden, President. I paused to stare at the picture, memorizing every detail.

“Ms. Adair?” Doug smiled. “This way, please.”

I swallowed back a retort and followed him down the hallway. At the end of the corridor two dark wooden doors bracketed the entrance to Arthur Resden’s inner sanctum. Doug knocked, and a gruff voice responded, “Come in.”

Doug nodded to me, and I pushed the door open. A man in a dark blue suit sat behind a desk too large to fit in my apartment. “Indeara.” He rose from his high-backed chair, a welcoming smile on his face and tears glistening in his eyes. “You look just like your mother.”

Not quite, but I let it go.

I stepped forward, measuring the distance between us. Part of me, the mutated part, wanted to flee, to run away from the only family I had left. “It’s good to see you.” I squeezed the words past the lump in my throat.

Arthur pulled me into his arms, pressing my body into the folds of his expensive suit, and held me. Standing rigid in his embrace I pictured the hundreds of mutants dead by his hand, and felt sick. My mother’s face swirled into the picture, calming the anger inside me. Emily and Calvin’s love was greater than my grandfather’s hate.

He released me, and I stepped away, my eyes scanning his face. Arthur didn’t look ill, but looks, I knew, were deceiving. He waved me into a chair across from his. I sat, my knees parted, hands tucked together. Granddad raised an eyebrow.

Damn.

I straightened and crossed my legs, every inch the lady I would never be.

“I’m glad you came.” He paused, seeming to shrink in his chair. “I was afraid you wouldn’t.”

“I’m glad I’m here.” And in a twisted way, I meant it. I needed to know the man behind the legend, to understand why he hated my kind. “But why am I here?”

With a vague gesture, he waved to the photographs covering his office walls, pictures of his life, pictures of presidents and movie stars but not a single image of family. I swallowed, picturing the blank walls of my own apartment. Closing his eyes, he said, “The doctors give me six months. Bad heart.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “I’ve lived my life, and it’s been a good one. But I have regrets…” Was murdering mutants one of them? To afraid to ask him, I kept quiet while he continued, “When I die who will carry on the family name? Run the company?”

“Arthur, I can’t—”

“When Emily was alive I prayed she’d come home and take her place at the helm of Resden.” His eyes bore into mine. “But with her gone, my hopes of a successor lie with you.”

“No.”

“No?” He pushed from his desk and stood. “That’s it. Just no? Do you have any idea what you’re giving up? What I’m worth?”

“More than I’ll see in a million lifetimes.” I smiled, uncrossing my legs and rising to face him. “But that doesn’t change anything.” I weighed my words. “Resden, your company, is responsible for thousands of deaths, and I cannot be a party to genocide.”

“The mutants.” He sighed and slipped back into his chair. It groaned under his weight. “I started this company with nothing, but a dream.” Shaking his head, he added, “Throughout the years I’ll admit that I made mistakes when it came to the mutants.”

Mistakes? I nearly laughed.

In 1968, Resden had used mutant gas on the peaceful assembly of Civil Mutant Rights Movement protestors, which resulted in twenty-five hundred mutant deaths. Soon after that the Mutant War began. It was a bloody time in history as we fought for the right to exist, to live. In the end, they built the wall, trapping us behind concrete, out of sight and struggling to survive.

Arthur leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “I’ve learned my lesson.” My life spent imprisoned behind a wall wasn’t a lesson. It wasn’t a corporate learning tool. In that instant I hated him.

Then he gave my anger a new target. “I don’t want to see Resden fall into the hands of the HOA after I’m gone. If that happens those poor mutant bastards have no chance.” His eyes lifted to mine. “I can’t force Resden on you, but you are the last hope. If you don’t take control the Resden name will forever be synonymous with the genocide of mutants.”

Like a physical blow his words slammed into my body. At this moment I was and would be the only hope for those I loved beyond the wall. I pictured Nobody, Caren, and Ivan. What would happen to them if the HOA gained control of Resden’s resources? What would happen to me?

“I—”

A loud knock on the door interrupted us. A man with light brown hair and a much too straight nose poked his head inside the office and grinned. “I see you have company.” He winked at me. “And beautiful company at that.”

“David, I’m so glad you dropped by.” Arthur rose from his chair and motioned to me. “This is my granddaughter, Indeara. She’ll be joining the company.” The man’s pupils shrank but he said nothing.

“Indeara, this is David West, my VP of Research.” Arthur’s face lit. “The two of you should get to know each other. In the months to come you’ll be working closely together.”

David smiled, a sly grin that put me on edge. I bit my lower lip and contemplated David West. His smile didn’t suit him, as a matter of fact, no part of David West appeared to fit. He reminded me of a jigsaw puzzle at a mental institution, jumbled and backward. He was handsome enough with sculpted cheekbones and full lips. However, the skin around his eyes drooped and his chin poked from his face at an odd angle.

But what struck me most were his eyes. Their grey color sent a ripple of awareness through my body, like meeting a long-dead lover at the gates of hell. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I paused, arranging the puzzle pieces in my mind. “David, was it?”

“Right.” He stepped between Arthur and myself. I caught a whiff of his cologne, something disturbed and dark, much like the man himself. “Arthur, we’re making definite progress on the new formula, but we need more time.”

“I don’t have more time.” Grandfather pounded on his desk, his face growing red. “Do whatever you have to. I don’t care what it costs. I want that formula, and I want it now.”

“As you wish,” David said, turning for the door. “Stop by my office, Indeara, and I’ll show you around.”

“I’ll do that.” I stuck my hand out, and he pressed his own against it. Something passed between us, something unexpected and unspoken. He raised his grey eyes to mine, dropped my stunned hand and disappeared through the door.

“Excuse me, Granddad. I need some air,” I said, rushing through the door after Quinn Daniels, my ex-lover and body dwelling mutant, currently residing in the skin of David West.

Chapter 8

“Traitorous son-of-a-bitch.” I caught up to Quinn in what looked like a conference room. A row of chairs and gleaming table sat in the center of the room surrounded by electronic equipment and floor to ceiling windows.

“Good to see you too.” Quinn smiled as he ducked past a row of chairs. I launched myself across the table, my hands connecting with an extra fold of skin at the scruff of Quinn’s neck.

“Why are you here?” I slammed his face into the table. The hollow pop of head hitting wood gave me a small measure of pleasure. “It doesn’t really matter.” I mashed his chin against the tabletop. “I’m going to smash your brains in anyway.”

Reaching over his shoulder, he flipped me off his back in one motion. I landed hard against the glossy tabletop, the breath leaving my lungs in a whoosh. Damn, I’d forgot Quinn’s strength and speed. Killing him wouldn’t be easy.

But I’d give it a try.

For a long minute, we stared into each other’s eyes. “Go home, Indeara, before you get hurt.” He helped me from my unladylike sprawl across the conference table and backed away, stepping from my strike zone, a zone with which Quinn was all too familiar.

“You’re the one who’s going to get hurt.” I tugged at Mei’s dress, which had ridden over my hips during our scuffle. “One little word to dear old Arthur and you’ll be mutant mush.”

Quinn laughed, sounding nothing like the man I’d known, this laugh was deeper and biting. “And just what will you be telling dear old Arthur?”

Bastard. He knew I couldn’t go to my grandfather without revealing my own deception. “Why are you here? Why now?”

“I belong,” he said shifting his grey eyes to the city beyond the window. “For once I fit in. I don’t have to worry anymore about midnight raids or dying from a mutant plague. I work hard and your grandfather rewards me.”

“No.” I shook my head. “David West works hard. Quinn Daniels doesn’t exist outside the wall. You stole another man’s life.”

“No, I stole his skin.” Edging closer to me his eyes burned. “The life is all mine. I worked my way up the ranks, and now its time to reap the rewards. I won’t let you take that from me.”

“Like you’ve got a choice.” Spinning into a vicious butterfly kick my foot flew toward his head with deadly intent. The blow landed on the side of his jaw. He stumbled back a step, but remained on his feet. I followed the kick with a fist to his sternum, my knuckles cracking under the pressure of bone meeting bone. Pain lanced through my hand, but rage lessened the sting. Fumbling, Quinn still refused to fall. The jerk. I prepared for another attack.

Zap.

My body froze. I dropped to the floor as spurts of electricity dashed along my stunned nerves. My muscles constricted jerking with uncontrolled movements.

“Mutant taser.” Waving a pen-like instrument in my face Quinn stood over me and grinned. “Arthur’s own design.”

I drooled in response.

“My loft. Seven o’clock.” He tossed a business card at my prone body. “I’ll cook dinner.” Leaning over me, he added, “Leave the rage at home. It makes you reckless.”

******

Once the effects of the taser wore off I returned to Arthur’s office, but my grandfather had vanished. However, Doug waited inside, his hands crossed behind his head and his feet propped on top Arthur’s desk.

“Arthur asked me to show you around.” He gestured to the office doors. “But you won’t be staying, so why bother.”

“Excuse me?” I raised an eyebrow.

He laughed, rising from granddad’s chair. “Oh I know all about you, Indeara. I know where you’ve been for the last twenty-five years. What you’ve been doing behind the wall.”

“And?” I grinned. Did this geek in wing-tipped loafers think even for a second I’d cower?

His arrogant smiled slipped revealing a terrified little bully underneath. “And, I want you to leave. Go back to whatever diseased hellhole you came from.”

“Why?”

“Why!?” He stomped his foot like a child. “Because you don’t belong here. You’re a mutant for God sakes. Arthur Resden didn’t build his empire for a filthy freak like you to take control. There’re others much more deserving of the company.”

My fingers clenched, but I forced myself to relax. Quinn had been right about one thing, my rage at him, at Arthur, at the human world, only weakened my ability to fight. I focused on Doug’s plain face. “Does Arthur know?”

“Hell no,” he said. “Knowing his beloved grandchild is the very thing he’s fought to destroy would kill him.”

“Good. Now let’s keep it that way.” I stepped closer to him. He flinched and backed up a step. I could almost smell his fear. It coated him like Teflon. “Because, Doug, you don’t wanna know what kind of freak I really am.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Whatever gave you that idea,” I said, pausing to dig my finger into his chest. “I’m merely offering some friendly advice. It’s the human thing to do, after all.”

Chapter 9

At ten after seven, I triple checked my cache of weapons: one Italian made Mateba revolver, six .44 Magnum rounds, and a Kampfmesser 2000 combat knife. Should be enough to kill one ex-lover, I thought. But instead of comforting me the weapons only increased my anxiety.

As minutes ticked by the first tendrils of fear crept along my spine. Quinn was dangerous. He knew how to fight. Calvin had taught him, same as me. Together we learned the difference between a sweep kick and a calf kick. We learned how to kill.

Calvin had warned us about the dangers of leaving your opponent alive. I’d taken his advice. Quinn hadn’t. He’d left me alive three years ago in a Mutant 8 motel, my chest shattered by his bullets. Tonight, I would repay the favor.

I knocked on the door of his loft. Closing my eyes, I focused on the stillness of the night. Since our meeting earlier in the day I’d cleansed my rage, switching off emotion in trade for mutated brutality.

The door opened, and Quinn stood facing me. The real Quinn. I’d forgotten how stunning he looked in his own skin. His black hair curled over the collar of his button-down shirt. Flat grey eyes met mine and he smiled, a replica of the man I’d love. Some of the anger I’d stomped down resurfaced.

“I’m surprised you came.” He motioned for me to enter, his eyes raking over my body. I wasn’t fooled. His interest was strictly precautionary. That ship had sailed, docked, and sunk under the weight of his betrayal and three lead bullets.