Night Whispers: ShadowLands, Book 1 (14 page)

“You’re probably right. I find it hard to understand psychos.” Swiftly, so he wouldn’t get it in his head to overpower her, Jules pulled his hands back and tied them.

“Is this really necessary?”

She tightened the cable. “Sure is.”

The doctor sighed. “Okay, fine. You know what, I’ll let you leave.”

The nerve of this guy. Did he not get that she’d tied him up, taken his weapons, killed his partner and had a gun trained on him? “Big of you.”

“I can give the guards the go-ahead to let you go free. You can be gone in a few minutes.”

She turned him around to face her. “What’s the catch?”

“You leave the male here.”

No mention of the girl, which wasn’t surprising, since the doctors seemed to consider her expendable. “You’re more than ready to give me the red carpet out of here, why not him?”

“Because we’ve only had you for a day. The others are test subjects, and we’ve invested far too much time and resources into them.”

“They’re fellow humans, jackass. Not test subjects.”

“You and I are human. Not them. Now, I won’t let you—”

“You have no choice.” She pressed the gun to his chin and hoped he wouldn’t call her bluff. Her stomach was still churning from slicing into the woman. She didn’t know if she was up to racking up two kills today.

The threat didn’t seem to faze the good doctor. “The clock is ticking on my offer. We’ll have reinforcements here soon, and then you won’t have this chance.”

She eyed him. “Reinforcements, huh?”

“Yes. A veritable army of soldiers.”

“I think you’re bluffing.”

A thin eyebrow arched. “And how, pray tell, do you know that?”

“Because you’ve had a day to get reinforcements here. And Cheyenne Mountain isn’t so far that it would take long for them to arrive. I don’t think you’ve sent for any reinforcements.”

“The male has been talking, I see.” The doctor shrugged awkwardly. “No matter. If you are taking him for intelligence, you will be disappointed. He came into contact with no one at the Mountain but us doctors.”

She leaned in close. “Tell me, were you one of the ones who went underground, vowing to emerge when it was safe and lead our demolished country? Or did they recruit you later?” She cocked her head. “Or are you a part of some other group, completely unrelated? Did you stage a coup at the Mountain, Doctor?”

The owlish eyes shuttered. “Kill me or leave,” he said. “I have nothing more to say.”

Which meant there was plenty he could say but didn’t want to. And sadly, she didn’t have time to probe. Common sense told her if reinforcements were really coming, they would already be here, but she wasn’t about to bank on that. “Fine, then. Let’s get going, hmm?”

“I won’t go anywhere until I have your word you won’t take the male with you.”

Huh. Erik was really precious, if the doc was willing to sacrifice everyone else just to negotiate his stay. “Sure, I’ll give you my word,” she lied. “Come on now, Doctor. You make one cry for help and I pull the trigger, got it? Don’t test me. I have enough bullets for everyone.” She waited for his grudging nod. “Now, let’s go find those guards.”

They walked through the hallway, the dim emergency lights a strain after the bright fluorescents of the lab. They paused in front of the room in which the first guard had slipped into earlier. Behind the doors, she heard the sound of a pair of men laughing and joking. Excellent.

“Shouldn’t one of them be guarding the prisoners?” she whispered. “So hard to get good help today.”

The doctor growled.

“Hush, now.” She made sure he was adequately covering her smaller body and shoved the door open in a rush.

The guards were meatheads, but they were also slow and untrained. The younger one glanced up from the cards in his hands, his eyes widening. That tipped off the larger man, Fletcher, the one who’d carried her. He was faster at reaching for the gun in his holster, but she made sure her gun was visible and nicely pointed at the head of the doctor.

“Uh-uh. Hands where I can see them,” she said quietly but firmly. “You fuck with me, I kill the good doctor.”

“I told you, we’ll let you walk out, didn’t I? Leave now, and no one will give you any trouble. Boys, we’re letting her go,” the doctor blustered.

Both of the goons nodded, though the larger one looked like he wanted to protest.

“Both of you, toss your guns over here.” Jules motioned with her head. The younger guy complied immediately, but she could see the larger one was wavering. She jammed the gun tighter against the doctor’s neck. “I don’t think this guy’s your boss. I think you have a head honcho higher up than him who would love to ream you guys out for letting some prisoner kill not one, but both of your doctors here.”

Ah, the right thing to say, apparently. Fear flickered in his eyes, and he pulled his weapon out. He dropped it on the ground and shoved it over.

“You.” She motioned to the little one. “Those handcuffs over there. Snap them on your buddy.”

Fletcher swore under his breath, but he allowed the little one to pull his hands behind his back and snap his hands together. The smaller guy then stood with his hands against the wall, in classic frisking position, as she indicated.

She had the doctor sit in the chair where she could see him while she frisked both of the guards and then restrained the little one’s hands too.

More weapons were added to her arsenal, as well as a flashlight, but she found what she was really looking for in the back pocket of the little guard’s trousers—a large keychain.

The B.O. coming off the guards was ramping up her nausea. A particularly malodorous whiff came off them as she herded them into the small bathroom and tied them to the fixtures there. She nearly gagged into their faces even as she wrapped towels around their mouths to muffle their shouts.

Jules held back the vomit, all the while eyeing the sink in the corner. Sweat had broken out on her upper lip. Man, what she wouldn’t give to splash some cold water on her face.

Instead, she returned to where the doctor was frantically jerking on his wrists to free himself. She
tsk
ed as she hoisted him back to his feet. “Come on, Doctor.”

“Wait, why do you need me now? You have the keys. Leave.”

She grabbed a dirty handkerchief from the table and used it to gag the doctor. “I’m going to need an insurance policy.” In case, say, he was telling the truth about those reinforcements.

His eyes widened above the gag, and muffled protests left his lips. Getting him moving was a challenge. Finally, impatient, she pressed her gun into his neck in an effort to hurry him along. He came, but with a whole lot of dragging of his feet.

Ignoring him, Jules kept her eyes peeled for any more muscle, but they encountered no one.

She switched on the small flashlight she’d liberated from the guards as she shoved the doctor in, the circle of light it emitted feeble but welcome. The room she’d been housed in not long ago was little more than a glorified closet, with three cramped cages arranged side by side. She didn’t let the light linger too much on the center cage. No need to see how filthy of a floor she’d been laying on.

“Jules?”

The high voice broke her heart, more so when she turned the light on the cage on the right. It bounced off the girl sitting there, the bars propping her back up. Carrie winced away from the light, and Jules dropped it away from her face.

“It’s me. We’re almost out of here.”

“Thank God.”

Carrie’s top hadn’t been replaced. A white bandage spotted with blood was visible under where she had ripped the fabric. Jules itched to take a closer look at the wound.

The doctor chose that moment to collapse to the floor. Jules looked down at him and arched a brow. In the glow of the light, she caught something wild and fearful in his eyes. Sighing over the delay, she leaned over and stripped the gag off his mouth.

“I’m begging you,” said the doctor, and for the first time, he sounded seriously worried, if not afraid. “Go. Take the girl and go. We won’t come after you.”

“Darn right you won’t.”

As she straightened, her flashlight swung over the left cage. Erik hadn’t made a single sound since she’d entered the room with the good doctor. She hadn’t expected a rousing cheer, but some acknowledgment probably wouldn’t have been amiss.

Whoa. Weren’t prisoners supposed to waste away? Erik looked bigger, his shoulders taking up more space than she would have thought possible. Stock-still in the far corner of the cage, he had his knees drawn up, his head hunched forward and his arms completely covering his head in a sitting fetal position. A chill ran down her spine. Was he okay? Would he be able to make it out on his own? There was no way she’d be able to carry Erik version 2.0.

“You have no idea what you’re playing with,” the doctor bleated.

From her brief interaction with Carrie, she knew the girl was bruised, but Erik looked like a mass of blue and purple flesh. The bruises mingled with cuts and scars. As the light ran over his body, she could see the thin tracery of whip marks. Unlike Carrie, he didn’t wear a shirt. His bottom half was covered, barely, in some ragged and dirty cloth. His cage was the filthiest, as if no one even bothered to make a token effort to clean it.

Manacles were clamped around his ankles, linked to chains which ran outside his cage, secured to hooks in the wall.

“The male subject is ours. You have no concept of how much time and energy has been expended in creating him.”

She finally tore her gaze away from the defeated, still figure of what had once been a strong and powerful man. What had once been her friend, a man who had saved her life, who had laughed and eaten and teased with her. Before he’d been taken and caged, like the lowliest of animals.

She didn’t consciously register flipping the gun around in her hand or swinging it through the air. The reverberation from the impact of the gun against the doctor’s hard temple went up her arm.

He fell to the ground without a peep.

Life was better without the man’s babbling.

She crossed to Carrie’s cage and fumbled for the key to open it while the girl struggled to her feet. After a few unsuccessful tries, Jules found the correct key and swung the door open. The girl stepped out, her coltish legs wobbly and tentative, as if she feared this was nothing more than a trap.

“I’m really not going to be terminated?” she asked quietly.

Whatever remorse she’d felt over killing Dr. Bitch? Burned clean away by righteousness right now.

She held out the flashlight and pressed it and her gun into the girl’s hand. “Not a chance. Hold this and go stand by the door, okay? I’m going to see what our friend’s situation is over there, and I need you to shine the light for me. Keep the gun trained on the doctor, and make sure you’re standing far away from him.”

“Okay,” Carrie said, accepting the light and the gun. Her hands were clumsy with both, her amber eyes very large in her white face. She scampered over to stand by the door. The light bobbed and weaved with her shaking hands.

Jules turned toward her old friend. Erik hadn’t budged, which worried her. Was he more hurt than she’d initially thought? Perhaps he had gone into some catatonic state. Since she didn’t know how long the guards and the doctor would be restrained—or, God forbid, if and when reinforcements would come—they didn’t have much time.

Jules slowly unlocked the door to Erik’s cage and stepped inside. “Hey there, Erik. I’m back, just like I said.”

The weak flashlight Carrie was holding bobbled above the guy’s head. It steadied over the male, spotlighting him. Jules crept closer, trying her best to avoid sudden movements. “I’m going to take off this shackle, okay, Erik? The three of us are going to blow this popsicle stand. I’ll take you somewhere where no one will hurt you, I promise.” Distantly, she realized that she was using her
talk nice to the crazy man
voice, and she really hoped he wouldn’t take offense. Even allegedly starved and shackled, the muscles in his biceps and legs were bulging. Hell, even his hands and forearms, where they covered his head, looked tough with sinewy muscle and large bones.

She sank to her knees and slightly to the side so the light could show her what she needed to do. After studying the lock, she grabbed the most likely looking key. She inserted it and gave a sigh when the shackle on his ankle clicked open. She opened the other shackle and removed them, tossing them to the floor.

Jules dared to place a hand on his naked back. He wasn’t completely still, she realized. Small shivers were running through him, like he was going through a withdrawal of his own. “Erik? You’re free. Can you stand up?”

She didn’t know if the giant shudder that ran through him was a nod of acknowledgment or a reaction to her words. “My collar,” he said, the words muffled.

The sound of his familiar voice reassured her. She came to his side and tried to examine the collar, though it was difficult with his hands still covering his head. Since it was dark, she used her hands to run around the back of his neck. He stiffened, barely breathing.

This collar was different from hers, not as slick or polished. She’d heard of electroshock collars before. Pre-Illness, they’d been a controversial way of controlling high-risk prisoners. The guards carried the controllers. Keep it flipped on and come within range of the collar, steady charges would shoot through the prisoner, keeping him down on the ground and incapacitated. Or it could be toggled to deliver sharp, shooting pulses of electricity.