Prototype (28 page)

“Check every room!” The call reaches me and a swell fills my chest. Noah.

Declan points at the exit. “Lock the door.”

Dr. Travista reaches for the keypad, but the door slides open, and several men dressed in black flood the room, guns raised. I try sitting up but the restraints cut me off.

The doctor raises the syringe, prepared to use it on the nearest target. One of the team members raises his gun and slams the butt on Dr. Travista’s head. He falls, out cold.

Someone—a male—yells out the door. “In here!”

Noah rushes in a moment later, as maskless as the rest of his team. He raises his gun and aims directly at Declan. His jaw muscles tighten and release. Tighten and release. Red tints his skin.

My heart surges with both love and relief. He came for me, and he risked everything to do it.

Declan raises his hands, blinking rapidly, as if this will clear up the confusion he must feel. “Tucker?”

Noah takes one quick step closer to Declan. “I found your wife, Burke. And guess what? She just so happens to be mine, too.”

L
eigh shoulders through the men, eyes red and swollen, tucking her gun in a holster. While she works on my wrist restraints, Foster kneels and checks Dr. Travista’s pulse. Then, standing, he crushes the spectacles that must have fallen from the doctor’s face.

I sit up and remove the electrodes from my temples while Leigh works on my last ankle strap.

Foster glances at me and asks, “You still there, Wade?”

They must have been concerned I had been wiped overnight. I cannot imagine what it must have taken to keep Noah from coming alone. “Yes,” I tell him, and swing my legs over the side of the bed. The floor is ice-cold underfoot.

Declan watches me approach Noah, his gaze jumping between us. “At the ball. That was you.”

I nod. “Right there in your arms.”

“Surprise,” Noah says. He has not taken a single eye off Declan. “We never did discuss the fee for borrowing her. The price is pretty hefty.”

A salacious smile slides across Declan’s face as he meets Noah’s eyes. “She looked incredible that night. I imagined later what it would be like to take her in that dress. Guess I didn’t have to waste so much energy trying to conjure up what she would feel like.” His eyes cut to me and down to my lips, breasts. “I already know.”

Noah has Declan to the wall, gun to his head, before I can blink. “Keep talking. I will kill you where you stand.”

I recognize the look in Noah’s eyes and am reminded of the gallery opening, when he put a gun to my head. He would have killed me if not for the past we shared. Declan has no such escape.

Having witnessed this cold hatred in action from Declan only last night, and losing Miles because of it, I cannot allow this to continue. Noah is nothing like Declan. He is considerate and protective and acts only when he has to. He is not a cold-blooded killer.

I lay a hand on Noah’s shoulder. His muscles are tense, prepared to spring. I have to get through to him, and fast. “Noah, listen to me. We have everything we need. Let the government deal with him.”

Foster lifts Dr. Travista from the floor and hands him to two of the men near the exit. “She’s right, Tucker. Let’s get them out of here and let the chips fall. They can’t escape this time.”

“No, screw that,” Leigh says. “The fucker killed Miles. He deserves to die.”

My heart sinks for her. Miles was my friend, but he had been Leigh’s first. They had been practically inseparable. Family.

Foster wraps an arm around her shoulder and draws her into his chest. A moment later her shoulders shake.

Noah does not move a single muscle toward letting Declan go. Over his shoulder, he says, “Everyone out. Birmingham, you’re in charge. I want this building clear when it blows.”

They all obey his order without question. Foster follows last, catching my gaze. If I ask, he will stay. But I think the less interference we have, the better.

“Noah—”

“He’ll never let you go,” he says, cutting me off. He reaffirms his wide stance and pushes the gun hard against Declan’s forehead. Declan’s hands flatten on the space of wall behind him. “You’ll never be safe.”

“But I
am
safe. Think about what you are doing. This is not self-defense. Killing him like this would be murder.”

His jaw muscles pop, and his chin drops slightly. Hesitation. Finally. “He’s seen my face,” he says, and a lot of the vehemence has left his tone.

“And we are leaving this place forever. It will not matter.” I lay a hand over his heart. “Take me home. Please.”

Noah’s chest rises with a shaky breath. By the time he lets it back out, he nods and takes several steps away. “You’re going to jail, Burke. For a very long time.”

Declan swings and knocks the gun loose from Noah’s hand. The weapon slides across the tile and stops with a
thunk
against the wall. The three of us dive for it.

Declan scoops it up first, spins, and latches a fist on the back of my head. He yanks me toward him and pain slices through my skull. I reach back to try and alleviate some of the pressure. Any movement on my part only makes the pain worse.

Noah pulls a second HK from his holster. He peers along the sight and no doubt has a perfect shot. Gritted teeth flash behind tight lips. “Let her go.”

Declan presses the gun to my temple and we walk backward toward the exit. “You know, I’m beginning to wonder if she’s worth the trouble.”

A tiny muscle twitches under Noah’s eye. “We both know you won’t kill her.”

They know it, and I know it. Declan loves me and would never consciously hurt me. If I can only get him to loosen his grip a little . . . “Declan,” I say, wincing as his fingers tighten. I do not have to reach too deep to instill a certain amount of pleading in my tone. “
Please.
You are hurting me.”

The moment I feel his tension ease, I take his wrist in both hands and force the gun up as fast as I can. Everything that follows happens in a matter of seconds, but it feels like a lifetime.

Declan releases my hair and I twist away, holding tight to his wrist. I maneuver his arm out straight and turn it at an awkward angle, gun aimed safely at the window. This position is risky because he is so much stronger than I am, but maybe if I move fast enough, I can dislodge the gun and get Declan back in a prone position.

I kick high at the back of his legs, and he falls to his knees with a grunt. He struggles to aim the gun at me. My heart kicks in a panic as I try to keep his arm out. Declan fires and the
ping
of glass breaking is a relief. Better the window than Noah or myself.

I swing a leg over his head, straddling his shoulder, and roll forward, taking him to his back. He moves with the momentum and pins me to the floor a moment later. I blink up at the gun barrel in my face and shove it aside seconds before it goes off by my head. Ear ringing, I twist his wrist with all my strength. He cries out and I wrench the gun free.

Then his weight is off me. Noah has Declan by the collar and throws him into the wall. He meets him there and slams a knee into his stomach. Declan doubles over with a grunt. Noah spins and lands an ax kick to the side of Declan’s head.

Declan falls flat to his stomach and does not move for several long seconds. Blood spills from behind his ear, where Noah’s boot broke the skin.

Bending, Noah presses the gun to the back of his head. “Get up.” His chest heaves in tandem with mine.

Declan rises to his knees and looks up at me. Sweat dots his brow. “You can’t run from me forever, Emma.”

I tighten the grip on my gun. “I have heard that one before. This is over.”

Declan pistons an elbow back into Noah’s knee, then rises fast to strike him in the face. By the time I think to aim the gun, Noah has him around the throat, and the two of them are turning and trading head butts into the wall. I cannot keep up with them long enough to shoot, and I do not want to accidentally hit Noah.

I drop the useless gun and race forward. The first opportunity I get, I jump on Declan’s back and hook an arm around his neck. I squeeze my arm to cut off his air. If I can just get him to pass out . . . With a choking wheeze, he releases Noah.

Declan lumbers back and slams me into a wall. Black dots float in my vision, but I manage to maintain my hold, loose though it is. Noah slams a right hook in Declan’s jaw. With a yell, Declan reaches back, takes me by the shoulders, and throws me over his head.

I hit Noah and we both go down in a jumbled heap. By the time I roll off him, Declan is already lifting the gun I had discarded moments ago. He aims at Noah.

Flashes of Miles’s death hit me like a truck. “No!”

The shot rings past me and Noah twists with the impact to his right chest. He hits the floor and I rotate back around to check on him.

“Noah,” I cry, hovering over him, cupping his face. He cannot die on me. Not like this. Not now. Tears in my eyes make it impossible to see the extent of the damage. All I know is that his chest rises under my hands.

“Okay,” he says in a tight, breathy tone. He shows me the gun, gripped in his hand and hidden between us.

“She’s going to be mine again,” Declan says behind me. He sounds winded from our fight.

Noah struggles to sit up and I help him, though every part of me wants him to remain perfectly still. To wait for help. He grips the gun, hiding it in my lap, and wordlessly meets Declan’s gaze. Blood streams down his face from cuts to his forehead, cheek, and mouth.

I look back to watch Declan approach with the gun aimed at Noah’s head. The sea in his eyes shines, and his smile says he knows he has won.

“And maybe when she’s run out of her usefulness,” Declan continues, taunting, “I’ll find your daughter. And I’ll take her too.”

Fury explodes in my chest. He can threaten me all he wants, but Adrienne? I will kill him first. And now I intend to.

Noah’s face contorts into such rage, I stop reaching for the gun in my lap. His muscles are locked so tight I am surprised he can manage to say his next words. “What’s mine is yours; is that it?”

Declan snorts a laugh. “You could say that.”

“Here’s something of mine you forgot.”

The gun comes around and up past me. The shot fires before Declan realizes the danger he is in. And Noah’s aim is perfect. Declan slumps to the ground and falls to his stomach. At this angle, I can just make out the blackened skin on his forehead.

Noah’s arm drops heavy between us. “Clone your way out of
that,
you bastard.”

 • • • 

Dr. Malcolm stares at the syringe and back at me. A wavering grin tilts on his face. “I’m a little jealous.”

Jealous? My heart pounds in my ears and I have already broken out in a cold sweat over the idea of this injection. What if Dr. Travista was wrong and this DMT stuff kills me instead? I have had to wait days for this so-called lifesaving drug, and my mind has conjured all the bad things that could go wrong. It is not like I have had the best luck lately.

Noah takes my hand, eyeing Dr. Malcolm with amusement. “I take it you’ve tested this out on yourself before?” He perches on the edge of the bed, his right arm bound to his middle. He has spent the last few days in various stages of surgery to replace a damaged lung, muscle, and skin. I am more than relieved he could get up and around today for this.

Dr. Malcolm blushes and bobbles his head from side to side. “I may have smoked some during a particular phase in my youth. The high is incredible. There’s nothing like it.”

I gape. “You can smoke it?”

He waves a hand. “It’s nowhere near as potent as this is going to be.”

Great. He had an incredible high from smoking it, and my version is more potent. “I will not be doing anything crazy, will I? Like stripping or something?”

Noah grins. “I wouldn’t mind that, actually.”

“Maybe you should leave,” I tell him with a straight face. I am too nervous for his banter.

“You won’t even leave the bed,” Dr. Malcolm says as he starts to run the DMT into my IV. “Not your physical body, at least.”

“What is
that
supposed to mean?”

He winks. “You’ll see. I want to hear all about it when you get back.”

“Get back?” My attention darts to Noah, who shrugs.

Then I feel it.

Death.

The crawl of the icy abyss through my veins. Arctic. The further the cold travels, the more my heart races. I am going to die like this. I know it. The abyss will take me, after all.

The room pulses with my heartbeat, and underneath the drumming is a gentle hum. The sound is low in the beginning but builds, then overtakes the beat of my heart and voices—
Are her eyes supposed to turn
black
? She’s fine. Pupil dilation is normal.

The hum reaches a point at which I believe I will shatter from the pitched frequency, but a gentle voice in the back of my mind says,
Relax and give in
. I know instinctively that if I vibrate the mild frequency of the room, I
will
shatter, but by allowing the hum to absorb me, to take me . . .

I give in.

And the room shatters like glass. The shards float away from a light so bright I think for a moment I have actually died. But on a whole other level, I am still looking into the hospital room. Dr. Malcolm monitors my vitals, and Noah holds my hand, watching in silence. Neither looks concerned, which means I am okay.

I am also experiencing something that can only be described as time. Birth. Death. Reincarnation. Time folds and shapes and makes no sense while making perfect sense. Pieces of my life come together, beginning to end, until the last layer takes its place and—

—I float in nothing.

I
am
nothing, yet I am everything. More than Emma. More than human. More than a clone. I am who I was meant to be. Eternal. Ethereal.

The white light turns yellow. Wherever I am, it reaches far beyond the abyss, and it is warm and peaceful. I know I will be okay here, but this is not the end of my journey. I have light-years to go, and I am anxious to get there.

The space ends with a door made of honeycomb-shaped glass. Rainbows of light rise from the glass like wisps of smoke, but not to ward me away. They beckon for me to come home. To break through; to let go the final layer of this mortal coil.

I rush through the glass and let the nothing behind me take the shards. The space beyond is familiar to my soul. I have been here a million times before. A waiting room of sorts for every life I have ever lived and will live again. I have friends and family there. They greet me with their light, and I know that, no matter what, everything will be okay because I am stripped of my humanity and handed the freedom to simply
be.

My sensory awareness returns a piece at a time, a minute at a time, an hour at a time, a year, a century. . . . Eons of time have passed by the time I return to my body.

And it
is
my body.

My soul tethers itself inside.

I blink.

Dr. Malcolm squeezes my hand. “Welcome back, Miss Emma.”

“How long was I gone?” I ask. It is difficult to have felt such a fracturing of time and space, then return and find everything how I left it.