Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) (34 page)

Vivian wanted to scream at Camilla
about how wrong she was. She wanted to throw her down on the dirt
and tell her she was more than just a means to an end, and Nikolai
actually cared about her. Yes, anything to convince herself of the
lie that someone still gave a damn about whether she lived or died
in a gutter.

Were his promises of scholarships and
reuniting her with her family only sweet-sounding lies?

“
Nikolai…wouldn’t do that
me…” she whispered hoarsely through tears of rage.

Pity slipped through the numb
expression on Camilla’s face.

“
I’m sorry,
Vivian.”

Vivian turned on her heel and ran. She
tried futilely to outrun the truth, clawing through the underbrush
as it fought back against her.

Nikolai was the closest thing she had
to a father since her parents drove her away. She couldn’t bear the
thought of him exploiting her as so many ruthless men had done
before. So Nikolai was just like the perverted clients who
solicited her in the dead of night, except his cruelty and
selfishness extended far beyond anything they had ever
done.

Vivian ignored Camilla’s cries as she
stumbled away.

She froze when she spotted a building
among the gold-colored trees. She almost feared she had come too
close to the city, but what she saw didn’t resemble any Victorian
house or monument. The plain walls were built to keep the
wilderness out, but those crumbling defenses failed over time. Ivy
penetrated the mortar and concrete. Trees wormed their way through
the windows, dispersing seeds to ensure their dynastic reign over
the forlorn ruins. Creatures had likely taken up residence inside
the twisted shell.

“
What is it?” Vivian
finally asked. Camilla paused at the edge of a brook, keeping a
safe distance.

“
It’s the old water
treatment plant.” Vivian gawked at the sight for a while longer,
mesmerized. Her heart rate took a dive when she saw a face pressed
against one of the windows—except this face didn’t have any
recognizable features. The skin looked white and leathery, and an
oddly-shaped mouth protruded from it. No soul reflected behind
those ghoulishly large eyes.

She drew in a ragged breath as it
vanished.

“
He’s here.”

“
Nikolai? How did
he—?”

“
No, not Nikolai. Viktor is
inside that building.”

“
Why would he be out
here?”

“
I don’t know. I have a lot
of questions I’d like him to answer before I give him the death
he’s always craved.”

Vivian yanked out her gun as something
animalistic gleamed in her eyes.

“
Are you sure you weren’t
hallucinating?” She ignored Camilla as she marched toward the water
plant, ignoring her doubts. “What are you doing?!”

“
I need to make this stop,”
Vivian snapped. “I can feel Syllax slowly driving me to the brink
off insanity. It feels like I’m stepping through a portal into my
past, except everything is even uglier and worse than I remembered.
I need to get this out of my head before I end up just like him.
One way or another, he’s going to tell me what I want to
know.”

Ending on that note, Vivian forced the
iron doors open.

At first glance, she thought tentacles
were stretched across the halls. Sunlight revealed them for what
they truly were. Thick vines traced the walls and ceiling in a
primordial canvas. Spores floated in the air like angel dust. Those
eerie sights did not deter her as she clambered down the
stairwells.

Camilla dallied outside, still
apprehensive about Vivian’s claims. For the past few months, she
lived to unearth the truth behind these vanishings, but now she
found herself in a strange position. The closer she came to
confronting the bloodstained nucleus of this investigation, the
more she wanted to turn and run. She didn’t want to encounter the
human behind these hypersexual and violent fantasies. It took every
ounce of courage to step inside the facility.

Vivian had ventured ahead into a
labyrinth of valves, dials, and pipes. She couldn’t imagine the
function behind the intimidating machines strewn throughout the
plant. They looked as though they hadn’t seen human contact in
years. There was something beautiful about the derelict
architecture that couldn’t be translated into words. It was simply
lovely, but a petty human mind couldn’t understand why. Perhaps
only the most troubled souls could see the beauty beneath
decay.

Vivian stopped in her tracks. A woman
was lying on the floor.

She felt like vomiting.

Somehow, she already knew
what the woman looked like, despite the darkness. Dirty blonde hair
would encircle her face, and her eyes would rival the most
brilliant emeralds. What remained to be seen was the manner of her
execution.
She had done nothing to justify
this cruel fate, but here she lay growing cold and thin. Soon the
internal organs would liquefy and cause her body to swell until it
burst open. Vivian could see the body bloating as gas accumulated
inside the raw tissue.

Her heart stopped when she saw the
woman’s chest rise. She was breathing, not bloating.

“
She’s still alive!” Vivian
cried. She dashed toward the body just as Camilla pounded down the
stairwell.

“
Vivian, stop! Don’t get
near her!”

A chain was wrapped around the
victim’s waist, digging savagely into her flesh. The other end of
the chain disappeared into the darkness, no doubt anchoring her to
something in Viktor’s depraved torture scheme. Her clothes were
drenched and clung to her skin like a cotton web. Vivian raced
forward when a smell reminiscent of acid assaulted her. She could
already feel it implanting her skin and clothes with its vile
odor.

The victim’s eyes snapped
open.

“
No! Stay back!” she
screamed. Vivian ground to a halt, frantically searching for the
killer. “He warned me not to cry,” the victim whimpered.

Something rustled behind Vivian, and
she turned to see Camilla scrape a piece of paper off the
floor.

“
It’s a diagnostic report,”
she said, handing it over.

Only the victim’s name was filled in:
Renata Ruzicka. Vivian turned to the pitiful woman cowering in the
dark.

“
Renata, we need to get you
out of here. Please trust us.”

“
No, you don’t
understand!”

“
What don’t I understand?
You’ll die if we don’t get you out of here
now!
”

Renata bit her lip in terror. She had
to repress her tears for hours. The strange man who dragged her
from bed warned her about the consequences of crying. She heard the
uncompromising truth in his words, and she obeyed if she ever
treasured her life. Her eyes were bloodshot from the excruciating
pain.

“
There’s something on her,”
Camilla said. Sure enough, Renata’s flesh gleamed with an oily
sheen. Vivian took a step forward, and the sulfuric smell made her
throat swell shut.

“
What did he put on
you?”

Renata trembled.

“
If I cry, we’re all going
to die. He told me to hold it in.” Vivian approached when a sense
of dread overwhelmed her.

“
You should not interfere.”
His voice was like the queerest whisper bubbling up from an
abyss.

Vivian barely saw movement out of the
corner of her eye as the syringe swung at her face. She felt the
needle rake through her hair, and she saw the beveled tip flash
before her eyes for a split second. She screamed, recalling what he
had nearly done to her in the basement.

She collapsed to the floor and tried
pitifully to crawl to safety.

The figure in white peeled away from
the walls. The familiar pale trench coat and gas mask cut a stark
contrast with the dim setting, casting a surreal glow about him. He
seemed to blur against the shadows like a vision from hell, pulsing
in and out of focus.

“
What the fuck are you?”
Vivian gasped as he swept forward.

The needle almost rammed down, but
Camilla’s body hurled toward Viktor. Her shoulder caught him in the
throat, flinging a man much taller than herself across the room. He
sprawled against a column and the back of his head connected with a
sickly crunch. The syringe flew from his fingers and rolled under a
boiler.

Vivian tried to catch her breath, but
each time, the air just whistled through her lips in a
half-attempted scream.

Viktor’s crumpled frame rippled to
life and stood up. Blood was rapidly spreading through his trench
coat from the many self-inflicted holes and gouges in his flesh. He
loped toward Vivian with long, inhuman strides.

At first, an alien kind of terror
seized her. How could a mere human sustain so much physical damage
and continue to move? She found it within herself to transform that
illogical fear into anger, and that anger took aim at the man who
left his mark not only on her flesh but on her mind as
well.

“
Fuck you,” Vivian growled,
pointing her gun at him. At last, she could end this.

Renata watched the entire scene unfold
in horror. Her eyes bristled with so much pain that she couldn’t
contain herself anymore. A tear slid down her cheek.

It felt so wonderful.

The chemicals on her skin burst into
flames. Renata screamed just before her tongue melted in her mouth.
The explosion flung Vivian against the far wall, smashing her head
against a pipe. Spots swam before her eyes as her gun clattered to
the floor.

She lifted her head just in time to
see Viktor skidding across the room. His fist lanced through the
window in an explosion of glass. He fluidly pulled himself through
the jagged frame, impervious to the shards slicing his hands to
ribbons. He looked over his shoulder at a dazed Vivian before
plunging from the window.

She inhaled the perfume of burning
flesh and sputtered. She clawed at her throat as ashes began to
line the inside of her lungs. It felt as though all the oxygen in
the room had been replaced by fire. Hands seized Vivian and dragged
her across the floor. She barely glimpsed Renata’s charred remains
before blackness ensued.

The smog billowed and slithered
through every crevice in the halls. She almost wished the darkness
would claim her and deliver her from this hell on earth.

Suddenly, she felt sunlight glossing
over her cheeks and the cool breeze against her skin. Camilla stood
over her, a faded silhouette against the sky. Smog roiled above the
forest like a tragic omen. Vivian gasped as her lungs ballooned
with fresh air. Suddenly, her entire body thrashed and her hand
plunged into her pocket. There was no grace to Vivian’s body, as
though she was fending off a seizure. Camilla’s confusion only
multiplied when she saw Vivian retrieve her cell phone.

“
What are you
doing?”

“
Calling
Nikolai.”

“
Why in God’s name would
you—?”

“
Hello?” Nikolai tensely
replied.

“
He’s claimed another
victim,” Vivian said. “Come to the abandoned water treatment plant
near the D2 motorway.”

“
Vivian—” She hung
up.

“
We need to leave now.” She
staggered to her knees and let out another choking gasp.

“
You shouldn’t have called
him,” Camilla scolded. “You’re leading him right to us.”

Vivian didn’t reply. In
fact, she became ominously still, staring into the distance.
Suddenly, she broke down and fell to her
knees.

“
Vivian!”

Vivian struggled to regain control,
taking in calming breaths.

“
It feels like no matter
how close I come to outrunning this nightmare, I fall short. How am
I supposed to get rid of this drug inside me if everything is
always fucking up?” Hysteria bled into her voice. “I can’t let
myself become like him. I don’t know how much longer I can endure
like this. Viktor was supposed to tell me how to stop this, and now
he’s gone.”

Vivian crushed fistfuls of
dead leaves in her hands.
She almost didn’t
hear Camilla’s voice above the hissing wind.

“
I have an
idea.”

Vivian slowly turned to
her.

“
Syllax Pharmaceuticals was
erected near the edge of the outskirts,” Camilla continued. “If we
stand a chance of curing you, we need to go there. Some of Viktor’s
research may remain. It could tell us if there’s an antidote or a
way to reverse the reaction.”

Vivian perked up at the first sign of
a plausible solution.

“
Then let’s go immediately.
Which way is it?”
Camilla
hesitated.

“
I—I need to do something
first. I need to go back to Prague before we head
there.”

Vivian noted the way Camilla’s body
tightened up and her eyes darted furtively. Gone was the confidence
and candor that gave her personality a healthy glow. Instead,
Camilla looked remarkably nervous as she shifted from foot to
foot.