Rough Edges (29 page)

I
t had taken Jordyn nearly an hour to do what she needed to do. The wheeled cart stocked with instruments and boxes helped give her an air of legitimacy. Her rushed demeanor and a healthy dose of fear did the rest.

Every tech she passed gave her that sympathetic look that told her they knew what it was like to be on an errand for Dr. Norma Stynger.

All around the labs, techs were packing up equipment and files. Jordyn hadn't been notified of the exact time of the move, but it had to be happening soon. The groups were intentionally compartmentalized to keep socializing to a minimum, but each group would be moved as a unit.

The blue unit was apparently the next one on the truck to wherever it was they were going this time.

A group of guards oversaw the whole process, but she doubted that a single one of them would know what any of the equipment being packed was for. All they were probably worried about was making sure it all got packed on time so there were no delays.

Jordyn was counting on it.

She pilfered what she needed, tucking it all inside boxes, out of sight. The red unit next door was asleep, giving her plenty of room to work. She did everything she could think to do, including a little bit of hacking into the security system. The delays she set were already counting down when she made it back to Gage's room.

This time she didn't have to be let in. The door was wide open and filled with a pair of burly guards.

Jordyn shoved her way between them with one of her boxes of contingency plans. Inside the room, Gage was holding off another pair of guards with her ballpoint pen. The little boy was screaming in fear, dangling from Gage's arm. Another guard was on the floor, blood pooling under his head. There was a ragged hole where his eye had once been. The other eye stared sightlessly in death.

One of the guards leveled a weapon at Gage's head. “Let go of the kid,” he demanded.

Gage said nothing, but the look he gave the man was sharp enough to cut glass.

“This isn't going to end well for you. You're already bleeding all over the place.”

And he was. A trickle of blood was seeping out from under his bandages, which were soaked through bright red.

“What's going on here?” Jordyn asked, working hard to sound like she had every right to know.

“Doc sent us for the kid,” said the nearest guard.

“I don't care who sent you. I put that child here myself. Now go find someone else to bother.”

“Can't do that, ma'am. We have orders.”

They also had implants driven into their brains that made them incapable of defying those orders.

Jordyn had no choice but to use up one of her tricks now.

She caught Gage's eye. “Remember the gum?”

He nodded.

“Deep breath.”

She wasn't sure if he understood what she was going to do or not, but there was no more time to explain. She used one hand to strap a mask on over her nose and mouth while opening the valve on the pressurized container with the other. The gas they pumped into rooms at night to keep people asleep flooded the space with a fine mist. She grabbed up the second mask she'd brought with her and tossed it toward Gage. “Heads up!”

She couldn't see if he caught it or not. The air was too thick. She did, however, hear several heavy bodies hit the ground. The little boy's screams cut off, leaving the room blissfully quiet. Only the faint hiss of the emptying can of sedative remained.

Jordyn stumbled over one of the guards toward Gage. She was close enough now to see he was still on his feet, mask in place.

She took the child from his hands and hurried him out of the room before he could breathe in too much of the gas.

Gage was right on her heels.

As soon as they were in the hall, she grabbed the wheeled cart with one hand and pulled. “We have about a minute before every lock in this place opens and every alarm goes off.”

He took the cart from her hands, freeing her to maneuver the child easier. She wasn't sure if he was trying to help, or if he needed to lean on something. From the look of the blood seeping into his pajama pants, his surgical wound had reopened.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Keep moving.”

“There's a tranquilizer gun on the bottom shelf of the cart. It's only got three shots in it before you have to reload.”

“Range?”

“None. You have to touch them with it to trigger it.”

They were almost out of the medical wing when there was an audible click of every electronic lock opening at once. A heartbeat later, sirens began to blare and lights started flashing.

The little boy didn't even stir. If not for the strong pounding of his pulse under her hands, she would have worried he'd been hurt.

“Will the elevators lock down?” he asked.

“No. I overrode that part of the code.” She hoped. Otherwise, they were trapped down here. There were no stairs leading up, no other way out.

Jordyn turned the corner, but Gage was no longer with her. She backtracked to see where he'd gone and found him disappearing into one of the surgical rooms.

The second she looked through the glass window, she knew their escape had just gotten a lot harder.

There was a tall, dark-haired woman strapped facedown on one of the surgical tables. The back of her head had been shaved, and whoever had done it hadn't been careful. Her skin was bleeding in several places, matting what little hair was left. Her arms were bruised and bloody from where she'd been fighting to escape.

As still as she was now, there seemed to be no fight left in her.

“Bella?” Gage said, leaning down to see her face through the horseshoe headrest.

She let out a rough moan and started thrashing.

He put his hand on her arm. “Easy.”

“Gage?” Her voice was thick and muffled.

He began to undo the straps holding her down. “Hang on.”

She was barely free when she burst off the table like she was spring-loaded. Her face was bruised and covered in drying blood. Her bangs were matted with more blood. Both lips were swollen as if she'd taken a couple of hard hits.

She swayed on her feet. Gage grabbed her arm to steady her. As soon as her eyes focused on him, she launched herself at him, grabbing him in a hard hug. “You're alive!” She let out a sob of relief before catching herself and regaining control.

Jordyn watched the display, marveling over it. She'd never seen people hug like that before in person. She'd seen it on the Internet, but never in real life. It was so . . . intimate.

A spike of jealousy caught her off guard. She knew better than to think she had any right to mind if the two of them stripped down and had sex right here on the floor, but that didn't stop her from wanting to finish ripping the woman's hair out.

He hugged her back, but not nearly as hard. Fresh blood oozed from his bandage. After a couple of seconds, he pulled away, allowing Jordyn room to breathe again.

“You good to go?” he asked Bella, holding her face between his hands so she had no choice but to look him in the eye.

She gave a weak nod. “Always. But they dosed me with something. If I start acting screwy, don't hesitate to knock me out.”

“Screwy?” Gage asked.

“You'll know it if you see it.”

He nodded.

“I'm Jordyn.” She shifted the boy's weight to offer her hand.

Bella didn't take it. She looked at Jordyn with suspicion. “Stynger's daughter?”

“Unfortunately.”

“She saved my life,” Gage said.

Bella nodded, seemingly satisfied with his reference, then turned to Gage. “What's the plan?”

“Follow Jordyn.”

Bella picked up a scalpel from the instrument table. “Lead on. If you see that asshole Randolph, he's mine.”

Jordyn knew the man and wanted nothing to do with him. He was selfish in a way that suited Mother well. As long as she had something he wanted, he was her pawn.

“This way,” Jordyn said as she led them down the hall. “The elevators aren't far.”

Gage was right on her heels, sticking close. Every few seconds his hand would brush against her arm so she'd know he was still there. If not for the reassurance of his presence, she would have been terrified right now. As it was, she was merely scared.

Jordyn turned the last corner before the elevators. A pair of guards were waiting for them no more than fifty feet away.

They opened fire.

G
age jerked Jordyn back before she could take a hit.

In the split second that passed between when he saw the threat and reacted to it, he realized just how much she meant to him. How much their child meant to him.

He hadn't asked to be tied to her in this way. Neither had she. But they were tied, and unless and until that changed, he would protect his family with his life.

She looked up at him, pale and shaking, her pretty eyes filled with fear as she cradled the little boy against her chest. “They're blocking the exit. What do we do now?”

“Make a hole,” Gage said.

Bullets ripped into the nearby wall. Splinters of concrete showered over them.

“Easier said than done without any real weapons,” Bella said.

“There's another pressurized can of sedative on the cart,” Jordyn said. “But I only brought two masks. I wasn't expecting company.”

“Stay here. I'll go back for it,” Bella said. She was gone before anyone could argue.

If he didn't make it out of here, there would be no one outside of the labs who could explain to Jordyn what had been done to her—that she'd been impregnated with a virtual stranger's baby without her knowledge or consent. She was smart and would figure it out eventually, but it was dangerous for her not to know she was pregnant. Even that sedative that she had been toting around could be harmful.

“Your mother did something to you,” he said, wondering how one eased into such a subject.

“She did a lot of things to me. I've never been anything more to her than an interesting experiment.”

“No, she—” His words were cut off by another volley of gunfire. The men's voices were closer now as they coordinated their attack.

Gage was running out of time. They all were.

He gripped the tranquilizer gun tighter, readying it to strike whoever came around the corner first.

Blood dripped along his ribs. The top of his pants were wet and cold with it, making him wonder just how much he could bleed before his strength failed him completely.

“She what?” Jordyn asked. “If you know that Mother did something to me, you have to tell me.”

There was no easy way to say it, so he just set the words loose. “You're pregnant with my baby.”

He saw shock ricochet through her system, rocking her visibly. She blinked a couple of times, her jaw slack. The little boy began slipping from her grip before she shifted him back against her chest. “You had sex with me while I was unconscious?”

“No. I never touched you. I was asleep, too.”

“How . . . ?” Her eyes widened with understanding. “That was the DNA sample she took, the one in your file. She . . . violated you.”

“Not as much as she violated you. I'm sorry, Jordyn. I would have stopped it if I'd known.”

She shook her head. “There's nothing you could have done. Mother always gets what she wants. Our child is just one more experiment to her.” She went still, then looked him in the eye. “Our child. The concept seems impossible.”

He'd had more time to digest it than she had, but even he still had trouble wrapping his head around it. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had to see Jordyn safely out of this place so that she could start making decisions for herself for the first time in her life.

One way or another, he would free her from Stynger's grasp.

Another burst of gunfire cut off whatever he might have said. Not that he had any clue what to say in a situation like this. There were no words. All he could do was shield Jordyn, the boy and their unborn child with his body and pray for a miracle.

Bella came around the corner, hands full. She slid to a stop, holding out her findings.

Gage picked up a mask and fit it over Jordyn's head. He opened the canister of sedative and tossed it around the corner.

More shots went off before falling silent.

Footsteps and voices sounded behind them.

“We have company,” Bella said. She pulled on a mask and darted out of sight toward the elevators. A second later, she came back with a pair of ARs taken off of fallen guards. “I'll cover your exit,” she told Gage. “Take them and run.”

Gage knew that if he did that, Bella would die down here. He loved her too much to let it happen.

He picked up one of the ARs, using his free hand to push Jordyn toward the elevators. “Go. I'll be on the next ride up.”

“You heard her. Come with me.”

“Not yet. Now go. I need you to live—both of you.”

The tears in her eyes told him that she understood what he meant—that he needed her to get their child to safety.

She nodded and kissed his cheek. “I'll be waiting for you topside.”

“No. Go to the road. Hide. I'll find you.”

Before she could hesitate more, he pushed her gently toward the elevators.

She cleared the corner just as a horde of Stynger's soldiers came charging down the hall.

*   *   *

“There's nothing here,” Victor said, scouring the landscape for some sign of an entrance to Stynger's labs.

Mira sat in the back of the mobile command center—MCC—surrounded by computers and gadgets. “This is where the tracker on Randolph stopped dead. The trail is cold.”

Adam pulled the RV-turned-MCC over to the side of the road. It was loaded with instruments and weapons, along with a decent array of first aid supplies and tactical gear. If they could find where Randolph had gone, this vehicle had the resources to support a small war.

Payton was riding shotgun, talking quietly on a satellite phone to General Norwood. “We're visible on satellite,” he said to the group, “but there's nothing nearby to indicate where Randolph might have gone.”

Mira typed furiously on a keyboard, doing who-knew-what. Adam got out from behind the wheel and joined Victor in back. “We could set out on foot. Things look different from the ground than they do from above. Stynger is smart enough to hide her facility from the eyes in the sky.”

Victor shook his head. “We don't have that kind of time. If we pick the wrong direction, Bella is as good as dead.”

“Not necessarily,” said Mira. “Stynger is far more likely to experiment on her for a while than she is to kill her outright. That would be wasteful.”

The idea made Victor's heart lurch into his throat.

Adam patted Mira's shoulder. “Not helpful, love.”

She looked up from her computer screen. “Maybe it's not a warm, fuzzy thought, but I'd far rather find Bella alive and part cyborg than find her dead. We can fix cyborg.”

Payton rose from the front seat. “We have a live feed. Someone is on foot nearby.”

Mira switched computers and pulled up the image of someone headed their way with a large bundle held against their chest.

“Can you zoom in?” Victor asked.

She did, revealing a woman with long dark hair on the screen. She looked around like she was afraid of what might be on her heels.

“That's Jordyn Stynger,” Payton said.

“What's she carrying?” Mira asked.

“Who cares?” Victor said, who was already strapping on equipment. “She knows the way in. She can lead us to Bella.”

“You don't know what's going on,” Payton said. “We need a plan.”

Victor picked up several spare magazines of ammunition and headed for the door. “I make her lead me to Bella. That's my plan.”

Before anyone else could argue, he was gone, jogging toward the woman.

He found her a few hundred yards away, stumbling toward the road. It wasn't a bundle she carried, but a small child. Her pale face was streaked with tears, and some sort of gas mask dangled from her neck.

As soon as she saw him, she came to a dead stop. He could see a decision warring in her mind. Did she stand her ground or flee?

Victor really didn't feel like chasing her. “I'm not going to hurt you,” he said. “All I need to know is how to get inside the labs.”

She cradled the child closer. “Who are you?”

“I'm looking for Bella Bayne. That's all you need to know.”

“Are you going to hurt her?”

“No. I'm going to get her out of that place and bring her home.”

The woman nodded. Swallowed. “Is there a safe place I can leave him?”

“I have friends nearby.”

“They won't hurt him?”

“They'll keep him safe. I promise.”

“Okay, then. Show me your friends and I'll show you the way in and give you the codes you need to get through the doors. Just promise me that you'll get Gage out, too.”

“He's one of ours. Of course I will.”

“Then we'd better hurry. He and Bella were taking fire when I left.”

Bella was alive. That was his first thought. But before any kind of relief could set in, he realized the rest of what she'd said.

Victor took the child from her arms and sprinted for the MCC. The woman he loved was under attack, and everything in him demanded that he save her. She might not like his old-fashioned sentiment, but that was just too damn bad. If she didn't want to be saved, then she could just get a safer job. A man could only take so much.

*   *   *

Bella and Gage were pinned down. They couldn't make it to the elevators, and they couldn't move away from the doorway they currently used for cover.

She was trying to conserve ammunition, but they were still running out. Even worse, Gage's bleeding hadn't stopped, even after he'd put pressure on the wound. His skin was ashen, he was sweating, and she could see his pulse fluttering in his throat.

The man didn't have much time.

The need to find the closest closet to burrow in nearly overwhelmed her. She was tired. Weak. All she wanted to do was hide until the danger went away, just like she used to do with Dan.

No!
She wasn't that person anymore. That was just Stynger's fucked-up drugs talking. She was strong. She was a fighter. She didn't need any damn closets.

“I'm not letting you die,” she told Gage, “so don't even think about it. I've spent weeks looking for you. We are making it out of here.”

“Yes, ma'am,” was all he said, and even that sounded weak.

Randolph's voice echoed down the long hallway. “You can't make it out of here, Bella. You might as well give up before we have to kill you.”

Her voice shook, and she hoped it sounded more like fury than fear coming through. “I'd rather die than let you cut into my skull.”

“I can arrange that, but the good doctor has her heart set on playing with you for a while before she opens you up to see what makes you tick.”

“You want to know what makes me tick?” she shouted. “Beating the hell out of you. That's what's keeping me going, you fucking asshole.”

“Go for the exit,” Gage said, his voice quiet. “I'll cover you.”

She wanted to run. Hide. She wanted it so bad her muscles began tensing in an effort to move her body in that direction. She had to fight the urge and stand her ground. “You can barely hold your own head up, much less a weapon. We go together or we don't go at all.”

His head slumped back against the wall and he swallowed weakly. “Can't walk.”

“Then I'll carry you. Now stand up. That's an order.”

She helped him to his feet, feeling just how much effort the move cost him. Gage was no lightweight, and between his blood loss and her own recent visit to concussionville, she wasn't sure either one of them was going to be very steady on their feet.

“It's ten yards to the end of the hall and the elevators,” Bella said. “Randolph has a handful of guys at the other end, another twenty yards away. If we can make it to the corner before his men blow holes in us, then we have a fighting chance at living until the elevator doors open.”

Gage lifted an eyebrow in disbelief. “Really? That's your plan?”

“Do you have a better one?”

He shook his head and his eyes fluttered shut.

He was dying. She was too late. Too weak to save him.

No!
She shook her head to ward off those negative thoughts and patted his cheek roughly. “None of that. You have to stay awake. You're too damn heavy to carry.”

Gage opened his eyes wide, but she could see he was losing the battle fast. If she didn't do something, he wasn't going to make it out of here alive.

She eased him into a rolling office chair and peeked down the hallway toward Randolph and his men. “Stynger wants me alive, right?” she yelled.

“Those are my orders.”

“You let me put Gage on that elevator and she can have me. I won't resist.”

“No!” Gage shouted. He tried to stand, but his feet fell out from under him and he sloshed back in the chair.

“Do we have a deal?” she asked Randolph.

“Sure. Why the hell not? He's probably not going to survive anyway. And if he does, we'll just collect him later.”

“No. You promise to leave him alone.”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. I promise. I'll give you thirty seconds to load him up. After that, I'm having the men open fire. And if you try to go with him, I'll kill you myself.”

Bella didn't hesitate. She grabbed Gage's chair and hauled ass for the elevators. With every step she half expected to have a hole blown in her back, but the bullet never came for her.

The elevator doors seemed to take forever to open. When they did, she could crawl inside the small space and hide.

Not going to happen,
she reminded herself. If she tried to run, she was sure Randolph would make good on his threat to kill her.

“Ten more seconds,” he called, sounding more than ready to pounce.

Finally, the bell dinged and the doors slid open. Gage tried to stop her from rolling him inside, but he was far too weak to fight her. She pushed the button for the surface, and prayed that Jordyn was still up there, close enough to wheel him to safety.