The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade (15 page)

“
I grabbed newest
patient,” said Marius. “I read charts, I asked nurse.” He pointed
at Haven. “She was newest! Only one day she was there before I
saved her.”

Corva placed her hand on Marius’s
shoulder and squeezed it gently.

“
My brother,” said Haven
weakly. “My brother was kidnapped two weeks before they took
me…took me to that place.”

The old woman knelt down and laid her
hand on Haven’s forehead. “Shhh. You need to rest, now. We wouldn’t
want to undo all of Dormer’s hard work. Corva, would you and Marius
please take our guest to the dormitories and give her a room? I’m
sure she could use some sleep.”

Corva and Marius picked up the
stretcher and carried it toward the swinging double doors. Haven
looked up at the fake sky and dead trees until exhaustion took over
and she passed out.

20

C
olton followed Shelly to a large elevator on one side of the
parking garage. She swiped a small black card over an electronic
panel on the wall. A second later, there was a
ding
and the elevator doors slid
open.

Colton stepped inside and cold air
swept over him. He closed his eyes to savor the feeling; the
parking garage had been a furnace in comparison. A row of buttons
were set into the brushed metal next to the elevator doors, and
Shelly pressed the one for the top floor—level twelve. The doors
closed silently and the elevator began to ascend.

“
What is this place?”
asked Colton.

“
Mr. Bernam’s main
office,” said Shelly. “He runs most of his business from
here.”

“
What’s he do?”

“
He manufactures all sorts
of machines for private investors. He talks a lot about optics and
generators but nobody really understands any of it. I don’t know
how the machines work, but one time I got a quick look at the labs
on the seventh level—no one’s supposed to go anywhere near that
floor, by the way—and I saw some pretty neat stuff.”

“‘
Neat’?” Colton teased.
“People still use that word?”

Shelly crossed her arms.
“
I
use
it.”

Colton shrugged. “I guess that’s good
enough, then.”

She dropped her arms to her side and
winked at him. The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened.
Shelly grabbed Colton’s hand and pulled him down a long hallway
lined with several doors. The hall opened onto a large room. The
walls were made up of large, black, tinted windows and dimmed the
burning midday sun to a tolerable level.

Leather couches, plush recliners, and
sleek tables were placed throughout the room. Shelly squeezed
Colton’s hand and let go, then skipped over to a smaller room next
to the hallway. It was a kitchen, fully equipped with a microwave,
sink, oven, and refrigerator. Shelly grabbed two bottles of water
from the fridge and tossed one to Colton, who didn’t realize she
was throwing something at him until it hit him in the shoulder and
rolled under the nearest couch.

Shelly laughed and jumped over the
back of the couch, sinking down into the cushions before unscrewing
her water bottle and taking a long drink. Colton knelt down and
felt around under the couch. His fingers touched cold plastic and
he pulled out the water bottle.

He stood up and walked over to one of
the glass walls. Yellow sand and hard-packed dirt covered the
ground as far as he could see. Colton drank the entire bottle of
water, only just realizing how thirsty he had been. He walked over
to Shelly and sat on a recliner next to her.

“
We’re in Montana?” he
asked.

“
That’s what I’m told.”
She pulled her goggles up and over her head, then tossed them onto
the couch. She tapped her shoes together as she drank more
water.

Colton looked around the huge room. A
ping-pong table sat in one corner next to a large TV screen with a
huge crack in the middle.

“
Where is everyone?” he
asked.

“
Not sure. They’ll be back
later.” She looked at him and lightly bit the top of her
bottle.

“
So…what do we do until
they get back?”

One of the corners of Shelly’s mouth
raised up in a small grin.

Colton stood up to move to the couch
when the elevator doors opened. Reece jogged out of the hallway
with a huge smile on his face.

“
Colt!” he said. “There
you are! I’ve been looking all over for you. Well, not
really
all
over,
since they won’t let me wander off.” He nodded over his shoulder as
Alistair walked into the room. Alistair rolled his eyes and went
into the kitchen.

Colton walked over to Reece. “How do
you feel?”

“
You mean physically?
Pretty good, considering. Emotionally, though, I’m absolutely
wrecked. They poisoned me, Colt!”

“
Yeah, I saw
that.”

“
Well, did you at least
try to stick up for me after I passed out?”

Colton smiled because he knew Reece
was being overly dramatic to try and get the attention of the cute
girl in the room. “I told them very sternly that if anything bad
happened to you I would do everything in my power to crash the
plane into a mountain.”

Reece slapped him on the shoulder. “A
true friend.” He sidestepped around Colton and sat next to Shelly
on the couch.

Colton sighed and sat back
down on the recliner. “I’m
so
glad you’re back,” he said.

Reece ignored him. He crept closer to
Shelly on the couch. “Reece Michael Frasier—the third, esquire,
Ph.D., every fancy initial you can think of. And you
are…?”

One of her eyebrows raised slightly.
“Just Shelly.”

“‘
Just’ Shelly?
Just
? I hardly think
‘just’ is any kind of word to use when describing a girl as
beautiful as you.” He picked up her hand and bent forward to kiss
it. Shelly pulled away and Reece’s lips landed on his own
palm.

She stood up from the couch and walked
toward the hallway. “I think I’ll go get cleaned up.” She winked at
Colton right before she disappeared behind one of the hallway
doors.

“
She keeps doing that,”
said Colton.

“
Doing what?” said
Reece.

“
Hm? Oh, nothing. So what
have you been doing since you got off the plane?”

Reece sank back into the couch and
propped his legs up on the black polished coffee table in front of
him. “Nothing, really. I only just woke up about twenty minutes
ago. That Alistair guy was slapping my face and telling me we
needed to get inside so the other dude could take off.”

“
Bernam?”

“
I guess so. Alistair said
he never stays on the ground for very long. Sounds a little
paranoid to me, but when you have as much money as he does I guess
you can afford to be eccentric.” Reece looked around the room.
“Man, how ‘bout this place, huh? What a chick magnet.”

“
Reece, you don’t really
know what’s going on, do you?” It was more of a statement than an
actual question.

“
Alistair gave me the
short version in the elevator. Some bad people are doing bad things
to people like you, and these guys want to stop it, blah blah blah.
You can shrink apples and for some reason—I can’t figure out
why—‘Just’ Shelly likes you more than she likes me. Does that about
cover everything?”

Colton smiled. “That about does it,
yeah. But you don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to. I’m
sure one of these guys will take you home.”

“
And leave all
this
?” said Reece,
gesturing to the building around him. “I thought you knew me better
than that. I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Colt.”

Alistair walked out of the kitchen and
popped the last bite of a sandwich into his mouth. He sat in a
recliner a few feet away from Colton and picked up a magazine from
the coffee table. He flipped it open to the middle and scanned the
page.

“
Whatcha reading?” asked
Reece.

Alistair held up the magazine to show
the cover: Us Weekly.

“
Really?” said Reece.
“
Really
?”

Alistair sighed and stood up, then
walked to the other side of the room and stretched out on a couch
near the window.

“
Give him a break,” said
Colton.

“
What did I say? You gotta
admit it’s a little weird. That guy looks like he should be reading
‘Guns & Ammo’ or something.”

“
It’s how I relax,” said
Alistair from across the room.

“
I’m not judging,” said
Reece, holding up his hands. He shifted loudly on the leather
couch. A few seconds later, he shifted again, the leather creaking
as if he were rubbing his hands on the outside of a wet, inflated
balloon. “Sorry about all the noise,” he said.

Alistair closed the magazine and
slapped it against the couch. “You really don’t know how to shut
up, do you?”

“
My mother always told me
I had such a beautiful voice, I should use it as much as
possible.”

Colton smiled. Alistair rubbed his
eyes with his hands.

“
How about a tour, then?
Will you promise to be quiet if I show you the
building?”

“
Definitely!” said
Reece.

Alistair looked over. “How about you,
Colton? Fancy a tour?”

“
Yeah, of
course.”

“
Excellent,” said
Alistair. He stood and walked past them toward the elevator. “Maybe
afterward I’ll be able to hear myself think.”

As they waited for the elevator doors
to open, Colton cleared his throat. “Alistair, there’s something
I’ve been wondering.”

“
Ask me
anything.”

“
I’m not saying I wish
Reece weren’t here, but why did you bring him in the first
place?”

“
Hey!” said
Reece.

“
The way Mr. Bernam was
talking,” Colton continued, “it sounds like things might get a
little bumpy down the road.”

The elevator
dinged
and the doors
slid open. They stepped inside and Alistair pressed a button near
the bottom of the panel.

“
An excellent question,”
he said as the elevator doors closed and they descended. “Mr.
Bernam discovered long ago that the revelation of so much
knowledge—who we are and what we can do—was usually met with
bewilderment or outright denial by the person he was trying to,
ah,
recruit
. He
found that inserting an element of familiarity into the equation
greatly reduced the possibility that the potential candidate would
deny his offer.”

“
So I’m just here to make
sure
he
feels
comfortable?” said Reece, jabbing his finger into Colton’s
shoulder.

“
Precisely. Also, Mr.
Bernam seems to like you. I can’t imagine why.”

“
Because I have a great
personality,
that’s
why.”

“
Right,” said
Alistair.

The elevator stopped and the doors
opened.

“
Holy geez!” said
Reece.

“
This is the fifth floor,”
said Alistair. “The gymnasium.”

Colton followed Alistair out of the
elevator and into a big room filled with nothing but exercise
equipment. Weight benches, treadmills, bench presses, free
weights—there was even a rock-climbing wall in the middle of the
room and a one-lane swimming pool running next to the far wall.
Thick flat panels that doubled as structural supports separated the
various types of equipment, visually segmenting the entire floor
into smaller rooms without physically crowding the space. The
panels were placed far apart and each was about twenty feet long,
giving the room an open quality that Colton found very inviting. He
could see outside through the windows on all four sides of the
building.

“
No wonder Shelly’s in
such good shape,” said Reece as he lifted a small dumbbell from a
nearby bench and strained to curl it up to his chin.

“
That’s mostly due to her
genetics,” said Alistair. “I haven’t seen her in here once since
she arrived. She spends most of her free time in the recreation
room, playing games with whoever is interested.”

“
I’m interested,” said
Reece.

Colton shook his head.

“
This room is open to
you—to
both
of
you—twenty-four hours a day. Exercise is heavily encouraged around
here, and you will find that only a few of us do not make use of
this facility regularly.”

Alistair led them back to the elevator
and brought them to another room a few levels higher.

“
A word of warning,” he
said, stopping Colton and Reece before they stepped out of the
elevator. “Consider any floor that I am not showing you to be
strictly off-limits. Is that understood?”