“Come on already, we don’t have all day,” the ringleader growled.
Bec gave her a nod, so with shaking hands, she hit the enter key dramatically. The woman Iris realized she had big feelings for entered her biometrics and waited for the door to slide open. From there, everything happened at once. The door opened, and Bec pushed the men into the room, sidestepping the ringleader as he yelled, but she didn’t get him into the room before he looped an arm around her neck and dragged her backward, training his gun on Iris.
Chapter Eighteen
“Don’t hurt her!” Bec yelled, but her words were strangled from the chokehold she was in.
“You should have thought about that before you decided to play games!” The ringleader yelled, red-hot anger tightening his arm around her neck.
She put her arms up in the “don’t shoot” position. “I’m sorry,” she croaked. “I’m scared.”
Iris sat in the computer chair, her arms up in the air, but they trembled so much they fell limply to her lap. She shook violently, and tears fell down her cheeks as she locked eyes with Bec for a brief moment. Bec could read the terror in them. She had to defuse the situation, but she had no idea how.
“Boss,” another guy said as he walked out of the lab. “There’s nothing in there.”
“Where’s the virus?” he asked, tightening his hold on Bec’s neck.
She couldn’t answer because black dots filled her vision and she struggled to breathe. She clawed at his arm until he finally released her enough for her to suck in air. “I destroyed it!”
Iris gasped from across the room and brought hertrembling fingers to her lips, the fear in her eyes telling Bec she understood the pickle they were in.
“You did what?” he growled, dragging her backward toward the lab. “What about the vaccine?”
“I told you the vaccine isn’t finished! It’s in pieces and parts that need to be tested.” That wasn’t true, but he didn’t appear to be the kind of guy to understand how vaccine research worked. She had a vaccine, but it wasn’t proven yet. The dose she had wasn’t enough to use, even if it was safe to use.
“Then you’ll get the pieces and parts,” he grunted. “You’re coming with us.”
“No!” Iris said, jumping to her feet.
A shot rang out, and Bec screamed as Iris went stock-still for a moment before dropping to the floor.
“You shot her!” Bec screamed, trying to run to Iris, the fear in her gut telling her in that moment that she was in love with her, but the animal kept hold of her.
“The shot went wide,” he said, laughter filling the room. “She’s being dramatic.”
“She has anxiety and PTSD from a kidnapping when she was a child,” Bec spat. “I need to check on her.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” he said, walking her toward the lab. “You’ll tell my men where to find the vaccine, and then you’ll come with us.”
Bec’s entire body froze at his words. “What do you want me for?” she asked with fake bravado. “I don’t know anything about what’s going on here. The government hired me to work on a vaccine and nothing else.”
“You were hired to work on a vaccine, but no one said anything about the government. My employer bought and paid for that virus and sent us to collect it.”
“It’s not here!” she exclaimed again as he tightened his arm around her neck.
“That’s okay. We have the next best thing—someone who can recreate it. If we can’t find Walter, at least we have you.”
A glance at Iris, still unmoving on the floor, told Bec what she had to do. “The vaccine is in the small freezer on the left of the hood. They’re marked V1 and V2. Put them in the small red cooler next to the freezer.”
It was a lie. There was no vaccine since she had turned off the freezer and let it thaw after she destroyed the viruses kept in a separate part of the lab. Thankfully, she had left the vials in the freezer until they had thawed. It would have been hard to keep this ruse up if she hadn’t done that.
The ringleader motioned for one of the men to do as she said, and once he returned with the cooler, they pulled her down the long hallway.
“Iris!” she screamed, clawing at the guy’s arm as she tried to free herself to run to her. “Iris! You have to wake up! Iris!”
As the door to the stairwell closed, the beautiful, vibrant woman remained crumbled in a ball, and Bec was afraid it was the last memory she’d ever have of her.
* * *
