“I’m going, too,” Iris said, standing from the chair.
“That’s unnecessary,” Cal said, holding his hand out to her. “This is just a quick check to see if Walter isthere. It’s probably a waste of time, but we can’t assume they’re already gone.”
“If he is there, I have a few words for him,” Iris said between gritted teeth. “He’s put Bec in danger and needs to answer for that!”
Cal held his hands out to her as though that would calm her.
Think again!
“Iris, it’s better for your health if you stay here with Selina.”
“I can’t sit here and do nothing!” she exclaimed. “I’ll stay in the car, but I want to go.”
Cal’s gaze darted to Selina, who shrugged her shoulder. “There’s little she can do here, and it might help her anxiety if she has something else to focus on.”
Cal sighed and put his hand on his hip. “Fine, but you stay in the SUV and do whatever I say without questioning me.”
Iris saluted him, which lifted his lips in a half smile before he turned on his heel and headed to the stairs. She offered Selina a grateful smile before she followed, praying that they would find Walter at that cabin and the woman she couldn’t wait to hold in her arms again.
Chapter Nineteen
The engine roared as the driver gunned it across the highway onto a dirt road. Bec wasn’t sure how long they’d been in the car, but she was disoriented from the blindfold they’d strapped over her eyes as soon as they were out of the facility. The only part about the blindfold she liked was that it meant they didn’t want her to see where they were going. That meant they didn’t plan to kill her immediately. She took some comfort in that while she tried to figure out her next move.
When they pulled her out of the center, she hoped they wouldn’t check her for a phone, but she should have known that was too good to be true. They chucked it out the window onto the side of the road, never to be seen again. Unfortunately, all she could think about was Iris crumpled on the ground. She hadn’t seen any blood, so she didn’t think she’d been shot. Sure, the megalomaniac who took her said he shot wide, but she couldn’t be sure of that. Her heart had stopped beating for that moment when Iris gazed at her with so much fear and then collapsed. Was it likely she’d had a panic-induced fainting spell? Yes, but there would be that little niggle of doubt in her mind until she saw her again. If she saw her again.
No.WhenI see her again.
It wasn’t easy to stay positive, but she had to for Iris’s sake. There was no way she’d put her through the trauma of losing someone else in her life, not after she had been so open and honest with her. What Iris went through since she was seven was cruel and brutal. All she wanted to do was be her resting place and carry some of the burdens for her. Without a doubt, her employment at the research facility was over, so whatever she did after this, she would make sure it worked for both her and Iris. She didn’t intend to give her up if they ever got a chance to be together again.
First, she had to get out of this alive. The only way to do that was to give these guys what they wanted—a deadly virus and a working vaccine. She wasn’t doing the first, and there was no way she had time to do the second, which meant she had to convince them she could do both without doing either. She bit back the anxious laughter bubbling up from within as the car slowed to a stop. One of them opened the hatch of the SUV where she’d sat for the entire ride. With her hands and feet tied, it made staying upright difficult, but she’d managed by leaning against the back seat after she wedged herself into the corner. The blindfold was ripped from her eyes, which shocked her until she realized they were still wearing their masks, so she couldn’t identify them. Now that they’d reached their destination, it didn’t matter if she saw where they were. A quick glance out the window told her it was a small cabin in the woods.
Dragged from the vehicle, she immediately fell to the gravel driveway. “My legs are asleep,” she muttered when they ordered her to get up. “I can’t feel my arms or my legs. You need to untie me.”
“So you can run? Not a chance in hell.” The guy she had started to call RL, short for Ringleader, was the one who spoke.
“Then someone better carry me inside.” Her bluster got her fireman carried into the cabin before they tossed her onto a couch, where she landed with anoof, shooting pains filling her body as her arms twisted painfully behind her. “Hey!” she yelled, nearly falling onto the floor. “If you want me to be able to use my arms to help you with your little problem, they’re going to need to work. Can’t you at least untie my wrists? If my feet are still tied, I can’t go anywhere. If I don’t get blood flowing in them soon, there will be permanent damage.”
RL cut his gaze to her. “Fine, but don’t try anything.”
“Again, where am I going to go?” she asked as one of the guys closest to her snapped the flex-cuffs apart. Her shoulders screamed in pain as her arms fell to her sides, but she didn’t let them see it. She just rubbed at her wrists as she leaned back against the couch to rest her tired back.
“What now, boss?” one of the guys asked.
“We bring a virus and working vaccine back to the client. I don’t care how long it takes.”
“How? We’re missing the scientist who can make the virus.” One of the guys hooked a thumb at her. “She can make the vaccine, but that’s useless if we don’t have the bug.”
Bec cleared her throat and followed it up with an eye roll. “You realize I can create an even deadlier virus than Ignis Cerebri, right? All Walter did to get it was basic gain-of-function research. He mutated other viruses and changed their DNA profile to create somethingdeadlier than any could be alone.” She was throwing out every term and idea she could think of to confuse them in hopes they’d decide she knew what she was talking about. In truth, she did know what she was talking about and could recreate Ignis Cerebri, but they didn’t know that. To them, she was a vaccine creator only.
“Wait,” the ringleader said, turning to face her. “You can create the viruses, too?”
“I hold a PhD in cell, molecular, health and disease biology. Of course, I can create a virus.”
“My boss wants Ignis Cerebri yesterday and is running out of patience.”
She remained quiet, wondering how she would pull this off. Only Walter had the information for making the virus, and she had no idea how he did it or how long it took.
Walter!
