“What solution did you happen to stumble over?” she asked.
“Your boyfriend, of course.” Louis turned to give her a smile. “I’m sure you noticed how badly injured he was after fighting with my creation in the Cedar Ridge Preserve. I mean, practically every rib on his right side had been broken. Yet a mere few hours later, he walked into the institute with barely a bruise to show for it. You’re an intelligent, observant woman. I’m sure you’ve noticed Officer Duncan possesses abnormally fast healing abilities. As well as quite a few other talents that suggest he’s far more than he appears. I’m not sure exactly what he is, though I have no doubt I’ll figure it out before I’m done.”
Fear raced down her spine at Louis’s words and the maniacal, almost gleeful, expression on his face. “What do you mean, before you’re done?”
Before Louis could reply, the thumping of heavy footsteps interrupted him. She peered to the side to see Rogi coming into view. His eyes locked on Kyson for a moment before he turned to the doctor.
“Ah, Rogi. Perfect timing,” Louis said. “I was just about to wake up the test subject so you can take him with you when you go do that thing I asked you to do.”
Rogi didn’t look thrilled at the prospect of whatever this task might be, but he nodded nonetheless, moving over to assist Louis as he began to route a series of black cables from the rack of electrical equipment on the far side of the room to the inclined table Kyson was strapped to.
“What are you doing to him?” Samantha yelled, banging on the metal grating of her cell. Beside her, Shaylee was doing the same to the door of her cage. Both Louis and Rogi ignored them. “What does Trey have to do with any of this?”
After messing with more of the black cables, connecting a few them to the shackles at Kyson’s wrists and the one attached to his head, Louis finally turned and regarded her calmly. “As I was saying, your boyfriend seems to possess some kind of supernatural healing ability. I believe those abilities, properly harvested and refined, will stop the rejection issues I’ve been dealing with. Rogi and this large mountain of muscle will go get Officer Duncan and bring him back here.”
“Ky will never help you hurt his best friend,” Shaylee yelled, banging on the door of her cell again. “Trey is the only friend he’s ever had.”
Louis seemed shocked at the knowledge that Trey and Kyson knew each other but then passed it off with a shrug. “It’s not like I’m going to give him a choice.”
Before either Samantha or Shaylee could respond, Louis moved over to the rack of electrical gear and started flipping switches. The hum of electricity immediately filled the air, quickly followed by an odor that made her think of ionized air after a storm.
Kyson’s eyes were still glassy and distant, but Samantha swore she could see the panic in them anyway. Shaylee began to cry as Louis continued flipping more switches, actually laughing a little as he put his hand on a big black lever near the side of the rack.
“For all the aggravation this subject has caused me, I have to give him one thing,” Louis said, what could only be called an evil grin crossing his face as he looked over at Samantha. “He can handle a lot of pain.”
As he flipped the big lever downward, the hairs on Samantha’s arms were lifting and bolts of lightning filled the air around Kyson’s body even as his back arched and a shout of absolutely terrifying pain was ripped from him.
It went on and on, long after the point when Samantha had slapped her hands over her ears in an attempt to keep out the tortured sounds. But even with the noises deadened somewhat, she could see Kyson writhing in pain as the man she used to respect watched him flail with a sick glint in his eyes.
When Louis finally pulled the heavy lever back up, the air had taken on a burnt smell, and Samantha had to force herself not to throw up. To her right, Shaylee was on her knees, sobbing at the display of horrible cruelty on the man she loved.
Samantha was stunned when Kyson stepped away from the table. His legs seemed surprisingly steady, considering he’d just been electrocuted. She found herself staring into his eyes, which were achinglyawarenow. Samantha couldn’t look away, even as Louis informed Kyson that he would be going with Rogi to get his friend, Trey, and bring him back there.
“Youdoremember him, don’t you?” Louis asked, moving closer to Kyson and gazing up into his eyes curiously. “Yes, I can see it. Somewhere in that burnt-out mind of yours, you still have a little piece of Officer Trey Duncan wedged in there. I suppose that’s actually a good thing. It will help make sure you grab the right guy.”
Kyson stared down at Louis for a long time, his face twitching, his shoulders tense. “Don’t…want to,” he finally said, each word sounded out slowly and carefully.
Louis seemed surprised that Kyson had spoken. But then his expression twisted, darkening with anger. He threw a glance at Rogi, who moved over to Shaylee’s cage, one hand coming to rest on the latch. “Do you think I give a shit what you want? You’ll do what I say, or I’ll have Rogi go into that cage and hurt your pretty little girlfriend. Is that what you want?”
Samantha felt rage boil up inside her. If she could have somehow ripped the door of her cage off and killed Louis, she would have. But as it was, she wasn’t getting through that door, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to help Kyson…or Shaylee.
Kyson didn’t say anything more. Instead, he slowly shook his head, then moved to follow Rogi toward the door at the far end of the basement. Just before they walked out, Louis caught their attention.
“Rogi, take some extra help with you,” he said casually. “Something tells me that Officer Duncan is going to be rather difficult to bring down.”
As Kyson and Rogi walked out, Samantha wanted to scream at them to stop, to leave Trey out of this, but she knew her words would be wasted. She only prayed Kyson and Rogi failed in the task Louis had given them, even if she was terrified of what that would mean for her and Shaylee.
Chapter 20
Trey stumbled twice as he slowly walked up the last few steps in front of his apartment, nearly face-planting both times. His head was so fuzzy that doing math at this point was damn near impossible, but the best he could remember, he hadn’t slept at all in the last forty-eight hours. And had maybe gotten four or five hours in the past three days. Smacking his face on the concrete before he could get to his place was a very real possibility.
The past six hours had been gut-wrenchingly brutal. While Connor had sat down with Crystal and Louis to go over Samantha’s autopsy notes, trying to figure out what she’d learned right before leaving him that message, Trey had focused on finding Samantha and Nadia. With help from the rest of the Pack, STAT, and dozens of other DPD officers he knew well enough to call in a few favors, Trey had gone all out to find them.
He’d started with the traffic cameras around the institute, using them to track Samantha and Nadia after they’d each left work. Nadia had disappeared from camera view almost immediately, but Trey had been able to follow Samantha for almost fifteen miles until they’d lost her on Interstate 30 heading west toward Fort Worth. Since he had no idea where she might have been heading at that point, he’d tracked down her sister and talked to her, hoping Samantha might have told her something. But beyond freaking the poor woman out, he hadn’t gotten anything useful from that conversation. Though it seemed pretty damn obvious Loralei was suspicious of him for some reason. If he wasn’t so worried about Samantha, he would have been concerned that his soul mate had already spilled his pack’s secrets to her sister. Right now, he simply didn’t have time to think about it.
STAT had done their thing next, digging through the hours of tollbooth video from all over the Dallas/Fort Worth area, checking into Samantha’s and Nadia’s credit cards, even trying to ping the location of their cell phones. Nothing had worked. When Connor had called to tell him that they’d struck out with the autopsy records, Trey had been left with little choice but to drive around the city, hoping to get lucky.
By the time the sun had come up, he had been forced to accept that plan wasn’t going to work. With no other avenues to explore, he’d finally headed back to his apartment before he fell asleep at the wheel. He prayed that a hot shower and a little food would clear his head enough to allow him to come up with another angle to approach this situation—because he was so scared for Samantha that he was about to lose his damn mind.
