“And then?”
“And then we get more money depending on how well you're able to control your men, and you get to continue living.”
Six weeks later, Reaper silently stalked behind two gun-clutching guards down the florescent-lit hallway. As if he couldn’t snap both their necks before they had time to turn around and pull the trigger. Bad enough their faces were as white as the walls surrounding them. The floors too. Even his room. Fuck, he was really beginning to hate that goddamn color.
But killing them would serve no purpose at this point. He had to see his team and make sure they were okay, and once they were all together again, they could formulate a plan to escape. Their training for the past few weeks had been more heavily monitored than the White House on full alert.
But his men had all been careful. They’d done what Dr. Winters required and no more. As far as she knew, Reaper and his team were stronger and faster than before, but that was all. They didn’t allow her to see the other talents they’d each developed thanks to her little serum mixture.
Like the fact Reaper could taste the fear rolling off his guards. He could hear their hearts slamming against their rib cages like jackhammers. He could smell the tension in their sweat.
A door to his right swung open and two techs pushed out a gurney laden with a black body bag. Reaper stopped in his tracks. “Who is that?”
Winters appeared in the doorway. “A weak link.”
Sinister tendrils practically oozed from her soulless face. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the bright edge blasting in Winters’ pale gaze couldn’t be denied.
“Where are my men?”
“The rest of your team is in the lab straight ahead.”
“The rest?”
Winters lifted her chin. “Dawson didn’t make it.”
He blinked, processing her information through the rapidly descending cloud of rage and dread. He’d spotted Quantum about a week after the lunchroom meeting, but not Dawson.
Not Dawson.
“You killed him!”
Winters didn’t even flinch. “He suffered a massive brain aneurism six weeks ago. We did everything we could to control the internal bleeding, but he succumbed. There was nothing else we could do.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Reaper lunged and the pair of armed guards closed in, blocking him from reaching the doctor. “I’ll kill you for this!”
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d overreact. Dawson donated his life and body to this project knowing fully the risks. Second, you can’t kill me. I’m the only thing keeping the rest of your team alive.”
“This happened six weeks ago. You kept him in the cooler this long?”
“We had to make sure this didn’t happen again.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means that when Dawson signed his consent for the project, he agreed to donate his body to research in the event of loss of life.”
Reaper shoved through the pitifully weak guards and grabbed the zipper on Dawson’s body bag. The sight that greeted him was more than he’d ever be prepared to witness. A huge, ugly Y-shaped scar covered his chest from shoulder to stomach, the shredded edges of his skin now held together by thick black threads. “This isn’t research.”
A flicker of something beyond sanity flashed behind Winters’ thick glasses. “We needed to see the effects of the dosage on the organs and tissues.”
“You butchered him.”
“He didn’t feel a thing.”
“Bitch!” Reaper lunged again, diving over Dawson’s body and wrapping his hands around her throat. If he could just get his grip right, he’d snap her head from her shoulders. He had the strength, thanks to her.
A guard slammed the butt of his rifle in to Reaper’s temple but he didn’t let go. Winters had to die.
Her pale face turned a wonderful shade of purple and she clawed at his grip. A useless endeavor but he enjoyed her struggle all the same. “How does it feel knowing that you’re going to die and you can’t do a damn thing to stop it.”
