“I’ll take the laptop. Tim’s taught me a lot.” Ben looked to Kala. “Don’t let them kill me.”
Her eyes rolled. “Like I would. I want to do it.”
She was going to be such a fun in-law.
There it was. The future. He was thinking about it more and more now, and without fear. He thought about marrying Kenzie and starting a life with her.
He wasn’t sure how they would do it, the logistics and all, but they would work it out because they were end game.
Tag nodded his way and then looked to his wife. “You got a spot, Charlie baby?”
She gestured to the stairs behind them. “I’ll take out the guy on patrol. Kala can get the two by the desk, and then I’ll have a perch for anyone who comes in. We’ll meet back here for extraction.”
“Mom, they’re not watching. You can take the perch on the west side without too much trouble.” Tasha proved she’d worked with her parents and knew exactly what her mom would do. “I’ll move the van in once we get this party started. Tris says he’s got eyes on the lab and we need to move. Kenzie is in a medical lab. It’s the fourth door on the left. He says it’s bad, so Coop, you might want to make your way.”
“Does he have eyes on Huisman?” Ben asked. He wasn’t going to call him Manny anymore. Manny had been the dude who was his friend. He might never have really existed, but Ben wasn’t going to argue that now. Huisman was a target. Nothing more.
“He’s in the medical wing. Lou’s got three guards on her. She’s in a lab working with some dangerous shit, from what Tris can tell,” Tasha replied. “No weapons should be fired in that space, and now Tris is worried about oxygen tanks. He’s got Kenzie on one.”
“Is she awake?” Ben forced the question out of his mouth.
A pause and then a quiet reply from Tasha. “She is aware of what’s happening to her.”
Then he felt it. A hand on his shoulder. It wasn’t Big Tag. It was Kala.
He was still for a moment, letting the emotion between them settle, and then he turned. “Let’s get her out of here.”
Kala nodded. “Let’s do this thing.”
The moment her mother was in place, Kala took off and Ben followed, ready to get his girl.
Chapter Eighteen
Kenzie was dying.
She was fairly certain of it. In a lot of ways, death was welcome. The pain was… She’d thought she was tough, but this was fire in her veins. Unrelenting waves of pain, and there was nothing she could do because the devil had paralyzed her.
“You remember this, right?” he’d said as he stood beside her bed. There was a “nurse” helping him. A young woman with hollow eyes. She’d placed the IV while guards held Kenzie down, though she hadn’t struggled at the time because it seemed such a useless thing to do. “You’re quite brave. I appreciate that in a female. When the time comes, I won’t disgrace either of us with animal rutting. I’ll do it like the civilized men do. I’ll harvest your eggs and then find a broodmare to carry our sons.”
She should have fought, would fight if she ever got off this table because dignity be damned, this was hell.
Not being able to move was part of the horror. She was aware, her eyes wide open, but she couldn’t scream now, couldn’t do anything but endure.
And the worst? Huisman was still fucking here hours and hours later. He sat just out of her view, which was straight up staring at a grayceiling.
Not how she thought she would go out.
The cycle ended, and she could breathe for a moment.
How long had this one been?
“Milena, I need a printout of her vitals for the last hour.” Huisman’s face appeared in her line of sight. He stood there with his clipboard and glasses perched on his nose. He wore a white coat like he was a big-boy doctor. “She’s surprisingly steady from what I can tell. I expected heart damage from previous sessions.”
Shit. She wanted to spout shit, but she couldn’t talk yet. This was the second go-around, but she was already learning the schedule. The drug would leave her system and then the paralytic would take another five minutes or so. Maybe longer, since this was the second time.
She tried moving her left hand. She managed to rub her thumb and forefinger.
Breathe. Survive. That was all that was left now.
