The woman’s hand darted out, grabbing her wrist. “Wait! Please.” Gaze darting around nervously, like she expected the bogeyman to come jumping out at any second, the woman dragged in a few breaths. “I need to tell you about Dr. Gardner.”
“Who?” She didn't know a Dr. Gardner. She didn't know any doctors well enough that someone would accost her in a park to talk about them.
Faltering slightly, doubt crept into the woman’s eyes. “You're Cassandra Charleston, right? Your brothers work for Prey?”
“Y-yes.” Maybe agreeing wasn't the best move, but she didn't think the woman was there to hurt her. If the stranger had wanted her dead, she would have just killed her, not come up to her to talk.
“You know them, right? Steel and the others?”
Was this about Dragon and his team? Why was someone approaching her about those guys? How did someone even know she knew them? “I know them,” she whispered.
A breath whooshed out of the woman. “Good. They need to know that Dr. Gardner won't ever stop coming for them. He needs them. He’s kept working on his experiments, but they never turn out the same way. The drugs destroy them mentally and they devolve quickly. No matter what he tries, he can't get another team of men to survive. They also need to know that he has an antidote. Something he thinks will undo what he did. He wants to get them so he can give them the reversal drugs and then inject them all over again to see if he can figure outwhy they’re different. But … I don’t think they can survive that. They can't let themselves get caught. Please, tell them. Tell them they have to be careful. Their lives depend on it. They won't just be held captive again, have tests run on them, they’ll lose their lives.”
It was dark out, the woman illuminated only in the glow of a streetlamp, but Cassandra would have sworn she saw tears shimmer in the other woman’s eyes before she turned and hurried away.
“Wait!” Cassandra yelled, hurrying after her, a million questions running through her mind along with fear for the man who had wriggled his way underneath her skin.
Picking up her pace instead of slowing, the other woman jumped into the driver’s seat of a vehicle parked nearby. Right where she would have gotten a good view of the parking lot, waiting for Cassandra to arrive. Somehow, this woman knew more about what had happened to Dragon and his team than she did. She knew they worked for Prey and about Cassandra’s connection to Prey and the team.
How on earth did she know all of that?
Who was this mysterious woman?
Answers disappeared along with her as the blonde’s car tore off down the street.
Chapter
Two
January 3rd
9:57 P.M.
For hours, he’d been pacing his room.
Trying to figure out what he should do.
What the hell had he seen?
Dragon’s gaze slid to the discarded tablet that lay on his bed. At first, he’d thought Cassandra was about to be attacked or abducted. His heart had raced so fast he wouldn't have been surprised to see it beat its way right out of his chest, and his pulse had pounded in his ears until it was almost deafening.
All he’d been able to smell was his own fear.
But no one had laid a hand on Cassandra.
When he calmed himself enough to look carefully at what he was seeing, he’d realized that the person dressed all in black was a woman.
A friend?
No, Cassandra’s body language said she didn't know the woman, and while it was tense, it wasn't radiating terror.
Scenarios began to tick through his mind, and he wondered if perhaps Cassandra was buying drugs. It could account for her being tense but not afraid when she was approached in the empty parking lot.
But that was just his anxiety talking. He knew she wasn't handling everything that had happened last year as well as she wanted others to believe, but she wouldn't take drugs to cope. She kept her sunny disposition firmly in place, she acted like she wasn't sobbing inside, and pretended that she wasn't as deeply affected by the revelations about her paternity as she was.
If it wasn't for his ability to smell emotions in people, much like a dog was capable of knowing when you were sad and needed their love and attention, then he probably would have believed her lies.
“I see you, little rabbit,” he murmured, still watching the tablet as though it would give him the answers he craved.
