“I wore sweatpants to do yoga with Cassandra this morning, and she suddenly got all weird and started on about sweatpants. Took a while for me to get out of her what she was talking about,” he explained, feeling extremely odd to be having this conversation. In his house growing up, conversations revolved around making more money, dealing with staying off the cops’radar, and dealing with those who betrayed the family. They did not involve discussing a girl he was obsessed with.
“So, you guys ended up doing some active yoga?” Thunder teased.
“Actually, we didn't. She wanted to, and damn did I want to. But Cassandra is so innocent, so perfect, I don’t want to do anything until I'm sure I can control myself. The last thing I want to do is hurt her.”
“Then maybe we should all be focusing on what we’re supposed to be doing. Once Dr. Gardner is dead, I think we’ll all feel better about controlling the anger inside us,” Steel said, but it was clear from the look in his eyes that as soon as they were done here, he’d be tracking down Rose, stripping her naked, and having his way with her.
That was actually true, though, so Dragon picked up the sketch Cassandra had given them of the woman who had accosted her. Since the man who had attacked her in her home was a mercenary without any attachment to Ridge Gardner other than wanting the money for delivering Cassandra to him, they were focusing on the woman to try to get a lead on Dr. Gardner. They had a few possibilities on who Cassandra’s assailant’s partner might be, but again, that wasn't going to lead them to the crazed scientist.
“What do we think of her?” he asked. The woman looking back at him was yet to be identified, but she had soft blonde waves that hung just past her shoulders and wide blue eyes. She also looked young. Too young to be working with the doctor, and yet she knew about what had been done to them, the doctor’s experiments, and what would happen if they were caught again. There was no denying she was involved despite her seeming too young.
“She has to be an employee,” Voodoo said. “One of them.”
“No one else is bothered by the age thing?” Thunder asked. “Because I am. She knew about us, but from her looks she’s barely twenty. How could she know about things that would have happened when she was a kid? She doesn’t even look old enough to have graduated from college, and I can't see someone like Dr. Gardner hiring anyone who wasn't the best of the best.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Blade reminded them. “Just because she looks young doesn’t mean she is.”
“Still, she’d have to be at least in her thirties to have been a recent graduate working for Dr. Gardner back then,” Lion piped up. “And I don’t remember there being anyone younger than us.”
“Cassandra only saw her in the dark,” Dragon said. “I'm not doubting her description of the woman, but in the dark, with the woman all in black, and her being totally unprepared to be approached, she could have gotten the aging wrong in her sketch.”
“And it’s not like we don’t know for certain she’s involved,” Voodoo said. “She knew everything, and she was there with a warning, so she’s in on it all.”
“Or maybe a relative?” Thunder suggested.
“Just because we didn't find any evidence of it doesn’t mean that Dr. Gardner doesn’t have a kid out there,” Lion said. “Maybe this girl is his daughter, and she knows what her dad is up to but isn’t involved in it all.”
The problem was, there were too many options, and they had no way to narrow anything down because they couldn’t get a hit on this woman on any database they searched or any CCTV camera they hacked. It was like she had randomly materialized out of nowhere and then disappeared once again after delivering her warning to Cassandra.
“She did go to Cass to warn her, to try to save us,” Blade said. “Maybe she was on the doctor’s side, but now she’s flipped.”
“I wish we’d been able to follow her longer, figure out where she went after talking to Cassandra,” Steel said, and they all nodded their agreement.
This woman was like a ghost. No one out there seemed to match her description, and yet she existed. He’d seen her with his own two eyes, although at the time he’d thought she might have been a drug dealer.
“Until we can ID her, we need to focus only on facts,” Steel said. “Anything else is merely conjecture and not going to be conducive to finding out who she is, how she connects to Dr. Gardner, and finding out where she is now. All we know for certain is that this woman knows who we are, knows we work for Prey, and figured out that Cassandra is also connected to us. We know she knows that we were injected with the experimental drugs, knows that we’re the only ones who survived, and knows the doctor’s plans for us if he were able to capture us again.”
“Which he won't,” Voodoo injected confidently.
“Whoever and wherever she is, I don’t think we’re the only ones looking for her,” Dragon said slowly. “Cassandra was attacked only after the woman spoke to her, so likely unintentionally, she led Dr. Gardner right to Cassandra. If she wanted to hurt her, there was nothing stopping her from doing it when she tracked her to the park, and it would be counterproductive anyway if she wanted to ensure the message got to us. I think Blade is right. I think this mystery woman used to work for Dr. Gardner, but now she’s flipped sides. Which means if we can get our hands on her before the doctor finds her, we can get enough intel out of her to find Dr. Gardner’s hideout and end this once and for all.”
“Any way we have to get it,” Blade agreed, and they all nodded.
This woman might have changed sides, but it was too little too late if she thought it was going to save her from their wrath.
January 7th
10:49 P.M.
Was there a way to delay the inevitable ending for the evening?
Cassandra wasn't sure. If she had to guess, however, the answer would be no.
It wasn't like they were doing anything particularly special. She was just sitting in a huge cinema room, which they hadn't used once in the months she’d stayed there before watching some movie that Rose had chosen. It had been the other woman’s idea to have a movie night, and while she’d been expecting Steel to immediately agree, he seemed to be prepared to do anything to make Rose happy, she had been surprised when the others all readily agreed as well.
So, movie night it was. Complete with popcorn, soda, and an assortment of candy. With her stomach pleasantly full after dinner and then way too much junk, Cassandra had been more content to watch the man sitting beside her than the movie.
The first time she’d stayed there, she’d been attracted to Dragon, but when she’d left, she was sure that the whole attraction thing she’d felt between them was completely one-sided. These last couple of months, she had been absolutely positive she never wanted to see Dragon again, that the whole thing had been a mistake, and she just wanted to put it behind her.
