She might wind up dead, too.
What she was doing wasn't just dangerous, it was potentially deadly. If she got caught … well let’s just say she’d better not allow herself to get caught.
But despite the danger, the fear, it felt good to finally make her own decisions, to make the right ones for a change. As much as she wished she’d found her strength sooner, Whitney also knew that if she hadn't become the obedient little worker bee she’d been recruited to be, then she never would have been able to make this move now.
It was because he trusted her.
Trusted that after years of being manipulated and coerced, she was now so completely under his control that she would never think to move against him.
Ha, take that, Dr. Gardner.
I'm not the weak and pathetic little girl you seem to think I am. I always hated what you were doing, you just had me too scared to do anything to stop it.
Not anymore.
Now she was taking back her power and using the fact that Dr. Gardner trusted her against him. Every single piece of paper that had been in the lab was gone now. Destroyed. Long before the explosion.
As soon as she made up her mind that she was done going along with all of this, she claimed the lab’s location was likely compromised now that the only surviving team had his name. Thankfully, Dr. Gardner had gone along with that theory without any real pushing on her side, and so he hadn't thought anything of it when she started removing all the files, reports, computers, vials, and everything that was stored there. Only she wasn't moving it to a new secure location, she was ensuring it was all destroyed.
Of course, there were other labs, but this one was the main one. It was where there were copies of everything stored. Or it had been. With all of that gone now, the only place where every single piece of carefully compiled notes on the drugs and theireffects was held altogether was inside her own head, and she was done being a tool to be used.
The lab had been carefully cleaned down, erasing any signs of their presence there and what had taken place within those walls, and now it was blown to pieces.
That last step hadn't really been necessary. There had already been no traces of what had happened left behind, but she hated that building. Hated everything it represented. Blowing it all up had been her own personal way of getting petty revenge on the man who had controlled her life for far too long.
Only … she was pretty sure she had messed up.
In the most major way possible.
The second she’d made the choice to turn on her boss, Whitney had known she was signing her own death warrant. There was no way Dr. Gardner would tolerate any dissent in his organization, not even from the person responsible for creating the drug that gave recipients enhanced skills.
So she’d gone into this with eyes wide open.
Finding a way to warn the team of survivors that the doctor had been searching for them for seven years had been the first thing she needed to do. Thankfully, the failed attempt to lure her boss into a trap had given her both the push she needed to finally break free and the means to do it.
Once she learned the missing team worked for the world-renowned Prey Security, it had been easy. Find a link, Cassandra Charleston had seemed like the best one, deliver her message, and then disappear. The lab was already cleaned down, the files already destroyed, so she’d contacted the woman and prayed that she had enough time to disappear for good before Dr. Gardner realized she’d betrayed him.
But he’d figured it out quicker than she’d realized.
Whitney had no idea how, but she’d kept watch over the woman to ensure that Cassandra delivered her message, andshe’d seen the mercenary break into the woman’s home the very next day. Watched as one of the men she’d created had saved the woman’s life.
Knowing she was in danger, she hadn't returned to the place where she had lived and worked. It would be the first place Dr. Gardner looked for her, and so she’d watched from her hiding place as he’d sent in his men to capture her.
If she’d been there …
She didn't even want to think about the horrors she would be enduring this very second.
One thing she’d learned about the doctor over the years she’d worked for him was that he wasn't a patient man. After finding the room where she lived in one of the back buildings behind the warehouse empty, he’d assumed she was already gone and so withdrew his guards.
But she hadn't gone.
Just hidden.
Then she’d slipped back in when it was safe. Calling in a couple of fellow scientists that she trusted, she’d given the warehouse a final clean, set the explosives, and then prepared to blow the place up and disappear for good.
Except she hadn't realized that anyone was in there until it was too late.
Had she killed the very men she’d been trying to save?
