“One of them,” the man whispered, and Blade was pleased that he’d managed to end up with one of the guards who was going to be easy to get talking.
“You know who she is, too. Tell me her name.”
The man hesitated, and Blade slammed his fist down on the man’s broken arm, making him howl.
“Whitney,” he screamed. “Whitney Daley.”
Checked with what she’d told him, so she wasn't lying about that. “How long has she been working for Dr. Gardner?”
“Don’t know, man, I swear. I've only been there a year. But she’s been with them a long time. Please don’t hurt me.”
Begging.
Pathetic.
“Why did Dr. Gardner send so many men after her?”
“Needs her. She’s the center of everything. Baby genius is what they call her because she’s so young, but without her, Dr. Gardner wouldn't be able to do what he does. Talk is if he stopped butting in, the drugs would work the way he wants, but he’s a control freak, has to stick his nose into everything, even things someone else is better at.”
Blade opened his mouth to ask another question, but a scream echoed through the night, one he didn't need enhanced hearing to hear.
Whitney.
“Don’t kill me, man, please.” His victim moaned beneath him, but there was no chance he was leaving anyone alive today.
A single swipe of his knife through the man’s neck took care of him, and then Blade was up and running, wishing he had Thunder’s enhanced speed, because the last man left alive must have found Whitney, and he wasn't sure he could get to her in time.
January 12th
9:19 A.M.
Climbing down the tree, Whitney almost lost her grip and fell several times.
Her hands were shaking too badly, and she wasn't coordinated enough to climb trees. She was the kind of person who bumped into walls and crashed into furniture. There was always some bruise or other dotting her skin, and she was usually lost in her own mind enough that she never evenremembered where she got the bruises from. They just seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Not today, though.
Today, if she fell, she would know exactly where the bruises had come from, and they wouldn't be the last to mar her skin today.
Blade was long gone. He wasn't killing any of the men who had chased them, he’d just left her there and disappeared. If he were out there somewhere, she would have heard gunshots by now.
There had been none.
It definitely shouldn’t, but it absolutely stung that he’d just left her high and dry. He hated her, she knew that, but she thought that she at least held enough value that he would save her from these men.
Well, not really save.
Did it count as saving someone when you only wanted the person to live so you got to kill them before someone else did?
Not really.
In the end, it didn't matter who ended her life, but the thing was, at least if she went with Blade, she knew the end was coming quickly. As soon as she told him everything she knew about her boss, she was dead, there was no reason for him and his team to keep her alive. But Dr. Gardner would keep her alive indefinitely. Force her to keep working on the drugs while he sabotaged them himself with his incompetence.
She didn't want any more deaths on her conscience.
Enough, there was already more than enough.
So she kept climbing down the tree and made it to some of the last branches before she’d have to jump to the ground when her luck ran out. Whitney reached for a branch, her hand slipped, and she was falling, landing with a bone-jarring thud that had her groaning, tears stinging the backs of her eyes.
