“I'm sorry,” she whispered to the empty forest. “I didn't mean to. I didn't know you were in there. I should have checked before I blew it up, but I thought the team had left, and everything was ready to go.”
Her voice was ragged from running, tears streaming down her cheeks, her heart breaking into a million pieces.
They were dead.
They had to be.
When she’d gathered her few belongings and carefully hidden a stash of money, she’d been sure the warehouse was empty. She’d waited until the clean-up team had gone before doing anything, and it wasn't until she was already back outside, ready to run through the forest to where she’d parked her getaway car, that she saw it.
A van.
Parked around the back of the main building.
It hadn't been there before, and it could mean only one thing. That someone else had been inside the warehouse. Someone she hadn't known about. Who else could it be but the team of men that had been created with her drugs? They must have linked this place to Dr. Gardner and come to check it out. It was the only explanation because if it were Dr. Gardner’s men, they would have stormed the back building where she lived, not the main one.
Everything she’d risked had been for nothing.
If those men were dead, she was now on the run for no reason. She could have kept her mouth shut, kept doing what she’d been doing, and found a way to disappear when the time was right.
Now she might be free, but she would spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. Dr. Gardner would hunt her, she knew that. While he might not have much patience, he wasn't one to give up an investment without a fight, and she was the biggest investment he’d ever made.
Still, Whitney would gladly hand herself over to the doctor if it meant there was a way to undo what she’d done. Killing those men was the absolute last thing she wanted to do. She’d been trying to end what she’d started, and she had, except not the way she wanted.
More deaths on her shoulders.
As much as she’d love to say she’d lost count of how many dead men and women she quite literally carried on her back, she hadn't. She knew the exact number, and now there were likely six more to add to that.
There was only one thing she could hold onto right now.
One good thing she’d managed to do.
Without access to the research, most of which had been gathered through her, it would take Dr. Gardner years to catch back up to where he’d been before. Especially without her. He might take all the credit for the drugs, and she was happy for him to do it, but she was the one behind it all. Without her, and without everything in one place, regrouping would be almost impossible.
Not that it was enough to undo all she’d caused. It would save future lives, but it wouldn't bring back all those already lost.
Choking on a sob, Whitney paused, then crossed the road to the parking lot of a small shopping mall where she’d left her getaway vehicle. This mall had been her only link to the outside world for far too long, and now it was her gateway to freedom.
But was it real freedom when she would have to spend the rest of her life—however long that might be—carrying the consequences of her actions?
Chapter
Two
January 9th
10:44 P.M.
I'm sorry.
The whispered words were loud enough for Blade to hear, and he chuckled to himself.
Yeah, I bet you're sorry, darlin’. Sorry that you ever put your life on the line to try to warn us, if that’s even what you were trying to do. Bet you realized you’d rather stick with your boss than help out a bunch of monsters.
Monsters.
The word had been thrown around a lot by Dr. Gardner in those years they’d been held captive. It was no wonder the idea had stuck with all of them in the intervening years.
Back then, the scientist would calmly tell them that he was doing the only responsible thing he could after he’d created a bunch of monsters that were more animal than man. He’d used the anger raging inside all of them as proof that they would never be able to live safely around the general population.
