Chapter
One
January 20th
10:45 P.M.
This lab was a lot more remote than the others on the list they’d been given.
High on a mountain top, deep in the forest, with nothing much surrounding it for miles.
If he was running a secret lab to try to perfect a formula that turned people into super soldiers, then this was exactly the kind of place Voodoo would choose.
There was every chance that they might find real intel there. Possibly even the man he and his team sought, and yet …
The feeling of death hung in the air.
Before he’d signed up for the experimental drug program eleven years ago, he’d never thought all that much about death. Of course, he’d been special forces before joining the program, but that only meant he’d thought about the fact that one day he might go out on an op and never return. He’d lost people he cared about, killed plenty of people, somewith a weapon, some with his own two hands. But he had never considered the actual act of dying.
It has always just been something that happened. Everyone died, everything died. Any living being, be they human, animal, or plant was going to die at some point. It was a given. Something to be feared, sure, for many it was. Something that might be painful or even horrific, would unfortunately be the case for many.
Now, he felt death in a way he hadn't expected. It was weird. His ability to heal was something that wasn't natural. Voodoo had even spoken to Whitney Daley about it and gotten an answer he wasn't expecting.
He was never supposed to be able to heal others the way he could.
According to Whitney, the former child genius who had created the original version of the drug before she was sold by her parents to Dr. Ridge Gardner when she was only ten years old, the variation of the drug he’d been given was supposed to bolster his own ability to heal himself. Which it had, he’d seen himself come back from injuries he shouldn’t have, watching as his skin, flesh, and bone all but repaired themselves before his very eyes.
But he could heal others as well. Voodoo had no idea how it worked, or how he did it, and while he’d hoped Whitney might be able to explain it, she hadn't. She promised that when this was all over, when Dr. Gardner, the man who had tortured all of them in his attempts to gain money, power, and respect for himself, had suffered and died, she would take samples of his blood and study it.
Now, as he and his team surveyed the small complex spread out before them, he could sense death hanging heavily in the air. It was hard to explain to anyone else just what it felt like. Dragon could smell death, Blade would be able to hear the moment a person’s heart stopped beating, their lungs no longer inflating, and Lion would be able to see that a chest no longer rose and fell from a great distance.
None of them couldfeelit, though.
“What is it?” Steel asked, and Voodoo cast their team leader a glance.
“Death,” he said simply.
“You think some of the experiments recently died?” Thunder asked.
“Maybe,” he replied, unable to properly explain that the death hewas feeling was on a wider scale than just a couple of dead people who were unlucky enough to either be taken by Dr. Gardner or sign up for a program without understanding the magnitude of it.
Just because Dr. Gardner had lost access to the military after they were able to break free of their glass prison after three years being held captive and experimented on, didn't mean he had stopped his work.
If anything, the scientist had doubled down.
Now he might operate in the shadows, hidden labs, and secret experiments, but he wouldn't stop until he achieved everything he wanted.
“There’s no way he could know that we found out about this place,” Blade said with more confidence than Voodoo could muster. “We only found Whitney and Terry Richards three days ago, only got access to Richards’ phone and this location two days ago. All we did was plan things out, get on a plane, and come here. According to Whitney, Richards had cleared his responsibilities so he could spend some time breaking her, readying her to return to her position, so there’s no reason to think that Dr. Gardner suspects his head of security is dead.”
“Unless we tripped some sort of sensors as we approached,” Lion suggested.
Obviously, their enhancements gave them an advantage in every situation. All their bodies were more resistant to temperature changes, either hot or cold, they could go longer without eating or drinking, they could handle operating with little sleep. They healed well, were more tolerant of pain, and with their individual skills, they were a tough opponent to beat.
But they weren't impervious to making mistakes, and there was every chance a sensor they had missed had alerted the people in the secret lab to kill the current batch of experiments rather than allow them to fall into anyone else’s hands.
“Only one way to find out,” Steel said as he nodded at the building standing before them.
It was dark and silent, and while it was late, it wasn't late enough that everyone would necessarily be in bed asleep. Especially depending on whether the scientists working here were here voluntarily or had been coerced or outright abducted like Whitney had been. Not thatthere was any reason to believe that anyone other than the young woman who was now safely tucked in Blade’s bedroom back at their home had been forced into a position of working for the crazed scientist.
