Page 160 of Huntress

“Are you fuckin’ serious? That asshole left me to deal with cleanup again?!”

Tossing the book back at Powell, she turned on her heel and headed for the elevator. There was nothing else they’d be able to see on this floor. Once inside, she leaned against the wall, waiting for Saint to use his card and select the next floor.

The door closed, and she was in his arms. He held her tight, kissing the top of her head, then her cheek.

“You’re doing great,” he promised, then pulled away just as the door opened to the surgery level.

It was like walking into a different world. The floor was open, clean, and far more upscale than the housing level, with gentler lighting and decorations on the walls. A fancy black desk with white-and-gold trim sat empty, as if it hadn’t been used in years.

There was a helpful little map engraved on one of the walls. Amphitheaters were down the hall on their immediate left. Administrative offices down the hall beyond the desk, small procedure rooms to the right, and sterilization in the fourth hall.

“Offices?”

“Offices,” he agreed.

They moved with purpose; long strides carried them down the hall. It was quieter than Elsie expected, with one voice coming from a cracked-open door. She crept up and took a peek. Over a dozen people were attending a meeting.

Waving Saint on, they entered the first office they came to and quickly rifled through files and loose papers. They moved on to the next, not knowing how long they had, which pushed them into a frantic search.

“Here,” Saint whispered in the third office, holding out a paper.

It was a handwritten note.

The failure rate in the viability trials is still too high. Halt hybridization attempts until the stabilization elixir can be reformulated.

-Cornick

“This is it!” Elsie whispered back excitedly. “It has to be!”

They kept searching, keeping an ear out for any change in the meeting room. She opened a filing cabinet and skimmed through, faltering when she came to a heavily redacted file. The last line on the first page was the only fully readable sentence.

Trails on the wolfhounds are a complete failure. They are too volatile. Experiment and both subjects terminated.

Her hands shook, and the tears that had threatened earlier fell to splash across her cheeks. Saint took a step toward her, brows lifting.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered.

Loud sounds accompanied by a hum of voices from the meeting room echoed through the hall outside. Chairs squealed against the floor, footsteps shuffled, and conversations broke out among colleagues. Elsie whirled toward the door, stuffing the papers down her shirt. Closing the file, they darted into the hallway, but it was too late.

Fletcher opened the meeting room door, and held it open for the attendees to file out. It took a few seconds, but the confusion on her face when she noticed them quickly hardened to steel.

Elsie groaned. “Fuck.”

Chapter thirty-one

Chapter 31

Saint stood between Elsie and Cornick as the old man stormed around the office he’d commandeered to scream at them. He picked up a paperweight and hurled it against the wall where it shattered, glass pieces flying everywhere. Armed guards stood on either side of them, faces blank, accustomed to his behavior.

Elsie watched him rage, completely unimpressed. There was too much humanity in this man’s blood, and she’d easily overpower him if he proved violent. His guards and the locked-down facility posed more of a problem than Cornick himself.

“What were you looking for?!” he shouted. “We would have accommodated a tour if you’d asked. But stealing security clearance and sneaking around? Lying to my staff? What was so important that you’d resort to espionage?”

“At what point do you think you’ve been reasonable enough for us to believe you’d have given anything we asked for? You burned my skin off with acid yesterday while telling me to ‘stop whining,’ remember?” Elsie seethed.

“I have been more than accommodating to you.” Cornick slammed his hands on the desk, fingers splayed.

“You only think that because you’re used to barking out orders at subordinates too terrified to disobey, and test subjects who aren’t in a position to negotiate. You’re not used to being forced to concede, and it doesn’t work like that in the real world. If you want willing participation from someone outside of your insulated little bubble of self-importance, you damned well better be reciprocating something equal or better in return. You’ve done nothing to earn my trust or respect. Why should I give a fuck about what we did today?” She laughed incredulously.