Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was my turn to watch as Emery sat in the exam chair. Andrea, having returned to make sure Lena was okay, started to clean and rewrap Emery’s shoulder and back in new gauze. I wanted to see his gunshot wounds instead of looking away. Seeing them healing made him more real.
“Already, the new skin is forming over the stitches,” Andrea commented. “You’ll have a couple extra scars in a week, tops.”
“I’m guessing that’s not normal,” I said, remembering how quickly he had healed when Lena’s bullet had grazed his arm.
Andrea glanced at me and smiled. “No. But Emery and the others aren’t normal.”
My hand slid up to my throat to clutch at my necklace. “Because of the drugs.”
His eyes glowed as he caught me rubbing at the heart. “One of the few perks,” he said.
Andrea cleared her throat. “Yes, one of the few successful side effects. Besides abnormal strength, dexterity, stamina, Emery is better physically in every way. One of your father’s most successful…subjects.”
“Quit, Doctor, you’ll make me blush,” Emery mocked.
Andrea made quick work of securing the gauze just as someone knocked.
Cassidy poked her head in and scowled at us. “Micheal is here.”
Before anyone could utter a word, the door was slammed closed.
Andrea put away her supplies while Emery put back on his shirt. I stood and suddenly felt shaky, afraid for some reason that this Micheal would force me and Lena to be locked away, considering he was the leader of the group.
Emery must have caught my unease because he grabbed my hand and pulled me in.
“It’s going to be fine,” he said. “He won’t touch you. Micheal isn’t the aggressive type like Lez. He might not be happy you’re here, but you're safe. I will make sure of it, got it?”
I nodded even if I didn’t feel completely assured. Emery kept me close, placing an arm around me, as he led me out of the exam room.
When we slipped back into the communal space, several faces turned our way, none looking giddy with joy.
Cassidy, of course, fixed me with an icy glare as she sat on a nearby couch, wearing a shirt and sweatpants. Lena, who had barely touched a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her still looked weary as Lez now sat beside her. Lez glared at me too as if we had interrupted some conversation he had been having with her since he leaned in toward her. Dom was the only one who looked passive at best, sitting back at his computer.
My eyes drew over to Micheal, standing by Dom. Like Cassidy, his glare was glacial, his white-blond hair messy, his black shirt unbuttoned, the collar bent as if he had pulled at it hard.
As he took a few steps closer to me and Emery, he placed his hands in his pockets. “I go away for one day,” he said in a quiet, almost threatening, tone. “But this was my fault. I should have known you wouldn’t be able to stay away from her.”
Emery didn’t respond, didn’t so much as move, except to tilt his head up as if in challenge. I kept my ground next to him, trying not to shift uncomfortably or pull my hand from his in case a fight broke out.
“I’ll be honest,” Micheal continued, “I expected to show up here and find these girls locked in a room, banging and crying at the door. Then I would have had to beat your ass. I’m relieved now to find that won’t be necessary, will it?”
Emery squeezed my hand gently. “No,” he answered.
Micheal glanced at me, his icy stare freezing me in place. “Has he hurt you?”
Emery tensed beside me. “No,” he answered before I could.
Still, Micheal looked to me for an answer so I said, “I’m fine.”
He nodded, then said, “If you ask it right now, I will put you somewhere safely out of his reach. You don’t need to be scared to ask, you have several here, including myself who will help you.”
Emery snorted. “She doesn’t—”
“I’m asking her,” Micheal snapped.
I shivered as the air turned colder around us.
“He’s not holding me against my will,” I said after a pause.
“Even though he took you.” Micheal glared at Emery again.
“I wasn’t ecstatic when that happened either,” I confessed. “But…it’s complicated.”
Micheal drew a hand up to cover his eyes and laughed. “Complicated. Right.” He slid his hand through his hair before dropping it. “I don’t know what kind of brainwashing manipulation you have on her, Emery, but this shit is not happening here.”
“It’s not—” I started to say before Micheal cut me short.
“He killed your family. You expect me to believe that?”
“I think she’s telling the truth, Micheal,” Andrea added as she slipped by us from the room.
“You think?”
“They got some kind of sick love,” Cassidy said, crossing her arms.
I refused to cast my eyes down or look away. So what if it was true? Even if all of them, including Lena, looked at me and Emery as if we were crazy.
“Eve…” Lena said, shaking her head in disbelief.
I had to be strong, even if it felt like a bad dream. I licked my lips and swallowed. “It’s complicated.”
Besides a “Yeah, right” from Lez and a bitter laugh from Cassidy, none of them seemed interested in arguing. Only Lena’s look of disappointment made me feel sorry.
“We’ll take your word for it,” Micheal said. “Though I don’t know why your friend got into this?” He turned his glare on Dom and then Lez. “Can someone tell me?”
“Don’t look at me. That’s all Emery, too,” Lez said. “I was ready to knock her out, but Emery wanted her too. Probably to spare his girl from hating his ass. We didn’t have time to argue about it.”
“You really were only going to knock her out, Lez?” Cassidy said, arching a brow. “That’s not like you.”
“He wasn’t going to knock me out; he was ready to kill me!” Lena snapped.
“It was complicated,” Lez said, mockingly.
“Enough!” Micheal barked. “Forget I asked, because it doesn’t matter, anyway. They’re here now and they are involved, no thanks to you.” He pointed at Emery. “If you compromise this for us, I will send you back to the river myself, this time in a body bag. The only reason I’m not more pissed off than I already am is because Dom made sure to inform me of everything before I got here. I’m not happy he was involved either but at least his reasoning has some fucking logic to it.”
“And what’s that exactly?” Cassidy asked.
Micheal brushed his hand through his hair again, letting out a deep breath. “As we’d discussed, Eve being at Severfalls means she has access to how things work on the inside. We found a map, yes, but she can give us more details on vulnerable areas, how much security and what their routine was. Giving us a visual of the place that we have yet to gain. I allowed Dom to follow her after her escape so we could make a decision on whether to make contact while also making sure she wasn’t being followed by anyone. Based on what Dom told me this morning, it was likely some of Kennedy’s men were tracking her. And they were closing in fast. Dom made a quick decision to go with Emery and grab her for this reason. I’m not happy with it but what’s done is done.”
“It was still stupid,” Cassidy remarked. “I could have gone and found her myself and brought her into the station, gotten what we needed, then sent her off.”
“And have her end up back in Severfalls,” Emery growled. “I think the fuck not. Not over my dead body.”
She waved him off. “She compromises us here, or did you not hear that part?”
“And I guess you forgot about the part where I said I didn’t give a fuck. I told you before, she stays with me. She isn’t going to give you away because she’ll stay here.”
“Because you trust her?” she said.
“Yes, I do.”
“And what about her friend?” she asked. “Maybe your girl is too blindsided by your dick to say anything but this chick looks like she’d run her mouth with a fucking smile on her face.”
Lena looked more offended than I did. “I can keep a secret just fine,” she said defensively. “But not one that involves me being kidnapped! I’m not going to keep quiet when my family and friends freak out and ask where I’ve been.”
Micheal moved over to the computer desk and leaned against it beside Dom. “We aren’t looking to harm innocent lives if we can help it. Taking you was a mistake. A big one. We can’t let you back out on your own. Not until we are finished here.”
“Finished with what exactly? You all talk about Severfalls and getting in there, but for what? What exactly is going on there? And what do you plan to do?” Lena voiced her concern.
I’d thought the same thing. But I hadn’t cared to think about it. Until now. “I’d like to know too,” I said, turning to Emery.
Emery led me over to a seat beside Lena. Then he grabbed another and pulled it over, sinking into it so we were almost knee to knee. “I don’t know what better way to tell you so I’ll say it straight. They are testing there again. Just like before.”
“Testing?”
“The drugs,” he said. “The ones we were all subjected to.”
My heart dropped, and my blood turned cold. The experiments Emery and the others had gone through already. They were testing again.
“On unborn kids,” I said, barely hearing myself, seeing images of Jonsei and her bad eye, and Adrien being wheeled away into the dark of the medical wing.
Emery nodded.
“The women there…Oh my god.”
“H-how do you guys know this?” Lena asked.
“We have been tracking those coming out of Severfalls, women who were later found dead,” Micheal explained. “Kennedy and his family own the place and they were one of Martel’s biggest backers. We got a hold of information about some of the tests done in Severfalls and determined what Kennedy was doing when we put it all together.”
“I knew there were others involved from the start,” Andrea commented. “Roman Martel would never mention them by name, only as a man called Mr. Mercury.”
I remembered the night of the banquet seeing the Kennedy name on the list. Tyler had been right there in front of me and I would have never guessed. “It doesn’t make sense, he’s too young,” I said. “All my father’s backers were around his age, if not older.”
“Tyler is the son,” Micheal said. “His father had started the project.”
The real Mr. Mercury. “And where is he?”
“We don’t know. He disappeared years ago. But his son has restarted Project Redbird under a new cover, probably thinking he can finish and succeed where his father couldn’t.”
Guess it was a damn good thing I got out when I did.
“Little Evee looks sick,” Cassidy said. “Better get her to the bathroom.”
Emery went to pull me up, but I refused.
“No…No, I’m fine, I just need a minute.” I couldn’t stop thinking of the girls, the ones I left behind. I did feel like I might throw up, but I forced the air in my lungs, forced myself to keep it down. “You're going to stop it,” I said through heaving breaths. “You're going to stop him, right?”
“That’s the plan,” Micheal said.
Emery squeezed my hands. “Look at me, Eve.” When I did, he said, “You don’t have to be involved in this. You can stay here and you’ll be safe, just like I promised. Severfalls and Kennedy won’t find you.”
“But you’re going, aren’t you? You’re going back there to stop it too? To finally take them down for what they did.”
His expression told me enough. “Yes,” he said. “I said I would.”
I looked at our joined hands. Determined, I said, “Then I’m going to help you. In any way I can.” I addressed Micheal, “But in return, I want Lena’s freedom.”
Lez snorted, mumbling something, and Lena glared at him.
“No, I’m staying here,” she said.
“Lena…”
She looked at me. “Forget it, Eve, I’m staying with you.” Her gaze flicked to Micheal. “I know I won’t be much of any help, but I want to see Tyler and those fuckers at Severfalls pay for what they did to Eve and what they are doing to others, so I’ll give my support. If I can at least let my family know I’m okay, I promise to keep your secret.”
“She’s lying,” Cassidy said.
“I think we should let her,” Andrea countered.
Dom tapped on the desk and signed something. Micheal exhaled. “I’ll let her call her family while Dom listens in. But if at any time she breaks, the calls stop, got it?”
“Yeah,” Lena said. “I get it.”
Cassidy threw up her hands. “This is bullshit, Micheal,” she said. “You can’t trust them. If you give her an inch, she’s going to slip something by accident at best or betray us at worst.”
“I’m with Cassidy on this one,” Lez said. “We can’t trust she won’t slip up.”
“I won’t,” Lena said.
“We will keep you supervised. Same with Eve, though, I imagine Emery has that covered.” Micheal straightened off the desk. “Sadly, we will have to take precautions. If either of you give out any information, try to sneak out, or give any indication that we can no longer trust you, then you’ll be moved somewhere else with no contact until our plans are done. I think that’s fair, would you all agree?”
No one seemed to like that but none of us disagreed.
Dom signed again.
“Dom says he can put an anti-tracker on the phone, but for extra security, Lena should make her calls elsewhere,” Micheal translated.
“I’ll take her out,” Andrea offered, stepping up. “There’s a little park far enough, mostly empty. We can make the calls there.”
“Wait till sundown,” Micheal ordered. “Just in case. In the meantime, I think we’d all love for Eve to tell us everything she can about Severfalls, so we can know what to prepare for.”
I took a deep breath and nodded, gripping Emery’s hand. “I’m ready.”
He studied me for a moment, like he used to back at St. Agnes. Then he smiled. “That’s my girl.”