Savage Beauty (The Arrow Tactical Series Book 5)

Chapter 28

The pit in my stomach aches. Something is wrong with me. Unbidden tears well up, and I have to inhale deeply to hold them at bay.

In North Carolina, it’s later in the day. Sage won’t be with her students. My finger hovers over her name. But what would I tell her? She’d ask questions, seeking to help me diagnose the issue. She’d ask me when the pain started.

And I’d tell her the symptoms intensified when the door clicked closed. When Max left.

“Sloane, sometimes you have to be willing to bend. Flexibility is a good thing, honey.”

Mom said that to me. She repeated herself often.

The urge to vomit rises. I need fresh air. I just need to get to the lab and put all this behind me and re-focus. I need my routine. When I follow a routine, life is easier. I don’t get so worked up when I know exactly what to expect.

I grab the old laptop with the draft letter that Max asked me to hold onto and my messenger bag, and I head out the door to the bike rack. One bike has a basket on the front, and I place the laptop in it. It looks lonely in the basket, but I need nothing else. If I bring my phone, I might call Sage, and I don’t want to answer her questions. I need to get to work.

By the time I reach the Origins office, the wind has dried the tears I couldn’t contain. The fresh air eradicated the nausea, but the crater-sized hole in my stomach weighs me down, and my chest aches with the pain of someone cracking open my breastplate. I could ask Sage exactly what that feels like, but it’s a metaphorical comparison. And if I hear my sister’s voice, the tears will return.

The office doors are locked, but as I’m standing there looking through the tinted glass, a person wearing a lab coat exits the building. His sleek black hair looks familiar, and I must look familiar to him, because he holds the door open for me. His brown men’s dress shoes are scuffed along the toes.

“Thank you,” I say as I head inside.

No one is sitting behind reception. They only place someone there when investors are expected. My sandals click against the floor, and my reflection shines in the hallway glass. My messenger bag bangs against my thigh, and I lift the strap over my head so it hangs more snugly across my midsection.

I reach Dr. Kallio’s lab. The door is ajar, and I peek inside. She sits at a counter, head bent, reading a report. I tap lightly on the door.

“Sloane. Hi. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

The length of her lab coat falls halfway down the stainless-steel legs of the stool. She removes her reading glasses and sets them on the counter.

“I brought the letter. The one you asked me to get for verification to prove my story.”

“Did you?”

I open the flap on the messenger bag and lift my laptop. “It’s on here. I don’t have a printer.” I could have emailed it, but I wasn’t thinking straight…after Max. “It’s a draft. The Arrow team is reviewing it and may make changes as well, but I thought you might have changes too. But you can see the draft version and, well, you won’t need to interview anyone.”

My chest cinches. It feels like I’m missing a lung or—no, I can breathe. It’s more like my heart split open.

“Let’s see it.”

I take the laptop over to her and set it beside her glasses. The tip of her finger traces along the edge of the chrome. Her nails have been recently done. Instead of a color, this time she got the ends painted white and left the base a natural color. There’s a name for that design, but I can’t remember it. It looks pretty.

My nails are short and unpolished. My finger pad traces the edge of my thumbnail. It’s a little rough from where I bit it.

“This computer isn’t a work computer.”

“No. It’s one of my personal computers.”

“Ah.” The password box is displayed, and she turns the laptop to me for me to enter my password. Unlike Dr. Kallio, I don’t have a written password list. I can remember my passwords. “Do you have access to the network from this computer?”

“No. It’s an older computer.”

“So, the only computer that you have access to the network is through your work computer?”

“Well, not without being on the VPN.” I lean forward and open the file with the letter. “I can email it to you,” I say, straightening my spine. “Dr. Kallio, has Origins ever considered opening a US office?”

“Not to my knowledge. Why?” She speaks to me absentmindedly as she reads my letter. It’s a brief letter.

“I’m just wondering if maybe it’s time for me to return to the States.” It’s been less than two years since I left, but things have changed.

“Are you asking because of Max Hawkins? The employee from Arrow Tactical that you’ve been spending time with?”

“Yes.” I’ve never mentioned Max’s last name to her, have I?

She closes the laptop lid and spins the stool to face me directly. “Sloane, you’re a good kid. But you got in way over your head. We’re not going to be able to re-hire you.”

“What? Why?” Discomfort rises anew. My vision blurs. More tears are coming, and I can’t stop them. If she doesn’t want to re-hire me, I should leave.

“Where are you going?”

I pause, five steps from the door. “There’s no reason to stay, is there?”

Proving my heart isn’t literally split in two, it pounds hard enough to fray my nerves. Emotion wells in my throat, and it feels hard to swallow.

“No, there is. I need to talk to you.”

She gets up and walks past me. She closes the door and locks it. Then she pulls the vinyl shade down over the glass pane in the door.

“What’re you doing?” Instinctively, my hand falls into my messenger bag and the inside pocket. I blink rapidly, clearing the welling tears.

“I can’t let you leave.”

She pulls a phone out of her lab coat and taps on it.

“What do you mean?”

She presses her back to the door as if she’s blocking me from leaving.

“I need to keep you here for your safety.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“You’re delusional. You haven’t been taking your medication regularly. We knew there were issues before you resigned with no notice, but we’ve had time to review your work, and it’s clear you were suffering from psychotic episodes.”

“No.” I shake my head and step to the side. She’s lying. But why? “Max was right, wasn’t he?” My eyes burn at the mention of his name, but my adrenaline pumps hard through my veins and my eyes dry. “You are behind everything. But why?”

“Dammit.” She checks her phone. Her lips press into a firm line, creating wrinkles all up and down. That’s her angry expression. “I am not supposed to be the one who has to do this.”

She charges past me to her desk, opens a drawer, and lifts a small pistol. Time slows.

My fingers wrap around the smooth edge of metal.

She points the pistol at me, and I take a step back. The end of the pistol wavers.

I take another step back.

“Stop. I can’t let you leave. I need for you to stay here.”

“Why?” Sam once told me that keeping someone talking is important. He also told me that distance is important. Not everyone who owns a gun has good aim. Most don’t. That’s what he said. I take another step back.

She locked the door, but it’s not like I can’t flip the lock.

She widens her stance and holds the gun with two hands. Someone taught her how to hold a gun and take aim.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I’m not the one calling the shots. You can’t leave.”

“Why did Anton Solonov tell everyone I couldn’t be hurt?” If I’m going to keep her talking, I’m going to ask my questions.

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t he just kill me?”

“That was apparently the plan, but someone interfered.”

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

“I’m not behind this.” She clucks her tongue. It’s a sound I’ve never heard her make. “I don’t agree with this. I wish I’d never discovered what is going on.”

“What is going on?”

She points the gun straight at my chest. That’s not an answer.

“You don’t need to kill me.” I inch back.

“If you don’t stop where you are, I will have to pull this trigger whether I want to or not. Can you just stand there and wait?”

“You texted someone to come here, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t sign up for this.” Her lips remain clenched and her eyes narrow. Her hands are steady. She’s determined. It’s the determination I need to be hyperaware of. All she has to do is squeeze her finger.

“What, exactly, is this? I don’t get it.”

“You really don’t know, do you? That’s exactly what I fucking told them, too.” The words are bitter.

I inch back, and her arms straighten.

“One more inch, and I pull this trigger.”

“If I’m going to die anyway, can you tell me what this is all about? I don’t understand.” Keep them talking. It’s Sam’s voice. His training. His coaching.

“I told them you didn’t realize what you uncovered. But it was too big of a risk. You wanted to submit it for peer review. If they opened an investigation, it would have catastrophic implications.”

“For organs?” The latest report I saw showed the organ transplant industry to be at two to three billion a year, tops. As far as medical industries go, it’s relatively small.

“Use that brain of yours. Everyone thought you’d figured it out. But I was right. You only cared about the organs, right?”

Optimistic headlines flash before me. Headlines touting FDA approvals for drugs Lumina tested. Record breaking profit. Stock prices surging.

“The people in the compound. Lumina International is doing first round tests on them. And when they get sick, they sell their organs. That’s why the incidence of cancer is so high on black market organs.”

“For select products with tremendous promise, they’ll do initial in vivo rounds in alternate locations before testing goes to India and China. It’s a way to speed drugs to market.”

Everything clicks. “Faster and cheaper than any competitor. And if someone gets sick, you harvest the organs. Which is a contributing factor to the transplant success rate stemming from the black market being so behind US rates. My report highlighted all the data and would’ve led regulators to Lumina’s door. Eventually. Or…was there evidence in the data that would lead them to drugs already on the market?”

Her gaze flicks to the clock hanging on the wall.

I raise my hand. Wrapped around my fingers is a blade.

“Honey. Don’t fight me on this.” The literal meaning of honey is sweet, but her expression is mean.

“How many are involved?”

“Too many. I don’t know them all. There’s no way out of this.” She actually sounds sad. “I don’t have a choice.”

I position my legs for stability and lift the blade.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to bring a knife to a gunfight?” Her lips curve into an almost smile, but nothing about this situation is smile-worthy.

“I throw knives to relax. I don’t miss. Let me leave. If the people you work for are so powerful, they’ll find me, right? Just let me go. Like you said, you weren’t supposed to be the one to kill me. You are not a killer.”

“There’s too much at stake. I don’t have a choice. I’m sorry.”

Her trigger finger flexes.

A flick of my wrist. The blade spins through the air.

My hand is back in my bag, retrieving a second blade. Cool, smooth metal against my fingers.

The first blade strikes.

Directly into her throat.

The gun fires.

It’s loud. So loud. I cover my ears.

The gun clatters to the floor.

My blade does too.

One hand clutches her throat.

Blood oozes between her fingers.

Her body remains erect. She wobbles. Her knees give. And she falls.

I told her I don’t miss.

I lower my hands from my ears. It’s quiet, but there’s a distinct burning smell in the air. Reaching into my bag, I remove a third blade and step closer to her, blade ready.

“Tell me, who else is involved?”

Her mouth opens. Blood spills along the white tile near my sandals.

She reaches for me, and her bloody hand clutches my shirt.

“Just tell me. Is it everyone?”

Am I the only one who didn’t know? That can’t be possible.

Her eyes close. Her chest rises and falls. Blood spreads.

I need to get out of here. But first, I return the unused blades to my bag, and reclaim my blade from her throat and wipe it clean.