41. Forty-One Cam
Forty-One: Cam
I felt like shit for leaving Lakey on that couch, but Kyle wanted to hunt, and apparently, he needed me to do it, so here I fucking was. The crunch of leaves under my boots was loud as Kyle and I crept through the dense forest, or at least, tried to creep. The underbrush here was ridiculously out of control. Every sense was on high alert - the sharp scent of pine, the rustle of branches, even the faint call of a bird in the distance. My fingers tightened around the cool metal of my rifle. The thrill of the hunt pulsed through me, that familiar rush of adrenaline.
We paused in a small clearing, scanning the area. Kyle's voice was low when he broke the silence.
"You know, Chimera's security was no joke. Like supermax on steroids."
I raised an eyebrow. "That right?"
"Oh yeah. Retinal scans, voice recognition, the works. Place was built to keep secrets buried six feet under."
The casual way he mentioned it, made my skin crawl. I kept my face neutral. What kind of secrets needed that level of protection?
"Sounds intense," I said, voice steady despite the churning in my gut. "They expecting a full-scale invasion or something?"
Kyle chuckled darkly. "More like making sure nothing got out that shouldn't."
I forced a smirk, trying to match his nonchalant tone. "What, they keeping King Kong locked up in there?"
"Something like that," he muttered.
We fell silent again, moving deeper into the woods. But Kyle's words echoed in my head, dredging up memories I'd tried to bury. I pushed them down, focusing on the hunt. The last thing I needed was to get lost in the past right now. The car ride back last week was more than enough playtime in the past.
Kyle's voice cut through the stillness again, low and deliberate. "You know, it wasn't just security they were obsessed with. The experiments... well, let's just say ethics weren't exactly a priority."
My grip tightened on the rifle, knuckles going white. "Yeah, like the bag babies." I kept my tone casual, but inside, my gut was twisting.
"Yeah. But not just newborns. Like how Rose was kidnapped or sold. Who the fuck knows? I haven’t been able to find out which, yet. They just take the kids they want and give them to whatever branch they can match the kids up with. Each sector is divided into different ideals they want to achieve. Real fucked up shit. I had no idea about the baby factory, so that might be new. I was around right after you and Lakey were made. I didn’t have the clearance to know what they were doing to you but heard through the grapevine about the two most promising subjects they’ve had to date." He paused, letting the words hang in the air. "But you don't wanna hear about that, right?"
I wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up, but curiosity won out. "No, go on," I said, my voice rougher than I intended.
As Kyle continued, his words vague but loaded, my mind filled in the blanks. Images flashed through my head, each more horrific than the last. Kids strapped to tables, skin splayed open, screaming...
Suddenly, I wasn't in the forest anymore. I was back there, in that sterile room with its too-bright lights. A little blonde girl sat at a table, her eyes wide and terrified. Some egghead in a stained coat was shoving puzzles at her, barking questions. I stood in the corner of my room, helpless, watching her through the plexiglass, her tiny hands shaking as she tried to please them.
"Patient X is showing promise," a cold voice said beside me. "Perhaps you'd like to assist with the next phase of testing?"
I blinked hard, trying to shake it off. But it clung to me like smoke, choking me with its intensity. I could still smell the iron, still feel the weight of expectations crushing me. Lakey and I had been next door cellmates. The feeling that we’d known each other our whole lives hadn’t just been happenstance. We literally had.
"Cam? You good?" Kyle's voice snapped me back to the present.
I realized I'd stopped walking, my chest heaving. "Yeah," I muttered, forcing my legs to move. "Just thought I saw something."
As we continued on our way, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched, evaluated. Just like back then. Just like always.
Kyle's voice cut through the lingering echoes of my past. "The physical conditioning was something else," he said, his tone casual but with an edge that made my skin crawl. "They'd push these kids to their absolute limits. Endurance tests that'd make Navy SEALs cry. They did the same to me, but I was about twenty-four when I joined. I thought I was joining some kind of private security sect. I’d done some military work, and they’d asked for me to secure their defenses. After that, they kept me on retainer for when they needed targets eliminated. I never asked questions. Until I met Sarah, that is."
I nodded, trying to shake the unpleasant feelings that were swirling in my depths. I didn’t normally pay too much attention to anything other than the blankness I usually felt, but the longer I spent with these assholes, the longer those lock boxes had to crack open. And no body wanted to see the day I cracked. But Kyle's words were hooks, dragging me back time and again.
My younger self, scrawny and terrified, was running on a treadmill that never seemed to end. My lungs burned, legs screaming for mercy. But I couldn't stop. Stopping meant punishment.
"Faster, Patient Y!" a voice barked. "Push harder or we'll have to motivate you."
I knew what that meant. The electric shocks, the ice baths, the sensory deprivation tank. My body moved on autopilot, fueled by pure fear.
"They'd make us fight each other," I heard myself say as I remembered the cuts on my hands, the words escaping before I could stop them. Looking down, I flattened my palm and looked, almost seeing the blood of my friend who was cowering in the corner, terrified of me. "Winner got food. Loser got... well, you can imagine."
Kyle whistled low. "Damn, man. That's fucked up."
I laughed, a harsh sound that scared a nearby bird into flight. "You don't know the half of it."
We continued our silent trek through the woods. Was I still that scared kid on the treadmill, or had I become the monster holding the stopwatch?
Kyle must've noticed my thousand-yard stare, 'cause he stopped dead in his tracks. I almost ran into him, my mind still a million miles away.
"You good, Cam?" he asked, his voice low and careful. His hand came up, almost as if to rest on my shoulder before he shook his head and let it fall to his side.
I blinked, forcing myself back to the present. The forest around us was quiet, peaceful even. A soft breeze rustled through the leaves, birds chirping around us, oblivious to my plight, as if I wasn’t about to go on a homicidal rampage. It was about as far from those sterile labs as you could get and yet I was trapped there. In that plexiglass box, watching the girl do her puzzles or being forced to shit in a bucket.
"Yeah," I lied, flashing him my most charming grin. "Just listening for the damn deer."
Kyle nodded, but I could see the doubt in his eyes. He opened his mouth, probably to call me on my bullshit, but then thought better of it.
"You know," he said instead, his tone casual but his words like precision-guided missiles, "they had this one test. Made the kids prove their loyalty."
My grip on the rifle tightened, knuckles going white. I knew where this was going, but I couldn't stop him. Couldn't stop the flood of pain that his words unleashed.
"They'd pair 'em up," Kyle continued, oblivious to the war raging in my head. Or maybe he knew, and he was testing me. "Best friends, usually. Then they'd give one of them a choice: kill your friend, or we kill you both."
And just like that, I was back there. Fourteen years old, staring into the terrified eyes of my best friend, Tommy. Patient D, as they referred to him as. God, I hadn’t even remembered Tommy until now. I felt sick thinking back to his gangly limbs and the smile he always offered after we had been broken and bruised. How many times had he protected me? Giving me his rations to keep me strong.
The scientist was laughing, pressing something into my hands as Tommy stood in front of me. Looking down, I could see the knife, gripped tightly in my palm. Feel the cold weight of it. Touch the sharp end of the blade. The even colder voice of the instructor: "Prove your loyalty, Cameron. Kill him, or you both die."
I could still hear Tommy's voice, shaking but brave: "It's okay, Cam. Do it. Better one of us makes it out than neither."
The sound of his screaming echoed in my ears, as real as if I'd just stabbed him in the neck. My eyes closed and I saw it all. One minute he was standing there, offering me his life, the next he was laying face up, his eyes staring at the ceiling, a neat line across his neck as his life spilled onto the cold, white floor underneath him. Someone was patting me on the back, but I felt nothing.
Nothing but numbness.
The memory slammed into me like a freight train, knocking the wind out of my lungs. I stumbled, my legs suddenly rubber beneath me. The forest floor tilted and swayed, leaves blurring into a nauseating swirl of autumn colors.
"Fuck," I gasped, reaching out to steady myself against a nearby tree. The rough bark bit into my palm, anchoring me to reality even as the past threatened to drag me under. I fought hard not to vomit.
Kyle stopped dead in his tracks, turning to face me with those calculating eyes of his. He didn't say a word, just watched me with that infuriatingly knowing look. Like he could see right through my carefully constructed walls to the broken kid underneath.
I wanted to wipe that look off his face. Wanted to lash out, to make him hurt like I was hurting. But the words wouldn't come. All I could do was stand there, chest heaving, as the memories of Tommy's final moments played on a loop in my head.
The silence stretched between us, thick and heavy. Kyle didn't push, didn't pry. Just waited, patient as a spider in its web. And wasn't that a fitting image? Both of us predators, circling each other, waiting for the other to show weakness. I cracked first and I fucking hated myself for it.
"I'm fine," I finally managed to growl, straightening up and forcing my features into a mask of indifference. "Let's keep moving."
But even as I said it, Kyle wasn't buying it. Hell, I wasn't buying it. The past had sunk its claws into me, and it wasn't letting go anytime soon.
I took a deep breath, letting the crisp forest air fill my lungs. The scent of pine and damp earth grounded me, pulling me back from the edge of that dark abyss. I focused on the world around me — the rustle of leaves underfoot, the distant call of a hawk, the sunlight filtering through the canopy above.
"Nature's a real bitch-slap to the senses, ain't it?" I quipped, forcing a smirk. "Makes you remember you're alive, even when your head's trying to convince you otherwise."
Kyle raised an eyebrow, his expression unreadable. "That's one way to put it," he replied dryly.
We resumed our silent trek, rifles at the ready. My mind was a fucking warzone, memories of sterile labs and blood-soaked training rooms battling with the peaceful forest around me. But I'd be damned if I let Kyle see how much it was affecting me.
I shouldn’t be holding a gun. How easy would it be to just… pull the trigger? To feed the bloodlust that had been forced into me.
"You know," I said, keeping my voice low and steady, "I used to think places like this were boring as shit. All trees and quiet. Now? It's like a goddamn oasis."
Kyle grunted in agreement. "Amazing how perspective changes when you've seen the worst humanity has to offer."
I couldn't help but chuckle darkly at that. "Ain't that the fucking truth."
As we moved deeper into the woods, I forced myself to focus on tracking. The steady rhythm of our footsteps, the weight of the rifle in my hands, the constant scan for movement — it all helped push the memories back, at least for now. This was real. This was now. And right now, I had a job to do.
"You see anything?" I whispered to Kyle, my eyes narrowing as I surveyed the underbrush.
"Not yet," he murmured back. "But we're getting close. I can feel it."
I nodded, pointing to a tree. “Look at the marks. Those are fresh.”
He stopped and looked at me, surprised I knew how to track.
“Yeah. I track humans for fun, deer wasn’t that hard to study online and get the basics. Never had a daddy to teach me how to hunt, but the tube is just as good.” I winked.
The silence stretched between us, broken only by the soft crunch of leaves under our boots. Kyle's voice cut through the quiet.
"You know, Cam, there's something I never told Sarah about Chimera," he said, his eyes still scanning the forest. "About the fighting. They had this room... called it the Pit."
My grip on the rifle tightened involuntarily. "Yeah? What kinda fucked up shit went down there?"
Kyle's laugh was humorless. "The kind that makes you question everything. They'd pit us against each other. Crowds would watch. Money was exchanged. Sometimes to the death. It just depended on how much the organizer liked you as to whether or not it was your head on the chopping block. We were trained for brutal efficiency. At least there weren’t any kids down there, not when I was there in any case, but my time there changed me in ways the military hadn’t. After killing someone with your own hands, for no reason, something inside you just snaps."
I felt my jaw clench, memories of my own violent past bubbling to the surface. I half wondered if he was talking about the fighting ring I’d joined for a while after I got out of juvie. "Sounds like a real fucking party," I muttered, trying to keep my voice light despite the darkness creeping in.
"Oh, it was a blast," he replied, his sarcasm biting. "Nothing like watching your friends tear each other apart to really build character."
I swallowed hard, fighting back the flood of images threatening to overwhelm me. Kids with blank eyes and bloodied fists. The sickening crunch of bone. The metallic taste of victory as I stood above them, blood dripping off me and splashing onto the floor while they ushered in the next, bigger target.
Yeah, I knew what Kyle was talking about. From my first experience with Tommy, to the hell that was playing out behind my eyelids, I knew all about things like The Pit, even if his experience hadn’t been my own.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Shit, I wish he’d never brought me out here. I wish we’d never gone to that fucking baby lab. Then I could just live in the fantasy that Lakey and I had just been two kids, abused by the foster system. But now, I can piece together the timelines that had been black holes. Times when we were taken from our beds in the dark of night and thrust back into those rooms, side by side.
My hand clenched painfully around the barrel and just as I was about to unleash a guttural scream, I saw it. A flash of movement in the distance, the graceful silhouette of a deer against the trees.
"There," I whispered, all thoughts of the past vanishing in an instant. "Two o'clock."
Kyle froze, his eyes locking onto our target. In that moment, nothing else existed but the hunt. The thrill of the chase, the simplicity of predator and prey. It was a savage kind of peace, and I embraced it wholeheartedly.
As we crept forward, I felt a grin spread across my face. This, right here, was all that mattered. The past could go fuck itself. For now, I was alive, and I was hunting.