Chapter 44
“Your work is critical to our mission. Stay the course. On the brothel worker who was killed, get me her killer’s name and I’ll personally see to it that he ends up in a dumpster himself.” -- Decoded message from ILF handler Hiro Tanaka to ILF undercover operative Nightingale
Marcus
I didn’t think it through. What I saw and heard fucked with my head and I acted impulsively.
Niran wanted to kill me, even if he couldn’t go through with it. And Stella, one of my trusted friends, betrayed me.
She asked me before I left for Island Three what would happen if I didn’t return. I should’ve picked up on her eagerness to be in charge back then.
I knew Briar wouldn’t want to leave, but I thought Pax would jump at the chance to get on that sub and get the hell out of here unscathed. My anger blinded me back there, and I believed sacrificing myself for the people I love—Briar, Nova, and Ellison—was noble.
But instead of burying Ingrid and her army beneath tons of rock, I’m striding through camp, my expression overly neutral, like the clone’s always was.
I have to pull this off and somehow do it while I’m dying. My head feels like a bomb that could detonate any second. Sharp pains spike through it so hard it takes my breath away.
One of Ingrid’s soldiers stops and gives me a quick, perfunctory salute. “Do you know where Commander Voss is?”
“Uh ... I think she’s in the Hub.”
He drops his brows, looking suspicious. “Are you okay? You’re sweating really heavily.”
“Well, it is a tropical island.”
I keep walking. I need to puke again. Slipping into a shadow between two buildings, I bend and heave, nothing coming out.
This has to work. I keep moving, imagining a clearing in a meadow. Briar is there, and she’s smiling at me. We’re walking hand in hand, no one else in sight.
Except ... I add Flavius to my daydream. The massive black wolf who’s put his life on the line for me many times is lying in the grass, smelling a bright-yellow flower.
“Commander Wells, Commander Voss is looking for you,” a soldier says. “She’s in there.”
He points at the Sub, yanking me away from my happy place.
My head may actually explode. McClain said my brain swelled last time I used aromium, and the pain right now is so intense that I think the swelling is about to split my skull like a melon.
Just get through this first.
Ingrid’s out in the main area of the Sub, and I count five soldiers around her.
“Where have you been?” she barks at me. “And where’s your uniform? We need to get to the boat.”
“Can I talk to you alone?”
She flicks a dismissive glare at me. “Later. We need to get those kids back to Three so the team can study them. The older ones might be too powerful to control, so we’re going to eliminate them on the way and use their genetic material.
I want the younger ones kept alive. We need living tissue samples. ”
Shit. This isn’t going to be as clean as I’d hoped. I can’t let her leave the Sub. Too many people could witness me killing her.
“Lieutenant Commander Carver, do you have the list of supplies I want when you return?” she asks.
A short man with a thick beard pats his pants pocket. “Yes, Commander.”
She’s looking at something on a long table. I ease myself closer to her.
“Okay, let’s go. You’re snapping necks; I don’t want a bloody mess on my boat.” She peers at me over the rim of her glasses. “Have you been in the jungle? You look—”
The alarm registers in her eyes a split second before I grab the guard beside me, aromium making me superhumanly fast. I pull his gun from its holster and take out three of the other guards with a bullet to each of their heads. When I go for the fourth, the gun clicks uselessly.
“Marcus.” Ingrid pales, looking at the guard now running for the exit.
“Get back here!” she screams.
I break the neck of the guard I’m holding, then take off after the last one. He’s not very far up the ramp when I reach him, and I make his death as quick as I can by breaking his neck, too.
Ingrid can’t escape the Sub; there’s an escape tunnel, but it requires a code she can’t possibly know. I grab the dead soldier’s collar and drag his body behind me, a bolt of pain in my head temporarily blinding me.
My stomach won’t let me keep walking. I pause for a few dry heaves, pressing my body to the tunnel wall to protect myself from the gunshots I know are coming.
The heaving subsides, and I can see again. I pick up the guard, using his body as a shield for my chest.
“What’s your goal, Marcus?”
I scan the room, able to hear Ingrid but not see her. She’s hiding.
“You. Dead,” I rasp.
“I’m willing to forgive this. Join the winning side. You don’t even realize how powerful you are because of the compound inside you, but I do.”
“How did you beat me here?” I ask, trying to pinpoint where her voice is coming from.
“Don’t insult my intelligence. We intercepted the radio call from this island and I knew Tyrone was one of them. He’s the only one who could have removed your sub from our tracking system and programmed it to go elsewhere.”
I swallow back my nausea, my head swimming. “That had to burn, huh? Didn’t even know your second-in-command was working against you?”
“He regrets it now, I assure you. Tyrone will spend the rest of his life in our dungeon, dreaming of death. My men are skilled at bringing people right to the edge of it.”
A surge of power flares through me. Tyrone risked himself to help me, and now he’s being tortured for it.
My connection to my wolves and the countless organisms in the rocks buried deep in the island’s rocky foundation is wide open, their frustration at not being able to reach me making it hard to focus.
The entire Sub vibrates, my power testing its earthquake-proof construction.
“You’re extraordinary, Marcus,” Ingrid says. “You can live a life of power and luxury.”
There she is. Her voice is coming from the other side of a tall metal cabinet in the hallway.
“Yeah?” I keep my arm banded around the guard’s waist, pointing his gun in Ingrid’s direction as I walk there. “Sex slaves? Air conditioning? Control over innocent people’s lives?”
“If that’s what you want.”
She swings out of her spot, stepping in front of me. Her stance is perfect; she’d have a clean shot if I didn’t have this guard in front of me.
A clean shot wouldn’t be enough, though, because my aromium allows me to pull the trigger on the guard’s gun before she can pull hers.
The bullet lodges in her forehead, finally wiping that condescending sneer from her face.
She drops, her gun clattering to the floor.
“Fuck you, Ingrid.”
I let go of the guard, checking the gun to make sure I still have ammo. There’s enough.
Now that I’m safe and the job is done, my connection relaxes, allowing me to breathe easier.
I go over to the ramp, pain still spiking through my head. It’s bad, but I can walk.
There’s just one more thing I need to do, and then the people I love should be safe, at least for now.
I start up the ramp, gun ready for anyone who comes into the Sub. I’m almost halfway there when an agonizing shot of pain blinds me again, sending me to my knees.
“Two more minutes,” I beg.
Flavius howls, desperate to reach me. The Sub shakes again, my fear of dying before I get to the top making my emotions spiral.
I cry out, forcing myself back to my feet. I’ve never felt pain like this.
“Mom.” I take a single step. “If you can ... hear me, I miss you.” Another step.
“Wish you were here. Maybe not here exactly ... Still alive, though.” Two steps, the Sub shaking harder now.
“You’d love Briar. She ...” I take a deep breath in and out, putting a hand on the tunnel’s wall. “She reminds me of ... you.”
I think I’m still walking. I can’t feel my feet anymore.
“Help,” I plead with the universe. “Just get me there.” My head is on the verge of ripping apart, the pressure too intense. “That’s all. Just ... get me ...”
The door. I feel the Sub’s door. My hand goes to the keypad, punching in the code to open it.
I drop to my knees as the door rises, heaving up nothing again.
There should be guards standing there. I can’t see anything, so all I can do is hope.
“The air in here is poisoned.” I force a breath in and out. “Seal off the Sub. No one goes in. Commander Voss ... wants the kids released. All New America forces to return to Island Three.” I heave again. “She wants ... Tyrone Matheson sent here. As punishment. This whole island’s—”
My cheek strikes the ground and finally, the pain stops.