44. Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Four
Choosing violence
Eden
C lattering can be heard from the lab next to mine, which makes me bang on the cabinet and yell again. There is a high-pitched screech back…and another. I realize I’m hearing them because there is a fume hood attached to an airflow system that must connect to the other lab. I lean closer to where the hood is, trying again. There is more than one person indistinctly yelling things. The pounding across the hall starts again. How many people are here?
Harrison’s voice comes over the speaker. “Would you like to see each other?”
This is a game to him. He’s playing with us because he can.
It’s been dark, with just one bulb lighting the vast lab, but suddenly it lights up completely. I have to blink to adjust to the glaring brightness. I turn to see Waverly and Zinnea huddled together, bound to a bar secured to the wall in the lab next door. I swivel to see where the continued banging is coming from. It’s Hutton. He has a gash on his cheek, a bruise covering the side of his head, and his knuckles are bloody.
Does he have all of us? Me, Hutton, and the kids? Or the whole family?
The thick glass doors and windows don’t allow us to hear what we’re yelling to one another, but it doesn’t stop us. Tears of frustration fall.
Then Hutton and I are forced to watch Steve walk into the lab where the girls are, releasing them from the bar and binding them more tightly before leading them roughly out of the lab. I lose my mind, screaming and kicking the cabinet, when he’s rough with them, half dragging them out of sight. The look on Hutton’s face is downright murderous.
Good…we’re on the same page. We’re not going to lie down defeated. Harrison is likely to hear us, but I don’t care. I scream at the top of my lungs, “Whatever he wants, don’t give it to him! I mean it, Hutton. If he says he’ll kill me, don’t give in! Don’t give in!”
He can’t hear what I’m saying. We both continue to yell until Steve is back, standing between the two labs while loading a clip in a handgun. He’s eerily calm and expressionless, reminiscent of when I met Hutton at the center. Devoid of human emotion.
We’re going to die here. Maybe that’s all he wanted from the beginning-not to use us but effectively end us.
He props the lab door open, then moves to do the same to the lab Hutton is in. He positions himself back between both of them. We stop trying to yell to one another, focusing on our captor.
“Are you wondering what you’re doing here?” His tone is flat, his eyes dead. “We’ve never stopped watching you, tracking you. Did you think we’d invest millions of dollars in both of you, then let you walk off into the sunset? No. You belong to us.”
I’m shaking with rage. We’ve been under surveillance…We’ve never been free. Hutton shouts, “Who is this ‘us’ you’re talking about? The Realists disbanded into pockets of losers!”
Harrison looks at him, unbothered. “The Realists? No. The only purpose they ever served was to draw attention away from the work we were doing. If the public focused on their beliefs, we could remain a secret.”
“You’re demented!” I yell.
He shrugs. “It may look that way to you, but we’ve always seen the big picture. We were developing a human race capable of withstanding disease, the elements, psychological warfare…that we could control. But it never ended with Camp Carroll. Halcyon’s scope has the potential to change all the things wrong with the world.”
Hutton responds, “A crooked government gave you a limitless budget to torture children, but you can’t see that because of your subpar intellect. Because you swallowed their rhetoric. Because you’re a puppet.”
I see a crack in the mask Steve is wearing, his jaw twitching. Hutton is going to get him so angry he lashes out.
If I can keep him talking, I hope an idea about how to escape will come to me. “What do you get out of these…these ideas?”
He steps closer to the lab I’m in. “I’ve dedicated my life to finding solutions. In fact, I joined the FBI in counterterrorism as an intelligence operative. I’m their original boy-wonder hacker…long before X was ever dreamed up.”
He’s jealous? Is this all about Hutton’s abilities…they were grooming?
Hutton starts laughing. “You really are insane, aren’t you?” I watch Hutton’s face contort in distaste. “The FBI tapped me because I can run circles around anyone they already had. You’re angry I made you obsolete.”
Steve’s face reddens, the tendons in his neck protruding as he spits, “You were paid millions to take code I’d started and bastardize it. That was mine. The money should’ve been mine. But no, this is bigger than a science experiment stealing my money. This is about how valuable your blood is to our continued work. We can cage you and your offspring to farm your biological materials. It could be the end of disease as we know it.”
Chills run up my back. Farm? Cages? The worst part of this is he’s not speaking about just himself. There is a whole shadow division of a government entity dedicated to these Machiavellian schemes. My heart feels twisted inside me thinking about what Weston may be going through.
“Why now?” I manage to ask in a seething tone.
He’s been watching and actively pretending to be a friend for years. What’s changed now?
My questions don’t stop, even though I don’t bother asking this maniac a single one. Why kill Dr. Wallen? Or any of the others in copycat killings? Why kidnap the children? Why play games or threaten? Why, why, why…
Harrison moves into the lab, keeping his distance. “You are a beautiful little thing, aren’t you?”
I couldn’t feel more repulsed. “If you try to touch me, I’ll tear your dick off.” Hutton is trying to free himself to get to me.
The laugh Harrison lets loose is nightmarish. He smiles at me. “I should sample the goods. See why you’ve been able to keep five men in your bed. Must be damn good, huh?”
“I’d rather slide down a razor blade into a pool of vinegar,” I say before spitting at him.
Hutton yells, “I’ll kill you slowly. I’ll make your death so painfully slow if you lay a single finger on Eden!”
Standing tall, Harrison turns around to leave. Stopping to lean on the door frame, he says, “Why now? What better time? The seven-year anniversary of Camp Carroll, just in time to save Halcyon.”
Harrison removes the gun he’d tucked into the waistband of his pants. “But I don’t need both of you. One will suffice.”
I’m not going to beg him to spare my life. I won’t do it. If I start to plead for him to leave Hutton alone, he’ll kill him just to get me in line. My experience with psychopaths makes me keep my mouth shut.
Hutton and I share a look. I mouth “I love you”, and he mouths “forever”. We’re on the same page about not asking Harrison to spare us. He’ll do what he wants, anyway.
In a bored-sounding voice, Hutton says, “It’s sad you think DTMY had any input from you. You can’t string a coherent code together if you tried. You bluffed your way into the FBI to begin with. It’s sad tha-”
Harrison barrels toward Hutton in anger, cutting him off by shoving him back with one hand on his throat.
Getting him close like he’d wanted, Hutton goes for the gun. Still handcuffed to the cabinet, he fights Harrison. I have limited sight of their brawl. Then the gun goes off.
One shot, a groan…
“Hutton? Hutton!” I start to fight against the cuff and cabinet again.
As Harrison rises, wiping a trickle of blood from his mouth where Hutton hit him, he gives me a self-satisfied smirk. “I’ve wanted to do that for years.”
“Noooo! Noooo, noooo! Hutton?!” Sobs wrack my body as I continue to pour every bit of strength, I have into freeing my arm from its shackle. In my flailing, I feel a shooting pain in my hand. I’ve pulled so much; I’ve broken a bone. I bite down on my tongue as I use my other hand to squeeze it. I manage to slide the cuff off, not grabbing it before it hits the cabinet.
Harrison looks right at me. Freed from the handcuff, I scramble up. I lunge at him with unleashed rage, furious he's taken so many people from me. He’s not fast enough in calculating my speed. I come at him full force, knocking him to the floor inside the lab Hutton is lying in. Harrison doesn’t have the gun on him.
His reaction isn’t immediate, but once I’m clobbering him, he grabs me by the back of my neck to get me off him. Remembering the self-defense classes with Matt, I go for his eyes. The loud grunt of pain makes me work harder. He’s done. I’m ending him.
There’s a screwdriver on the floor lying halfway under a rolling cart. I just need to grab it…
Harrison is twice my size; he just needs to unseat me from him, and I won’t make it out of this. Risking the consequences if I can’t do it fast enough, I rear my knee back and drive it into his groin. A huff of air leaves him. “You fucking cunt…”
I’m able to grab the screwdriver while reaching back. The trail of blood from where Hutton is lying, looking lifeless, spurs me on. I drive the tool with all my strength into Harrison's chest, hopefully right into this sorry excuse of a man’s heart. “I want you to die. Die, you fucker, die…” My words are marred by tears. “Go back to Hell…die…”
He stops moving, his eyes wide open and blood spilling from his mouth. I clamber away from him to Hutton’s side, still clutching the screwdriver. “H-Hutton?” Laying the screwdriver beside me to keep it close by, my hands scour his body, looking for the source of his bleeding. I can’t find the bullet hole, so I roll him from his side onto his back. Hugging him, I bawl. “Baby?”
His eyes flutter. “Hutton?” My hoarse whisper is spoken against his cheek as I kiss him. “Baby?”
His beautiful, otherworldly green eyes open. “Get the girls and get out. Please, please…run, Eden.”
I shake my head. “I’m not leaving you. Harrison is dead. I killed him.” Oh, my fuck…I killed someone. I’m a murderer now. I-
Don’t crash out, keep it together. “I’ll help you up. We’re getting out of here. Together.”
I can’t help him get up, no matter how much I try. Hutton is solid muscle and almost seven feet tall; I’m not moving him alone. “Can you get up? I’m not leaving you behind.”
“We’re not alone. He has a whole group of people working with him. Get the girls…go.”
Think. I have to think. We’re not alone?
“I can’t leave you,” I whimper. “I can’t leave you behind.” From the stairwell, I hear noise drawing closer. The panic starts taking over, the pain from my hand excruciating. I can’t think…let me think.
“Where…Where were you shot? Can you stand?”
Hutton grabs my hand, and I try not to wince from the pain. “I love you. Remember how to get to that place I showed you? You need to go before the rest of them come looking for him. Go. Please.”
“Then you’ll meet us there?” I nod to myself. “Then you’ll come?” Grabbing the screwdriver once more, I work to undo where he’s attached to the cabinet with my good hand, breaking the handle more than Hutton had and letting the cuff fall loose.
“Run. Go, Eden. Now.”
I kiss his cheek while placing the screwdriver in his hand.
Gasping for breath, I run down the hall, looking in each lab room until I see our girls inside the last one. I pull the door open, sprinting to them.
Run.
A mantra pounds in my head as I clutch both the girls’ hands, whispering, “We need to be fast, okay? Can you both run?” Looking over them quickly, registering their tear-stained faces, scratches, and bruises, I fight off the urge I have to meltdown even further. My babies…They hurt my babies.
“M-Mommy, you’re bleeding.” Waverly’s voice is choked as her small hand touches my leg.
No. No. I’m not going backwards. Run, Eden run. Get them out of here. “Waves.” I kneel in front of her, kissing her cheek. “I’m okay. We’re getting out of here. As fast as we can.” Nodding to her, I try reassuring both of us. I pull Zinnea close, hugging her to me. “Do you both understand?”
It takes me minutes to orient myself in the building. We take the staircase close by. At the bottom, a rusty, unmarked leads to the tunnels. I’ve been in the tunnels on the property twice: once when Hutton wanted to show me an emergency hatch that releases close to the lake, and once when I came on my own looking for a missing patient. Neither one was at night, terrified of being located.
Run. Go . I need to get them out of here.