Chapter Three
Another thermal pushed me back high and I rode it most of the way to the city, following the meandering river far below. That no helicopter chased me down didn’t surprise me. Even if Adam had sprinted uphill all the way back to his home to get to his chopper, he’d never have caught me.
Flying—gliding—covered a whole lot of ground in a short time.
Aged buildings appeared beneath me as I made use of my newly acquired steering skills by tipping one wing lower than the other. I pulled both wings back as I descended between an aged apartment building and a squat warehouse.
But although I slowed dramatically as I braced for landing, my bare feet took the brunt of the unyielding asphalt before I tumbled, then lay unmoving for a moment as alarm turned into exhilaration.
I’d made it! I was free!
No more worrying about giving into Adam before he broke my heart and my trust, no more being locked away like some prized possession and being unable to make my own decisions and mistakes, then learning by them.
I could do what I wanted when I wanted. The thought was dizzying!
I sat up, my wings tucking close to my spine as I looked left, then right, my adrenaline and feel good vibes diminishing at the gloomy, desolate atmosphere seeping into my pores. The squalor was obvious even in the darkness that was barely held back by a couple of feeble streetlights.
It didn’t stop my grin. Adam wouldn’t look for me here. He’d expect me to find a richer, cleaner area. Somewhere I’d be more likely to get help. Somewhere I’d feel right at home.
I’d gotten used to living in luxury, even if the tower had been a gilded cage.
I’d gone from the sterile living conditions in the lab where I’d been artificially conceived and raised, to quickly becoming used to Adam’s extravagant lifestyle.
One year and I’d turned into a princess.
Not anymore.
I had a feeling my life would not be easy from this point on and I’d be earning every bit of my freedom. And yet, suddenly this grungy world was welcoming, liberating!
It didn’t stop me from wincing as I pushed to my feet. Now that adrenaline had worn off I was feeling every strain, every ache and hurt. My ankle throbbed and radiated heat, and I couldn’t help but wonder if infection was setting in.
Worth it.
I peered down at my ankle but it was too dark to make out my self-inflicted burn and I was too weary to use echolocation to check.
I had more important things to worry about, like finding clothes to make me blend into the crowd.
Being half-naked certainly wouldn’t do that, especially with my wings pressed against my back for anyone to see.
That I’d never see Adam again was a niggling disquiet I couldn’t quite dismiss.
He’d been my captor! I’d been nothing more to him than his exorbitantly priced asset.
I had no doubt that tomorrow he would have seduced me and that I would have been powerless to stop him with my entire body already vibrating with awareness around him.
Sucking in a steadying breath, I set off, sticking to the shadows as I limped past decrepit buildings and dark alleyways. I rubbed my hands up and down my bared arms. It was getting chilly.
A tread sounded somewhere behind me and I resisted spinning around to instead glance discreetly behind me. My heart picked up pace at the handful of menacing shadows that materialized into five men.
Another three appeared in the darkness ahead, their faces mostly hidden by shadows, their bodies lean and as savage as their auras.
I stilled, my adrenaline surging. I opened my mouth and sent out a silent ping to reveal the men surrounding me. My echolocation was weak, I wanted to save my energy for when I needed it most. That there were actually seven men behind me and five in front sent a chill down my spine.
Their menace intermingled with a carnal energy that made my stomach turn.
“What’s this little beauty doing in our neck of the woods?”
The low-growling male voice followed by a ripple of laughter from the other men raised the hairs on my arms even as more chills slipped down my spine. I hadn’t been raised to defend myself, the scientists had done everything possible to keep me compliant.
I swallowed past my dry throat. Thankfully, those same scientists had never been privy to my echolocation ability, which I’d practiced in my rare moments of privacy. Now I just needed to summon the energy and skill to make use of it.
I opened my mouth and silently screamed.
It was the top of my range, so enhanced I’d never used it before.
I had to concentrate to steer each wave to the individual men.
I’d never trained at that level, it had been impossible while constrained in the lab and then the tower.
It meant my targets stayed limited to half-a-dozen hits while the rest of my soundwaves staggered wide.
Six of the men flew backward with startled yelps and grunts before they hit the brick wall of a building behind them, then slumped and slid quietly to the ground where they stayed motionless.
Something between wonder and exhilaration hit me in the solar plexus. I’d done it—half done it! But I didn’t have time to contemplate my success along with my failure, not when the six remaining men ran toward me with taunting cries.
I’d seriously hurt and maybe even killed their friends. They’d make sure I’d pay for it.
I had no choice but to turn down an alleyway that was darker than midnight. I sprinted for my life, my bare feet slapping the concrete while the heavy boots of the men behind me thumped closer and closer.
A weak lightbulb flickered above a doorway ahead, and I strained every muscle I had to reach it. I was almost there when one of the men grabbed my hair and jerked me back. I shrieked as I twisted around to face him, kicking his groin as hard as possible to incapacitate him.
He grunted, releasing me to drop onto his knees. But I was unbalanced and fell hard on my back, the breath whooshing from my lungs as the other men rushed to restrain me.
Their sour, cheap wine breaths assailed me, making me gag. One of the men flashed rotten teeth behind his thick beard when he said, “I don’t know what you did back there girl, but you’re going to pay for it.”
I struggled, but as one man took hold of my arms and kept me on the ground, another gripped my lower legs, chafing my ankle’s blistered and scalded skin.
My scream didn’t make it past my thick throat as the world dimmed around me.
I only wished I could lose consciousness.
At least then I wouldn’t feel or recall anything.
“We’re going to have a lot of fun with you, little girl,” the bearded man said hoarsely, the fabric of his pants rustling as he shoved them down.
I whimpered at seeing his exposed shaft that was as large and as filthy as the rest of him.
I was only distantly aware then of the door in the alleyway opening and shutting with a clunk, before a harsh voice asked, “What the fuck is going on?”
The grip on my arms and legs weakened and I emitted another whimper at the sudden release of pressure, at the lessening of white-hot pain.
The bearded man glowered. “We found this one, Chief. She’s ours.”
I didn’t need to see the man they called Chief to feel his waves of hostility. “Get off her before I break your worthless neck.”
For one breathless second, disobedience poured out of the men. Then the bearded man freed me and stood, jerking his pants back up before repositioning his junk with a pained grunt.
My chest rose and fell sharply as I stared at my savior who strolled toward me. Aside from his short, silver-white hair, he was almost invisible in his long black jacket, long black boots and a dark shirt. That he looked impeccable and out-of-place in this area was all too easy to distinguish.
“Leave, now,” he commanded the men.
The bearded man bristled. “Chief, she’s dangerous—“
“Are you deaf?” Chief growled. “Go!”
The men ran off, their footsteps fading even as Chief crouched low and peered intently at me with his light blue, almost silver stare.
“You must be frozen.” He took off his jacket and I fumbled to push my arms through its sleeves before he saw my wings.
Thank goodness his vision wasn’t as enhanced as mine.
He cocked his head to one side and asked gruffly, “What is your name?”
I swallowed hard. Should I tell him I didn’t really have a name?
Only Adam had bothered giving me one after I’d lived with a letter and two numbers for most of my life.
Q27. As bad, if not worse than being called a GM—genetically modified.
The letters and numbers had been meant to keep me nameless, soulless, something not someone.
Not anymore.
I cleared my throat even as I breathed in the comforting, smoky amber scent on his jacket. “Bella.”
“Bella, it suits you. They call me Chief here, but you can call me by my real name, Reuben.”
“Thank you, Reuben, for saving me.”
His smile was white, his eyes glinting brighter as they flared wide. “You’re welcome, and I’m sorry that you got to see the worst of humanity. Not everyone who lives around here is a parasite.”
My stomach crunched. If he hadn’t intervened I would have experienced firsthand the uglier side of humanity. “I-I’m glad to hear it.”
He straightened, but he didn’t leave. Not right away. “Can I escort you home?”
I bit back a laugh that verged too close to hysteria. “I don’t have a home,” I admitted in a small voice.
He stared down at me. “You’re homeless,” he murmured. “That explains a lot.”
I wasn’t completely na?ve, I’d learned a lot in my short life despite the fact I’d lived inside four walls as a prisoner...an experiment. It still didn’t make me street wise. “It does?”
He nodded. “No sane woman would be outside alone, not even in daylight in this area, but especially not when it’s dark.” He pushed a hand over his face, his outside light giving enough illumination to showcase his indecision. “Do you have friends or family, somewhere I can take you?”
My chest tightened, the pain I’d locked in a vault inside my head rattling as though its door was about to pop open and flood me with emotions and memories I couldn’t face. My throat contracted, making my voice sound strangled. “I have no family and any friends I had are dead.”
I snapped my mouth shut. Why was I telling this man—this stranger—so much? Unlike Adam who’d had to all but pry the truth out of me, I was prattling off random facts to Reuben like there was no tomorrow and I had nothing left to lose.
I pushed to my feet, wincing as I put weight on my throbbing, inflamed ankle. “Thank you for everything you’ve done. You’re right, not all humans are parasites...or monsters. But I’m not looking for—“ I searched my brain for the word I’d learned on my daily one-hour screen time. “—charity.”
“Then what exactly are you looking for, Bella?” he asked, his rough voice gentling as he said my name.
I bit my bottom lip, hating that I wanted only Adam to call me Bella. But while Adam had shown me his shadier side, Reuben had shown me nothing but transparency.
That might change, a little voice whispered. You’ve experienced firsthand the darkness that can hide behind kindness.
Reuben tilted is head to the side. “Whatever else you might think about me, I’m not going to hurt you.”
Even after everything I’d been through, I had confidence in him. I managed a smile. “I believe you,” I said softly. I put a hand on his forearm, his bicep bunching under my fingers, raw power fairly bristling from him. “Thank you, Reuben, for everything.”
I felt his eyes on me as I dropped my arm and stepped past him, back into the depths of darkness that was the alleyway at nighttime. I made it three steps before the thumping roar of an approaching helicopter made me freeze in my tracks.
No. No, no, no! Adam couldn’t have found me this soon...this easily.
The helicopter’s searchlight lit up the street where I’d left six men for dead. I swallowed forcibly. I had no doubt Adam had seen the carnage, suspected I was behind it.
I took a backward step as the searchlight traveled up the street ahead, then backtracked and began moving up the dank alley where I’d convinced myself I’d stay hidden.
Reuben had to shout above the thunderous rotor blades. “They’re looking for you, aren’t they?”
I turned. Though he was somewhere between the light of his door and the shadowy alleyway, my superior vision noted him reassessing everything about me. I nodded. There was no need for words. For shouting.
He didn’t ask questions. He held out his hand, giving me the choice. I could stay and face recapture or trust Reuben and hope he was the lesser of two evils. I hesitated, my instincts telling me to run—from both men—while my sore, aching body begged to accept Reuben’s help.
Despite my enhanced healing and a stamina that rivalled an athlete’s, I was on the brink of exhaustion. The last few hours had been harrowing to say the least and all I wanted was to have a hot shower, something to eat, and a bed to sleep in.
Adam would give you that and more.
I glanced back at the searchlight closing in on me, my heart in my throat.
It was the more that worried me most. I couldn’t subject myself to a man who not only supported experiments on subjects like me, but who funded them too.
A man who’d not only waited for me to become an adult to become intimate, but who’d now no doubt want to teach me a lesson thanks to me escaping from him.
I might have been labelled a monster by the scientists who’d done everything to break me, but I’d learned it was humans who were the true villains.
Turning my back on the searchlight, on Adam, I accepted Reuben’s hand.
It was nice to be given a choice. He nodded, then drew me back toward his building.
Pushing open its door, he pulled me inside, the door slamming shut behind us and muffling the chaos outside with a brutal finality that made my stomach clench.
Time would tell if I'd handed my life to my greatest ally, or gift-wrapped it for my nemesis.