Chapter Fourteen
Tears filmed my eyes, blurring the dark room even more.
I’d been stupid, crazy to lie about Reuben and pretend I’d slept with him.
But I’d been so caught up in the moment that my need to wound Adam, to make him feel less, even a fraction of how I—all of my kind—had felt at the facility, had blinded me.
The muscles in his forearms bunched as he moved suddenly, withdrawing from me before rolling off the bed and standing.
I gasped, less with pain and more with shock. “What are you doing?”
“You deceived me,” he grated, staring down at me. “You made me believe you’d been with another man, that you were experienced.” His eyes burned, and he took a step back. “Why, Bella?”
I narrowed my eyes, pushing down guilt. “I thought you’d be happy.”
His lips tightened, as though the truth hurt him as much as my lie had.
“If you’d been honest I would have been gentler, would have prepared you more.
” He pushed a hand over his face, and despite my discomfort and pain, a part of me was bereft that his body was no longer a part of mine.
When he looked at me again, his eyes had gone distant.
Clinical. Like I was just his subject again, his experiment.
My breath came out like I’d been sucker-punched in the stomach. “So—what? You’re just going to leave me like this?” Unfulfilled. Empty. Abandoned. My eyes were drawn like a magnet to his cock. I gulped. Impressive. Little wonder I’d felt torn in two. “Aren’t you going to finish what you started?”
His jaw tightened. “I hurt you. That wasn’t what I wanted.” His voice stayed quiet, but his eyes grew hard. “As if it wasn’t bad enough I had to watch you go through—”
“Don’t pretend you ever cared,” I interjected bitterly.
He shook his head, as if clearing it. “I know you blame me for your time at the facility, and I get that, I really do. But I’ve always cared about you, and I never once lied to you, Bella.”
His words stung. “I didn’t have a choice,” I gritted through my teeth. “I had to lie to you just so that I could be free.”
His eyes darkened. “You manipulated me, Bella.” His hands fisted. “You took advantage of my affection when you poured boiling water over your leg so I’d take off your ankle cuff.”
I ignored the guilt slicing through me just as I ignored the throbbing ache between my thighs as I sat up, my voice shaky. “I was desperate,” I gritted out, “ready to do whatever was necessary to escape from you.”
He took a step back toward me, his eyes blazing with need despite his words.
Briing. Briing.
He paused, then glanced toward the bedside table drawer where his cellphone chimed. My hands fisted. He probably had one in every room, somewhere his many minions could keep in touch.
He stalked away from me, then grabbed his phone and growled, “This had better be important.” His shoulders stiffened, his shock palpable as he barked, “How many?” He inhaled sharply. “He can’t have gotten far.” He pushed a hand over his face. “I’m leaving now.”
He disconnected and drew in a slow, steadying breath, as though reinforcing his emotions, his business persona sliding back into place.
Sourness filled my stomach as I asked, “Someone escaped from the facility, didn’t they?” At his tight, almost reluctant nod, I pressed, “Who?”
“It’s no one you know. It’s another part of the facility.” He began getting dressed, grimacing as he tucked himself into his pants.
I narrowed my eyes. “Just how many parts of the facility are there?” I’d only known my own kind, the bat family, but I’d learned there were more. I shook my head. “How many other kinds of people like me have your scientists created?”
He froze, as though shamed by my accusation. Then he released a heavy breath and said, “You don’t want to know.”
I jumped up and gripped his arm, careless of my nudity. “At least tell me which kind escaped.”
He held my stare, focusing above my neck when he said quietly, “Eagle. He has eagle DNA.”
When he pulled away from my grasp and headed toward the door, I took one hesitant step toward him, then called out, “What’s his name?”
He stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Adler.”
My throat dried. Hearing his name made everything more personal somehow, with more at stake. “Please, let Adler go.”
He stiffened. “You know I can’t do that.”
Then, turning to the balcony window, he said out loud, “Shutters down.”
As steel shutters slammed down over all the windows, it was as if those same shutters had closed down over my heart.
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” he said.
I crossed my arms. That was the last thing I wanted. But at least I knew now the windows weren’t bulletproof. The steel shutters were the only thing keeping me locked inside his penthouse.
Adam pushed a complex code of letters and numbers into a keypad before the elevator doors swished opened. He stepped inside, then turned and faced me. Though his eyes settled on me briefly, he didn’t appear to really see me. He was already somewhere else.
A second later, the doors swished closed, and I made out the elevator’s quiet descent. Then nothing.
Son of a bitch.
To think I’d imagined Adam had cared about me, had wanted me! My wings swished out, then snapped up and down. I needed to get out of here, needed to leave while Adam was distracted, while his men were distracted.
I focused, allowing my echolocation to ping the area, to find any weak points. I glowered. There were none. The penthouse was airtight. Nothing could leave without his say so.
I bit my bottom lip. But what if the system imagined I was Adam?
I was smart and resourceful, I’d had to be just to survive.
My superior bat DNA—and it was superior, despite what the scientists had said in their jeering voices—gave me auditory advantages.
I could perfectly recall and reproduce sound frequencies.
My vocal cords were enhanced too. I had amazing control over the sounds I made. That I’d heard Adam give commands many times meant I should have the ability to replicate him almost exactly. His voice was catalogued in my brain, in my dreams, the exact pitch, tone and rhythm.
I stopped pacing and cleared my throat, then swung to face the barricaded balcony doors. I closed my eyes, Adam’s voice replaying in my head. “Shutters up.”
I opened my eyes, staring at the shutters that hadn’t moved. What the fuck? I knew his voice! I’d managed to mimic it exactly. I turned around, to where he’d been standing when he’d given the command.
Had his position been the key?
I stalked forward, stopping where he’d been standing. Then focusing on my voice, I commanded again, “Shutters up.”
I gaped when they rolled up with a small click-clack-click until they disappeared into a niche above the balcony walls.
Adrenaline poured through me, my entire body tingling.
I was tempted to dance, to celebrate my victory, but time was precious and the distraction of the other escapee from the facility wouldn’t last forever.
Retying my hair up into a bun, I pulled on my panties and the jeans that Adam had dragged off me. My throat dried, but I refused to think about the pleasure he’d given me...or the pain.
I managed to put on the bra and manipulate its straps beneath the base of my wings, then pushing my feet back into my boots, I stalked into Adam’s walk-in closet and grabbed one of his large, black dress shirts.
It’d be easier to carry than the T-shirt and leather jacket I’d worn here, and its color would help conceal the shape of my wings beneath.
Crushing the fabric to my face, I inhaled his unique spiced scent with the faintest hint of lime.
I jerked my head back with a curse and bunched the shirt in one hand, then ran toward the balcony.
I pushed on the door, but the handle didn’t move.
Of course it didn’t. I’d already guessed the balcony door would be locked.
There was only one thing for it.
I stepped back, then opened my mouth in a silent scream, my echolocation at the highest intensity I could manage. Though Adam had used steel shutters to keep me inside, the glass might still be reinforced.
A crack fissured across the glass, then another one. When the entire balcony pane cascaded to the floor, an alarm immediately blaring, I couldn’t help but smile a little before I flicked a finger up at the camera high on the wall opposite, its red light flashing.
My boots crunching on the glass, I stretched my wings out either side of me as I exited the penthouse and stalked across the balcony. Daylight was fading, the sun halfway down the horizon. Even with the blaring alarm I paused, blinking as I took in the vista spread out below.
Steel and glass buildings rose into the air in all directions around me. Further out, houses ceded to farmland and eventually mountains that were covered in trees. I narrowed my eyes. Somewhere out there Adam’s house was nestled amongst the trees, hidden in plain sight.
His home that’d been my prison for a year.
I climbed the balcony’s railing, Adam’s shirt tucked under one arm as my outspread wings fluttered in the breeze, pulling free strands of my upswept hair.
I swallowed back sudden fear at how high up I was.
Adam’s penthouse was on top of one of the tallest apartment buildings.
It would easily be over a hundred meters tall.
I drew in a steadying breath. I mightn’t know yet how to fly, but I could glide to where I needed to go. My wings would keep me safe.
I looked away from the richer, modern part of the city and set my sights on the broken down, poorer parts, where I’d find Reuben. I paused for just a second as sudden doubt surged through me.
Can you really trust Reuben? You let yourself believe in Adam and look where that got you.
I jumped, my wings spreading out either side of me as I fell.
The initial drop stole my breath, my stomach lurching as gravity pulled me down, but then my wings caught the air currents and suddenly I wasn’t falling, I was gliding, buoyant and weightless.
The city spread out beneath me like a map as adrenaline poured through me, making me feel truly alive.
I glided past another balcony on the other side of Adam’s building, where I glimpsed a woman standing behind the railing in a floral dress and heels, a glass of wine tilted to her red-lipsticked mouth.
She froze as her eyes connected to mine.
I’d already gone past when I heard her shriek, her glass shattering.
I smirked. What’s wrong bitch? Never seen a winged freak before?
I dipped my left wing, then pulled away from the building. Despite my sadness, my grief at leaving Adam yet again, a laugh burst from my throat as I soared through the air.
How many humans, even those with their manmade apparatuses, could say they could fly, really fly?
I might be soaring more than flying, but I was still traveling through air to where I needed to go.
There was something liberating in that I was equipped to do what no other human could, at least, none who were ordinary human.
I glided lower as a cloud moved across the sun, instantly darkening the sky as the dingier parts of the city appeared directly beneath me. I resisted turning back the way I’d come. It was too late to change my mind now. Adam would never forgive me after escaping from him twice.
I snorted. He’d broken my trust over and over again. Each and every time one of my kind were subjected to a new experiment or a new drug, or worse, a new torture to see how far they could push us mentally and physically before we broke.
I drifted lower. When I didn't recognize anything familiar below me, I sent out a long, wide echolocation ping. The signals bounced back, mapping the streets and buildings until finally I detected the familiar shape of the alleyway, and Reuben’s crumbling building I’d been looking for.
I changed direction even as my breath caught. What if Reuben had decided to continue going to the place he’d planned to take me? What if he wasn’t even in the city anymore?
I scrunched Adam’s shirt tighter under my arm. It was too late to back out now. I’d rolled the dice. I just had to trust fate was on my side.
I scanned the area ahead, ensuring no one was around before I swooped low, my wings outstretched as I took a couple of carefully timed, running steps before I stopped, this time without having to roll to break my fall.
I smiled. Holy crap! I’d done it! Though this was only my second attempt, I was getting better at this flying—gliding—gig.
Perhaps next time I’d give flying a real crack and move my wings.
I glanced around, my keen eyesight picking out the exact same area where men had accosted me, and where I’d sent them flying against a wall. Smears of blood discolored the brickwork, dried bits of powdery mortar on the ground.
I shivered. I wasn’t a killer. I abhorred violence. But it’d been them or me, and I’d chosen me.
I looked away even as I tucked my wings behind my back. Then pulling on Adam’s long, button-up shirt, I stalked forward, taking the alley that went directly to Reuben’s building.