Chapter 90
Ididn’t need to bother being quiet. The sound of the chopper was so loud it rattled the walls.
Milo was giving me a constant stream of updates through the earpiece, so I knew by the time I’d made it up the stairs and to the den that I would only have a few seconds to take out two men as well as Sebastian.
The roof wasn’t large enough for the chopper to land properly, so I wouldn’t have to worry about the pilot.
That prediction was proven to be true as Milo informed me that all three men had rappelled down onto the roof, and the sound of the chopper blades immediately began to fade away.
Slipping into the dark den and using one of the tall, wing-backed reading chairs as cover, I waited for the men to break through the skylight.
I didn’t need to wait long.
There was a smash, then two ropes dropped through the opening, followed by two dark shapes that were already sighting down their AKs before they hit the ground.
I snapped my MP5 back to my side, opting for the handguns at such short range, and I used my brief advantage of surprise to duck out from behind my chair and fire into the two men.
I hit one in the chest and the other in the shoulder, but they didn’t go down. I was forced to duck and roll as they returned fire, bullets shredding straight through the armchair and burying into the wall.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Jay! One of those guys survived the explosion. He’s injured, but he’s coming into the house!” Milo cried into my earpiece, but I didn’t have time to respond as I rushed toward the two men who were in the middle of trying to kill me.
But… they weren’t trying to kill me, I realized, as they both hesitated to flat-out shoot me as I approached.
Using their hesitation to my advantage, I unloaded a clip into them, smirking in satisfaction as they both went down this time.
I wasn’t sure if they would die, as they were both wearing vests, but I didn’t plan on leaving it up to chance.
Quickly, I kicked off one of their helmets and shot the man point-blank in the forehead, ignoring the spray of gore that exploded across my face as I pivoted to repeat the assault on the next guy.
“Jay! Behind you!” I’d barely managed to kick off the second guy’s tactical helmet before my body jerked with the force of a bullet hitting the back of my vest.
I was familiar with the sensation, as I’d been shot multiple times in the memories Dr. Grey had stitched into my head. The bone-crushing pain of a bullet flattening itself into my Kevlar vest immediately winded me. I swore as the breath rushed out of my lungs and my knees hit the hardwood floors.
Strong hands grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me further down as I struggled to breathe past the vacuum in my chest.
I still couldn’t manage to inhale when the man behind me cinched what felt like police grade cuffs around my wrists, before booting me so hard in the ribs I felt my bile rise up the back of my throat.
Shit. Fuck!
Unable to even gather enough air in my lungs to freaking puke, I flinched away from the third shadow that slowly descended upon me from the skylight.
“We’ve got him, sir,” the man who had managed to restrain me said.
Luke’s voice crackled over the speaker of a walkie-talkie.
“And the boy?”
“No sight of him yet. Most of the team is gone. Once you get here, I’ll do a sweep of the house.”
“And my son?”
“He’s here, sir.”
“Leave him with my son and go find the boy now. I’ll be in shortly.”
“Let me disarm him first,” the man said, and I grunted in annoyance at the fact that Luke had hired people professional enough to know it was probably a bad idea to leave me strapped to the tits with weapons.
The goon was thorough, and he even managed to find all the tiny throwing blades in my harness. The only thing he missed was the garotte, which wasn’t going to be much help to me with my hands bound behind my back.
Finally, once he was satisfied he’d rendered me completely defenseless, I heard glass crunch under the man’s boots as he left the room. I immediately rolled onto my knees, doing my best to get up, just to get hit so hard in the face that my mask went flying.
I crumbled to the ground again, coughing and spitting up blood as I rolled onto my back with a groan.
The shadow of the third man crouched over me, his head blocking the shine of the moon as it tried to spill in from the hole in the ceiling.
“Jay,” the man spoke, and I winced as I realized I recognized that voice, if not the face of the man it was attached to.
Seb’s thick, golden hair was gone. It had all been shaved off, and he had several barely healed surgical scars snaking over his skull. Even in the dark, the sutured gashes were clearly puckered and red.
One of his eyes was milky white, and the other’s pupil was so small that I wondered how he could even see properly in the dark like this.
Jesus fucking Christ. What did they do to you, Sebastian?
My eyes darted over him, taking in the tactical gear he was wearing and the comfortable way he was resting an assault rifle against his shoulder as he crouched over me.
“Seb?” I croaked, refusing to believe that the boy I used to catch frogs with had been turned into this… this science experiment.
His one working eye shuttered briefly at the sound of his name.
He frowned for a moment, but then whatever was left of him seemed to melt away, and there was only Luke’s monster smiling back.
“Not any more,” the thing crooned, tracing a cold finger down my cheek, causing me to jerk away in disgust. The monster laughed softly, and its voice turned to something that sounded inappropriately chipper.
“Sebastian is dead,” he sang, and all the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. “You can call me Patient 003.”