Chapter Three
The retina scanner was the final device
Veronica had to contend with—she hoped. Knowing her brother to be
the overly cautious type, for good reason as it turned out, made it
difficult to say with absolute certainty that her pre-mapped eye
signature would still be enough to enter Victor’s compound with.
She placed her right eye up against the scanner anyway.
The machine slid left and right, a whirring
sound accompanying the movement. “Access granted,” a
disembodied female voice announced. Veronica sighed in relief.
“So long as you can answer the following three questions
correctly.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Victor,” she muttered,
her voice hoarse. Had she possessed the energy to do so, she would
have rolled her eyes. “Go for it,” she instead croaked out to the
machine.
“What is your full, legal name?”
“Veronica Marie Banks.” Her goddamned throat
was dry and scratchy.
“Very good. Where on his body does Victor
have the tattoo you forced him to get?”
She found a small smile. She doubted her
straightlaced brother would have ever let anyone but her know about
the thing. “On the small of his back, just above his buttocks.” The
brother and sister duo didn’t have matching tattoos, but they both
had ones located on the same area of their bodies. Laser-based
tattoo parlors weren’t supposed to cater to an inebriated
clientele, but there it was.
“Excellent! Final question…”
“Yes?”
“On what part of your brother’s anatomy
did you kick him the last time you saw him?”
Veronica couldn’t stop her quiet chuckle,
though the small action was physically painful. Victor was a genius
indeed. Most people would have guessed she’d kicked him in his
balls, but that wasn’t the case. The poor guy had accidentally
snuck up on her from behind. She had innately thrown out a
roundhouse kick that landed square on his—
“Chin.”
“He still bears a scar there,” the
disembodied female voice chided as if understanding Veronica’s
snicker signified humor at Victor’s expense, “But you may enter,
Veronica Marie Banks.”
The door whooshed open. The cool air
conditioning against her hot skin felt glorious. She practically
moaned as she stepped inside the soundproof compound and the door
swished shut, locking behind her. “Victor!” she called out,
stumbling down the hall and ignoring her burning throat, for once
not having to worry about keeping her voice a soft hush. She made
it to the first room—the kitchen—and immediately went for the water
bottles. “Victor, where are you?” she rasped out. “I’m here in the
kitchen!”
She ignored the silence for a protracted
moment and concentrated on opening two water bottles. Her hands
were a bit shaky, but she managed it. The replenishing feel of the
cold liquid wetting her parched throat was ambrosia to the body.
She quickly gulped down two bottles worth, her throat semi-ablaze
from prolonged dehydration. She opened a third bottle and kept it
in her left hand while she threw open the refrigerator door with
her right. Quickly ascertaining that most of the food inside it had
expired, she grabbed a protein drink and chugged it down.
Thank you, Jesus. And thank you, Victor.
“Victor!” Where was he at? Likely working on
some new device or another. It’s all he did. “I’m here, bro!”
The prolonged silence at last bred
suspicion. Once she was properly hydrated, she began searching the
underground compound. She looked high and low, scoured the entire
fortress, but her brother was nowhere to be found. The longer she
explored, the bigger her sense of foreboding grew.
Veronica came to a stop. An uncomfortable
wariness knotted in her belly. If Victor wasn’t here, where the
hell was he? More importantly, was her brother still alive?
*****
Lachlan waited impatiently for Victor to be
brought to him. He realized ‘twould take some time as the dungeon
was cavernous and located on the other side of the keep. In the
meantime, he stared at the woman on what his captive had called a
screen. Even covered in dirt and sweat, the lass was a
beauty. Her long, golden curls and cat-like emerald eyes were
beguiling.
On another part of the screen, the AI
scanner showed him the exterior of Victor’s bizarre, underground
dwelling. The dead walked aboot in formation, taking to the ground
to sniff the verra door Veronica had entered through. One of the
laird’s black eyebrows shot up as the creatures began testing the
portal for weaknesses. A knot of apprehension curled in his gut.
‘Twas an ominous sign, this, and one Victor needed to see in haste.
Why had he locked him up? Even had this “scientist” proven himself
a liar, the mon was harmless. As a result ‘twas taking Ramsay and
Finn nigh unto forever to fetch him and—
Lachlan stilled as his dark gaze flicked
back to the woman. She was taking her clothes off. All of them. He
said a quick prayer for forgiveness as his cock hardened from
beneath his black and blue plaid. He knew he should grant her
privacy, yet he couldn’t summon the strength from within to look
away.
She stepped beneath a man-made waterfall,
liquid raining down to cleanse her voluptuous body, tanned skin,
and amber hair. His muscles strained as she used some manner of
soap which lathered into bubbles, her hands working up and down her
body. O’er her hair, down to her face, then lower still to her
large breasts with extended nipples. He swallowed. She moved her
hands even lower…
He blew out a steadying breath. He watched,
his cock aching, as she repeated the cleansing ritual twice more.
He should look away. He could never look away. “You bewitch me,
woman,” he murmured.
Veronica knew naught of his existence, yet
hers consumed him. Such had been the way of it for o’er a fortnight
now. Mayhap his men had the right of it. Mayhap he was
obsessed.
*****
Veronica found a pair of her shiny,
stretchy, black pants and a matching top in the bedroom Victor had
always kept up for her. Looking in the mirror, she briefly waxed
nostalgic, thinking her ensemble reminded her of Trinity’s wardrobe
in the old-timer film The Matrix. Nobody had time for
frivolities like movies these days. The scant remnant that remained
of the living spent their every moment focused purely on survival.
That knowledge made her feel a pang of guilt at her current good
fortune. She was hydrated, clean, clothed, and—at least for
now—safe. It was more than ninety-nine percent of the world could
lay claim to.
Veronica realized she needed to find her
brother, but such an undertaking would require a cleared mind and
an energized body. Walking back to the kitchen, she rifled through
the freezer and cupboards looking for anything edible. If worse
came to worse, she knew where Victor kept his countless
MREs—Meals-Ready-to-Eat—and would avail herself of the godawful
stuff did the need arise. Luckily, and blessedly, it didn’t.
“Good job, Victor,” she muttered, removing
several packages of frozen faux meat from the freezer. Like
everybody else of their generation, she and her brother had been
raised on the lab-grown foodstuffs. She popped the frozen bags into
one of the FoodMasters, a countertop gadget that removed the
sealant, cooked the meat, and seasoned it perfectly. Locating
vacuum-packed potatoes and green beans in the cupboards, she threw
them into a second FoodMaster and waited the requisite five
minutes for everything to be done.
Food. It had been days since her last meal,
if one could call a protein bar a meal. The tasteless, dry things
were easy to carry and contained all the nutrients necessary for
the body to endure. During her journey she’d been forced to eat a
lot worse than the bland protein bars though so she wasn’t
complaining.
The two Foodmasters dinged almost
simultaneously. Her belly rumbled as she made quick work of opening
the appliances up and grabbing her food. Dinner was served. And it
was delicious. She didn’t bother with retrieving a fork. She jammed
handfuls of green beans, potatoes, and faux meats made to taste
like chicken and beef into her mouth and gobbled it all down. She’d
worry about washing her hands when she was finished.
Twenty minutes later, sated and feeling
better, Veronica cleaned her hands up, brewed herself a cup of
coffee, grabbed a bottle of water for safekeeping, and made her way
into her brother’s office. She sighed, her green gaze flicking
around the one and only messy room in Victor’s compound. Papers and
gadgets were scattered everywhere. Not knowing what, if anything,
said gadgets did, she avoided them like the plague and trounced
over to Victor’s desk. It was the least cluttered area in the
vicinity and where she would begin her search. Surely if her
brother had left his own compound he would have also left
instructions behind on how to locate him. Now to find
them.
*****
“Come on, sis,” Victor blurted out. He could
see her, but she couldn’t see him. He could hear her, but she
couldn’t hear him. At least for now. “Open my laptop,” he
instructed her as if she could hear what he was saying. He pushed
his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, keenly aware of the
hulking laird standing over his shoulder watching everything.
Victor had proven himself to Laird Gunn and
because he had he’d been rewarded with freedom, a bedroom next to
Lachlan’s quarters, and the return of his AI scanner. Truthfully
the dungeon hadn’t been so bad. He suspected most captives put down
there fared far worse than he had. Ramsay and Finn had seen to
keeping his sparse, underground room lit until Victor had been
ready to sleep every evening, the food and ale had been plentiful,
and the maidservants had cleaned it daily. Honestly, he’d been
treated more like a guest than a prisoner, but it was nice to
breathe fresh air again and see the sun rise and fall. It was
currently falling. He glanced over to Finn, who was currently
lighting more candles and one blazing torch, before looking back to