Chapter 1 #2
I'm not the weak and pathetic little girl you seem to think I am. I always hated what you were doing, you just had me too scared to do anything to stop it.
Not anymore.
Now she was taking back her power and using the fact that Dr. Gardner trusted her against him. Every single piece of paper that had been in the lab was gone now. Destroyed. Long before the explosion.
As soon as she made up her mind that she was done going along with all of this, she claimed the lab’s location was likely compromised now that the only surviving team had his name.
Thankfully, Dr. Gardner had gone along with that theory without any real pushing on her side, and so he hadn't thought anything of it when she started removing all the files, reports, computers, vials, and everything that was stored there.
Only she wasn't moving it to a new secure location, she was ensuring it was all destroyed.
Of course, there were other labs, but this one was the main one.
It was where there were copies of everything stored.
Or it had been. With all of that gone now, the only place where every single piece of carefully compiled notes on the drugs and their effects was held altogether was inside her own head, and she was done being a tool to be used.
The lab had been carefully cleaned down, erasing any signs of their presence there and what had taken place within those walls, and now it was blown to pieces.
That last step hadn't really been necessary.
There had already been no traces of what had happened left behind, but she hated that building.
Hated everything it represented. Blowing it all up had been her own personal way of getting petty revenge on the man who had controlled her life for far too long.
Only … she was pretty sure she had messed up.
In the most major way possible.
The second she’d made the choice to turn on her boss, Whitney had known she was signing her own death warrant. There was no way Dr. Gardner would tolerate any dissent in his organization, not even from the person responsible for creating the drug that gave recipients enhanced skills.
So she’d gone into this with eyes wide open.
Finding a way to warn the team of survivors that the doctor had been searching for them for seven years had been the first thing she needed to do. Thankfully, the failed attempt to lure her boss into a trap had given her both the push she needed to finally break free and the means to do it.
Once she learned the missing team worked for the world-renowned Prey Security, it had been easy.
Find a link, Cassandra Charleston had seemed like the best one, deliver her message, and then disappear.
The lab was already cleaned down, the files already destroyed, so she’d contacted the woman and prayed that she had enough time to disappear for good before Dr. Gardner realized she’d betrayed him.
But he’d figured it out quicker than she’d realized.
Whitney had no idea how, but she’d kept watch over the woman to ensure that Cassandra delivered her message, and she’d seen the mercenary break into the woman’s home the very next day. Watched as one of the men she’d created had saved the woman’s life.
Knowing she was in danger, she hadn't returned to the place where she had lived and worked. It would be the first place Dr. Gardner looked for her, and so she’d watched from her hiding place as he’d sent in his men to capture her.
If she’d been there …
She didn't even want to think about the horrors she would be enduring this very second.
One thing she’d learned about the doctor over the years she’d worked for him was that he wasn't a patient man. After finding the room where she lived in one of the back buildings behind the warehouse empty, he’d assumed she was already gone and so withdrew his guards.
But she hadn't gone.
Just hidden.
Then she’d slipped back in when it was safe. Calling in a couple of fellow scientists that she trusted, she’d given the warehouse a final clean, set the explosives, and then prepared to blow the place up and disappear for good.
Except she hadn't realized that anyone was in there until it was too late.
Had she killed the very men she’d been trying to save?
“I'm sorry,” she whispered to the empty forest. “I didn't mean to. I didn't know you were in there. I should have checked before I blew it up, but I thought the team had left, and everything was ready to go.”
Her voice was ragged from running, tears streaming down her cheeks, her heart breaking into a million pieces.
They were dead.
They had to be.
When she’d gathered her few belongings and carefully hidden a stash of money, she’d been sure the warehouse was empty.
She’d waited until the clean-up team had gone before doing anything, and it wasn't until she was already back outside, ready to run through the forest to where she’d parked her getaway car, that she saw it.
A van.
Parked around the back of the main building.
It hadn't been there before, and it could mean only one thing.
That someone else had been inside the warehouse.
Someone she hadn't known about. Who else could it be but the team of men that had been created with her drugs? They must have linked this place to Dr. Gardner and come to check it out. It was the only explanation because if it were Dr. Gardner’s men, they would have stormed the back building where she lived, not the main one.
Everything she’d risked had been for nothing.
If those men were dead, she was now on the run for no reason. She could have kept her mouth shut, kept doing what she’d been doing, and found a way to disappear when the time was right.
Now she might be free, but she would spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. Dr. Gardner would hunt her, she knew that. While he might not have much patience, he wasn't one to give up an investment without a fight, and she was the biggest investment he’d ever made.
Still, Whitney would gladly hand herself over to the doctor if it meant there was a way to undo what she’d done. Killing those men was the absolute last thing she wanted to do. She’d been trying to end what she’d started, and she had, except not the way she wanted.
More deaths on her shoulders.
As much as she’d love to say she’d lost count of how many dead men and women she quite literally carried on her back, she hadn't. She knew the exact number, and now there were likely six more to add to that.
There was only one thing she could hold onto right now.
One good thing she’d managed to do.
Without access to the research, most of which had been gathered through her, it would take Dr. Gardner years to catch back up to where he’d been before.
Especially without her. He might take all the credit for the drugs, and she was happy for him to do it, but she was the one behind it all.
Without her, and without everything in one place, regrouping would be almost impossible.
Not that it was enough to undo all she’d caused. It would save future lives, but it wouldn't bring back all those already lost.
Choking on a sob, Whitney paused, then crossed the road to the parking lot of a small shopping mall where she’d left her getaway vehicle. This mall had been her only link to the outside world for far too long, and now it was her gateway to freedom.
But was it real freedom when she would have to spend the rest of her life—however long that might be—carrying the consequences of her actions?