39. Thirty-Nine Cam
Thirty-Nine: Cam
W e’d been driving for an hour in silence, and it was getting irritating. Sarah was wound so tight she could shit a diamond. She’d been going through the information on Kyle’s phone— the stuff he’d downloaded from the lab computer. Kyle was being a dick and refused to turn on any music, so all we were listening to was the sound of his obnoxious fucking breathing.
"Alright, spit it out," I drawled, meeting her gaze as she looked at me through the rearview. "What's got your panties in a twist?"
Sarah's jaw clenched. "This facility... it's not just a breeding ground. It's an assembly line for compliant killers."
Lakey perked up at that, a wicked gleam in her eye. "Ooh, do tell. I do love a good murder factory. The docs I read just said they were modifying them, not what they were for."
I snorted, but my amusement faded as Sarah laid out her theory. Words like "conditioning”, and "behavioral modification" made my skin crawl. Flashes of white walls and sterile needles danced at the edges of my vision.
"Think about it," Sarah was saying, her voice steady but urgent. "The meticulous record-keeping, the genetic profiling. They're not just breeding the perfect bodies; they're engineering the perfect minds."
The van felt too small suddenly, closing in around me. I gripped the steering wheel tighter, knuckles white.
"Makes sense," Lakey chirped. "Can't have your pet assassins growing a conscience, can you?"
I wanted to tell her to shut up, but my throat was dry. The smell of antiseptic filled my nose, a phantom from another life.
Sarah's voice droned on, connecting dots I didn't want connected. "...selective breeding for certain traits, coupled with early indoctrination..."
A memory surfaced, digging into my brain, making me uncomfortable. Me, maybe six years old, strapped to a chair while men in white coats loomed over me. The sting of a needle, then blessed darkness.
"Cam?" Lakey's voice cut through the fog. "You okay, baby? You look like you've seen a ghost."
I blinked looking over at her with a wink, forcing a lazy grin. "Just admiring the view, sweetheart. Sarah's quite the detective, isn’t she?"
But inside, my mind was reeling. What if I wasn't the self-made monster I'd always believed? What if someone else had their fingers in my brain, molding me into their perfect monster? Maybe, if they’d have left me alone, I’d have been able to accomplish those short-term dreams I’d had as a child. Back when I was innocent, and blood hadn’t stained my hands.
The thought made me want to put my fist through something. Or someone.
"So, what's the plan?" I asked, desperate to focus on anything else. "We storming the castle, or what?"
Sarah's eyes met mine again, determination blazing. "We need to debrief and rest. But yeah, eventually? We're going to destroy them. And that is where you two come in.” She smiled as if she’d just said the kindest thing in the world.
I bit back a retort and nodded instead, a familiar thrill of violence threading through me. At least that felt real, felt like me.
"Now you're speaking my language," Lakey purred, snuggling closer. Her warmth grounded me, bringing with it a sense of peace and pushing out the memories that were trying to fill in the gaps.
Whatever they'd done to me in that place, they couldn't touch this. Lakey was mine, and I was hers. Everything else could stay buried in the fucking dark, but I wouldn’t let those ghosts destroy us. I couldn’t.
Rose's voice cut through my dark thoughts, soft but edged with steel. "I... I think I remember a place like that. I mean, the one we just came from. Not clearly, but..." She trailed off, her eyes going distant.
I watched her, curiosity prickling under my skin. Rose was a mystery, all wide-eyed innocence one minute and kick-ass nut when triggered. Kind of reminded me of Lakey, if I'm being honest. Well, back when we were kids. Before I went to juvie. She was tough, but she still held an air of hope around her. After I was convicted, everything changed. It was like that small piece of her that still held the innocence of a child had died, and in its place, a cold-blooded killer stood.
"It's okay, Rose," Sarah murmured, reaching back to touch her arm. "Take your time."
Rose flinched at the contact, then seemed to force herself to relax. "There were... white walls. The smell of blood. And pain. So much pain."
Lakey tensed against me, her fingers digging into my thigh. I knew that look in her eyes – she was imagining all the ways she could make those responsible suffer.
"But that can't be right," Rose continued, her voice gaining strength. "I had a family. A real one. I remember... I remember my mom's laugh, my dad's stupid jokes. That has to be real. It has to be. Besides, babies don’t have memories, right? That’s what they say in those textbooks. No pain, no memories. Just a blank slate. Tabula Rasa."
I felt a twinge in my chest. Envy? Pity? Hell if I knew. "Maybe you do have real memories," I found myself saying. "Maybe they took you later."
Rose's eyes snapped to mine, a flicker of hope amid the turmoil. "You think so?"
I shrugged, uncomfortable with the question. I didn’t fucking know, but I didn’t want her to feel whatever she was feeling right now. "Fuck if I know. But if they did, we'll find out. And then we'll make 'em pay."
Lakey giggled. "Oh yes," she reached around me to grab Rose’s hand, squeezing tightly. "We'll paint the walls red with their blood."
Sarah rolled her eyes at our antics but there was no real exasperation behind it. She knew what we were by now, knew the monsters that lurked beneath our skin. And yet, here she was, still fighting alongside us.
Maybe we were all a little fucked up. Maybe, by slumming it with us, we gave her permission to untie her panties and give some murder a go. I’m sure she’d find it quite freeing.
As conversation faded around me, I felt my mind start to drift. My ears started ringing, painful and loud. The cramped interior of the car seemed to melt away again, replaced by echoing voice, blood splattered everywhere. My blood? Fuck. Not now.
I clenched my jaw, fighting against the flood of memories. But they came anyway, disjointed flashes that made my skin crawl.
The cold bite of metal restraints.
The sting of a needle.
A voice, clinical and detached: "Patient Y is responding well to the treatment."
I blinked hard, forcing myself back to the present. My fists were clenched so tight my knuckles had gone white. Lakey was eyeing me with a mix of curiosity and concern, her hand back on my thigh.
"You okay there, babe?" she murmured, low enough that only I could hear.
I managed a tight nod, not trusting my voice. My throat felt raw, like I'd been screaming. Had I? Christ, I hoped not.
Sarah was now talking, her words a distant buzz in my ears. I focused on Lakey's touch, on the warmth of her hand against my leg. It was real. This was real. Not those fucked-up memories of needles and pain and—
"Cam?" Sarah's voice cut through the haze. "Cam?"
I plastered on my most charming smile, ignoring the way it felt like shattered glass in my mouth. "Mmhmm. What?” I still couldn’t see, blinders over my eyes as I fought to come back to myself. Disassociation was a bitch, especially when you’re in a car with people you don’t particularly trust.
Lakey's fingers tightened, a sign she was with me. She knew me too well, could see that something was off, that I wasn’t here. But she didn't call me out. She knew better than to expose any weakness —mine or hers— when others are around.
Instead, she leaned in close, her breath tickling my ear. "When this is over," she whispered, "I'm gonna tattoo every inch of your skin. Remind you who you are. You don’t belong to them; you belong to me."
I couldn't help the shiver that ran through me. Her voice lingered, caressing fingers over my leg as my vision started to clear, replaced by a memory of her sitting on my lap, her giggles loud in our kitchen as she dotted my skin with hearts. Someone once called me a pussy because of them. I pulled him close into me and slid my hand down his pants before wrapping it around his cock. The guy had been so excited until I started squeezing and squeezing, until his screams were interrupted by a pop and his blood spilled into my hand. You’re right… I am a pussy, so what the fuck does that make you?
It took me a minute to realize that Lakes was staring at me, waiting for a reply. "Promise?" I murmured back.
Her answering grin was all teeth before she made a kissy face and smushed her lips on my cheek. "Cross my heart and hope they die, baby."
Sarah's voice cut through our little moment. "Right, so as I was saying. They want people in high places, but how do you get that? You can’t just appoint an adult and pay them off. Eventually people grow a conscious. No, you make the type of person you want for each role. In my limited time as a social worker, they’d usually have me go to the poorest cities and see what kind of kids were there. The ones who displayed the most ‘promise’ would be marked, and I’d be tasked to remove them and place in a Chimera run foster family."
I felt my skin go cold, like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
She leaned forward; her eyes filled with guilt. A haunted woman. "Think about it. Rose's memories, the facility we found — it all fits. They're not just raising kids to be obedient. They're selecting for specific traits. The DNA they’re using, it’s top of the line. Lack of empathy, heightened intelligence, charm..."
The words hit me like a sucker punch to the gut. I could feel Lakey's eyes on me, but I couldn't look at her. Couldn't let her see how close I was to losing my shit. The more Sarah talked, the more the darkness tried to drag me down into it. And it wasn’t a darkness I recognized or wanted any fucking part in.
"They want killers who can blend in," Sarah continued, her voice growing more confident with each word. "Monsters who can pass as human. And they're starting from scratch, breeding for those traits from birth. Cam… Lakey… I… I think you were their first attempts."
The air in the car felt thick, suffocating. I wanted to crack a window, but that would mean moving. And if I moved, I might shatter into a million pieces. Or I’d wrap my hands around Sarah’s throat and watch as the light died in her eyes.
"Well," Lakey said, rolling her eyes. “Isn’t that just beautiful? We left my sibling back in that bag, maybe we should go back and get him. Wouldn’t that just show them how well their tests went? Ruthless little Lakey nabbing a baby under the cloak of night. Outsmarting the scientists.” She clapped her hands and leaned forward, “I’d say I turned out pretty fucking perfectly, wouldn’t you?"
I barked out a laugh that sounded more like a strangled sob. "Speak for yourself, princess. Some of us are clearly the failures of the program."
But even as I said it, more of my past flickered at the edges of my mind. The endless challenges. The way they'd praised my ability to lie, to manipulate, to kill. How they'd encouraged my worst impulses, rewarding me for cruelty.
Fuck. What if Sarah was right? There’s no way humans are born as devoid of empathy as I am. Only, I wasn’t fully devoid, was I? There was my love for Lakey, my ‘feelings’ for Rose. Every day that we didn’t kill for fun, was another day further from what was comfortable for me. Safe. I couldn’t decide if that was a gift or a curse.
I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the world, but all I could see was that foster home that went up in flames. The overcrowded rooms, the constant fear. And Lakey — tiny, vicious Lakey — standing over a woman in a lab coat with a book of matches and murder in her eyes.
Had that been part of the plan all along?
"We need to dig deeper," Sarah was saying, her words barely penetrating the fog in my brain. "Find out how far this goes, who's really behind it all."
I nodded mechanically, not trusting myself to speak. What if we were exactly what they wanted us to be?
And what the fuck did that make us?
Rose's voice cut through my spiraling thoughts, sharp and tinged with desperation. "But what about our families? Our parents? They can't all be... fabricated, right?"
I opened my eyes to see her looking frantically between Sarah and Lakey, searching for reassurance. Back to this fucking question.
"Oh, sweetie, I’m just going to be honest since you keep fuckin’ asking," Lakey said, crossing her arms. "I hate to break it to you, but if they haven’t found you by now, they’re probably dead, or wishing they were. Or probably didn’t even exist, in which case, count your lucky stars."
I snorted, grateful for Lakey's twisted humor. It grounded me, pulling me back from the abyss of my own personal hell. "Look on the bright side, Rosie," I drawled, forcing a smirk. "At least you're not alone in this shitstorm. We're all fucked up together. You at least had parents. Maybe. Probably. We were likely the result of some dude jizzing into a tube and spewing out some random clump of cells, only to be injected into the bag we called our home for nine months."
Sarah shot me a withering glare. "Real helpful, Cam."
I shrugged, leaning back in my seat. "What? You want me to lie and say everything's sunshine and rainbows? That's more your department, isn't it?"
Kyle glared at me in the mirror, but I couldn't stop myself. Push and provoke — it's what I do best. Anything to keep from examining my own demons too closely.
Lakey tried to distract me with some more off-color jokes, but beneath the banter, I could see the concern in her eyes. She could probably sense the storm brewing just beneath my skin. She was trying to grab me. To pull me back from the edge of the pit that the devil was trying to drag me down into. I wanted to reach out, to feel her warmth against me, but I held back. Some wounds are too raw to touch, even for her.
Rose was going on about some mystery woman that she supposedly remembered from the orphanage. I was beginning to doubt some of her memories because she always had yet another thing she randomly remembered.
Lakey turned back to Rose. "So, this mystery woman. Any other details you can dredge up from that Swiss cheese brain of yours?"
As Rose stumbled through her fragmented memories, I felt something dark and familiar clawing at the edges of my mind. My skin crawled with phantom sensations. Blood on my hands, screaming echoing in a room. I clenched my fists, willing the memories away. But they persisted, like a cancer eating away at my carefully constructed facade.
Rose continued talking, oblivious to how her constant blabbering was grating against my every nerve. Blabbering that was stirring up some serious shit in my head. God, these fucking women need to stop with the fucking theories. Just shut the fuck up. She stopped talking, giving me an odd look before asking me a question that I didn’t even hear.
I tuned her out, lost in a memory I'd tried so hard to bury:
I'm six years old, huddled in a corner of the foster home. The other kids are screaming, fighting over scraps. But I'm different. Special, they told me. I don't feel hunger like the others. I don’t need to sleep as much as them either. Pain is just information.
A man in a white coat kneels before me, his smile cold and clinical. "You're doing so well, Cameron. Just a few more tests, and then you can go home." He pushes the back of the syringe and pain fills my veins, but I don’t scream. I don’t even blink. “That’s a good boy.”
He stands, talking to someone in a black robe, just out of my line of sight. “He’s ready for phase two. Take him to the girl.”
I try ask when I’m going home, when I can go play outside. I want to ask if I can get a hug.
But there is no home, no play and no hug. Just more labs, more shit to do, more lies.
As the others chattered on and on, I let my mind drift. The bag babies we'd uncovered triggered me into a kind of stasis. I'd spent years subconsciously burying my past, but now it was clawing its way to the surface. I tried to let it ascend slowly, so as not to rip my psyche apart, but there wasn’t much I could control about the vicious way it was invading my senses.
Lakey's voice cut through my thoughts, sharp and playful. "Hi sexy. You're awfully quiet. Plotting world domination without me? Want to let me in on your little games?"
I turned to her, drinking in the sight of her wicked smile. My beautiful little psycho. "Just thinking about how sexy you'd look in a lab coat, baby. Maybe we can steal you one and I can fuck you in it."
Her eyes lit up and she looked down at my cock as if expecting it to be naked, hard and waiting. "Ooh, role-play. I like where your head's at."
I chuckled. Kyle had finally started talking, droning on about the lab. I caught snippets about security systems and potential allies. More fucking variables. More people I didn’t want to let in to my circle. All I could focus on was the growing pit in my stomach. And Lakey. The ray of sunshine, piercing through the veil.
I'd always known I was different. Broken. But Lakey... she saw something in me worth loving. Or at least worth keeping around. The thought of losing that, of seeing disgust replace that adoration in her eyes... it terrified me more than any torture Chimera could devise.
"Hey," Lakey whispered, her lips brushing my ear. "Whatever's going on in that gorgeous head of yours, we'll figure it out."
I nodded, forcing a smirk. "Always, darlin'. Just promise me one thing?"
"Anything," she breathed.
"No matter what, you’ll always choose me."
Her answering laugh was dark. “Oh, Cammy, you are everything. I’d choose you a thousand times, in a thousand lives, even if every fucking one was worse than the one before.”
Whatever memories surfaced, whatever the future held, at least I had this. At least I had her.
I tuned back in, wanting to ask a question because I didn’t do variables, and they just kept introducing new ones. "Just wondering... what if we're walking into something bigger than we can handle? Who is there for back up? You were saying something about potential allies. So, who are they?"
Sarah scoffed. "Since when are you the cautious one?"
I flashed her a grin, shrugging my shoulders at her response. "You don’t know me very well. I'm still game for a little mayhem. Just like to know what I'm dealing with. Or who I’m dealing with."
“We have friends. But they’re not like us, Cam. They’re outliers. Unknowns. We will only bring them in if necessary and right now, it’s not. Understood?” Kyle finally spoke for the first time in ages, pinning me with a look.
Yeah. I understand.
Those were the people I’d shoot first and ask questions later if it came down to it.
So, let’s hope we don’t need to find out where their allegiances lay.