34. Wyatt
THIRTY-FOUR
WYATT
Joe looked from Harper to me, and then back to Harper.
“Do you trust this man, Sunbeam?” he asked.
The last time I’d seen Joe, he hadn’t been able to form complete sentences. Now, he seemed smaller, his voice weaker. Yes, he was forming words, but it seemed to be at the detriment of his physical form. I had no doubt that I could easily overcome him. It didn’t go unnoticed that he had called me a man, showing me more respect than any of my crew had directed toward him, tied up like cattle in the living room.
Harper slipped her hand into mine. “With my life.”
After all that we had been through, Harper was here, standing by my side. Her hand felt like it was meant to be in mine. I could punch a hole in the wall at any point, but that would’ve been easy compared to the strength it took not to bring Harper’s fingertips to my lips.
Joe’s gaze met mine. Instead of matching Harper’s blue, they had a golden hue, closer to the color of mine. Even though it felt like I was looking into the eyes of one of my own, it was unnerving. “Can you tell us what’s going on out there?” I tried to make my voice sound as unimposing as possible, not a small task. We needed answers. “Something isn’t right in Stirling County.”
“You got that right,” Joe croaked. “It’s worse than you could possibly imagine. The Carders have a plan, and it’s fuckin’ evil.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. As a sasquatch, I had a lot of follicles, and even with a close shave or haircut, I still got the same premonitory tingles. “I knew they were up to something. We have guys out at their facility now, trying to get some answers.”
Joe raised his straggly gray-streaked eyebrows. “They need to be careful.”
I held up my hands. “They’re my best crew. I’m not worried about them.” That was only a partial truth. The members of the family that were up in Stirling County were trained in a similar style to the U.S. Army Rangers, and were at least ten times stronger than any human. And that was without any red moss. With it, they could go toe to toe with King Kong. And win.
“You should be worried,” Joe grumbled.
“Dad?” Harper whispered. “Whatever’s going on, Wyatt can help fix it.”
My heart swelled. Her devotion and admiration, while misguided, was akin to that of a soulmate. I had to remind myself that I had let Harper go. She wanted to have children, and I couldn’t give that to her. Her hand was still in mine, and I gave it a squeeze.
Joe grunted. “Have you got an army?”
“Yes,” I nodded, and Jax flashed across my mind. I’d know if he were dead, but to go this long without hearing from him was out of character. Yes, we were solitary creatures, but Jax was like a brother to me. And before he’d left to go fucking find himself, we’d never gone longer than a week without seeing each other. It felt the same as when Harper and I had split up, like a part of me was missing.
Joe’s gaze switched to focus on Harper. “I’ve done things that I’m not proud of, Sunbeam. Things that tore apart our family. And I want you to know that it was all to keep you and your mom safe.”
Tears shimmered in his eyes. He was definitely more human than sasquatch at the moment, which meant that he was weak.
“Oh, Dad.” Harper’s hand slipped from mine and my instinct was to pull her back from Joe, but I overrode that protective urge. Harper wrapped her arms around her frail-looking father and pressed her cheek into his chest. He seemed frozen, his arms wide. But as she squeezed him, he seemed to melt, and as his arms fell around his daughter, a sob escaped from his mouth.
Even I felt emotional as tears streaked down Joe’s leathery face.
“I knew that there was a reason, that you wouldn’t just… leave us.” Harper swiped at the tears on her face. I handed her my silk pocket square, but instead of using it herself, she turned and dabbed at the tears on her father’s cheeks. Joe took the handkerchief and blew his nose into the four-hundred-dollar Italian silk square.
Harper took it and handed it to me, but I held up my palms. “Keep it.”
Joe took the handkerchief and Harper returned to my side.
“Sunbeam, I would never have left you and your mother unless it was a life-or-death situation. And it was. But now you’re in even greater danger. And not just you – all of humankind is at risk. And this time, I’m going to do something to stop it.”
“Tell us what’s going on.” Harper had needed that moment with Joe, but if the situation was as dire as he intimated, we had to get on with it.
Joe sighed. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Just start,” I growled. My patience was wearing thin.
With a nod, Joe shoved the handkerchief in his pocket. “The Carders are putting together an army of hybrids. Half human, half… whatever you’d like to call yourselves.”
“Let’s go with sasquatch.” I appreciated his respect, but gestured for him to continue.
“Why are the Carders doing this?” Harper clutched my forearm with both of her hands.
“Why does anyone do anything?” Joe’s caterpillar brows rose again. “Money. They’re going to sell this freak army – sorry…”
“Half of you and half of me? That is a freak.” I didn’t disagree with his word choice. “Do they have a buyer?”
“I’m not sure. Whoever presents the biggest bucket of cash or crypto, I guess. They’re planning a demonstration of their army when the CEO of Ricroft, Jeremy Croft, visits Seattle. They’re going to take him out.”
Harper gasped. Ricroft was a mega-conglomerate and one of Genocorp’s biggest rivals. They also had a mining division, which was a direct competitor of Grandview Gold. I had met their CEO a handful of times over the years. He wasn’t good or bad, just a stereotypical businessman. One who didn’t deserve to die.
“When is he going to be in Seattle?” Harper asked.
I was glad that Harper was asking the important questions. I also wished that I still had my handkerchief. The stairwell seemed to be ten million degrees. Sweat beaded on my forehead.
Joe inhaled. “I’m not sure of the date, but it’s going to be on the next eclipse.”
“That’s bizarre.” Harper bit her lip.
“There are no coincidences, Sunbeam. Maximus has reasons for everything he does. What it is in this case, I don’t know.”
Harper turned to look at me. “Do you know?”
I wiped my brow and shook my head. “I don’t. But I agree with your father. There’s got to be a reason. How strong are these hybrids, and how many do they fucking have?”
Joe couldn’t meet my gaze, and I knew we were venturing into some sensitive territory. “I’m not sure. I was the first successful hybrid. They haven’t been able to make the others work the same as me.”
“What do you mean, work?” Harper asked.
“When I escaped, I destroyed the files so they couldn’t replicate the experiments I was doing… on myself.”
Harper gasped. “You were doing this to yourself?’
That asshole. I took a deep breath. If I clenched my fists, I could break Harper’s hand. Joe Davis’ experiment was the reason we were facing an army of hybrids, on sale to the highest bidder.
“It’s complicated.” Joe took a vial of pills from his jacket pocket and handed them to me.
“What’s this?” I unscrewed the cap and looked at the capsules. They looked like any old white-powdered pills, but I recognized the smell.
“Before I escaped, I was secretly working on a reversal. I knew that what we were doing was wrong. These pills contain a mixture of your white moss. The plain white stuff doesn’t work on hybrids like me, but with a few modifications, I was able to formulate something similar.”
I blinked hard. “You know about our white moss?”
Joe chuckled, and for the first time in our interaction, seemed to relax. “Of course I do. You need better security in your greenhouse.”
The room seemed to tilt and I stumbled sideways.
“Wyatt,” Harper screamed and tried to hold me up. Surprisingly, she was able to keep my two-hundred-fifty-pound frame on my feet. “What’s going on?”
“I’m dizzy.” The stairwell was spinning like I was in a carnival funhouse.
“Get him some water,” Harper screamed, but her voice seemed muted.
“He doesn’t need water. He needs some red moss,” Joe shouted.
Harper eased me to the stairs and I fumbled with the inside of my suit to pull out the baggie of red moss. The door above us banged open, and a voice I recognized echoed through the concrete stairwell.
“Boss, are you in here?”
“Tank,” Harper shouted. “He’s here. We need help.”
Tank stumbled into my vision. His face was flushed as red as a wild berry. “It’s the perfume. We need to get out of here.”
The stairwell tilted again and a pair of strong hands lifted me to my feet. “Come on. We’ve got to go,” a voice whispered in my ear.