Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The security guard was different from the last time as I pulled to the warehouse gate. He gave me a strange look as he took my ID. When he asked if I had my keys, I dangled them in front of the window.
I hadn’t considered if Uncle Wes had told anyone not to let me in. Thankfully, the guard let me through before I even had time to worry about it. Uncle Wes had warned me, but I still had the keys and my right to the warehouse. But I doubted I’d have access for much longer.
I made my way down the path until I came to that building I dreaded so much. The windows were dark, and the streetlight was still out. I made sure this time to shut off my car and the lights before I slipped over to the door.
Using my phone as a flashlight, I turned the key in the lock and shoved the door open.
A chill ran down my spine as I peered through the dark. I flipped on the switch by the door and the lights flickered on.
I moved quickly around the shelves, past the MRI machine and the boxes, my eyes drawn to the gurney and the elevator behind it. I hated being here. I felt dirty and wrong knowing what was below my feet. But I was getting in that safe.
I got to the office and flipped the switch. Everything looked the way I left it and the safe still sat in one corner, untouched.
I turned off the light on my phone, then dialed the number to the safe manufacturer.
“Hi, I can’t get into my safe. I was told you could give me a code?”
“Do you have the serial number?” the man on the other end asked.
“Just a moment.” I placed the phone down, then took one side of the safe with both hands and pulled. The safe groaned as it slid across the ground. I reached around to peer behind it and saw a set of numbers on a sticker at the back. I grabbed my phone then read the numbers off.
“Hold one moment, please,” the man said.
I moved the safe back as I waited.
“What’s the name under?” the man asked.
“Roman Martel. But I’m his daughter, Eve Martel, and it belongs to me now, since he’s gone.”
“You have to sign out a form. Can you do that?”
“Yes. I can.”
He sent me a file through the email I provided, and I looked it over on my phone. I filled it out to the best of my ability with my father’s information along with my own. Some were security questions I had to answer but thankfully, this time, they were incredibly easy, like my brother’s birthday and what city we were born in. When I finished, I sent the file back.
I was put on hold after. I paced around the office, feeling like at any moment someone was going to come in and stop me.
Fifteen minutes later, he returned. “Alright, you’re clear,” he said. He told me each number slowly, and I plugged them in. My heart jumped as the safe clicked. I pulled down on the lever and the safe opened.
I was so excited I dropped my phone, leaving the man to wonder whether it had worked. The door swung open and—
Nothing. There was nothing.
It was empty. I reached in, pawing around, cursing. No folders or papers, nothing.
Then my hand hit something on the top shelf. I grabbed it and pulled it out.
I stared at the small black box no bigger than my hand. A portable storage device.
I reached back in and found the USB connector that went with it. The paperwork was missing but there was no doubt in my mind the information was stored on this device.
I checked the safe one last time to make sure that was all, then I closed it. I picked up my phone and saw the man had hung up.
My hands shook as I placed the device in my coat pocket. I turned off the lights and rushed out, feeling like the building was closing in on me, not wanting me to leave with what I took.
I made a beeline out of the place, not even waving to the guard as I sped past.
It was a miracle I didn’t get pulled over on my way back to Bayville. It was getting close to midnight as I pulled into the hotel, but I knew I wasn’t going to sleep, at least not for a while.
Quietly, I slipped into my room, locking the door behind me. Then I took out the storage device and set it by my laptop. I turned the computer on as I threw my coat on the bed.
As the screen loaded, I took the connector and plugged one end into the sleek black device and the other end into my laptop. As the driver loaded in the files, I took out a soda from the mini fridge, feeling shaky but wanting the caffeine to keep me alert.
When it was finished, I sat down and clicked on the drive folder.
Thankfully, the device wasn’t encrypted. Clearly, my father thought the safe was enough to keep it secure. When I opened the drive, dozens of folders appeared.
I scrolled through the folders seeing names. Twenty-two to be exact. And next to some of the names was the word: DECEASED.
Shane DECEASED
Tanya DECEASED
Jordan DECEASED
Maddie DECEASED
Fourteen, I counted. I clicked on Jordan just out of curiosity and found a set of files within his folder. I clicked on one that was named SUBJECT THREE.
A photo popped up. A little boy with messy blond hair and bright blue eyes. Below his photo was his name, date of birth, where he was born, and other notes like how old he was when he died and how he died.
Sweat dotted my brow as I read his file. He was only nine when he died. They claimed the death as failed testing.
The rooms had been enough to tell me what my father’s company had been up to but this solidified it. Just as I feared.
I clicked out of his record and searched the rest of his folder. Video files. Curious, I clicked on one.
A room popped up with the little boy sitting at a table. I recognized it as one of the rooms under the warehouse. Teary-eyed, he tried to muffle his cries. His eyes were bloodshot, face pale.
“Subject Three, July 21 st ,” said a man behind the camera. “Subject hasn’t stopped crying since we gave him dosage seven. Claimed to have stomach pain and hearing loss in left ear. However, subject’s sense of smell has been heightened considerably, and he has had no inclination to rest in the past twenty-four hours. Heart rate is still stable despite his increased alertness.”
My blood went cold as I heard the man’s voice. A voice I recognized as my uncle’s. Disturbed, I opened Cassidy’s folder. I looked through her records and found she wasn’t deceased but had been “let go” at the age of fourteen. I don’t know why they didn’t keep her. It only stated that her testing was complete and that she was transferred back into the foster care system. I clicked on one of her videos. This time, the classroom popped up. Cassidy, a tall black girl with a sharp expression, gazed at the camera with a look that could kill. Only, one of her eyes was swollen so bad it looked ready to pop out of her skull. Her eyelid drooped enough to keep it in place. Her hair was braided back, her shabby white shirt and pants were rolled up as she clenched a marker in her hand. In the video, she looked to be about eleven.
“Remember, Cassidy, you have thirty seconds to finish the problems,” my uncle said. On the white board behind here were a set of math equations. “Just call out when you’re finished, understand?”
Cassidy turned to the board. The lights then went off. The screen was pitch black for about twenty seconds before she snapped “Done”. The lights turned on and her answers were on the board along with her work.
My uncle came into view and reviewed the problems. “Good work, Cassidy.”
The video cut out and showed her working on a puzzle in the middle of the room. “Subject Eleven’s sight has remained the same for up to twelve hours with no sign of decline. Her accuracy and speed in problem solving have also improved considerably. Only the hallucinations have returned, mainly of voices and acute migraines.”
Cassidy looked at the camera and I could see the hatred clear as day. I clicked out of the video and sat there for a long moment, taking it in.
They were clearly experimenting on some kind of enhancement drugs. But each drug came with a price. The side effects were astoundingly horrible.
Why the fuck would my dad be working on something like this?
It took me a moment to think that it wasn’t so much the why but the who. My dad had clientele from many other companies that might seek something like this. He even mentioned working on projects for the military. But I refused to believe this was my father’s personal work.
Still, he worked on these children regardless if it was his plan or not. And that shattered everything I knew and loved about him.
It took me a solid hour to return to the files. Outside, I stared at the waves on the deck, taking a few hits from a joint Lena had given me back at her party. I rarely smoked but this seemed like a good time more than anything. I wanted to scream into the dark. Instead, I stood there, taking another drag into my lungs.
I tried to come to terms with what I knew about my family. It was too hard to stop now, though. And it was the thought of Emery that drew me back inside.
I sat in my chair and braced myself for the inevitable. I scrolled down the set of folders and found his name second to the bottom.
Emery.
My throat tightened as I clicked on his folder.
I drew over to the file named subject Twenty-two and clicked over it.
The picture that greeted me was not one I had seen before. In front of a white-washed backdrop, Emery stood, no mask hiding his face. He was older in this picture than the one I had. Between thirteen and fifteen. It was hard to say because of how tall and grown he was even for his age. He was leaner, much leaner. He might have looked weary and uncertain as a child, but here, he was a completely different person, the innocence stripped from him. His sunken face was death-like, his expression nearly indifferent, almost lazy. But his eyes were defiant, even hellbent. A look I recognized.
He was still painfully beautiful. Full lips, sharp jawline, piercing gaze. He didn’t have the scars around his mouth yet, but I did see one along his throat and across his jaw. If I dared to imagine what his life would have been like if he was given everything he dreamed, a life of love and promise, I could see a boy who would have been the heartthrob of his school. An honor student, an idol. Girls would have flocked to him, guys would have been jealous of him, if they weren’t vying to be his best friend. I imagined his smile could have lit up a room, if he was ever given a chance. Staring at him now, if I had known him in this way, I would have gladly given my heart to him in a second.
My heart broke for him instead.
Born only a few years before me, he was taken out of care from his foster family and brought to the Martel company. He was hidden in the warehouse for eight years before my father and the others gave him up. Two years later, Emery massacred them.
I searched his other files and found the records of his foster care. My dad had signed the paperwork to have Emery given over, becoming the Martel company’s property. How much money they must have bribed that foster care place, I couldn’t fathom. But I was disgusted either way, wondering how many other innocent lives had been taken all for a price.
Pulling up the videos, I clicked on the first one. The room I had seen Jordan in popped up, only this time, it was a young Emery sitting at the table, his head bent, eyes looking at the ground.
“Subject Twenty-two, Emery,” said a voice. Dad. “Fifth day of dosage on RDX051. Subject has slight dizziness and nausea, but his strength has improved drastically. No violent tantrums as of yet. This is the fastest improvement we have seen. We will now run the first test.” The video changed, and now, Emery was in the classroom with some sort of pulley machine. They kept putting on more and more weight to one end and Emery pulled the lever down each time with ease, pulling the hundreds of pounds of weight up. Each time he succeeded, a woman, some kind of nurse, came into view and gave him something which he quickly ate.
I moved on to the next video. This time, it was of the camera passing by the doors of each room, and in the background, Emery was screaming. The camera panned to a door on one end. There were two deadbolts and yet the door was starting to bend from Emery’s furious kicks. “Subject has gone into a fit,” my father said monotonously as if the scene had little effect on him. “Will need to be sedated for some time.”
Horrified, I closed the video and moved on to the next. Another feed of Emery inside the interview room, his head bent nearly to his chest, his hair hiding his face.
“It’s been a few weeks now, and Subject Twenty-two is more alert, and grown more cunning. Almost escaped his room along with Subject Twenty-one,” Dad said. “His strength has plateaued. May now need to up his dosage of RDX051. More tests coming soon.” The feed returned again to the classroom where Emery worked diligently and quickly on some kind of 3D puzzle. He finished the puzzle, and my father stopped his watch. “Record time,” he said. “Good work, Emery.”
Emery didn’t look up at the camera, only flexed his hands as if he wanted to use them in some other way than just solving a puzzle.
The next video was the hardest to watch. They had him shirtless on the exam table and Dad had one of his machines hooked up next to Emery, with little sensors across his head. He was clearly trying not to cry as Dad put a knife to his forearm and dug it in. Emery screamed and wrenched away, trying to escape his binds, his body shaking. “Subject’s pain tolerance seems to still be at a normal level, the nerves still registering the injury. But his adrenaline has spiked to a higher level than before. It’s a start. Will up the dosage and see how he fairs.” The video cut out and Emery was still on the table, but some time had passed because now he was being held down by others while he seized in front of the camera, his fingers bleeding, one of the nails split where someone had wedged a surgical knife underneath it.
“What the fuck,” I whispered aloud, then covered my mouth.
I didn’t want to go to the next, but it was the last. In a classroom, Emery was sitting at a desk next to, I assumed, his sister. My gut twisted as she looked even worse than him. So tiny I could see her veins in her arm. Her unkempt hair covered her face. She drew something while Emery sat there quietly, his paper blank, his hands fisted.
A few minutes later, Dad spoke. “Emery, did you hear me? I won’t tolerate this behavior. You stole from me. I saw the lighter in your room.” Dad paused. “Are you going to apologize?”
Emery didn’t move at first. Then I saw his gaze flick up to my father and I knew then he was going to kill him. He had decided then and there he would when he got the chance. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. But his eyes said something else. In fact, he seemed a shadow of himself. Something dark and much more sinister now glared back.
Dad didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I also saw the magazine you stuffed into the vent,” he said after a while. “Were you planning something there, Emery?”
Emery didn’t say a word, only smirking subtly.
“Is something funny?” Dad said. “Do you think creating a fire and suffocating us is funny?”
Emery laughed quietly. “Yes.”
Dad sighed, and the video cut from the classroom to my father watching Emery through the glass of the interview room. “Subject is showing dangerous, psychotic symptoms and could be a clear threat to us all. We’ve seen these ill effects before. It’s disappointing. Still, he’s one of our more successful subjects by far. But the effects cannot be ignored. We will need to monitor him closely from now on. If we can’t balance this out, he will have to be marked a failure.”
The video ended. I closed it, stunned into silence. How could I blame Emery for what he had done now?
In my heart, I knew I couldn’t deny the truth.
My father was a monster.
And he had created one too. Maybe more. Like Emery, there were others out there, their voices silent. Out of the twenty-two, eight had survived.
Numbed now, I went to Subject Twenty-one. Emery’s sister. Nina. Not that I needed more pain to shock me, but she was important to him, and I felt compelled to check her, see what really became of her.
I pulled up the record and opened it. The picture sprung up before me, and I gasped.
I knew her.
The photo must have been taken after the video of her and Emery together because she looked older. She looked frail and gaunt, her head now shaven, her eyes sunken in. I wouldn’t have recognized her from the childhood photo I had as the same person. But I knew her now from my memory.
The girl I had encountered in the warehouse.
She had been so scared she could only mumble something to me, her eyes wide. She looked drugged, so I thought she had broken in.
So I had screamed. And my dad had come running.
He had lied to me. He made me leave so he could force her back downstairs.
It had been my fault.
Memories flooded back and I was dragged down by them. I felt everything and nothing all at once.
Panicked, I grabbed my coat and slipped out into the dark.
It wasn’t until dawn that I eventually came back. I let my coat fall to the floor, then sluggishly made it to the bed, falling down on it. I had reached the bridge of St. Agnes when I was forced to walk back. I walked along the beach. Sometimes I stopped to hurl a rock in the lake and scream. Sometimes I took a seat on some dry log and cried a little. Mostly angry tears. I cursed my father. My brother, uncle, and cousin too. But mostly my father.
That sadistic fuck. How could he do this?
And how could he bring me to the warehouse with them still inside. I hated him for it. And I hated myself for not realizing something was wrong.
Now, I knew I could no longer stay. I couldn’t treat Emery, knowing I had kept his sister from her freedom. A coward’s way out. But the guilt was too much. Too much to bear.
And it was so fucked up anyway. I should have never come. Him knowing me like he did now only served to hurt us both.
But I didn’t want him to break down again either. If I left, he would stop the medication, and they would transfer him. That made me feel even worse.
It wasn’t until I saw the first rays of sunlight over the horizon that I came up with an idea. I’d tell him I couldn’t stay and wouldn’t give a reason, that he had to promise to take his meds, and when he was better, I would see him again.
It hurt to go. But it was better than the alternative—him learning who I was and what I had done.
I’d be sure to tell him before Ethan ratted me out. I’d go as soon as I was able.
But now I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. As soon as I woke up, I would go back to St. Agnes one last time and tell him.