Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
For hours, he’d been pacing his room.
Trying to figure out what he should do.
What the hell had he seen?
Dragon’s gaze slid to the discarded tablet that lay on his bed.
At first, he’d thought Cassandra was about to be attacked or abducted.
His heart had raced so fast he wouldn't have been surprised to see it beat its way right out of his chest, and his pulse had pounded in his ears until it was almost deafening.
All he’d been able to smell was his own fear.
But no one had laid a hand on Cassandra.
When he calmed himself enough to look carefully at what he was seeing, he’d realized that the person dressed all in black was a woman.
A friend?
No, Cassandra’s body language said she didn't know the woman, and while it was tense, it wasn't radiating terror.
Scenarios began to tick through his mind, and he wondered if perhaps Cassandra was buying drugs. It could account for her being tense but not afraid when she was approached in the empty parking lot.
But that was just his anxiety talking. He knew she wasn't handling everything that had happened last year as well as she wanted others to believe, but she wouldn't take drugs to cope.
She kept her sunny disposition firmly in place, she acted like she wasn't sobbing inside, and pretended that she wasn't as deeply affected by the revelations about her paternity as she was.
If it wasn't for his ability to smell emotions in people, much like a dog was capable of knowing when you were sad and needed their love and attention, then he probably would have believed her lies.
“I see you, little rabbit,” he murmured, still watching the tablet as though it would give him the answers he craved.
But it wouldn't.
After their brief exchange, the woman in black had run off. Cassandra had briefly followed but then turned and headed into the park. He’d watched her complete her run and then climb back into her car and return to her home.
Should he contact one of her brothers and let them know she was up to something?
It would be a massive violation of her trust. While they hadn't talked about him knowing she wasn't as okay as she wanted everyone to believe she was, they both knew that he knew it.
Talking wasn't his thing, never had been.
Of all of the six Delta Team guys, he was the most sullen, had the worst temper, and was the least likely to be of any help to anyone if they didn't need saving from something.
What Cassandra needed saving from wasn't something he could destroy. It was something inside her, something only she could battle.
Yet she seemed to find comfort in his presence, and if he called one of her brothers and told them he was worried about her, it would ruin the tentative trust they’d built.
Shatter whatever was left of it after she confronted him with Delta Team’s plans and told him that if he went down that path, she couldn’t be part of it and asked to be flown back home to join her family.
Still, if she was doing drugs, and he didn't do something to try to stop her, he would be partially responsible for whatever happened to her next.
What if she spiraled? What if she got addicted?
If she wasn't already that was. What if she wound up losing her job and her home, living on the streets, a junkie whose only focus was their next hit?
What if she wound up dead?
What if he was the one spiraling? That probably made more sense.
But if she was in trouble and he didn't do something, he’d never forgive himself. After all it wasn't like he could really ruin her trust in him more than it already had been. She’d already walked away from him. And he’d let her.
Knowing he didn't have a choice, Dragon went to pick up his phone. Cassandra already hated him, and if this could help her, he’d take whatever anger she wanted to throw at him.
If he was wrong and he hadn't witnessed a drug buy, then it wasn't like she could loathe him more than she already did. She might be embarrassed and annoyed that her family would then be on to the fact that she was struggling, but at least she’d be safe.
And maybe she needed the people in her life to know she wasn't okay.
Just because her brothers had all been through hell this last year as they followed revelation after revelation to find the people behind what had happened to their parents didn't mean they wouldn't want to be there for her. Cassandra seemed to have it in her head that her brothers and their new girlfriends and fiancées shouldn’t need to be bothered by her struggles, so she kept them bottled up tight.
Only Dragon didn't think her family would see being there for her as a bother.
Scooping up his phone, he scrolled through the contacts until he found Cade Charleston’s number.
Cade was the oldest of the four Charleston and two Holloway brothers, and while the man was busy with his five-year-old daughter, and pregnant fiancée, Dragon knew he wouldn't hesitate to go straight to Cassandra and ensure she was okay.
Even if that meant forcing her to take a drug test and putting her in rehab against her wishes.
Right as he was about to touch his finger to Cade’s name, his phone began to ring.
Cassandra.
Talk about a coincidence.
Maybe this was her first drug buy, and she realized once she got home that she didn't want to go down this path and decided to reach out to someone.
But why would that someone be him? She hated him, and she knew that he and his team had gone ahead with their plans, she just didn't know that things had changed, and their hostage had turned into an ally who was now getting Steel’s teeth marks tattooed onto her breast.
Nerves hit him as he accepted the call. What Dr. Gardner had done to them with his experimental drugs hadn't just given him and his teammates enhanced skills, it had also messed with their ability to feel and process emotions. The crazed scientist’s goal had been to strip them of a conscience so they would become his perfect team of killing machines.
For the last decade, Dragon and the others had believed it to have worked.
Only Lion couldn’t let go of the woman from his past he’d been forced to leave behind, Steel had fallen for the woman they’d abducted to use as bait, and he himself had become attached to Cassandra.
“Dragon,” Cassandra said the second she must have heard the call connect.
Something in her voice scared him. She sounded worse than he’d been expecting, but she didn't sound high. Hopefully, that meant she’d called him before she took the drugs.
“Are you there?” she asked when he didn't say anything.
“I'm here.” Should he tell her he’d been watching her this evening when she met with someone at the park or wait for her to bring it up?
“I met this woman today,” she said in a rush, like she couldn’t get the words out quickly enough.
He also wanted her to get them out so he could tell her that taking drugs wasn't the answer. Admitting she had a problem was the first step in figuring things out.
“She came up to me at the park. I’d been feeling all day like someone was watching me—”
“That was me,” he inserted, not wanting to add to any paranoia she might be feeling.
“I know you’ve been watching me, Dragon, or at least I suspected. This was different. It felt different. When I feel eyes on me and I think it’s you, I usually feel … safe. Today I didn't. I can't explain it, it just felt … wrong.”
Anxiety hummed inside him. There was no denying that he’d gotten a buzz when she told him that she knew he’d been watching her and it made her feel safe, but the rest …
he had no way to tell if it was drug-induced paranoia or real unless he was there to smell the pheromones she was giving off.
Even then, it would be partially up to his judgment as to how to read them.
“She said that someone called Dr. Gardner is angry that all the other people he tested his drugs on died. That you and your team are the only ones left.”
Those words had him straightening.
There was no way that Cassandra should know the name Dr. Gardner.
They’d only learned the name of the scientist who had played God with their lives a couple of months ago. As far as he knew, the only people who were aware of the man’s name were Eagle, his wife Olivia, who had managed to find the name after years of searching for it, and the members of his team.
Paranoia, drug-induced or otherwise, couldn’t supply Cassandra with that intel.
“She said you guys are the only survivors, and that Dr. Gardner wants you back so he can figure out what makes you different,” Cassandra continued.
That was something they already knew. The insane scientist would do anything he could to get his hands on them again. It was why he and his team had been in hiding these last seven years after they managed to escape the facility where they’d been held captive for three hellishly long years.
“Dragon, that’s not all she said.” Cassandra’s voice was brimming with fear now. “She said you need to know he has an antidote, something that is supposed to undo everything he did to you.”
For a second, it felt like the earth stopped spinning.
An antidote?
A way to take it all back, go back to who he’d been before?
The key to living a normal life, maybe even getting a chance at making things right with Cassandra.
“She said that Dr. Gardner plans on giving you the antidote, studying you, then doing whatever he did to you the first time around all over again.” Cassandra’s voice had dropped to the mere hint of a whisper.
“Dragon, this woman doesn’t think you’ll survive if he does that.
She said you can't let him get you because if he does, then you’ll all lose your lives. ”
January 3rd
10:10 P.M.
Her hands were shaking as she set her phone down.
So badly, Cassandra almost dropped it on the floor of her room.
Why couldn’t she be as strong on the inside as she pretended to be on the outside?