Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Being trapped was fraying the thin threads of his control.
“You're not going to lose it on us again, are you?” Blade asked, his tone teasing, and Lion threw him a glare.
How could the man make jokes at a time like this?
Kate and Ariella were out there somewhere, Rose was, too, and they had no idea of their condition. Kate had been injured from the crash, there was a chance that her broken ribs had punctured her lung, she could have died, alone and scared, thinking that he’d let her down all over again.
That thought killed him.
That his girls might die thinking that he’d failed them.
They deserved better than being dragged into this mess.
His original reason for wanting to stay away from Kate had turned out to be accurate.
If he had lost control of the beast of fury that lived inside him, he would have killed his girls without even realizing what he was doing.
Those men he’d killed in the forest were nothing more than a hazy memory, and knowing he could have done that to Kate and a vulnerable baby made him break out in a cold sweat.
But there was another threat, one he hadn't realized at the time. And that was the very people he had trusted when he shouldn’t.
Dr. Ridge Gardner had been able to hide his insanity until he had them in a glass cage, and there had been no clue that his mother was involved as well.
Knowing that his girl had been watched all these years, so vulnerable, so unprotected, made him feel like an absolute failure.
Which he was.
If he wasn't, then his girls would have been protected all along.
“You know I'm not,” he snapped at Blade. “If anyone is going to lose it, we all know it’s Steel.”
“Don’t think you want to be taunting me right now,” Steel growled, but he didn't turn around from what he was doing.
Which was working on bending the metal bars.
It was clear that this cell had been built specifically with them in mind, because those bars weren't just regular metal. If they were, they’d already be out.
“Actually, maybe I do,” he grumbled. While he did want to pick a fight to feel anything other than crushing guilt, he also wondered if he could get Steel angry enough that it would kick up his enhanced strength a little, and the man could actually bend the bars enough for them to get through.
“Really?” Steel snarled as he spun around. “You want to waste time having an argument when my girl, when your girls are out there somewhere?”
“You think I don’t already know that I failed them?”
“If you know, then stop wasting time.”
“Cool off, both of you,” Voodoo piped up, shifting so he was between them in case they were going to take things from verbal to physical.
“He’s right, you sound like bickering children,” a voice spoke, and the attention of every single one of them snapped to the other side of the bars, the argument forgotten.
“Rose,” Steel whispered on an exhale, and then he was reaching through the bars to grab hold of the pretty redhead and dragging her close enough that he could kiss her.
Jealousy reared its ugly head inside him, and Lion felt that familiar tug on the leash of his rage, a plea to let it out, to punish anyone who upset him.
While it was there, it wasn't the same as when he’d been out in the forest. This time it was duller, there but not urgent, able to be contained because he knew he was being ridiculous.
As badly as he wanted to be pulling his Katie-Bear into his arms and kissing her senseless, hugging his daughter and feeling her thin arms wrap around his neck, he didn't not want that same thing for Steel.
Besides, if Rose was there, alive and in one piece, standing on the other side of the bars, then it meant Kate was probably there too. Also alive and in one piece, even if she wasn't there right now.
“Are you okay, little ladybug?” Steel demanded when he finally drew back enough to take a breath.
“I'm not hurt. Are you all okay?” Rose asked, her gaze roaming Steel’s body, before shifting to move over each one of them.
“All okay,” Voodoo replied.
“And Lion is …?” Rose asked, watching him with concern.
“I'm fine,” he assured her.
“Good. I didn't tell Kate about your loss of control in the forest. I didn't want to worry her any more than she already was, and I didn't know if you'd been able to come back from it.”
He didn't take offense at her statement because, at the time, he hadn't thought he would be coming back from it. It was like being taken over by another being. A physical being that assumed his identity, that had only one purpose, and that was destroying anything that got in its path.
But he had managed to regain control, and now he had a different purpose.
Get to his girls and get them the hell out of there.
Then eliminate the last remaining threat to their safety so neither Kate nor Ariella, nor any one of them ever had to live in fear of being caught and caged ever again.
“They’re okay?” he asked, moving to the bars and curling his fingers around them as though he would be able to rip them away despite knowing it was impossible. If Steel couldn’t do it, then he certainly couldn’t.
“They're fine,” Rose assured him. “I woke up in a bedroom, went out the window. Oh, don’t even start with me,” she hushed Steel when he opened his mouth, no doubt to reprimand her for doing something reckless.
“Are you forgetting how I almost got out through the vent when you had me locked in your basement?”
“I remember that you brought the roof down on yourself,” Steel grumbled.
“Well, no ceilings fell on me this time,” Rose sassed with an eyeroll. “I went along the side of the house until I found a room that was occupied. Kate and Ariella were inside it. Neither of them is hurt. You hearing me, Lion?”
Maybe he wouldn't fully believe it until he could see them with his own two eyes, but he was going to take her word for it. “Hearing you.”
“There was no way Ariella could go out the window, and it’s easier to move and remain unseen on my own, so I picked the lock on their door and told them to go hide somewhere, then I came looking for you guys,” Rose explained.
“Did you see who took us?” Thunder asked.
“No,” Rose answered. “But Kate did. It’s my mom. Apparently, she was working with my brother all these years. Only while Ridge wanted super soldiers, it seems my mom is after something different. Immortality.”
“Immortality?” Whitney echoed. “My drug could never do that. It boosted the immune system, gave enhanced tolerances for lack of food and water, temperature extremes, and faster healing, but there is no way any drug can ever make anyone live forever. That’s just not possible.”
“I don’t think my mom agrees,” Rose said.
“She wants to study Ariella. I'm guessing she was also hoping that Lion would be a match if he ever made contact with Kate and their daughter, and now she wants to see if, between the transplant and the drugs, she can save Ariella’s life. Then use that to try to find a way to cure any and all illnesses.”
“Over my dead body will she be experimenting on my kid,” Lion growled.
“Then let’s get you guys out of here so we can go and take care of my mother,” Rose said. “Steel, you can't break or bend the bars?”
“If I could, you wouldn't have been climbing along the side of the house, little ladybug,” Steel replied.
“Right. Well, there has to be keys around here somewhere. Lion’s little breakdown did one good thing, I think you wiped out a good portion of my mom’s security, because I only spotted a dozen armed guards.
Not enough of them to properly patrol the property.
And I don’t think my mom realized I wasn't going to just sit in my room and wait for her like I was still four years old. Ah ha!”
For a moment, Rose disappeared from view, returning with a set of keys in her hands. Making quick work of unlocking their cage, Rose swung the door open and then stepped back so they could all file out.
Now they were free, there was nothing to stop them from seeking the revenge they’d been craving for a decade.
River Gardner had to be stopped. There was no telling what she’d spent the last ten years doing, but chances were, she’d left a trail of dead bodies in the wake of her own experiments.
More innocent men and women who had signed up for a program they didn't fully understand, and had little hope of surviving.
It ended here.
Ended now.
Because not killing River Gardner meant leaving a threat hanging over his daughter’s head, and there was no way he would ever allow that to happen.
March 19th
10:32 A.M.
Cramped and uncomfortable, it didn't matter how badly her muscles ached, Kate wouldn't move for anything.
Not when she and her daughter were crammed into the bottom of a wardrobe in a random room that she’d found as they crept their way along the halls.
Taking turn after turn, she hadn't bothered to make sure she could find her way back, she just wanted to put some distance between the room they’d been put in and the place they chose to hide.
It stood to reason that when River eventually sent someone to check on her and Ariella, and they realized they were no longer in the room, they would search room by room, starting from the closest rooms and working their way out. So she didn't want to pick a room that was too close.
On the other hand, it could be expected that she would do that, so the people who would search for her might wind up starting at the furthest away point and making their way in toward the bedroom they’d been locked inside.