Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
The sounds of screams had him abruptly heading for the door.
Thunder knew the sounds were masculine, it hadn't been Maya who was shouting out in pain, but he was pretty sure he knew who it was.
There were eight dead guards littering the property, which meant the only people left alive were the six of them, Maya, and Dr. Gardner. The man screaming had to be the scientist. But unless the man had hurt himself, it had been Maya who inflicted the damage.
Which meant she was close enough to the man they both loathed with every fiber of their being to touch him.
That meant she wasn't safe.
“Left Maya inside the cage they put me in,” he whispered before he used his enhanced speed to get to his girl as quickly as possible.
There was no need to speak loudly since Blade was there and would hear the softly spoken words.
“There could be another key, but I thought leaving her there was the better option than bringing her out into a firefight.”
Now he was second-guessing that decision.
He wouldn’t have been able to move as quickly, kill both of those men, get his hands on a weapon, and reunite with his team if he’d had Maya with him.
Carrying protecting, and keeping her shielded would have been his priorities.
Instead, he had left her alone and vulnerable.
Now she might lose her life because of that decision.
As he rushed through the kitchen and back into the hall, he saw her.
Maya.
Coming to an abrupt stop at the top of the stairs as Dr. Gardner grabbed hold of her, one of the scientist’s eyes a bloody mess.
He skidded to a stop only because the two were balanced somewhat precariously above the very top step, and he was worried that him ascending the stairs in a blur would startle them enough that they’d lose their footing.
Falling down the stairs wasn't likely to kill either of them, but he wanted Maya to walk away from this in one piece, and Dr. Gardner not walking away from it at all.
For now, it seemed the wisest move was to stay down there, he could always reassess the situation as it unfolded.
“Thunder,” Maya cried out when she saw him, and the relief in her tone about undid him.
She believed he would get her out of this mess. She trusted that he wouldn't let her down. Given what she’d lived through and the rocky start to their relationship, there was nothing better she could have offered him.
“Right here, babydoll,” he soothed, and as he felt the shift in the air that signaled the presence of his teammates, he added, “And I brought reinforcements.”
“You're here,” Dr. Gardner gushed, giving what could only be described as a borderline hysterical giggle.
The man who had imprisoned them for three years was nothing like the one now standing at the top of the stairs holding Maya close against his body.
“I knew you'd come. I knew I'd get you all back.
You're mine, you know. I created you, and that means I own you. You're going to be punished, of course, for leaving me, but I know after that you’ll be good for me. Obedient, compliant, my perfect little killing machines.”
Insane as it sounded, Dr. Gardner seemed to genuinely think he was going to punish them, and then things were going to go back to the way he wanted them, the way they’d been in the three years he’d kept them captive.
Did he believe he could just throw six grown men with enhanced ability and knowledge of a hundred ways to kill someone with their bare hands, over his knees and whip them into submission like he’d tried to do with Maya?
Whatever sanity the scientist had possessed at one time appeared to be quickly crumbling.
The man was devolving, and that made him dangerous.
Thunder wouldn't put it past Dr. Gardner to throw himself down the stairs, taking Maya down with him when he realized this wasn't going to go the way he wanted. Despite Maya’s earlier attempts to throw herself out a window, he knew she had moved past that place. She was emotionally and psychologically stronger than she’d been in over a decade.
“We should go,” Dr. Gardner continued as though any of them had agreed with his assessment.
“I don’t have a place set up for you, but I'm sure you’ll be patient with me.
As you can imagine, your little … tantrum games …
have put quite a dent in my operation. You’ve pretty much ruined it, but everything will be better now.
Everything will go back to the way it was.
The way it was supposed to be. Maybe we can go back to my island, collect my sister, and my best scientist on the way.
My other experiment, too, I’ll definitely need her. ”
How the doctor thought that any of that was going to happen, Thunder couldn’t fathom, and he didn't care. It was clear that Dr. Gardner’s delusions of grandeur and obsession with playing at being a god had devolved into plain old delusion, and he didn't have the patience to listen to this rambling.
It was time to spill this man’s blood once and for all.
This time, Dr. Gardner wouldn't escape.
He was trying to figure out the best way to get up the stairs without causing his girl to fall, while the scientist continued his unhinged rant, when he heard Maya call his name.
Their gazes met, and the trust in hers almost brought him to his knees. He knew what she was going to do even before she said the words.
“I know you’ll catch me,” she whispered, before letting her body fall forward.
Caught off-guard by the sudden movement, Dr. Gardner didn't have time to react. Maya’s momentum took him down with her, and then the two were falling.
Never wanting Maya’s faith in him to be misplaced, Thunder moved faster than he’d ever pushed himself to move.
Catching her before she hit the third step, he wrapped his arms around both Maya and Dr. Gardner, not wanting to give the squirrely scientist any chance to run, and made sure he angled his body so that he took the brunt of the fall and his girl was caught between the two bodies, taking the least of it.
No sooner had they hit the floor at the bottom of the stairs than his team was on Dr. Gardner, pulling him away while Thunder turned his attention to his girl.
Shifting her so she was lying flat on her back with him above her, he ran his hands over every inch of her body, noting when she winced and when pain tightened her mouth.
“I'm okay, Thunder, you caught me,” she assured him, her hands lifting to cover around his.
“Not before you hit a few steps,” he murmured back, brushing their joined hands over a red mark on the bottom left of her ribcage that would turn into a bruise over the next few hours.
“You caught me,” she repeated. “And now you have him.”
Both of their heads turned to where Steel held a writhing Dr. Gardner, who seemed to think it was possible to escape the hold of the man he had given enhanced strength to. Not even Thunder or one of the other members of their team could break free of Steel’s grip.
They’d done it.
The man who had ruined their lives—or tried to at least, since he couldn’t say that now his life had led him to Maya that he hated it in any way—was before them, and as he stared at Dr. Gardner, the rage he felt was still there, but it no longer demanded that the scientist suffer.
All he wanted was to give Maya the peace of mind of knowing her bogeyman was dead.
Taking her hand, he pulled her up with him, then stripped off his shirt and pulled it over her head, shielding her naked body from everyone’s view. Once he’d done that, he tucked her against his side and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“If you all want to take him with us, lock him up, torture him for a while before we end him, then I won't argue, but I just want him dead,” he announced. They were a team, and the plan had always been to keep Dr. Gardner alive for as long as they could and make him suffer like he’d made them suffer.
But things had changed, for him at least.
“My little ladybug will be disappointed,” Steel said with a smirk, “but kill him now. I want it over, and so does she.”
“Now. But I vote for setting him on fire since he had his people try to burn down Cassandra’s house,” Dragon said, those unusual violet eyes of his fixed on Dr. Gardner, who seemed to shrink closer to Steel under the vicious gaze.
“I vote for gutting him,” Blade said, already pulling out his knife and spinning it between his fingers. “Oh, and I'm good with doing it now.”
“Don’t care how we kill him, but I'm breaking his legs first,” Voodoo said with determination, and they all knew he was thinking of Indigo and how Dr. Gardner had instructed his people to hit her leg with a hammer, shattering her bones to study her ability to withstand pain.
“I don’t want him near Indigo ever again, so we can kill him here and now, get it over and done with. ”
“He already stole my future, I'm ready to end his,” Lion said.
“Then it’s unanimous,” Thunder said, touching another kiss to the top of Maya’s head. “Although I think knives will be easier than setting him alight, more fun anyway.”
Dragon sighed in disappointment, but nodded his agreement.
“I want to help,” Maya said before he could take her out of the room and tell her to wait there for him.
“You don’t have to, babydoll.” Unlike the rest of them, Maya wasn't a killer, she hadn't chosen this life for herself.
“I know. But I want to,” she said, determination in her voice.
“You can't kill me,” Dr. Gardner protested, finally going still. “I created you. You're mine. You're all mine.”
Without a word, Voodoo swung the butt of his weapon into the scientist’s kneecap, shattering the bone and making him howl with pain.
Of all of them, Voodoo was the one who liked violence the least, but Dr. Gardner had hurt the woman he had fallen for, and knowing someone had hurt what was yours changed things. Changed you.