Chapter 7
ALEX
Alex paced the floor of their bedroom, raking a shaky hand through his hair as he flicked a sideways gaze at Ava’s limp form.
His stomach remained twisted into a tight knot despite having made it safely home after a successful retrieval of the files they needed to secure from PharmaTech.
At least he no longer experienced the nausea that had gripped him when he’d plunged the syringe into Ava’s arm as she entered the van.
Her sad smile had been the last thing he’d seen before she fell asleep, knocked out quickly by the powerful sedative.
He hadn’t wanted to do it, but she’d insisted on their plan B. Had she been on the verge of another behavior-altering blackout or had her vitals merely been the result of the high stakes mission where they were nearly caught by the guard?
He didn’t know, but he dreaded the moment she awoke. Would she be Ava or would she have that dead look in her eyes, devoid of any of the sparkle that made her who she was?
With a huff, he stopped his ambling and twisted toward the bed, flinging his hands out. “Shouldn’t she be awake by now?”
“No,” Kyle answered. “That was a strong sedative. We wanted to make sure it knocked her out without any chance of her waking up before we could get her home.”
Alex sighed, resuming his frantic walkabout on the area rug.
“Man, this is totally normal. It’s good, in fact.”
He flung a hand at his wife’s limp form. “The fact that I just stabbed my wife with a syringe so she wouldn’t go all Jason Bourne on us is not good.”
Kyle rose from his perch on the side of the bed. “What I mean is, it’s good that she’s still asleep. It means she’s probably going to come out of this herself. She’s not leaping up in weird Ava mode despite the sedative.”
“Wait, can that happen?” Alex asked, furrowing his brow. Did he have yet another thing to worry about with Ava? That she could somehow defy extra-strength sedatives with this drug she’d been given?
“I don’t know. And we don’t even know if she was on the verge of a blackout. She was just being cautious. Her elevated heart rate could have been from the near-miss with the guard coupled with the physical exertion. Try to relax.”
“I can’t. Until I know she’s fine, I can’t.”
Kyle heaved a sigh, shifting his weight. “Well, that’s not going to be for a few months. And she needs your support. Not your worry, your support.”
Alex slid his eyes shut, pressing his lips into a thin line. “I know. I know that. I just…can’t stop worrying. Every second that this affects her, I feel like…”
“Time is slipping away, and you’ve already lost time with her because you never said anything for like two decades of your marriage?” Kyle asked.
Alex shoved his hands into his pockets. “That about sums it up.”
“Man,” Kyle said before he pressed his lips into a thin line, eyeing him, “can I make a really personal comment?”
Alex shrugged, his eyes falling to Ava. “Uhhh, I mean…we’re friends, so I guess.”
“I mean, it’s probably not what you want to hear, and I’d really rather be friends and keep my mouth shut than have you ticked off at me.”
Alex grimaced, fluttering his eyelashes. “It’s that bad?”
“It’s probably not what you want to hear.”
Alex waved at him. “All right, bring it on. I’d rather you hurt my feelings than Ava devastating me when she leaves me.”
Kyle poked a finger at him. “That right there…that needs to stop.”
Alex clamped his mouth shut, his eyes going to the floor.
““Mav, come on, man. You’re the love of her life—it’s obvious. The only thing that’s going to cost you Ava is you.”
Alex shook his head. “That’s not accurate.”
“It is extremely accurate. Nothing she does or says is ever enough to convince you. You’re going to drive her insane with your constant whining about how she’s going to leave you because you’re not enough for her.”
“Whining. Doc—"
Kyle flicked a hand through the air. “I’m not done. Everything I’ve said is accurate. These guys that you think are going to be so appealing to her would only be appealing because they think they can make her happy. But you have every advantage because you know you can make her happy.”
“I don’t know it. And I’m sorry I sometimes feel like I don’t deserve her.”
“My dude, I say this with the utmost respect, but get a backbone and start deserving her. Because I swear if you two get divorced, I’m going for her, and then we’ll hate each other. And that would be really awful because you’re like the first real friend I’ve ever had.”
“You’d seriously steal Ava if she left me?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“So…then you’d have Ava and I’d be your enemy.”
“Right, which would be…good on one hand, but terrible on the other. I would much rather have you both as my friends.”
Alex offered him a slight smile. “So, my friendship outweighs your interest in Ava. That’s pretty cool.”
“It does mainly because I’m fairly certain Ava would also secretly pine for you.”
Alex lifted his chin. “I mean, I don’t know about that, but it would be nice if she did.”
“She would,” Kyle answered. “Start acting like it.”
Alex bobbed his head, clamping a hand down on Kyle’s shoulder. “You’re a good friend, Doc.”
He hesitated, eying Ava again. “Oh, but next time, could you maybe stab her with the syringe because I still feel super awful about doing that. It’s totally not my thing.”
“She’s not going to blame you for it. You did good, but yeah, that’s cool. I’ll totally be the bad guy next time.”
Kyle flicked his gaze to Ava as a slight moan escaped her. He hurried around the corner of the bed, pressing two fingers to her neck. “I think she’s waking up.”
Alex’s heart rose into his throat as he flicked his gaze up, climbing onto the bed next to Ava and taking her hand in his.
Ava’s head rolled back and forth before her eyelashes fluttered open. Alex held his breath, waiting to see if she would be the real Ava or not.
Her seafoam green eyes focused on him, and the corners of her lips turned up. “Hey, Ace.”
He smiled at her, tears welling in his eyes. “Hi, Sparky.”
“I’m me,” she said, her grin broadening. “With a killer headache, but I’m me.”
“That’s the sedative,” Kyle answered. “If you’re up for it, we need to get you hydrated and some food into you. It’ll take the haze away and get rid of your headache.”
She bobbed her head. “I’m more than ready. I also want to know what you found in that file.”
Alex flicked his gaze across the room to the red folder on his armchair. “We haven’t looked at it yet, Avs.”
“What?” she cried as Kyle eased her up to sit, propping a few pillows behind her. “Why not?”
“Uh, you were a big part of that retrieval, and I wasn’t about to dig into it while you were laying here drugged and unconscious.”
“By choice. It’s not like I was randomly drugged like I was from PharmaTech. Which, by the way, how much of this is in my system?”
“Looked like about one or two fairly strong doses,” Kyle answered. “I’m guessing Miranda administered it somehow, maybe through your skin. It would have been easy enough for her to do completely undetected.”
“How was she not affected?” Ava asked.
“She could have been using the same blockers. Or maybe she was affected,” Kyle answered. “She turned on The Board. That could be why.”
“It doesn’t matter now. She’s gone,” Alex said. “And hopefully no one else is going to give you any more of this.”
“I’m monitoring that,” Kyle said. “We should see less and less of this in your blood until we can’t detect it.”
Ava nodded. “And then I’ll go off the drugs and find out for sure.”
“I know it’s scary, but it’ll be a good thing when that happens, Ava. Now, were you on the verge of another blackout or was this just all precaution?”
“Precaution. I couldn’t distinguish between my physical symptoms from the blackouts and from the panic with the stealing of the file.”
“Okay,” Kyle said with a nod. “We’ll leave your medication as is for now. But if you start having symptoms again, you need to let me know because I may need to adjust the dose.”
“Okay. Now, can we please look at that file before it burns a hole through my mind? I want to know what Project Reaper is. And I can’t believe Sebastian hasn’t broken down the door yet to read it.”
“He tried,” Alex answered as Kyle grabbed the file before he wandered to the door and tugged it open.
“Finally,” Sebastian said, stretching his arms to the side as he burst into the room. “We didn’t grab that file to sit on it while Ava took a nap.”
“Hey, easy. Ava risked her life to get that file,” Alex said, poking a finger at him, “and I think she should be awake when we read it.”
Sebastian shook his head. “We could have filled her in later. This is important.”
“Stop arguing, and let’s just open it and read it already,” Ava said with a shake of her head.
“Water and food first,” Kyle answered, raising a finger in the air.
Sebastian snatched the file from his hand with a heavy sigh. “You go get her food and water. I’m reading this.”
“We’ll get it as soon as we’ve read it,” Ava said. “Stop putting it off.”
Sebastian flicked the folder open, his eyes scanning the page as Kyle peered over his shoulder. “Will you back off?”
“Quit hogging it. I’m the doctor here. I should be reading it.”
“Fine,” Sebastian said, shoving the folder at him. “Read it.”
“Okay.” Kyle grabbed the folder, scanning the page before he lifted a sheet, his eyebrows crinkling. “What?!”
“What is it?” Ava asked.
Alex’s stomach twisted into a tight knot as he waited to hear what Kyle said.
Kyle shuffled through the papers again, his expression turning grim. “Project Reaper is a virus modification protocol.”
“Speak English, Doc,” Ava said.
“They’ve basically modified and weaponized the flu, making it more contagious and deadly.”
“How deadly?” Sebastian asked.
“Very,” Kyle answered. “Like seventy to eighty percent lethal.”
Alex’s forehead creased as he shook his head. “Wait, wait. So, that means…”
“It means seventy to eighty percent of people who get infected, die. So, if a group of one hundred people gets the Reaper virus, only thirty of them are left alive at the end of it, max.”
Alex winced, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. “Yikes, that’s not good. Do we have enough proof to go public? Nail them for doing something like this?”
“Yes, but we have a much bigger problem,” Kyle said, worry etched into every line of his face.
“What is that?” Sebastian asked.
“They’ve already let this thing loose in a small town. This could wipe out massive parts of the population if they don’t quarantine fast enough.”
“And they probably won’t. They’ll assume it’s the flu,” Ava said with a shake of her head.
“Which means…The Board will profit from yet another catastrophe, and we’ll lose a big swath of people.”
Alex stared at the comforter in front of him, blood draining from his face. His mind calculated the spread of the virus across the globe, the desperate efforts that would be made to try to save lives, but they would all be too late. The Board would win at destroying the world.
And they were powerless to do anything about it.