Page 145 of Juniper Unraveling

“Everything is about to be annihilated. The only facility left standing is about to self-implode as a safety measure. Just like the first.” Rolling his shoulders, he frowns. “Do you know what’s down in the morgue? I’ll give you a hint. It isn’t burning bodies, or corpses. It’s cages. And they hold alpha mutations. Ones so dangerous, they alone could wipe out what’s left of humanity. So, when there’s a breach in the lower level labs, this place shuts down. Even if the power goes out. And everything is locked inside, like Pandora’s box. Contained. No explosives, or bombs, can penetrate it from the outside. There is. No. Escape.”

“Doctor Ericsson.” The wobble in my throat pushes the words out shaky and choppy, my jaw aching. “I have … something you might be interested in.”

Ignoring me, Doctor Ericsson returns to Rhys, lifting another scalpel that he sets to his forehead, as if to begin surgery on him while chaos ensues beyond the doors. “Albert? It’s time for you to leave. Strap her to the other bed and take the fire escape stairwell. I estimate about twenty minutes before lockdown.”

“What about you?” Albert asks.

“I’ve much to finish here. My work isn’t done.”

He’s mad. I’m sure of it now. Papa knew it then, and perhaps to a certain extent, he feared him for it.

“That’s absurd! You’ll die in here, Father. And what’s the point, then?”

“This subject holds the cure.” Doctor Ericsson palms Rhys’s skull, his eyes crazed, as he rubs his hand over the blood smeared into his shaved hairline. “In his brain lies the answers we’ve spent decades searching for. I’ll find them. If I have to dissect every inch of it, I’ll find them.”

“Doctor Falkenrath already found the—” My words are cut off by Albert’s palm slapping across my mouth.

“Shut up.” His fingers dig into my cheek with his anger, bruising my jaw, and his hips prod me toward the second gurney, set beside the first.

I swing an elbow back, knocking Albert in the crook of his neck, and a burn flares across my scalp before the steel bar of the gurney slams into my forehead. Pain explodes across my skull, shooting up into my nose.

Rhys growls and rattles the metal holding him down, in spite of the scalpel drawing a jagged line of blood across his forehead.

“You must hold still!” Doctor Ericsson’s frustration bleeds through his clenched teeth.

Circles float in front of my eyes, but I kick back, and manage to spin myself around to face Albert. With an upward hike of my knee, I hit him square in his nuts, and he falls forward, bending me across the gurney. His hands wrap around my throat, tightening against my gullet. Insanity claims his eyes, tinged with so much fury that he seems unaware of the slamming against the doors outside.

The woman’s voice comes over the PA again. “Warning. Code Triage. Biohazard safety breach. Infectious patients. S-block. Lower level. Evacuate immediately.”

With the horns blaring, I don’t immediately notice that Albert’s unzipped my suit until cool air hits my chest, and with one quick yank, he tears it away from my body before wrenching the satchel over my head, which he tosses to the floor. The uniform sits shrugged at my ankles, above the boots.

“How much pain do you think we could make him suffer? Huh, Wren? Seems we can’t torture the bastard physically, but maybe mentally. Because nothing could be worse than watching what I do to you. What I’ve always wanted to do to you.” Albert tugs his gun from its holster, and the cold, unforgiving metal presses into my temple. “Except for when I kill you after.”

Ripping his fingers through my hair sends a hot searing pain across my scalp, as Albert drags me to the other side of the bed, while I stumble, tripping on the uniform, until I’m facing Rhys.

Doctor Ericsson shifts Rhys’s head just enough for him to see Albert and me, and the first twinge of shame ripples down my spine, as I stand in front of him naked, gritting my teeth in fury and humiliation. Gun to my head, Albert slides his hand down my belly, between my thighs, and I snatch his arm to keep him from going any further. At the prod of his hips, I buck against him.

A hard thud slams against my spine, knocking the air from my lungs, and I grip the sheet below me as the intense ache of his punch radiates across my back.

“That’s it. Fight me. It’ll only piss him off more.” He presses against my head, forcing my chin to the bed. “Do you know what happens if those Alphas get through the door and see you like this? They’ll fight him. To the death. Just to claim you. So get used to this sweetheart. You’re nothing but a vessel for breeding now.”

“Fuck you!” I jerk in Albert’s grasp, my teeth grinding as he grips my breast, squeezing so hard, the pain springs tears to my eyes.

“Watch his eyes. See how the pupils dilate? Looks like he’s dead. He would kill me right now, if he wasn’t strapped.” The chaotic noise outside the door is a distraction over Albert’s voice in my ear.

I snap my head back and steal a moment of joy at the crack of my skull hitting his face.

Arms band around my waist, lifting me into the air, and Albert slams me against the bed. I flail my arms, as he fights to grab hold of me and one-handedly pulls the leather strap tight across my body to fasten it.

“Please! I have the cure! I have the fucking cure!” I scream, bringing everything to a standstill, and with his gun still in place, Albert holds me there.

“What’s that?” Doctor Ericsson lowers the scalpel from Rhys’s head. “What did she say?”

The air raid continues outside the door, objects slamming into the walls from the other side, rattling the instruments pinned to them.

“I have a cure. The cure.”

Doctor Ericsson exchanges a glance with Albert and tips his head. “And what might this cure contain?”