Page 57
The camera that’s fastened to the mask on Six’s head offers a clear view of those glowing eyes getting bigger, meaning whatever it is approaches the group.
As it closes in, my heart thumps faster, until the beams of their flashlights give shape to its silhouette. Small, crouched.
“Is that a cat?” I ask, squinting at the screen.
The moment it steps into the light, it’s clear it’s no longer a cat, anymore. With patches of fur torn away, and one ear that appears to have been bitten off, the cat hisses and growls as it crouches low, ready to pounce. Its face is mangled, one eye sealed shut and its paw seems to be deformed.
I have to look away. I’ve seen feral cats before, out on the Deadlands, but nothing like this poor, tormented soul. The moment it lurches, Six snatches it up by the neck, and the hissing intensifies, its jaw snapping to make contact with flesh. In the camera’s view, I can see where the animal has been tortured with bite marks, and its spine appears to have an unnatural curve. Whatever did this, did it only for amusement.
He seems hesitant at first, but Six gives its neck a hard snap, and the animal stills.
Perhaps a more merciful death in the end.
“Let’s keep on,” Jed says, while Six gently lays the cat down on the floor.
The first twinge of pain hits my belly, as they continue down the dark corridor, and I slide my hand across my abdomen, breathing hard through my nose. I don’t dare make a sound that might distract Six and, instead, clench my teeth, so as not to allow a peep to slip past my lips.
In my periphery, Gregor tips forward as if to get my attention, and I fervently shake my head to keep him from saying anything aloud.
The pain intensifies, bringing tears to my eyes as the ground glass sensation rakes across my insides. With a trembling hand, I rest my forehead against my palm and breathe.
Breathe.
Gregor pushes a key on his computer and turns toward me. “Perhaps you’d like to go lie down.” At the widening of my eyes, he shakes his head. “Its muted. They can’t hear us, at all.”
“I don’t want to lie down. I’m fine.”
“This is your pregnancy doing this to you?”
Another contraction of pain in my gut leaves me doubled over, trembling as it wracks my womb. I nod, eyes clenched so hard, an ache throbs in my sockets. “Comes … and … goes,” I grit out.
“I can keep watch, and alert you if there appears to be any … danger.”
“No.” There isn’t a chance in hell that I’ll move from this spot. Or that I intend to take my eyes off this screen, no matter what pain comes.
“Very well. Would you like some water?”
At my nod, he rises up from the chair, and it’s only when he’s out of the room that I give thought to the possibility that he could poison it. It’s merely instinctual, though--one firmly rooted by years of survival. When he returns, he’s carrying a pitcher and two glasses that he sets down on the desk in front of me. He pours both, and lifts his glass to his lips, polishing off about half of it in one sip. There’s a brief thought that he could’ve laced the glass with something, but I brush it off for the new cramp pulsing through my belly.
Flicking my gaze back to the screen, I watch Six and the group descend what appears to be a stairwell, and as the pain in my stomach begins to subside, a new ache churns at the sound of screeching that echoes through the speakers.
Jed turns around and pauses, his chin in the air. “Seems they sense something. It’s best if we all stay close. But if, by chance, we should get separated …” He reaches into his pack and tugs out a pill bottle, flicking his fingers. In the camera’s view, a palm about twice the size of Jed’s reaches out, and the smaller man dumps a pill in the center of it. He offers the same to Tinker and Ratchet. “Atropa belladonna. Otherwise known as deadly nightshade. One capsule contains twice the required amount to kill two human adult males. You’ll be dead in less than a minute, which will seem far too long, if one of those mutations should get their hands on you.”
“Six …” I want to tell him to end this expedition and come home, but I know it’s too late, as he curls his fingers around the pill. I imagine he stuffs it into his pocket, once it disappears from the camera’s view. “Please.”
“It’s going to be okay, Wren. I promise.”
His words are neither comforting, nor founded in any guarantee, or truth. They’re only meant as a balm to the stabbing pain in my heart.
They reach the foot of the stairwell, and as Jed pushes through the door, the creaking sound skates along my nerves like a blade against the bone. Skin beaded in sweat, I grab the glass of water set out before me, and swallow it back, every drop. Hell, if Gregor poisoned me, and I died, Six wouldn’t have to venture after that damn sample, after all.
The screeching from before seems louder, or maybe my nervous system has gone haywire as I wait, anxiously watching the three men enter what appears to be an abandoned laboratory. A sign on the door shows the biohazard symbol I became quite familiar with in Papa’s lab, and below it: Highly inflammable. No smoking or naked lights.
Cracked and dirty walls carry mold and water stains. A series of windows to the right are broken and shattered. Rusted equipment hangs by cords from the ceiling, as if ripped away. The crackle of grit, and what must be broken glass beneath their boots, leaves me cringing that the sound is far too loud for what lurks somewhere in that lab. Through the darkness, the light shines on Jed’s face, and he points down a dark and ominous-looking corridor. “The samples were held there. At the end of the hallway.” Lowering his hand, he flattens his lips and shakes his head. “The mutations were kept in the adjacent rooms.”
Oh, God. Oh, God.
Jed tugs at his zipper, as though checking the seal on his suit, and holds his arms outstretched, perhaps examining for any breaches, before jerking his head.
