Cross (The Formicary Book 2), page 22
“I’m going to be fine. Especially if you let me put some fucking pressure on the wound.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry.” I pressed hard as I could on the wound, and he yelped. I moved my hand like it was on fire. “Sorry, sorry.”
“Cross, I swear to god, you’re a menace.” He groaned and put his hand back over the wound. “If you try to help one more time, it’s going to be my turn to use the gun.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Turns out sorry doesn’t mean shit. Go and make sure he’s…” He looked up at my face and winced again. “Make sure the threat is neutralized.”
“By threat do you mean ‘my grandfather’ and by neutralized do you mean ‘dead?’” I asked dryly.
He grimaced. “Sorry.”
“Your sorry doesn’t mean shit either.”
“That’s not very nice considering you shot me.”
“I shot a lot of people, okay?” I huffed. “It’s been a long night.”
I approached him carefully, my weapon still drawn. He was curled on his side now, his hand jammed over the wound. His silken pajamas were black, so I couldn’t see any blood, but I could tell the fabric was saturated.
He looked small and frail from this angle, nothing like the ruthless man that he was. I put my weapon in the back of my pants as I crouched down beside him. His body rose and fell with every inhale and exhale. He was still alive, but from the looks of that labored breathing, he probably wouldn’t be for long.
I saw a little movement at his side, and I stiffened, reaching for my weapon. And then I saw his hand, slim and pale and wrinkled, as he extended it toward me. His pained gaze rose to meet mine. His eyes were already starting to glaze over.
I wanted to deny him any last comfort, but it went against my nature. It would cost me nothing to hold his hand as he died…even after everything he’d done. He squeezed my hand, but I didn’t squeeze back, and he finally went lax. I stared at him for a few moments before I reached out and closed his eyes.
And then I heard the pounding at the door, so loud that I flinched. Fuck, I’d forgotten we had an entire kill squad to deal with.
Gray groaned but didn’t open his eyes. “Maybe that’s delivery.”
I hustled over to squat down next to Gray, stripping off my shirt. I jammed it against his wound and I was even more worried when he didn’t make a sound. I put his hand gently on top of the fabric. “Hold this tight, yeah?”
Gray cracked open an eye. His roving eye roved over my abs. “Damn. If I have to die, I could do worse for scenery.”
I scowled. “You said you were fine.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
“They’re coming through here, and it’s not going to be pretty.”
He winced as he shifted, trying to find comfort that was nowhere to be found. “Why does that sound like you’re getting ready to do a whole lot of killing?”
Because I’m getting ready to do a whole lot of killing.
I took the remote out of my pocket and looked down at the terminate button. Someone kicked the door so hard that it left a sizable dent in the metal. I could feel my body gearing up to do what it was supposed to do, their aggression feeding mine. But I had seven clones still running around out there, and I couldn’t take them out by myself.
The door finally came down as my finger hovered over the button, and suddenly, I had bigger problems. Being faced with just about the entire team of Project Titan was the thing of nightmares. They took in the sight of the carnage and then turned to me. Even before they could advance, I held up the remote.
Weaver looked at me warily. “Who told you?”
“Does it matter? Dobroslav is dead, and so is whatever he was building here. Your loyalty to him should be dead as well.”
“It doesn’t work like that. And you have no fucking idea what you’ve done.” His gaze roved my face for a few seconds before his eyes narrowed. “Or do you?”
I stood silently, letting him come to his own conclusions. He let out a little incredulous laugh as he turned to Chaos, who was leaning in the doorway with his arms folded. “You told him about the countdown.”
“I did,” he said, his mouth tight.
“And you killed him anyway,” he said, his gaze whipping over to me. “Did you even ask him about the fucking code?”
I wasn’t going to answer that, either. Frankly, I’d been too consumed with getting back to Gray to worry about a little thing like…saving all their lives. Not to mention I’d still been debating about dropping them all with the termination button. I winced. “Look, I need your help.”
Jumper’s gaze was even icier than usual. “Why the fuck would we help you?”
I missed the days when he was the strong, silent type. “Because maybe we can’t fix ourselves. But we can clean up the other mistakes.”
“Not a mistake,” Gray said, his gaze focused on the ceiling. He sounded a little sluggish. “You’re not a mistake. Never a mistake.”
I appreciated the sentiment, but…I sent him a worried look. “Are you sure you’re—”
“Those clones are the only mistakes,” he went on. “I read the research, and Rebecca Kessler was wrong. For all their faults, the SEPs are stable. Not so much with the clones. There’s a difference between altering and creating, and the technology used to create those clones is considered junk science for a reason. Dobroslav even had their brain cells supercharged because he wanted them to learn faster. They mimic the person they’re fighting and develop three times as fast as either of your SEPs—”
“We know that Project Atlas is superior to ours,” Rover interrupted bitterly. “That’s been established.”
“Then you know that you should probably kill them now before you can’t,” Gray said bluntly.
Weaver gave the remote a nasty look. “Is that the only reason you haven’t sent us into oblivion? You’re going to hold our lives hostage to gain our cooperation? You’re no better than Dobroslav.”
The man had a point. And frankly, if they were anything like me, they were getting a little tired of being told what to do and when. They’d had to live with the knowledge of the kill switch for a long time. The knowledge that their lives could be forfeit at any moment at the press of a button.
Chaos sent me a warning look that I ignored. We needed to end this thing now. I had to get Gray out of this building and to someone who could help him. To do that, I had to get through a whole host of clones who seemed very interested in seeing me dead.
I looked down at the keypad on the remote and sent up a prayer that my grandfather was like most and used the same code for multiple things. I keyed in Bonzi’s birthday again, and after a few seconds, the clock reset to 76 hours.
I breathed out a sigh of relief as I tossed Weaver the remote and he caught it one-handed. “Better?”
He looked down at the tiny device and then back up at me. “Do you expect me to thank you?”
“Hardly that.”
He looked down at the glowing numbers at the top of the remote. “You’ll give me the code?” When I rattled off the numbers, he frowned. “I expected you to hold the code as leverage. You know I have no incentive to help you now, don’t you?”
“I do. And you’re going to help me finish this anyway. We all had a part in creating this mess.”
“I didn’t know it would be like this,” he snapped.
“Nor did I. I know we all let him experiment on us for different reasons. Maybe some of you wanted to be part of something special. Maybe you were just in it for the money. Maybe you’re an adrenaline junkie, and you thought it would be a kick. Maybe you needed to be someone else, someone stronger, so you could finally exact your revenge.” I swallowed. “I was wrong. Maybe you were, too.”
Weaver stared at me for a few more moments before he let out a low growl. “Fine.”
His grumpy visage was suddenly the focus of every member of Project Titan. Rover voiced their confusion. “Fine?”
“That’s what I said,” Weaver snapped. “We’re going to help him finish this.” Even as I opened my mouth to thank him, he held up a hand. “But when we’re finished, your boy here is going to figure out how to get this Jumping Jack out of me. Out of us.”
“How the hell is he supposed to do that?” I was annoyed at my sudden embroilment in a shitty version of Let’s Make A Deal. “He didn’t create the thing.”
“I'll figure something out,” Gray said. His face was pale, and a sheen of sweat dotted his brow. “And if I can't, I know some people who can.”
Weaver raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
Gray nodded tiredly. “When Chaos compared the device to an ICD, it made me think. It’s rare, but some cardiac patients can’t tolerate the device, and it has to be explanted. I spent the night studying how that operation could be applied to the Jumping Jack.”
“So that’s what you were working on?” Chaos looked a little stunned. “I told you it was hopeless. I told you that Cross was going to have to terminate us all.”
“Yeah, well.” He managed a half-smile that turned into a grimace of pain. “I’ve never been any good at someone telling me what to do.”
“All we can ask is that you try.” Weaver looked a little touched himself and cleared his throat, clearly embarrassed. “Let's get moving, guys. This building is filled with hostiles.”
I crouched down and secured an arm under Gray’s back and my other under his knees. When I was sure I could lift him without jarring his injury too much, I rose slowly. Despite my care, he let out a painful groan. “How are you doing?” I asked softly.
“Never better.” He blinked up at something in the ceiling. “Wow. That is one big-ass ant.”
I frowned. “I think the blood loss is making you loopy.”
He pointed up, and I followed the trajectory of his finger. The embossed ant on the ceiling was so large that it looked like a blur until I looked at the legs on the sides. The Formicary was no more. I couldn’t be sad about that.
“Maybe we should put a sticker right here,” Gray said, patting my chest. “Just so they’ll know which is the real you.”
“I’m not that worried about it.”
“This face,” Chaos said as he jerked a thumb in my direction, his eyes alight with mischief. “You see this face in the building, you kill with extreme prejudice.”
“Not a problem,” Weaver said nonchalantly as he checked his weapon.
I paused before looking down at Gray. “Okay, what can I use as a fucking sticker?”
22
The Formicary was lit up like a Christmas display. Just about every agency with an initial in its name had managed a front-row seat. The FBI. The CIA. Even a secret sector that only identified themselves as B Group had shown up, asserting priority over everyone else. It was strange walking past a row of dead bodies that looked just like me. Someone had nearly taken an echo’s head clean off, and bile rose in my throat. I hurried past.
I hustled over to the idling ambulance. Before some law enforcement stooge had ordered me to the ground, I’d been allowed to hand Gray off to two paramedics. My grip tightened just for a few seconds as they tried to take him from me, but a sharp word from the dark-haired one made me relinquish my most precious thing. They’d bustled him off without further ado, and I’d been forced to eat pavement. That was until a familiar face emerged from a sea of law enforcement and got them to release me—Detective Myers.
She’d hounded me pretty good when I first woke up with amnesia in the hospital. Guess we’d both known a little more than we let on. She could see how antsy I was, so she gave me a little nod and told me that we would talk later. I had a feeling the word talk was being substituted rather loosely for grill. Either way, she’d gotten me free, and that was all that mattered.
I rapped on the back of the door, and after a few seconds, the same dark-haired paramedic opened it a crack. Surprise and then unease crossed his face when he realized who it was...probably because he’d seen many copies of me dead on the ground. “Look, guy, we’re about ready to take off here.”
I glanced down at the patch on his uniform. “Dan, is it?” I spoke quietly. “I need to see him. Two minutes, that’s all I need.”
“You can see him at Easton Regional,” he said quickly, ducking back in the door.
I grabbed it before he could pull it closed.
You won’t even be the first guy I’ve fucked up tonight. I bit back the words as my hand instinctively clenched on the ambulance door. I didn’t want to be that Christian Cross anymore. I left that life and the Formicary behind. The metal creaked under my grip and made a strange sound as it warped. Dan’s blue eyes got big as saucers.
Okay, I was trying to leave it all behind. Call me a work in progress.
“Two minutes,” I said.
He glanced down at the door and then at me…then back at the door. He swallowed hard before stepping back to give me a wide berth. “Two minutes.”
Two paramedics and a cop were loitering outside, and Dan left the door open as if he needed witnesses just in case. Gray was laying on the stretcher, hooked up to all sorts of equipment. He had an oxygen mask on his face, and when he saw me, his eyes went wide.
I sat on the small bench next to the stretcher—it was a tight fit in the cramped quarters. Gray reached up and lifted his mask off. “Christian—”
“Just listen to me,” I said, trying to be calm and rational. “I know that I’m not the best bet. I’ve lied and deceived you in the past, and I’ve done some horrible things…things I don’t even really remember. I can’t change any of that.”
“Christian—”
“Put the mask back on,” I said gently, waiting until he did. “Just…listen. Okay? I’m not the best person in the world, and I know I don’t deserve someone like you. But I’m here, and I’m trying. I’ll do whatever it takes, go wherever you want to go, as long as I get to stay by your side.”
He lifted the mask again. “Chris—”
“Mask,” I reminded him firmly. He rolled his eyes but pulled it back down over his nose and mouth. “And I know that because of me you were kidnapped. Held hostage. Cut in the neck by a clone. I also shot you….” I scratched my head trying to remember if I’d forgotten any of the recent atrocities we’d gone through. “Okay, so I put you through a lot. But I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for that if you let me. Will you? Let me, that is?”
He gestured toward the mask. “Am I allowed to take this off now?” His voice was muffled, but I could still pick out his dry tone.
“Just for a second,” I agreed reluctantly.
He lifted the mask. “Christian, I—”
“I love you.” I was suddenly gripped with terror about what he’d say. Because if he walked away, especially after all the chances I’d had and all the times that I’d lied, I knew I’d have to let him. I’d have to accept that. It was almost unthinkable. I had to make him understand why us being apart was a ridiculous impossibility. My voice edged towards desperate. “I love you. Do you understand that?”
“Jesus Christ, Cross!” He threw up his hands in his version of a hissy fit. “Can I get a word in edgewise?”
“Fine. Okay. Go ahead.” I sat back. Then I leaned forward again. “But I love you, Gray. More than anyone or anything in my life. I just want you to know that before you say whatever you’re going to say.” I sat back and gestured for him to go ahead.
“I love you. I always have. I always will.” He gripped my hand tight, probably so I’d stop interrupting and just listen. “I want to live the rest of my life with you. But if you don’t let them take me right now, I’m going to bleed out before we have a chance. And then I’m going to be really pissed.”
“Oh,” I said as I finally got it. Glancing around, I realized we had the attention of the two paramedics and the cop outside, not to mention Dan and the paramedic in the front. “Oh.”
I realized I should be embarrassed about spilling my guts to the world at large and begging Gray for another shot, but I didn’t give a damn. I’d take out a billboard if he’d let me. Now that it was on my mind, I might do that anyway. Just for my enjoyment. Christian loves Gray and Cracker Barrel coming up in two exits. He never even needed to know.
I cleared my throat. “But earlier, you said I’m not like you. I just thought….”
“I didn’t mean that as an insult.” His mouth quirked. “I meant that I can’t fight a fucking android, so take the bloody shot.”
“Oh.” I flushed a little. “That wasn’t clear.”
“It was a stressful time,” he said dryly. “Oh yeah, and by the way, I’m still losing blood.”
Fuck. I glanced over at Dan, whose face was wreathed in impatience. “I’m going to—"
“Ride with him,” he finished. “I know.”
“He loves me.” I smiled, a little bit goofily. “He loves me.”
“We know.” Everyone spoke in unison. “Everyone knows.”
I huffed. What a bunch of freaking buzzkills.
Even as Dan took Gray’s vitals, I was allowed to hold his hand. Gray answered questions when he was supposed to and moved when the medic asked him to, but that whiskey-colored gaze never left my face.
23
As much as it galled me to admit it, Gray had been right. I patiently waited for him to wake up after his surgery to tell him so. All right, so maybe I paced a little…then a lot. An exasperated nurse finally asked me not to wear a hole in her linoleum. Whatever.
I was on him like white on rice the moment he started to wake with a grimace. “Hey,” I said.
A frown creased his brow as he looked around the room groggily. I took his hand in mine, waiting patiently as I brushed the back of his hand with my thumb. It took him a few moments to focus on me, and when he did, he latched on like a baby duck imprinting. He didn’t seem to want to look away, and fuck, I knew the feeling.
I started with the most important thing. “You’re going to be okay.” He gave me a tired nod, and his hand twitched a couple times in my grip. I thought he might be trying to squeeze but didn’t have enough energy. “And don’t worry. Ally and Erica are here.”
