Cross (The Formicary Book 2), page 9
“Okay, that’s not the end of the world, though.” I reached in my pocket for the lock bypass. “Hopefully, it will work on this one, too—”
His foot flew up, and he smashed it into the steel door, leaving a footprint in the warped steel. It didn’t give. Clearly unused to being thwarted, even by a door, he growled and punched the keypad. It sparked briefly, and then the illuminated numbers went dark. A tiny tendril of smoke drifted up from the destroyed unit.
I stared at the smoking keypad silently for a moment and then down at the lock bypass dangling from my fingertips. Deliberately, I stuck it back in one of my cargo pockets. “Well, that happened.”
“Shut up, Cross.”
“It’s just good to know that I’m still the brains of this operation.”
“What, you had a better idea?”
“I think a toddler would’ve had a better idea. Step aside.” I put my ear to the wall and thumped my fist on it. “Hollow.”
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, irritated.
“A steel door is nice and all, but you have to put it in a normal wall.” I thumped it again to be sure and nodded in satisfaction. “They always forget to reinforce the fucking wall.”
I punched my fist through the sheetrock, and it splintered like paper. Chaos grunted in approval. I was going to rub his face in this when we got a proper chance. For now, I just gestured for him to help me tear a passable hole in the wall.
I stepped through first, only to find two people occupying the room. A woman was standing by the desk, her face pale. And there was Kessler by the roaring fireplace, his shirt damp with sweat. Judging from the few papers left in his hand, we were a little too late. I held in a groan. Anything useful was probably an incendiary little crisp right now. Kessler maintained eye contact with me as he coolly tossed the last of the papers in the fire.
Great.
He no longer looked like the Kessler I’d seen on the technology video, promising that his company would be the wave of the future. That man had been thin and tall and wiry. This version of Kessler was barrel-chested with an almost brutish build, and I was briefly flummoxed at the change. The dark, intense stare was the same, though.
I glanced at the woman and stated the obvious. “You’re not Ronnie.” She was too young for one, and her hair was red and wavy, not in Ronnie’s usual pixie cut. “Who are you?”
“I’m the COO of this company. Rebecca Kessler,” she said shakily, trying to sound authoritative. “Who the hell are you?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” I finally said. “Where’s Ronnie?”
“Not here,” she said harshly. “Obviously, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
Well, if she didn’t mind, I was going to have to shake the hell out of that tree, just to be sure. But not here. I wasn’t sure what else Kessler had up his sleeve. We needed to get them back to the Formicary, where we were the ones with the homefield advantage.
“You two are coming with us,” I said briskly.
Kessler made a noise of derision, and my attention swung over to him. “And why exactly would we do that? You can’t possibly think I’d help Ronnie after she gave our research to your grandfather.”
“You seemed to be pretty certain that your company was going to unveil some new developments soon,” I said. “That’s right up Ronnie’s alley.”
“Yes, well, she’s not the only game in town.”
“Then you won’t mind coming with us.” This was a come hell or high water situation, and I didn’t mind letting him know it. “We’ll search your compound and see for ourselves, and everything will be hunky-dory.”
I’d like to say he came along peacefully. Unfortunately, his version of cooperation involved breaking the window and taking a leap. Rebecca cried out and lurched forward. Chaos cursed as he grabbed her arm and held her back.
Shit, that was a three-story drop. I gaped for a moment at the empty spot where Kessler used to be. Then I rushed over to the window. I looked down, expecting to see him broken and bloody on the concrete…only to see him running down the driveway at top speed. My mind tried to process what I was seeing, but I was having trouble connecting the obvious dots. Chaos, now standing at my arm with a white-faced Rebecca in tow, got there a little quicker.
“He used the formula on himself,” Chaos's voice was grim. “I’m guessing that around here, he’s the prototype.”
Rebecca confirmed those suspicions with a short nod. “Yes. When he heard about what Dobroslav was doing, he wanted an SEP of his own.”
Chaos let out a noise of irritation. “Well, don’t just stand there,” he said. “Go after him.”
I hoped for a few ridiculous seconds he was talking to Rebecca. Then I sighed as he fixed that icy blue stare on me. “Yep.”
“Bring him back alive,” he instructed. I resisted the urge to remind him that our little operation had no leader, so he should feel free to shut the fuck up. “We’ll finish up here.”
There was nothing else I could say. Man, being part of a team fucking sucked. I wasn’t too fond of the Kessler method of getting downstairs either, but I didn’t have time to do anything else. He was too bloody fast and had a head start on me. I peered down at the three-story drop.
Too bad I don’t have a rope, I thought wistfully. It’s never a bad time to rappel….
“Cross,” Chaos thundered.
I sighed and jumped out the fucking window—because that’s what normal people do.
I didn’t land with the superhero pose, all-powerful and amazing. Instead, I came down flat-footed with bone-jarring force. I limped for a few paces until I worked up to a good hobble. I gritted my teeth through the pain, knowing I’d probably just bought myself a date with Stella and the ModLab tonight.
I shook it off. This was what my body was meant to do. I leaped the front gate and hit the ground running, my sensitive nose and ears leading the way. The woods were a blur, the leaves crackling under my quick feet. I didn’t bother to hide my approach as I raced after my target, a fox on the tail of a rabbit in the woods.
Within a few minutes, Kessler was in sight. He was fast, but I was faster, and I started closing the gap. He seemed to see the writing on the wall and changed tactics. He came to a dead stop and spun on his heel to face me. I didn’t expect him to switch from hunted to hunter so quickly, and I ran headlong into his attack.
His first hit only clipped my shoulder but managed to knock me off balance. I fell back, and he rushed me before I could even think. Just that fast, he had me pressed up against a tree, his hand at my throat. For the next few minutes, we grappled for control—neither of us could keep it very long before the tables turned.
Fighting something like myself was an exercise in frustration. He was ready for just about every move I made. When I pushed, he pushed back harder. When I struck him in the jaw, he followed it with a right cross that left my ear ringing. And no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get his hand from around my fucking throat.
“I thought you were Petar’s finest creation,” he taunted. “The infamous prototype. Pathetic.”
I gripped his wrist to keep him from increasing the pressure around my windpipe. Then I stepped hard on his boot with my own, grinding it down with all my force. He didn’t let up. “Well, obviously, I missed…a few… upgrades,” I managed.
He stared at me for a moment before he laughed. “Oh, that’s just precious. You still think you’re the failed SEP.”
“And you… know… differently?”
He boxed my ear again, the left one this time. “I know you're going to get your head handed to you if you keep giving me openings.” I started to see sparkles on the edges of my vision as Kessler’s hold tightened. “Not good enough, Cross.”
I slammed my hands down in a chopping motion on his extended arms, breaking his hold. Before he could even take a step, I brought my foot up, planting it in his stomach and extending my leg. The kick sent him back a few steps—just enough to create a little distance between us. I gulped air like a starving man. I needed the double vision that came with my dizziness to fade—it was going to be kind of hard to hit Kessler when I was seeing two of him.
Kessler decided it would be helpful to land a vicious punch to my lower jaw that sent me staggering backward. He swung again, and only quick reflexes helped me duck just in time. Instead of landing a knockout punch, his fist crashed into the tree where my head had been. The trunk cracked and splintered under the assault but remained standing.
We circled each other warily like two junkyard dogs, each determined to come out on top. “You didn’t do all of this without Ronnie’s help,” I gritted out. “Where is she?”
“Is there something wrong with your hearing? I told you that I don’t know.”
His harsh tone gave me pause. Maybe he was telling the truth. He sounded a little put out that he didn’t know. “When did you last see her?”
“She wanted to leave MAXim, and I agreed to help if she promised to work for me again. She did for a while. Then she disappeared in the middle of the night with our research and her bonus,” he said through gritted teeth. “We had a deal, and she reneged on that deal. So you’d better hope you find her before I do.”
He sprang forward while I was still processing that information and rammed his shoulder into my stomach. His momentum propelled us backward, and we hit the tree again with shocking force—if I’d had one bit of air to spare, I would’ve gasped. This time, the tree objected to the rough treatment as it started to list slightly.
Kessler slammed me onto the ground. He leaned down to hit me again, but I recovered quicker this time. I drove both of my boots into his stomach in a move so forceful that it should’ve rearranged his kidneys. He only grunted and staggered back. Fuck.
I’d fast-forwarded past all the lower levels and went straight to kill big boss mode.
“You're going to have to do better than that, Cross,” he taunted.
That was probably good advice. And as much as I would’ve loved to pick his brain some more, he seemed kind of determined to see me dead. I hit him hard and fast, quick jabs to his midriff that kept him off balance. The groan of the poor abused tree caught our attention. Roots began snapping as the tree started to come out of the ground and fall sideways. I used that moment of inattention to advance on Kessler from behind, making a fist with both hands. Then I brought it down on the back of his skull.
There was a sickening crack as he froze. He half-bent over, his gaze unseeingly on the ground, his face a rictus of agony. He reached for me weakly, like a sleepy child feeling for a favorite toy lost in the sheets. I let him grasp my leg for a second before I brought my knee up to his face. He didn’t make a sound as he went slack. It took me a few seconds to realize that I was the only thing holding him up.
I let him slide to the ground, his hand still locked on my leg. I stared at his limp body and the pool of blood forming beneath his head. I hoped Rebecca knew more than she let on. Right now, she was all we had.
9
We left Kessler’s compound with a crapload of files and Rebecca. I wasn’t pleased with our bounty, but I knew Dobroslav would be. Getting his paws on Kessler’s research was going to be like his birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. It galled me to be part of that.
Transporting Rebecca was also not an enjoyable activity. She was an unpleasant woman, but I gave her a pass on that. Being hauled in for questioning wasn’t the best of circumstances for anyone, especially in the company of the man who killed your husband…and never mind that he’d been actively trying to kill me at the time.
Back at the Formicary, the rest of the team headed off for a repair and restore session in the ModLab while Chaos, Weaver, and I took her to the conference room. As I offered Rebecca a chair in the conference room, I mistakenly brushed her arm. Before I could apologize, she hauled off and slapped me—just slapped me, hard as shit. My understanding took a nosedive, especially when she snapped, “Don’t touch me, super freak.”
You mean like your husband? She waited until I moved away from the chair to sit. Her closed-off body language—crossed arms and legs—didn’t bode well for this questioning. Neither did the fact that I was about fresh out of patience for Rebecca-flavored bullshit.
I had to give her credit—she had a brass set on her. With Chaos looming over her from behind, Weaver filling the doorway, and me standing in front of her with my arms crossed, it was crystal clear that she wasn’t a voluntary guest. She didn’t seem fazed. Judging from her steady heart rate, the attitude wasn’t a bluff, either. I wasn’t sure if I was more impressed or annoyed.
I got right to the heart of the matter. “Where’s Ronnie?”
“I have no idea. I already told you that.”
She might’ve shouted something of the kind at Weaver as she refused to walk. That only made him give a longsuffering sigh as he tossed her over his shoulder. He’d proceeded to tote her into the room like a screaming, threatening piece of luggage.
I tried again. “When’s the last time you saw her?”
“What, is your language chip malfunctioning or something?” she snapped. “It wasn’t my choice to bring her back in the first place. But Alistair was willing to do anything to get that program off the ground. Fucking androids. You should all be killed.”
Chaos pantomimed snapping her neck, and I sent him a warning glare. “What can you tell us about Kessler’s SEP? Did Ronnie utilize the same serum?”
“I don’t want to deal with any of you,” she said loudly. “The next time I talk to someone, it had better be someone normal.”
Chaos sighed in a longsuffering manner as he turned to Weaver. “Go get Gray,” he growled.
I held up my hand that stopped Weaver in his tracks. “Gray is not at your disposal.”
“If you want to save his life, then he is,” Chaos snapped.
“Save his life? Don’t pretend like you’re on his side,” I shot back. “You’re just here to find Ronnie, so you can shake her down for the formula.”
Weaver’s gaze ping-ponged between the two of us as he waited to see who would come out on top. I had the feeling he didn’t give a damn either way. He was a soldier, and soldiers waited for orders.
“At this point, that equates to the same damn thing,” Chaos said flatly.
Weaver raised a brow in my direction, as if giving me one last chance to object. When I didn’t, he turned and disappeared out the door. I fumed silently as we waited—in the room, thank you very much, despite Rebecca’s request that we leave. To his credit, Chaos didn’t gloat. He was too focused for that. It reminded me again of his comment that all our lives were on the line.
I wondered yet again what could threaten a man like Chaos. Would Dobroslav command the rest of Project Titan to eliminate their leader if he didn’t bring results? Would they actually follow through? Sure, my grandfather was powerful—not physically, but every other way. But how did one man control a group like that? I thought about Project Atlas, still waiting in stasis. How did he expect to control even more of them?
Fifteen long minutes later, Gray came through the door. His color was high, and he was a little breathless from rushing. He was in his Formicary sweats and a hoodie, his ash-blond bun a bit mused and his brow a little damp. I wondered what had taken him so long, but I was too grateful he was here to ask.
Chaos didn’t share my restraint. “Dr. Laurie,” he said derisively. “So nice of you to join us.”
“I wasn’t aware this was an emergency,” he said mildly. “I was down in the medical bay working on some of the guys.”
“We have the Resto-Pods for that.”
“The pods are to patch you guys up and get you moving again as quickly as possible,”
he said. “Nothing more. Their injuries are better treated by someone with expertise in wound care.”
Rebecca brightened at the sight of someone normal…at least until he strode over to me and kissed me. Hard. While I was aware it was unprofessional and absolutely the wrong place and time, I couldn’t help but respond. I’d never objected to Gray’s mouth on mine, not in the history of ever. I wasn’t about to start. I drew the line at deepening the kiss, though, even when he pressed against my mouth for entry. Gray’s tongue in my mouth was a recipe for a hard-on, and I had no intention of giving these people a show.
“Oh God,” Rebecca groaned. “He’s one of them, too.”
“One of what?” he asked absently as he cupped my face, smoothing his thumb along the line of my scruffy jaw. I managed not to turn my face into his palm like a cat, but it was a near thing. “Thank God you’re okay.”
“I’m okay, too,” Weaver offered. “My lips are over here if you want to check.”
“You’re not going to be okay if you don’t put your googly-eyes right back in your head,” I said silkily.
“Just an offer,” he said with a slight smirk. “Now as pleasant as all of this has been, I’m headed down to the ModLab. There’s a pod with my name on it.”
Hopefully not the last one. I barely held in a sigh of longing as he left the room.
Gray gave me one last kiss before he tried to move away. Tried. I hadn’t realized my hands were bunching the fabric of the bottom of his shirt. I was hard-pressed to let him go for a few seconds, and from the quirk of his mouth, he knew it. The fact that we had an audience made it easier, and I finally unclenched my hands with effort.
“I’m not talking until they’re gone,” Rebecca said to Gray...and only Gray. “That’s nonnegotiable.”
Gray frowned, finally picking up on her animosity toward me. I exchanged a glance with Chaos, and he shrugged. With our hearing, it wouldn’t matter if were outside the building and down the street. Whatever made her finally give up the goods was fine by me. I left the room, and he was right on my heels.
Outside, we posted up next to the room, and sure enough, I could hear them as clear as crystal. “Finally,” Rebecca said with a sigh. “They give me the creeps. I don’t know how you stand it.”
“They’re not so bad,” Gray said diplomatically.
