Go to hell, Jack. It isn’t that. She needs protection.
So do the other women. Are you feeling the same way about them?
How can I fall in love with someone I just met?
You’re shallow. I’ve always told you that, but you never listened to me.
It isn’t love. She just—He broke off abruptly. It wasn’t love. He didn’t dare love. Love could turn into something really ugly with a man like him. He wanted her—wanted to take care of her and see that she had a better life.
Who was he kidding? He wanted to wake up with her in his arms, with her legs wrapped around his waist, his body grinding hard against hers, his mouth at her br**sts and kissing her, hot, long kisses that never ended. It’s sex. Straight-up. I get hard just thinking about her. Straight-up sex.
You lying bastard. Jack snorted in derision. You walk away from sex. She isn’t just sex to you, bro. She’s the f**king Fourth of July and Christmas all wrapped up in one neat package. Kenny’s in love.
Keep it up, Jack, I’ll tell Briony you stuck a gun to her sister’s head.
You wouldn’t dare.
Damn it. He refused to love the woman. He just wouldn’t do it. He wasn’t going to take a chance that he could turn ugly on her. He’d just keep her. Tie her to him. He was very experienced at sex and she wasn’t. Keep her hot for him, wanting him. That was the key. Forget love. Jack was full of it. That way was disaster. This way he could keep her forever and never feel so much as a twinge of jealousy. Keep his emotions out of it and be safe.
Ken wiped sweat from his face and began to walk in the narrow corridor of cement, finding his way through the maze with nothing but Mari’s touch to guide him to her, because one way or another—he had to reach her.
Chapter 15
Mari caught the bars of the window on her door and shook them, her gaze on the two men circling each other.
“We don’t need the guns,” Sean said.
“No, I can beat you to death with my bare hands,” Brett answered.
“Stop,” Mari entreated. “Brett, stop.”
“Shut up, Mari,” Brett slammed a hamlike fist against the door, sending her heart into overdrive. “I’ll take care of you later.”
The camera in the corner made a slight whirring noise as it changed angles to better capture the fight between the two men. Mari’s breath stilled in her lungs.
In that moment she suddenly understood what was happening. The entire compound was a laboratory experiment, and everyone in it was a participant. Whitney wanted emotions running out of control. He wanted to see if he could manipulate men into a killing frenzy. He wanted to see if he could indoctrinate them to murder their own children if the child didn’t meet the stringent standards for supersoldiers. And he wanted to see if the mothers could have a strong enough hold on the men to keep them from doing so. He was testing human nature. Maybe whoever was funding him didn’t know the extremes he was going to, but he’d already killed one of the seven women he’d begun training, and if Whitney had his way, the others could just as easily die.
Mari and her sisters were not soldiers. This had never been their home. They were lab experiments, nothing more, and if they wanted to survive with body and soul intact, they had to escape. They had to quit talking about it and make it happen—and soon. Immediately.
“Sean, don’t do this. It’s what they want—what he wants.” She felt the need to save him, a fellow soldier, a man sworn to do his duty and carry out orders. She’d always respected him as a soldier, respected his abilities even when it had become clear he no longer considered her and the other women part of the unit. Whitney had done something terrible to him to change his personality, to turn him into another Brett, brutal and without the ability to decipher right from wrong.
“Back off, Mari,” Sean hissed, eyes on his enemy.
“If you do this, there’s no going back. He’ll have you for murder. Don’t you see, you’ll be as much a prisoner here as I am.” It was already too late for him; she had known it almost the moment he’d come for her and he’d acted so out of character. The man with a ready laugh was gone, and a stranger had taken his place.
He had made a choice; even after seeing what Whitney’s experiments did to the men, Sean had still made the choice to participate.
“I already am,” Sean said, clenching his teeth. “He isn’t going to torture you anymore.”
Mari felt tears burning behind her eyes. Knives had replaced guns and there was no way to stop what was going to happen. Somewhere, this was all being recorded as if it were a video game instead of real life. A man with dead eyes watched them all with no more compassion than he would have for insects. He played with their lives and recorded everything diligently, all in the name of science and patriotism. Sean was so wrong. Whitney was still torturing her. He’d taken another person she cared about away from her.
She knew no other life and neither did the other women. They had talked of escaping, had planned for months, but until now they’d always found a reason to wait, to hold on one more day. In spite of their training and their enhanced physical and psychic abilities, the simple truth was they were all afraid of what they would find outside the compound.
In all her life she’d never once talked to anyone not associated with the compound. The guards and fences weren’t the only things keeping them prisoners. Fear held them just as efficiently as the guards. Fear for what Whitney would do to Briony. Fear for the other women. Fear of not being a good enough soldier. Fear of the outside world.
She didn’t honestly know if she could survive away from this place. The brutal years of training, of discipline, weapons, and control, had been her way of life as long as she could remember. Every moment of education she’d ever received had been designed to make her a better soldier—a better weapon. It was the same for the other women. They had no family, no friends, and no one to advocate for them.
An alarm went off, shrieking insanely, and her heart nearly stopped. What if Ken had been spotted? She gripped the bars, her legs turning to rubber she was so scared. They would kill him. Ken. She reached out to him, careful to keep the energy low, as if she were talking to the other women as they often did in the evening. I need to know you’re alive.
I’m here, baby, on my way to you.
I hear the sirens. I touched all the girls and they’re all in their rooms safe.
That little sick pervert of a doctor’s house blew up. It’s a real tragedy.