Authors: Lora Leigh
She hadn’t been his favorite, but she had been his most important subject. The only one he’d known the Council would never risk killing.
Scott’s gaze flickered and the scent of fear thickened. There was more than fear there, though. Strangely, there was also the scent of—affection? Scott Connelly had felt something for somebody? Something he had evidently told no one else if the scent was anything to go by. But even more, he knew something. Gideon was certain of that now.
Gideon grinned at it. “What do you know, Scott? Tell me, my friend, so I can go away as silently as I arrived.”
Gideon ran the scalpel along the other man’s stomach, watching the thin trail of blood as it oozed from the deep scratch and heralded a pained cry from his victim. “Don’t bother lying to me. I can smell it. And it would just piss me off worse to have to ask you again.”
He let the tip of the scalpel press deeper into the vulnerable, soft flesh of the man’s pelvis. A bead of blood welled then slowly eased down along the side his inner thigh.
“No one knows where she is,” Scott blubbered pathetically, his voice high, terrified. “All the Coyotes working with Brandenmore could find out was that she may have been in contact with one of the other two children who were in the labs with her, just before she ran away.”
Gideon almost cursed.
Fuck
, he hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t heard the rumors that the Council or Brandenmore had suspected the other two were alive. He had suspected Scott knew, but Scott was the only one, and he hadn’t believed Scott would ever reveal that knowledge to any other living soul.
“The other two were terminated.” Gideon stated the story his other victims had related to him. The story they had believed.
Gideon let himself appear a little less threatening by pretending he was ignorant of their survival—it would encourage the former researcher to talk. If Scott thought it would save his pitiful little life, he would turn over his own family, let alone one little research project—as long as it wasn’t his favorite. As long as it wasn’t the only creature on the face of the earth for whom Scott Connelly seemed to have any warmth. But, there was nothing as important to Scott as his own life.
“No, no. They weren’t.” Scott sobbed. “They were supposed to be.” His voice hitched violently with fear. “They were being transported to the facility where they would have been. Then the Bengal kid managed to get free of his chains and attack the driver and the soldier transporting them. The van wrecked and the two kids escaped. No one knew where they went but they found evidence that there was someone else there.”
There was. Gideon had been there. But no one should have known that. Even after he had been recaptured weeks later, far from the area, weak and all but dead, they had never thought to question him about them. And Gideon had never used the information. Even when it would have eased the pain they inflicted, at least once.
Deception still edged Scott’s voice though. There was just a hint of it, and Gideon knew the researcher was hiding more.
Gideon allowed the scalpel to scrape along Scott’s hip bone, peeling the skin from raw flesh as he screamed in pain.
“What do you know, Scott?” Gideon lowered his voice, the tone a warning, dangerous rasp.
Scott was sobbing. Gideon knew how it felt to have the thin layer of skin peeled back from living flesh to feel the agonizing caress of cold air meeting it.
“It can hurt more,” he warned the research assistant. “Much, much more. I want everything Scott. Tell me everything you know.”
His lips trembled a second before he wailed in pain and fear. And fury. Gideon knew that inner, agonizing fury when the will breaks and the instinct to survive kicks in. “They’re with an old Indian. I didn’t know his name or who he was and I fucking didn’t care. He was looking for a girl kidnapped decades ago by the Council. Everyone knew he was searching for her. All I had was a contact e-mail. He was rabid about his identity. I e-mailed him their location and the approximate time they’d be there. But Brandenmore’s men found someone who saw this old Indian bring them into a café three days after their escape. They ate, then headed west. They were in Missouri. The waitress remembered them clearly despite all the years because the little girl seemed ill, and the boy had a broken arm.”
Headed west. And yes, the girl had been ill. With whatever illness she had infected Gideon with as well. That still infected him.
“And a team has been sent out?” Gideon asked.
“No. No.” Scott swallowed tightly. “The team is still in Missouri trying to identify the Indian. It’s been too many years. They have to find the Indian to find the kids now, because they’re adults. Because they had no idea what they would look like now.” He licked his lips nervously, hopefully. “I destroyed all the pictures of them. All the files because they were supposed to be terminated.”
Only Gideon had been recaptured. Because they had left him. Left him in the cold and the emptiness of the night after infecting him with her illness. After saving him when death had been rocking him in her gentle embrace.
“You were supposed to have escaped.” Scott sobbed again. “I gave you the means to do it. I helped you too.” Rage filled his eyes. “She made me.” Tears were pouring from his eyes, snot running in streams. “How else could you have slipped out so easily, Gideon, after so many years of failures? You and the boy. That was all she cared about, you that damned boy.
Gideon hadn’t known that.
The boy wasn’t exactly a boy, if Gideon remembered correctly. He would be in his midthirties. Like Gideon, he’d endured the research for years before the girls were added. The one who had been slated for termination had been a submissive little thing if Gideon remembered correctly, and he was certain he did.
Dark hair and big dark eyes. She had only been fourteen at the time of the escape, just as the Roberts girl had been. It was only weeks after the escape of the other two that she had run away from her home.
Honor Roberts had simply disappeared after leaving a short letter to her mother. That letter, as Gideon had read himself, was a good-bye, and the hope that she would understand. Although the mother had seemed as confused as anyone else that the girl had left.
Gideon wasn’t confused.
Honor Roberts had been too intelligent, even in the labs. And she had always seemed to know, and to hear, more than was good for her well-being.
He was betting his own life on the hunch that she had learned, or suspected, that the research scientists were trying to convince General Roberts to allow them to do more testing on her.
And he was betting, once again, his life that the other two had contacted her. They had been close in the labs, so there was no way in hell they had completely lost contact after the other two were free.
He only knew he had to find the other girl. The one with those big dark eyes and vulnerable expressions. The one he had held despite the punishment to come, after a particularly brutal experimental session with the drugs she was being pumped full of.
“Very good.” Gideon sighed at the useless memories. “What else did Wallace tell you?”
He had yet to catch up with Wallace, but he was on Gideon’s list. His time would come.
“They had a list,” Scott wheezed. “A list of names, of Indians who were known to be in the area at the time but didn’t live there. But I know that the person they’re looking for wasn’t on that list. When I heard it was an Indian, I knew who it was and I didn’t tell them. I figured it out over the years and I made certain his name never showed up.”
Gideon tilted his head to the side curiously. “Really?”
He wasn’t lying. Greedy little fucker. He’d thought he could capture them himself and gain the reward, no doubt.
“Who was it?” he asked.
“There was a girl the Council killed when they learned she mated one of their Coyote soldiers,” Scott rasped. “It was over twenty years ago. Morningstar Martinez. She was taken from Window Rock, Arizona, because of the suspected psychic talents that ran in the family. I know her brother, Terran Martinez, was in the area at that time, but no one else knew. And I never told a soul.” His gaze was tormented. “I let it lie, Gideon. I helped them escape.” He sobbed. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
“For something,” Gideon agreed, lying as easily as the Council trainers had taught him to lie while he was under their less than tender care.
This information was interesting, though. Very, very interesting. The Genetics Council had always searched for breeders who had shown, or whose families had shown, a high rate of psychic or other paranormal talents.
Gideon considered the information for several long moments, wondering if he could satisfy his need for vengeance without spilling blood now. Without hearing Scott Connelly scream in inhuman agony.
Why was he bothering? he wondered. Why did he care if the son of a bitch believed Gideon had lied to him or not, once he began torturing him?
Because, Gideon admitted, he had made a promise.
He’d promised mercy.
Cutting into the man’s guts as he lived wouldn’t be considered merciful, he thought in resignation. And unfortunately, Gideon couldn’t think of a worse death that he could use to assure Scott that the vivisection would be less painful.
And that sucked, he admitted to himself.
Scott had given him something no one else had, though—he tried to appease the animal that snarled restlessly inside. That counted for something, for mercy at the very least.
The researcher had tried to aid his escape, Gideon hadn’t known that. But what he knew, he would tell anyone who tortured him. Gideon couldn’t allow that.
Unfortunately for Scott, it didn’t count for a reprieve.
Gideon finally nodded slowly. “No vivisection for you, Scott. You did what the others haven’t managed. You gave me something useful.”
Relief mixed with distrust filled Scott’s eyes.
There was nothing Gideon could do about the distrust, because he couldn’t explain that he would indeed die.
“I have to be going now.” Gideon tossed the scalpel aside as he rose to his feet and glanced around the room.
The small pillow on the couch caught his eye. Moving to it, Gideon picked it up before returning to his victim.
“Here. I’ll lift your head so you don’t choke on your own snot.” He snorted. “That wouldn’t exactly be a comfortable way to die.”
“Gideon.”
He paused as he stared down at the helpless, vulnerable monster that had once filled his nightmares, but would no more.
“Yes, Scott?” Arching his brow mockingly he stared down at the tearstained face as he remembered the sneers that had once covered it.
“You’re after the girl, aren’t you?” Scott’s lips quivered as more tears fell. “You’re after Fawn.”
Gideon bared the sharp incisors in warning. “I’m after all of them, Scott. Every last one of them. And I’ll have what’s owed me. Never doubt that.”
“I’ve done everything to keep them hidden.” He swallowed tightly. “To help you. I didn’t know they would use the vivisections on you. I wasn’t there the day the decision was made. They didn’t warn me in time.”
“No one warned me either.” Gideon shrugged as he moved once again to place the pillow beneath his head.
“Gideon, if they find her first . . .” Scott swallowed tightly. “They’ll find out what I’ve hidden all these years.”
“And that is?” He really didn’t care.
“She’s special,” he whispered. “The last time I tested her blood there were additional hormones in it. Changes that didn’t make sense. Changes the scientists would have killed her to understand—and still will.”
“And why did you care?” Gideon lifted Scott’s head to adjust the pillow beneath it.
Crouched behind him, he pushed the pillow in place.
“She’s my daughter,” Scott whispered.
“Liar!” Gideon snarled at the same moment he twisted Scott’s head with brutal force.
The sound of Scott’s spine cracking clashed with the scent of instant death as Gideon closed his eyes and fought back the shock, and the regret, he insisted on feeling.
He refused to even consider Scott’s final words because they didn’t matter. Nothing could make him more determined to exact his vengeance, not even the paternity of his prey.
He should be able to kill easily, he thought instead, without remorse or guilt. He should have never felt the need to keep his promise for mercy when he himself had never been given mercy.
He settled Scott’s head upon the pillow and stared down at the limp form. Gently, he closed the empty eyes that still reflected the abject relief he had been feeling at the moment of his death.
Gideon refused to acknowledge that glimmer of resignation he had heard in the other man’s voice, though. As though he had known he would die in that second.
“I couldn’t allow you to live,” he said softly as he stared down at the lifeless face of the man that had tortured him for so many years. “Monsters can’t be allowed to live past their usefulness, Scott. And your usefulness ran out.”
Then his gaze was caught by that damned family photo.
Son of a bitch. He didn’t want to see that. He didn’t want to see nor consider the family that would return later.