Tested (14 page)

Now she sat brushing through her hair, watching as the long, blonde strands flowed through the bristles, as they waited for the technicians to fetch them. Tyler was across the small room, bouncing from foot to foot to warm up, even though he knew they would put him through a number of workouts before getting into the ring.

All Missy wanted was for Tyler to remember who he was and who she was so they could figure out a way out of this place. She sighed. It felt like that would never happen at this point. No matter how much time they spent together, Tyler didn’t seem any closer to remembering her. There had been that one time when he’d been half asleep, but that was it. Nothing like that had happened again. It made her wonder if perhaps she’d imagined the familiarity she’d thought she’d heard when he’d said her name. Could it have been all in her head?

She sighed again. Phoenix was probably so pissed that she hadn’t heard from Missy yet. Who knew what the others were doing at this point, just waiting for her to do the impossible.

“Why do you keep sighing?” Tyler asked.

She looked up, surprised to see him watching her. “I’m just thinking,” she answered.

He shifted from foot to foot, and Missy thought she saw a flicker of apprehension in his expression. “Thinking about what?”

A beep sounded before the lock clicked over and the door opened. Figures, she thought. They were just about to have an actual conversation and now they’d been interrupted. Missy couldn’t help but feel deflated once more.

“Let’s go,” one of the men ordered. Another walked to her, grabbing her arm and pulling her up. Missy made a sound of surprise. The technicians weren’t usually rough with her, but this one was new so she guessed he wasn’t aware of the no touch policy. He was about to find out.

Tyler was there in an instant, tearing the man’s grasp from her. His expression was dark as his furious gaze bore into the other man. “You
do not
touch her!”

Missy put her hand on his lower back. His muscles relaxed a fraction beneath her touch. “It’s fine,” she said softly.

“No. It’s not.”

One of the other men pulled the new guy behind him. “Easy,” he said, holding out both hands. “He didn’t know. No one will touch her again.”

Tyler grunted before turning to face her, blocking her vision of the other men. She looked up into his gaze as he stared down at her. His hand lifted and he trailed his thumb slowly across her jawline. It moved up to brush her bottom lip in a touch that set her entire body on fire. Her breath got stuck in her throat. Parting her lips slightly, her tongue flicked out to touch the pad of his thumb. His pupils dilated, a deep growl worked its way up his chest.

Missy’s body swayed slightly toward him. Tyler let out a slow breath before letting his hand drop and taking a step back. He turned to face the men again and Missy couldn’t help but let out a disappointed sigh. Her shoulders dropped.

They walked to the training room the same way they always did. Missy moved to her usual spot and waited for Tyler to finish warming up before going into the ring. She was starting to wonder how long they were going to keep this up with him. Obviously his strength and skills were above those he was matched against, and he seemed to have gained control over his anger. Missy could see a difference in him every day. He had become more focused, more dedicated, less volatile. More of a weapon they could use.

Once he had mentioned some plan about an attack, but he’d never spoken about it again. Since Missy had been with him, he’d never been taken off to another room with a group of men like he’d told her they had done before. So where was this plan? What exactly did these people have in store for him? It made her increasingly nervous to be stuck behind enemy lines, completely blind to what was happening behind the scenes.

Her attention got caught on Tyler as he stripped off his shirt. She became mesmerized by all that skin, unaware that it was slowly making its way toward her. She finally broke her stare when she realized he stood inches away from her. Looking up slowly, Missy swallowed past the dryness in her mouth.

“In the ring, 2140,” the doctor called out.

Missy looked over Tyler’s shoulder to see the doctor making his way toward his usual spot. No one ever stood near her. She often wondered if it was because they were afraid what Tyler would do. She thought they wanted him to stay focused and didn’t want her to distract him. She didn’t mind, since all these men made her nervous. She might have gotten over her fear of men when it came to Tyler, but that didn’t apply to all of them. Especially anyone working under the direction of Douglas Hatcher.

Missy looked back up at him. “I think they’re waiting for you,” she said softly. Why was he still standing here? He hadn’t looked away once since he’d walked up. Her eyes dropped again to take in all the hard muscles within touching distance. When she looked back up his face was only a breath away.

She was preparing herself for him to back away like he always did when he finally closed the distance between them. Soft lips brushed against hers in a tender caress. Missy sighed, parting her lips a fraction. Tyler’s large hand wrapped around the back of her neck, closing whatever space was between them. His tongue darted out, stroking her bottom lip. Missy carefully met his tongue with her own, unsure of how far he was going to take this. Every awakened nerve in her body prayed he wouldn’t stop, but knew it was bound to happen considering where they were.

He pulled back and she had to swallow the protest that immediately built from the loss of his touch. She’d finally gotten a taste of what having Tyler touch her could be like, and now she felt like a starving woman. Her entire body was practically shaking with want and need. His thumb followed the same path his tongue had, a small smile playing on his lips.

Missy couldn’t find any words as they simply looked at one another. She wanted to ask “why now?” What had changed? Can he do it again? But she said none of those things. She simply waited for him to make the next move. His hand dropped to her neck, wrapping around the back of it, pulling her head closer to him. He kissed her forehead, letting his lips linger there. Time seemed to freeze. Missy closed her eyes, letting his touch soothe her frayed nerves.

When he turned and walked to the ring, Missy watched him with a renewed sense of fascination, ignoring the stares of the others. The muscles in his back twisted and flexed with his movements as he walked. Missy wondered what it would feel like to have all that strength braced above her, have those hands running over her, that intense energy focused solely on her.

Having to stand there and watch him fight while her body was completely in tune with every movement of his was torture. After each fight he’d turn and look at her, his eyes burning with so much desire and need that it made her knees weak.

As the trainer called out an end to the fights for the session, Missy’s heart rate instantly picked up. They were finally going to be able to go back to their room where they could be alone. Would he continue what he’d started? God, Missy hoped so. She prayed it wasn’t a onetime deal.

Missy turned to wait for Tyler to be let out of the ring when a hand grabbed her arm. She gasped and instinctively tried to pull it out of his grasp. It was useless. His hold only tightened as she continued to try to pull away.

The cage beside her head rattled loudly. Missy turned to see Tyler watching them, all desire in those beautiful eyes now replaced with anger.

“Don’t touch her,” he said.

“Calm down,” the technician said in an irritated tone. If Tyler hadn’t been locked in there, the technician would never have given him attitude. Missy knew damn well they were all terrified of him.

“No. Take your hands off her.”

“I’m just bringing her back to your room,” he said. “You have a few things to take care of that she can’t be a part of. No one is going to hurt her.”

“No,” Tyler said, his arms flexing as he gripped the fence tighter. “She stays with me.”

“Not this time.”

The man dragged her toward the door. Missy tripped over her feet trying to keep up. Looking over her shoulder, what she saw broke her heart. Tyler was pacing back and forth like a caged animal, his gaze focused on them. He banged his palms against the fence before pacing again. All she wanted to do was turn and run back to him, to ease his anger. He disappeared from her sight as she was pulled out of the room, the door slamming loudly behind them.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

He was going to kill every single one of them. Tyler tracked the man who was taking Missy away from him, wanting nothing more than to tear him apart with his bare hands. He had faced each opponent with the knowledge that when he was done he would be back in his room alone with her. While he’d been keeping control of his urges, he still craved her company.

As much as he wanted to do all the things he’d imagined doing with Missy, he’d made a promise to himself that he wouldn’t lay a finger on her until he knew for certain no fear of him remained inside her. The last thing he ever wanted was to scare Missy, especially after knowing what had been done to her.

Today was different for some reason. Every day seemed to be different than the last. It was hard for him pinpoint what the difference was, but after every workout his mind would become clearer. He hadn’t even realized there had been a haze there until it began to lift. This change was what pushed him each day to train as hard as he could. Because not only did he not want Missy’s fear to be between them when he finally took her, he also wanted to regain whatever memories the doctors here had taken from him.

Perhaps it was foolish to think he could recover from the drugs they’d given him, but for Missy he would try. For Missy he would fight and try to remember the person she’d known before. It killed him that there were things he didn’t know about himself, people he no longer recalled. These people had stolen it all from him.

His anger only grew as the door to the training room slammed shut behind Missy and the technician. Why were they separating them? An uncontrollable low growl bubbled up his chest and throat.

“Calm down,” the doctor said in a bored tone. Tyler’s head snapped toward him. These men knew nothing of his strength, he thought bitterly. He could snap his neck in a second, and yet he spoke to Tyler as though he was nothing but a petulant child. It incensed him.

“What do you want?” he asked through the rage clogging his throat.

“We’re calling a meeting, and your little woman is not invited,” he replied.

“A meeting for what?”

The doctor motioned to the man named John who seemed to oversee all of their training. John walked around to the cage door, but stopped just before opening it, his gaze locking on Tyler.

“You will not attack me or anyone else when we let you out of here,” he said. “Got it?”

Tyler clenched his teeth together, hands fisted at his side. It was hard to promise that when that was exactly what his instincts were screaming for him to do.

John raised one eyebrow. “Got it, 2140? Otherwise that little lady is going to take the punishment for your actions. We wouldn’t want that, now would we?”

Tyler nodded slowly.

“You’d better not, 2140. I mean it. She’s going to be screaming for you in a way I’m sure you’re not going to want when we’re done with her.”

They would all die. “I will not attack anyone,” Tyler assured him, his anger barely controlled. His skin felt tight, pulsing with the strength of his fury.

The door opened slowly, John stepped back, watching Tyler closely as he made his way to the exit. Every ounce of him wanted to smash the door into the other man’s face, but he mustered up enough control not to. One day, he thought.

Tyler followed John and the doctor, as well as the other men and women that had been training, down a hall that led to the same room he remembered sitting in before. The walls were a plain grey, void of windows or decoration. The floor and ceiling were the same, as though they’d made a box. Chairs were lined up in rows facing the far end of the room where a middle aged man stood waiting.

Everyone began taking a seat, so Tyler headed toward the back row. His eyes went back to the man at the front of the room. For some reason he interested Tyler. There was something about the way he looked at them all. He held himself in a way that spoke volumes, letting them all know that he ran things here.

That must be it, Tyler reasoned. This man had to be at the top of whatever was going on here. Even the technicians seemed to be wary of this man, which made Tyler lean in, his body ready for what was to come next.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentleman,” the man at the front said loudly. Everyone shifted their attention fully to him. Tyler watched the others out of the corner of his eye, noticing the way he commanded their attention. “I am known as the General,” he continued. “That is what you may call me. Understood?”

There was a slight pause before a handful said “yes, General” at the same time. Tyler remained silent. His pulse had picked up when he’d introduced himself, although Tyler didn’t understand why. Did he perhaps know this man from before? He studied his features, desperately trying to trigger anything that would let him know if he was already familiar with this ‘General’. Nothing came to him.

“I’d like to congratulate you all on your hard work. Here at the Institute, we pride ourselves in improving the human species, evolving what we are capable of and creating a new human that surpasses anything our ancestors could have ever dreamed of. You are our future. You are what all others will look up to. Our world is in a state of war, controlled by a man who is crazed and drunk with power, condemning his people to a life far beneath what we had in the past. This is not our world anymore. This is not the world we want for our children and future. This world needs to end. And to do that, we need men and women like you. Those who have abilities far beyond the ones we were naturally born with. You will save this world. You will take down Ludwig Tennebris and his New World Army. You are our saviours, and now the time has come for you to step up and use these abilities we have so graciously given you, to free us from repression. Your time is now.
Our
time is now. Will you fight for freedom?”