of office space, nothing but desks in cubicles and a conference table and a little break area.
“Goddamn it,” Murhder muttered. In a louder voice, he said to the guard, “No, we want the research lab where they keep the—”
The sound of an air lock releasing brought everyone’s head around to the right. And then Murhder’s heart stopped in the center of his chest.
Two figures broke into the office area at a dead run. One was a pretrans boy with dark hair and bony arms and legs showing from the hems and sleeves of a pale blue hospital johnny.
And the other …
… was a human female in what appeared to be some kind of bright blue protective gear. She had her hair pulled back from her face, and as she looked across at Murhder, her beautiful eyes widened in fear.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, he could not breathe.
All these years … he had been wrong.
Hers was the face he saw in the sacred glass.
This was the female he was destined for.
Sarah could not believe what she was looking at, and she instinctively put her body in front of the boy’s so she could shield him.
For some completely inexplicable reason, her brain was telling her that, just as she was wondering how in the hell she was going to get the child out of the facility, three commandos dressed in black and draped in weapons showed up not only with a security guard who looked like he was hypnotized, but Dr. Kraiten himself handcuffed, gagged and in a chokehold.
The good news? The military types seemed equally surprised to see her—so much so they didn’t even point their guns at her. But she had a feeling that was a “yet” kind of thing.
Were they from a foreign … government looking … to raid secrets …
Abruptly, her brain went offline, all her cognition just grinding to a halt.
The commando with the red-and-black hair was what did it. Even though there were all kinds of reasons to stay completely plugged into the present danger, some part of her took the wheel of her mind and trained all of her awareness on him and him alone. He was incredibly tall and well built, and that hair was amazing, long, thick and obviously professionally colored—although why a soldier would spend time on his physical appearance she had no idea. And his face … he was arrestingly handsome, a Jon Hamm type, with bold features that nonetheless weren’t coarse.
And then there were his eyes. His astonishing peach eyes were staring at her as if, for some unknown reason, he recognized her—
“You’re my kind.” The child stepped out from behind her. “My mother, did she send you here?”
As the little boy spoke over the alarms that were going off, his voice woke everyone back up, Sarah jumping to attention, the commando shaking his head as if he were clearing it.
“Yes,” the commando said roughly. “Your mahmen sent us, and we need to leave—”
Sarah put her hand on the boy’s shoulder and restrained him from running off. “The only place he and I are going is to the proper authorities—”
“No,” the commando interrupted. “He has to come with us.”
“Then show me some proper ID.” Maybe they were SWAT, just unmarked? “Are you from the FBI, then?”
Dr. Kraiten spit out the gag in his mouth and added his cold, cutting tone to the party. “Dr. Watkins, what are you doing in this restricted access area!”
Leave it to a guy like him to worry about his precious security clearances rather than the fact that he was clearly a hostage.
On that note, fuck him very much. “What the hell have you been doing with this child,” she yelled. “You know they’re pumping him full of disease! You know everything that goes on here—”
Kraiten hollered right back over the din of the alarms. “I’m going to put you in jail for trespassing! You don’t have clearance to be here—”
Cue the slow motion.
Before Sarah could stop herself, blind fury at the fact that the man hadn’t denied they’d been torturing a child set her in motion. On a running leap, she threw herself at him without knowing what she was going to do. Punch? Kick? Yell some more?
And the attack was about more than just the secret, unethical medical program.
Gerry had been involved.
Gerry, so brilliant, so kind, so principled, had come here, worked here … and fallen into something that either changed him fundamentally or entrapped him into doing the unthinkable.