“Everything you do is my business.”
“Look, I didn’t come in here to have a pissing match with you. We put everything we had into reading those files. We have no known address and no recent hits on this guy. The only thing I could turn up was his rather impressive service records and a divorce decree. For all we know, our target is dead.”
“He’s not a ghost, Sebastian. He is very much alive and I want him found. Not next week. NOW.” Marx emphasized his point by slamming his fist onto the table hard enough to make several mugs jump.
The fucker was coming unraveled in more ways than one. Wes shrank back. The normally stalwart man looked like he was on the verge of crawling under the table. Sabastian veiled his disgust. He was in no mood to deal with the blatant display of fear.
“Why we are going after this guy? Perhaps you could enlighten the rest of us?”
“Perhaps you should have put more effort into doing your damn job, Baas,” Marx snapped. “I should toss you and your worthless partner in a cell. I’m not talking about a piddly two-week vacation either, boys. I’m starting to think a few months in lockdown are in order. Maybe that would help you realign your priorities and give you the motivation to stop fucking off and wasting my time.”
Stunned silence fell over the room. Most of the team remained focused on the briefings in front of them, refusing to look up lest they get sucked into the crossfire. Sebastian’s stomach cramped as he threw a quick glance in Josh’s direction. His partner’s face had blanched an ashen white. Seeing the pleading poised on the tip of the other man’s tongue, he plowed a hand through his hair. Christ, they were all starting to fall apart.
“Reevers had nothing to do with it. I pushed him off the case last night. If you want to blame someone for this, blame me.”
Marx’s brow inched lower. His soft chocolate skin darkened and the broad, craggy planes of his face seemed to shift beneath the surface as his cheeks tightened. “You are playing a dangerous game, Sebastian. Your job is to follow orders, not usurp them. Get your ass back into line or so help me God, I will force you so far back you won’t even be able to see the damn thing. Are we clear?”
“Completely,” he ground through clenched teeth.
“Good. All of you get out of my sight,” the director barked, tossing the file back across the table. “If I don’t have something useful in my hands by noon, you will all start disappearing.”
Cursing beneath his breath, Sebastian snatched up the packet and shoved away from the conference table with a snarl. Josh and the rest of the team were hot on his heels and he could hear the poor rookie they’d been saddled with scrambling to keep up. The dim lighting and somber grey walls lining the corridors only fueled his bitter mood. His office door rebounded off the cement wall as he flung it open. Casting him a cautious glance, the guard stationed outside wisely inched away. The movement alone was enough to make him want to plant a bullet in the man’s skull.
Josh paced the floor in agitation while Vince dropped into one of the empty chairs with a ragged exhale. Wes entered shortly behind them, his face stoic as he nudged a very frightened and confused looking Jackson inside. Normally, seeing that kind of petrified horror stamped across a rookie’s face would have afforded him a small twinge of amusement. Instead, he found his fingers twitching with the urge to lock around the young man’s throat and squeeze the life out of him. Folding his arms to keep his murderous impulses under control, Sebastian leaned against the window ledge.
Freedom loomed on the other side of the dismal glass panes, but it was best to ignore it. It was far too easy for a man to crave what he couldn’t have, and for all the good the outside world did them at the moment, it might as well of been a million miles away. They would be lucky if they ever stepped foot outside these walls again.
“Well,” Josh said, plopping into a chair and slumping sideways in his seat. “That was an unpleasant bit of fuckery. Anybody bring the lube today?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t that bad. I mean, we just have to give the guy what he wants, right? With five of us, how hard can that really be?”
Josh’s dark cobalt eyes flared with disbelief. “Are you kidding me? First off, no one asked for your opinion here, cupcake. Secondly, lose the Mary Poppins and everything is sunshine act before I bust a cap in your ass. In case you missed the memo, the rest of us are having a really shitty fucking day.”
“Both of you shut up.” Sebastian’s expression hardened with a look of strict reproach. “I’m not running a daycare service and, like it or not, we are all on the same team. I suggest the two of you man up and start acting like it.”
“I can man up just fine. Don’t ask me what Boy Wonder here is capable of though,” Josh retorted, jutting a thumb in the other man’s direction. “Since when are we nice to the new guys around here, anyway?”
“Since now. We have an impossible amount of work to do and I have no desire to spend the next few months of my life rotting away in a reconditioning cell.”
“What’s that?” Jackson asked. His mouth twisted with worry as he looked between the two of them.
“You remember your training? The endless tapes, videos, and shock therapy getting your addled little brain ready to protect, serve, and kill?”
“Yeah…” Jackson said uncertainly.
“Worse.”
The young man’s jaw slackened just enough for it to be noticeable and he gave a disparaging shake of his head. “Jesus. How?”
“You know the shit we do to other people?” Josh asked.
“Interrogations, right?”
“Yeah, whatever kid. If that’s what you want to call it, sure. Take all that torture, turn it around, and amplify it. Then amplify it again, because Marx is seriously pissed and has a bug up his ass. That’s what reconditioning is like and there’s no way out for us either. Not until we’ve learned our lesson and then some,” Josh quipped.
“Wait…they do what now?”
“Yeah, it’s a real fucking blast. Welcome to SKALS. I suggest you strap yourself in, cupcake. You just entered the ninth circle of hell.”
CHAPTER 8 ~
The house and grounds were both dark by the time Sebastian nosed the Benz through the wrought iron gates. Offering Rupert a stiff nod of greeting, he pulled the rest of the way up the drive and parked the car in the garage. His shoulders sagged with a mixture of relief and unspent tension. After ten days away, home was no longer a comforting notion, but something that felt unfamiliar and strange.
He craned his neck until the vertebrae popped in protest. Keeping his eyes trained on the rearview mirror, his fingers flexed around the steering wheel as he watched bright bursts of lightning lance the sky behind him. Images of raw electricity and intermittent flashes of torture accompanied them. He could still see the way the wicked blue volts branched through the air like spider webs before they rippled across his skin. He could still feel the indescribable agony of every muscle and nerve ending snapping to instant, rigid attention until it felt like his entire body would shatter.
It hadn’t mattered that they’d delivered a substantial bit of evidence to Marx before the day was done. The crazy bastard was still hungry for blood and, by the time the week was done, he’d eked out his share.
Dropping his chin to his chest, he fought to pull himself back together and reacclimate himself to the world once more. He struggled to find that small sembl
ance of humanity still inside him and let go of the hatred and rage that smothered his soul. Realizing it was pointless, he shut off the ignition.
The garage lights flickered and dimmed. He managed to step free of the car and shut the door before they shut off altogether, casting him back into the familiar ink of darkness. Frowning, he pushed his way into the house, hung up the overcoat to his uniform in the laundry room, and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. He twisted the top free and downed half the bottle, relishing the way the ice cold liquid traced a languid path down his throat to the pit of his stomach. After finishing the rest, he pitched the empty container in the trash.
Ignoring the gnawing hunger pangs clawing through his system, he wandered through the house, his head tilting as he strained to decipher the muffled noises coming from upstairs. Taylor’s name flickered through his mind and a cold prickle crawled across his nape as a blinding flash of lighting illuminated the entire foyer, bathing it in a ghostly flood. What the hell was she doing?
Another distressed whimper drew him further up the stairs. His hand curled around the handle of the pistol holstered at his thigh as the entire house boomed and rattled beneath his feet. His name carried softly in the aftermath, making his chest tighten with fury. Taking them two and three at a time, he scaled the remainder of the steps.
His body grew so rigid it ached. Uncertain of what he would find, he kicked the doors open, drawing a shrill scream from Taylor. His eyes darted around the room in a frantic search. It turned up nothing. Drawing his weapon, he swept the sitting room to his right before rounding the fireplace that served as quarter divider between the two rooms and inching around their massive four-poster bed.