“Dr. Dante?” There was real concern in Jones’s expression.
Reese forced a smile. A trickle of sweat ran into his left eye. He blinked away the burn and concentrated on the panel. His hand trembled. Luckily, the weight of his arm held it in place. But there was no keeping it from shaking when he started to punch in the code.
“I got it,” Jones said.
Reese gave him the numbers, and he keyed them in, pausing at the last one. Again, he looked at Reese. “You don’t have to go in there, Dr. Dante.”
“You need me to open the doors. And even if you didn’t, I have to go in there.”
The man frowned.
“I’m responsible for this. These people…” Reese cleared his throat. “These people didn’t deserve to die.”
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened here.”
“Oh, yes, I can.” Reese gave a brittle laugh. “Because I am to blame. Me, Dr. Echols, New World Genetics. And since no one else is here to….”
Jones’s gray eyes darkened to a shade closer to black. “You’re going to pay the penance.”
The way the man said it told Reese he understood more than it seemed like he should. But then he was special ops.
Reese nodded at the keypad.
Jones hit the last button.
It was impossible to smell the blood and viscera wrapped up in a HAZMAT suit, but Reese’s mind conjured up the stench, replacing the purified air pumped into his hood. There wasn’t much left of the people who’d been in the room. Bits of flesh stuck to the light gray walls. Intestines draped broken furniture and chairs, old blood fanned the glass walls separating the side rooms. Places the subjects would go for evaluation or testing.
“Fucking hell.” One of the other men stepped aside.
“Dr. Dante?” It was the colonel.
“Yeah—” All these people. All of them dead. There weren’t even any eyes to stare at Reese. Because there wasn’t enough left to identify a body.
“Reese.”
He jerked his gaze from the carnage. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“You sure you want to keep going?”
Reese had spoken the truth when he’d told Jones he had to do this. “We don’t know how many got out. All or none. If there are any down here, I stand the best chance of getting them to back off. They know me. Their Alpha knows me.”
“And you don’t think they’d kill you like they did everyone else?”
“There was a catalyst for the violence. We just don’t know what yet.” This kind of death wasn’t standard. “If I don’t give them a reason to be aggressive, I’m confident they won’t hurt me.”
None of the special ops men looked convinced, but they stayed quiet.
Jones led the way, and Reese and his men followed. Congealing blood clumped the edges of their boots, the puddles too thick to dry. A cup of coffee sat perfect among the chaos of shredded papers. Condensation had turned to icy patches on any smooth surface.
A finger with a ring lay next to a keyboard.
Reese stepped over the remnants of a desk. Glass crunched underfoot.
Jones walked over to the alcove and stopped by one of three solid doors in the short hall with the freight elevator at the end. Two bodies sat propped against the gate. Unlike the ones in the main room, they were intact and showed no signs of trauma.
Jones motioned for his men to follow. The first two they swept were large storage rooms with towels, sheets, and other supplies. He paused at the third door.
“There’s a keypad, Dr. Dante, but no bio scanner.”